Parks are clean and dare I say empty!! Hollywood studios day update

eliza61nyc

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Enjoying an early morning breakfast on the patio in my villa at old key west. Beginning a magical (or maybe not, lol) family vacation with my nearest and dearest.
Spent the day at animal kingdom. I'll try and post pictures later. Parks is immaculate, no over flowing trash cans, outside of the first row of gift shops as you come onto the bridge (you know where you first glance the tree of life) all look as if they have been newly painted. Every bathroom I saw had an attendant either leaving or hanging around the outside (now take this with a grain of salt, only went into three, so wasn't hanging around the bathrooms)
Did ask the minions to check out the mens room. There 20 something and think writing their name in the snow should be college curriculum so their views aren't exactly discriminating.

We arrived around 1:00 pm after an early morning flight from Philly and quick bag drop at OKW. WHAT!!:eek: stand by line for flight of passage, only 50 minutes !! you know you're in an alternate universe when you have the words "only" and "50 minutes" in the same sentence. we quickly hopped in, took about 40 total.

At around 3:00 pm
Navi river 35 minutes
Kali river rapids 30 minutes
EE 25 minutes
Dinosaur 35 minutes
Kilamanjaro safari was the long one at 45 minutes.

So we actually got to ride Pandora twice on standby (once in the morning, once at around 7) and we had a fp for this.

Magic kingdom day today, lol as you can see we don't do rope drop. ever. will get there in a few minutes, it closes early tonight for the Boo party

Great start to the trip. Africa hot and humid though.
 
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LUVofDIS

Well-Known Member
Could this be a trend of what is yet to come. Sadly, probably not. Though, I was just reading a few days ago that the MNSSHP crowds have been lower last two years. It seemed pretty packed last year to me though.
 
crxbrett

crxbrett

Well-Known Member
Crowds were definitely down this past Jul and Aug and the downward trend will probably spill over into Sep. This is also the slowest time of the entire year at DW - last week of Aug and into the 1st two weeks of September. School being back in session is definitely the #1 reason. Labor Day weekend, especially Sunday will get big crowds, but then come Mon and then for the next 10-15 days it will be pretty empty.

I went last year the last week of Aug and up thru Labor Day and the parks were not crowded at all. It was busy on a few days and usually only mid-day, but some days it was empty in the parks.
 
Chi84

Chi84

Premium Member
eliza61nyc said:
Enjoying an early morning breakfast on the patio in my villa at old key west. Beginning a magical (or maybe not, lol) family vacation with my nearest and dearest.
Spent the day at animal kingdom. I'll try and post pictures later. Parks is immaculate, no over flowing trash cans, outside of the first row of gift shops as you come onto the bridge (you know where you first glance the tree of life) all look as if they have been newly painted. Every bathroom I saw had an attendant either leaving or hanging around the outside (now take this with a grain of salt, only went into three, so wasn't hanging around the bathrooms)
Did ask the minions to check out the mens room. There 20 something and think writing their name in the snow should be college curriculum so their views aren't exactly discriminating.

We arrived around 1:00 pm after an early morning flight from Philly and quick bag drop at OKW. WHAT!!:eek: stand by line for flight of passage, only 50 minutes !! you know you're in an alternate universe when you have the words "only" and "50 minutes" in the same sentence. we quickly hopped in, took about 40 total.

At around 3:00 pm
Navi river 35 minutes
Kali river rapids 30 minutes
EE 25 minutes
Dinosaur 35 minutes
Kilamanjaro safari was the long one at 45 minutes.

So we actually got to ride Pandora twice on standby (once in the morning, once at around 7) and we had a fp for this.

Magic kingdom day today, lol as you can see we don't do rope drop. ever. will get there in a few minutes, it closes early tonight for the Boo party

Great start to the trip. Africa hot and humid though.
Click to expand...
Looks like all of those people swearing off Disney because of recent, unpopular policies finally made good on their threats! This will bring back the straws . . .
 
JIMINYCR

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
There are those strange aberrations that occur occasionally....as in a low crowded Disney day. When they do happen to hit, enjoy them fully, thank your lucky stars and count yourself blessed for the moment.... because you know they wont happen again for a long, long, long time.
 
winstongator

winstongator

Well-Known Member
danlb_2000 said:
I assume he was talking about yesterday since he said "at 3:00".
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I got confused. Only 75 min today at the start to a holiday weekend. I thought that these consistent > 2hr waits are like a fever that might have broken. Frozen Ever After was insane for a while and is reasonable now, both in getting FP+ and standby waits.
 
