Busy Parks?

[orlando2]

So i keep hearing and reading how busy the parks are now.

can anyone comment who has been recently?

I was planning on going over the next couple of years but the prices keep going up and i keep hearing that the like’s of Magic Kingdom are crazy every day of the year now.

Galaxy Edge is just going to make things worse.

[sunseeker100]

We’re just back today and it’s our first time in Oct, usually go April to May. We’ve noticed the parks are busier than April but there’re not really quiet at any time. If you plan but then keep plenty of flexibility whilst you’re there you can still do everything you want to do without hating the busyness of the parks. For example we went to Animal Kingdom one day last week and it was heaving and we weren’t really enjoying it so we went and did something else. Today we visited AK again before heading off to the airport, we only decided to do that once we got up this morning...yesterday morning lol and we got 3 fp one after the other on Navi, safari and dinosaur. So don’t let it put you off 😉

[Kayemill]

We're just back and for us we found Disney to be a bit of a waste of time. Unless you are staying on site and can book fast passes 60 days out you are not going to get on any of the most popular rides. Unless your willing to wait for an hour +. We did fast passes at 30 days out and even then all the popular rides were unavailable. We also noticed a lot of rides were breaking down. We were getting emails almost daily for rides that were down that we had fast passes for. We did Magic Kingdom from rope drop. Our first fast pass was for Splash Mountain which was down so we queued for one ride on BTMRR. After one ride the wait was over an hour. We ended up using the spare fast pass for Space Mountain then leaving as it was so busy. Hollywood Studios was the same story. Epcot we only went for the Food and Wine festival. We never went to Animal Kingdom as Everest seemed to always be down when we checked it.
Also noticed a few other things like the parking prices and prices for food in the parks in general. $6.25 plus tax for one Churro!
I hate to say it but other than the water parks this will have been our last outing to the Disney parks.

Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach were both manageable on the days we went.

We found Universal a bit busy but still manageable. SeaWorld and Busch Gardens were quiet and most enjoyable as far as getting on big rides goes. Also Aquatica was dead so very easy to do everything.

[gogs]

I'd agree with Kayemill above,
We got back just over a week ago & went to HS on the monday - it was very very crowded & because we bought tickets last minute we could only get FP's for things like Indiana Jones & Beauty and the Beast, Star Tours was available later on in the day.

It was a bit of a shame as we had high hopes for the park - as it was, other than the 2 shows my wife & eldest daughter only got on the Toy Story saucers (queue time displayed 40 mins but actually took 15/20 longer) & waited in a 135 min queue for Slinky only to dip out after 30 mins as the queue wasn't really moving.
My youngest & I fared a bit better by going in the single rider lane for Rock n Roller Coaster (average queue time 60-70 mins), but we were in the queue for Tower of Terror (posted time 115 mins) for a few mins then said, why don't we just go back in the single rider queue for R&R Coaster - which we did.
We just felt overall that there were not enough rides for the volume of people, plenty food/drink & shopping options though!

Like I say, it was a shame but we felt it was not only a waste of a day, but a waste of A LOT of money - I don't think we'd go back to a Disney park to be honest.

[orlando2]

October used to be a good time to go but Food and Wine makes it busy.

Like others have said there is no longer low crowds at Disney.

[Hoolah]

We just got back at the weekend and did think the parks were quite busy but not unbearable. I had planned around the busy day guide and found that worked well. The couple of days we were at parks rated as ‘average’ predicted crowds rather than the ‘most recommended’ I did notice quite a big difference and longer wait times.

Ride closures at the parks did have a big knock on effect of how busy it felt. One morning we were at Epcot, and Mission Space and Soarin were both down, then when they were back up they were both extremely busy as all those with fast passes during the down time came back to ride, pushing standby line up massively.

Never had to wait in long queues at the quick service restaurants we went to and got into all of the shows we wanted to see without fast passes. One evening at HS there was us and about three other families watching Muppets 3D.

We did not wait more than 5 minutes for any of the bag checks or park gates.

We found the water parks quiet even at the weekend and longest wait around 10 minutes for one of the slides. Loads of loungers even arriving after 11am.

I heard some people saying that the Hurricane may have increased crowds a bit but not sure how accurate it is.

Compared to our last visit (the last two weeks in September), a few years ago, it was busier, but not excessively so.

[tiggerstail]

Here now and yeah we think it’s busier, Epcot was busy on Sunday especially later on in the afternoon but mostly around the food n drink. Hollywood studios was heaving yesterday but mainly around toy story and Star Wars. Magic kingdom today was easy to get into and just the usual crowd levels.
Think it’ll depend on what you want to see and do, go early if you think it’ll be busy and it should be ok.

[Sarahsmiler]

We landed home this morning. We were there at the same time last year and we thought it was much busier. Even Target and Wal Mart were busy! We stayed onsite at universal so had fast passes, last Friday was ok but Saturday was rammed. We skipped Disney this year due to the crowds last year. My favourite park by far this year was SeaWorld. Great rides for my teens and sea life for my seven year old... and more importantly it wasn't busy.

[Andybear]

Originally Posted by orlando2

So i keep hearing and reading how busy the parks are now.

can anyone comment who has been recently?

I was planning on going over the next couple of years but the prices keep going up and i keep hearing that the like’s of Magic Kingdom are crazy every day of the year now.

Galaxy Edge is just going to make things worse.

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I keep reading about how busy the parks are too but I was there 13th to 27th September and was wondering where all the crowds were! Most rides at both Disney and Universal were 10-15 minute wait, apart from the big ticket ones at Disney. Even the Harry Potter biggies (Escape from Gringotts and Forbidden Journey) were only a 10 minute wait - I went on them both 3 times! I got a decent spot to watch the Magic Kingdom parade 5 minutes before it started.

[mickeyismybff]

We came home Sunday. I’m never sure how much of the crowd talk is perspective and how much is strategy. We did not have long waits and rode near enough everything across all four parks and did most of the shows. (For clarity, we skipped Soarin’, Big Thunder Mountain, Fantasmic, Rivers of Light, and the live Beauty and the Beast show. Plus didn’t do the movies around the world showcase. Did lots of character meets and character meals and Jedi training.)

We had 8 park days and were onsite so did use fast pass booking at 60 days. We’re a family of three so I know that can sometimes make fast passes bigger than a large group. We used EMH a few days but often opted to rope drop a park without magic hours that had a better forecast on the busy day guide and/or touring plans crowd calendar. But we did arrive for park opening every day and we often head in the opposite direction to what’s expected. At AK rope drop, 95% of the crowd starts in Pandora, so we start in Dinoland and everything is walk on until you’re all the way back to Africa for the safari. At HS, Toy Story Land was packed during the hot sunny day and nearly empty at 7pm. The posted wait times were highly inflated- TSM said 35 and was 7, Swirling Saucers said 25 and was a walk on, so we did it twice. Slinky was posted 55 but was really around 20. And all the characters stayed out until the rides closed there, which was nice and unexpected.

We do still find Epcot World Showcase is super busy nights and weekends, though Future World can be empty at the same time. And MK gets so busy leading up to the parade. And yes they definitely sell more party tickets now than they did a year or two ago. But any time one place was too busy, we just headed elsewhere, even in the same park.

That said, we are city dwellers so I have no idea how much is perspective on crowd sizes, like getting the busy bus back to the hotel isn’t different than taking the tube at rush hour really. But we don’t join long queues. We can queue at home any time.