Non Evening Party Park Crowds?

[Club Cooloholic]

Does anyone have any insight on weather the parks not hosting a party tend to be more crowded or less crowded vs their average when another park is hosting a ticketed event like the Halloween or Christmas parties? I'm curious if enough people attend these parties, does it relive some crowds elsewhere or are the parties limited in crowds to the point there is little to no effect and infact other parks are more crowded because the options are limited.

 

[DisneyFanatic12]

Great question! I know my family and I were trying to answer this exact question amongst ourselves last year. Obviously, MK is quieter in its party nights, but I believe that we decided that it made the other parks slightly more busy. Overall though, I don’t believe there’s a huge difference in crowd levels at the other parks due to a party. Quite a few guests leave the other parks to head to the party, while quite a few guests are park hopping away from MK. Overall, I think the effects are pretty negligible, but the parties lead the other parks to be slightly busier than usual.

Interested to see what others come up with!

 

[Club Cooloholic]

Great question! I know my family and I were trying to answer this exact question amongst ourselves last year. Obviously, MK is quieter in its party nights, but I believe that we decided that it made the other parks slightly more busy. Overall though, I don’t believe there’s a huge difference in crowd levels at the other parks due to a party. Quite a few guests leave the other parks to head to the party, while quite a few guests are park hopping away from MK. Overall, I think the effects are pretty negligible, but the parties lead the other parks to be slightly busier than usual.

Interested to see what others come up with!

I was debating getting a party ticket, which we have in the past, but I was also thinking, for the price of one party ticket I could add 2 days of park tickets for the whole family, with money to spare, or just buy a full day at Discovery Cove.

 

[JIMINYCR]

When weve been to WDW and theres been an event scheduled at MK, morning hours at the other parks felt somewhat busier and afternoons moving into evening started to see a raise in numbers from guests not attending the MK event. Certainly ticket holders take away some number of guests ( Dis never publishes a number we can see) but the park isnt as loaded up as a normal day. Those non event guests have to go elsewhere. Since youve been before, I'd go with more park tickets and enjoy more Disney time. Money to spare is a good thing.
Discovery cove is a great time and although expensive theres a lot there that makes it worth the tickets.

 

[TalkToEthan]

I think if the event happened to fall on a busy WDW day then the other 3 parks would be even busier than their normal busy due to limitations of ticket sales on the one park that under normal operations entertains 35% of WDW’s 4 park guests

Hypothetically if there are 100k intending to go to WDWs 4 parks then under a statistical distribution of total park guests MK should see 35k and the 3 other parks approx 22k each.
But if that 100k fell on an event night and the event limits tickets to 20k(or only 20k can afford) then the other 3 parks would absorb the spillover of 15k.



Conversely I think If the event happened to fall on a very slow WDW wide day then the 3 parks would instead of being typical lite would end up being super lite and desolate.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

I think if the event happened to fall on a busy WDW day then the other 3 parks would be even busier than their normal busy due to limitations of ticket sales on the one park that under normal operations entertains 35% of WDW’s 4 park guests

Hypothetically if there are 100k intending to go to WDWs 4 parks then under a statistical distribution of total park guests MK should see 35k and the 3 other parks approx 22k each.
But if that 100k fell on an event night and the event limits tickets to 20k(or only 20k can afford) then the other 3 parks would absorb the spillover of 15k.



Conversely I think If the event happened to fall on a very slow WDW wide day then the 3 parks would instead of being typical lite would end up being super lite and desolate.

Yes,very true. I would wager, if one has a park hopper the best strategy would be to do MK on the morning/early afternoon on the day of the party, because park comandos would avoid MK all together, and party ticket holders might make that a resort day(I know I would), or non park hopper party ticket holders would hit some other park in the morning. In any case MK would be lighter than usual until 4pm when party ticket holders can enter.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Epcot and DHS are definitely more crowded on party nights. MK tends to be very much not busy during the days when they have parties at night.

I highly recommend park hoppers so that you can go to MK during the day of a party and then over there in the evening for fireworks on a non-party night, but if that isn't in the budget, I still recommend going over to MK on a party day. My brother has a DAS, and we were there on a Sunday in September and only used it for 7DMT, which was still only a 40 minute wait.