StarWarsGirl

StarWarsGirl

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I was there last week and some of the waits were strange.

We went to AK and it got rainy...Navi was a walk on. It said 20. Wasn't even 5. I watched It's Tough to Be a Bug and had an entire row to myself.

TofT was never more than 30 minutes. FP was becoming unnecessary.

TSM we waited 45 minutes for and never saw it more than 50.

RnRC was having periods of drops to 30.

The highest I saw 7DMT was 75.

BTMR was 20 minutes and a FP for Jungle Cruise was more needed than for it.

SM was never above 60.

Pirates could get up to 50, but do other stuff for an hour and it would go back to 10.

The longest wait I saw the entire trip was 90 minutes. For Slinky Dog.
 
T

thomas998

Well-Known Member
LUVofDIS said:
Could this be a trend of what is yet to come. Sadly, probably not. Though, I was just reading a few days ago that the MNSSHP crowds have been lower last two years. It seemed pretty packed last year to me though.
Click to expand...
We've never seen a real drop in the crowds at MNSSHP over the past 5 years based on our trip in mid October... Where did you hear about the lower crowds? It just seem hard to believe especially as they seem to have more Halloween nights now than they did 5 years ago.
 
L

LUVofDIS

Well-Known Member
thomas998 said:
We've never seen a real drop in the crowds at MNSSHP over the past 5 years based on our trip in mid October... Where did you hear about the lower crowds? It just seem hard to believe especially as they seem to have more Halloween nights now than they did 5 years ago.
Click to expand...

I read a few other sites like Chip and Co, Allears and a few others. At least two of them wrote of lower crowds, but if I remember correctly, that only applied to September and not October.
 
eliza61nyc

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Overall, again saw very low crowds, now this may have been due to the fact that the MK closed early yesterday for the night time holloween party and if a guest is only doing one park per day, I would think they would save MK for a day when it's open at least 12 hours.

We had park hoppers so that isn't a consideration. I admit that it's sucks that some kind of discount isn't given for folks who would pay full price and don't get a full day but that's another thread. ;)

Interestingly enough the Splash mtn and thunder rail road had very low wait times. I mean 15 minutes while space hung around 45.
we arrived around 10:15'ish and watched the dance party parade then hit space mtn immediately. wait time was 25 minutes then.

Again these pictures were around 3 pm

20180831_155411.jpg


Walking back from splash and thunder. heading to our fast pass at HM. pretty easy way. Oh POTC was at 45 minutes and it was probably the only ride that took the entire 45 minutes. lol, don't know if this is new but they had live Pirates in the "cells" along the que and of course folks kept wanting to "stop" and take a picture with them. they also had cm's with signs explaining the "to go" option for food so folks were stopping to ask questions (I did, lol)

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Area right outside of Pinnochia Haus lunch place. on the way to the teacups, after 3 pm. definitely light.

Again, bathrooms were all being serviced when I was there. saw attendants 90% of the time. all were clean, a few had the normal "manly" odor but nothing that would make you turn around and leave. IMO the bigger concern was with the humidity be tropical, the tile floors were constantly "damp" and sticky.
20180831_163415.jpg
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Also saw plenty of park services cm's in white. sweeping or picking up where ever we went. Not one overflowing trash can, at all.
the worst was of course some of our special visitors would leave their unfinished drinks on the top of things either before getting on a ride or while standing in line. Absolutely not going to blame disney because guest are nasty.

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Today is Hollywood studios. Our fast passes are all in the afternoon so a late start this morning.
 
D

drizgirl

Well-Known Member
Glad the OP is having a great time. But this is nothing new. If you want the one predictably low crowd time, go Labor Day into the first week of September. With school starting Monday for millions of kids, and the rest of the kids newly returned to school in the last few weeks, parents are hesitant to take kids out for a Disney trip. Wish I could go then.
 
"El Gran Magnifico"

"El Gran Magnifico"

Mr Flibble is Very Cross.
Just got back.

Mon, Tues - very mild crowd.
Wed - picked up a little. Still comfortable
Thurs - opening day Food and Wine was surprisingly tame (can't remember ever walking into R&C and right up to bar).
Friday - started out crowded at F&W. By the time I left the park to head home (around 7pm) it was packed.
 

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