First week of January in WDW parks.

[FabFam4]

Hi

I've been looking at various websites and info regarding the crowd levels/que's within the WDW parks after Xmas and New Year.

I'm really after other Dibbers experience of crowd levels and que times, whether the que's lessen for rides during the first week of January?

I'm finding it impossible to secure a FastPass for the Seven Dwarfs Mine ride (I'm off site) and wondered if there would less waiting time past New Year into the first week of January? My 7yr old DD is desperate to ride this, among others, but is impatient, as you can imagine!
I also wondered if there were FastPass's available for some rides but not all?

Thanks!

[Guest]

Are you not too early to get FP for the first week in January if you are offsite?

No personal experience but first week in January is historically a busy week. I would expect the standby queue to be long, it usually is too long for us to contemplate and we go at so called quieter times of the year. Would you consider trying to get a pre park opening breakfast at Be Our Guest? That would normally get somebody in the queue for 7DMT ahead of the crowds.

There are a few things that’s don’t have a FP in Mk, the carousel. Astro blaster, people mover are the ones that immediately come to mind.

Edit: I have just looked at the Dibb fastpass availability checker and it indicates there are 7DMT FP available for four on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th January, although you would not be able to book them yet but it is quite unusual for availability 33-35 days out.

[soraia]

When I was there that time of year it was certainly a lot busier than I expected. I thought after New Year the holiday crowd would disperse as people went home to go back to school/work/etc but actually the first few days of January were some of the busiest I saw, and then you get into the runDisney marathon weekend (usually first weekend in Jan) where thousands of people come to compete in the races (5k/10k/half marathon/marathon) over the course of a few days.
I'd say it probably really only noticeably quietens down mid way through the second week in January.
Good luck & keep looking for that SDMT FP - hope it turns up and you have a lovely time

[lizzie145]

I agree that the first week is still busy as classed as Christmas

FPs do come up, just keep looking before and whilst you are there

[minnie29]

We are going 31 December for 2 weeks. Haven’t even purchased our tickets yet! Getting them next week. I’m not too worried about fast passes this time - we went in March/April this year and the parks were heaving, busiest I’ve ever experienced (it was spring break time). I had a spread sheet and everything, way too over planned - ended up cancelling the majority of the fast passes anyway and changing them all. I will book them as they come up this year, haven’t got much choice 😂 I’m not worried about it. We got Frozen, SDMT, Big Thunder and Space Mountain all on the day in April. Just keep looking

[FabFam4]

Thanks for your replies!

I've been able to book a FP for 7DMT on 2nd Jan, my DD is so pleased. It's 10.20pm but she wanted to ride in the dark to see properly into the house at the end, her words after seeing this ride on youtube, lol!

We may even ride it more than once if we can join a not too long que on other visits to the MK. Fingers crossed!

[Guest]

Originally Posted by FabFam4

Thanks for your replies!

I've been able to book a FP for 7DMT on 2nd Jan, my DD is so pleased. It's 10.20pm but she wanted to ride in the dark to see properly into the house at the end, her words after seeing this ride on youtube, lol!

We may even ride it more than once if we can join a not too long que on other visits to the MK. Fingers crossed!

See more...

You can see properly into the house at any time of day, still it if it is the only time available then so be it.

You really are not going to find it with a “not too long queue”, it will be one of the longest queues at the whole of Disney and in such a busy week, I don’t think you will see it less than two hours. I have never seen it below an hour and I go “off peak”.

[FabFam4]

Originally Posted by Claudette

You can see properly into the house at any time of day, still it if it is the only time available then so be it.

You really are not going to find it with a “not too long queue”, it will be one of the longest queues at the whole of Disney and in such a busy week, I don’t think you will see it less than two hours. I have never seen it below an hour and I go “off peak”.

See more...

I've been reading threads on how much Disney has changed over the years, and it seems much busier, and definitely more expensive!
We've been visiting Florida since the early 1980's, and have not been since 2011 and expect to experience a different Disney. We've picked Xmas to visit as we promised our son, who's birthday is on Xmas day, that we would visit during this time. We realise it's going to be extremely busy
We usually visit Sept/Oct time, in the past this has proven to be a good time to visit.
We'll just see how it goes

[Nimbus]

Here were the wait time levels for some of the parks from just before Christmas until mid-January last year to give you an idea:

From the above, the first week in January is still very busy. The crowds drop off after the first weekend after New Year's Day. So, I'd expect things to calm down from about 5th January in 2020. It will certainly be a lot busier than Sept/Oct time when peak wait times levels are more around 3 out of 10 instead of 8+ out of 10.

Interesting, it appears from those graphs that there's a dip in the wait times on New Year's Day. Not sure whether that's actually the case or whether it's just a blip in the numbers?

[ellie666]

Originally Posted by FabFam4

I've been reading threads on how much Disney has changed over the years, and it seems much busier, and definitely more expensive!
We've been visiting Florida since the early 1980's, and have not been since 2011 and expect to experience a different Disney. We've picked Xmas to visit as we promised our son, who's birthday is on Xmas day, that we would visit during this time. We realise it's going to be extremely busy
We usually visit Sept/Oct time, in the past this has proven to be a good time to visit.
We'll just see how it goes

See more...

we've just done our 1st time back since 2011 and can definitly confirm that it was a hell of a lot more crowded & expensive than last time.
We had exactly the same dates (1st week of November) and there was no comparison on croud levels.