What are the smallest crowds you've experienced in WDW?

[JustAFan]

The lightest crowd volume I've personlly seen at WDW hasn't depended on time of year or anything like that. I generally find Frontierland at night about an hour or so before closing time is very light. BTMR is often <15 minute wait.

 

[NickMaio]

For me it was definitely when EMH ran for 3 hours and MK didn't close until 12 anyway. The hours between 1 and 3am saw the crowds just dwindle. By the last hour my family and I were just walking onto any ride. we rode BTMR last at 3am, when we walked from the park we didn't see anyone until we got to the buses.

YES - - - - - I really miss those days.
3am was a blast. We still talk about that trip .

 

[DisneyNittany]

My wife and I have been going regularly for the past 5 years, and over our last trip (9/15-9/23) was easily the lowest crowds we've ever experience. Sans the Friday afternoon-Saturday crowds, we pretty much walked on to every ride, and FP+ were readily available. We also went over to Universal for a day, and didn't wait at all for any ride there either. We're APs, and usually stack our trips in the cooler months, and avoid summer all together (sans a short weekend trip if we're going through withdrawl), but we just might have become early-mid September people now.

 

[jbolen2]

Fall/winter of 2001 then fall/winter 2008-2010 the crowds were light

 

[Nunu]

September 2017.
We arrived just two days before Irma hit FL. We went to MK and it was surreal!

We stopped by Guest Services to check if there was a chance for us to have lunch at BOG, not only did we enjoyed luch there without having a previous reservation, but we were given 3 extra FP's to use wherever we wanted on that day. The funny thing was that the park was so empty, that we really didn't need them!

 

[NickMaio]

The last week of August this year was not too bad. Lower than usual for Aug. Especially considering SWGE was opening the Thurs we were there.

 

[macefamily]

Around 2003 - 2004 we were down for the week in early December. The kids were still in grade school. We had tickets for Mickey's Christmas on a weeknight. That week it rained for three days. We bought our ponchos and decided to tough it out. I remember walking up Main St. and the water was flowing down the street and up to my youngest son's ankles. We walked on every ride. I think we got off Buzz Lightyear and walked back on four or five consecutive times.

 

[Sonconato]

The lightest crowds we ever experienced was back in the early 90's when they still had two parades, a day & night parade & nothing was cut. We could sit in the rocking chairs in Frontierland on a Saturday night to watch Spectromagic with no one around to block our view. This wasn't a one time occurrence either, this happened all year long, possibly more than a year, in which we went every weekend. That was our usual spot. We assumed Main Street was much busier. Things were so slow, we were worried the Parks were going to close.

 

[micknminnie]

The first week of September 2008. We were in an almost empty Tomorrowland during the afternoon. My 6 month old was napping in her stroller while my husband took my older boys on Buzz Lightyear multiple times in a row.

 

[cheezbat]

Definitely September-December 2001. I loved visiting the parks back then. You could spend 4-5 hours and do absolutely everything. The cast members pretty much seemed like they were exclusively there to help me.

So very different from the past number of years.

 

[Walt Disney1955]

I thought September/October of 2009 was the lightest I have ever seen in my time.

The busiest? Well, put it this way. I thought I had it all figured out after Thanksgiving in 2017. Hey, why not go to Florida right after Thanksgiving? Everyone is settled back in at work or at school and no one travels then right? Well................wrong. I know the Christmas season used to be light, but not anymore. We went the last week of November and I have never seen it so packed. We just stayed a week and only saw the Magic Kingdom so maybe the other parks weren't so bad, but we did go on a night previous to when the park was to be shut down at about 4:30pm for a staff party and the day AFTER when the park was shut down for Mickey's Christmas party around 6pm. Stupid. Look, we had a fun day, who doesn't at Magic Kingdom? But this is the stuff we missed out on the first time our kids went to Disney World:

Jungle Cruise, Tom Sawyer Island, Peter Pan, Snow White's Mine Train, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Hall of Presidents (closed for refurbishment), Buzz Lightyear, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor.

No joke, and that was just based on sheer volume of people in the parks. Yes we utilized the fast passes, and still that's what we missed. The last thing we did that day before the fireworks was Haunted Mansion. One of my daughters was so tired she missed the whole thing, she was just buried in my shoulder, sleeping. Missed the fireworks too.

Of course, even missing all of that you still have a great day. We still did a lot of stuff too.

 

[CAV]

The smallest crowd I ever experienced was on the Great Movie Ride in the Wizard of Oz scene. They were small, but they sang well.

 

[Hrudey3032]

For me it was in October of 99 right around the Hurricane that hit there. Rain came for days but my brother and I went and rode almost everything 3-4 times because it was so dead.