MNSSHP - Warning! Busier than expected.

[maryj11]

I wander if it will be less crowded during the weeks that do not include the free dining promotion in October ?

 

[mom2rtk]

I wander if it will be less crowded during the weeks that do not include the free dining promotion in October ?

Yes, I do think so. And the late September crowds were influenced by the cast member discounts and the military discounts.

The discounts move the crowds more than anything.

 

[momz]

I wander if it will be less crowded during the weeks that do not include the free dining promotion in October ?

curious. When does free dining end? We will be there next week. Have tickets for Monday's party. Now, I'm getting concerned. But, it's good to know ahead of time so we can be prepared for the crowd.

 

[ALF2012]

We go to the party 10/8 and its our first time. Now I'm nervous!

 

[TandLMommy28]

We went 9/30/2010 and we felt like we had the place to ourselves. Definitely not the case this year. We were at the 9/18 party and it was a lot more crowded than two years ago. Not insanely crowded but far, far busier than I'd anticipated.

 

[flicx]

We went the 21st. The crowds weren't too bad. However we don't stand in line for charater pictures. The 4:00 entry was great ,we got a ton of rides in till the 7:00 start of the party. Got lots of candy, alot of the rides got busier as the night progressed,I think due to rain that was on and off that night. Overall it was a good expierience that I will do again, also a plus was the special SOTMK cards they gave you at the firehall. I ebayed mine and it paid for one of our tickets so that was a plus!

 

[jtowntoflorida]

curious. When does free dining end? We will be there next week. Have tickets for Monday's party. Now, I'm getting concerned. But, it's good to know ahead of time so we can be prepared for the crowd.

Free dining is not offered October 5-18th, but starts back up October 19th. We're going during the period when there's no free dining and went during the same time last year. The parks seemed uncrowded, but while we were at MK on several party nights, we didn't stay for MNSSHP last year.

What I've heard is that the reason they don't offer free dining during that time in October is because they typically offer free dining to fill hotel rooms, but there are several big conferences going on during that time that fill the hotels so they don't need to offer dining promotions. However, the people who go to the conferences tend not to be park goers, or just go to EPCOT to check out F&W during the evening after the conference activities are done for the day. I don't know if that's all true or not, but it does give me some hope that as we enter the next couple weeks, the parties won't be as busy as they have been.

 

[pixarmom]

curious. When does free dining end? We will be there next week. Have tickets for Monday's party. Now, I'm getting concerned. But, it's good to know ahead of time so we can be prepared for the crowd.

According to mousemisers, free dining ends on October 4 and continues again on October 19. We planned our long weekend trip (Oct 6-9) to avoid free dining, and have a decent room only AP discount. We have tickets for Monday's party, and hope the crowd situation improves. But as posters on other threads have noted, it seems like the hub and the character meets are the real trouble spots. We don't plan to do any character meets other than Alice/Hatter, and we can avoid the hub if necessary, so I'm optimistic!

 

[VeeHam]

I'll be there Monday too!
I do think FD does play a part. Hopefully it won't be as bad over the next few weeks. I do agree with the PP who mentioned contacting Disney and letting them know how disappointed you are by the massive crowds and that it affected your night and you are not planning on returning for MNSSHP. $ talks and if enough people don't come back, eventually they would have to do something.

 

[blessedby3]

We went the 21st. The crowds weren't too bad. However we don't stand in line for charater pictures. The 4:00 entry was great ,we got a ton of rides in till the 7:00 start of the party. Got lots of candy, alot of the rides got busier as the night progressed,I think due to rain that was on and off that night. Overall it was a good expierience that I will do again, also a plus was the special SOTMK cards they gave you at the firehall. I ebayed mine and it paid for one of our tickets so that was a plus!

What are these cards????? You sold one and it paid for a ticket??? WOW!!

 

[hokie98]

Yikes! I see to be reading alot of similar post about the parties being overcrowded this year. We were planning on going 10/23, and I think we may wait to buy tickets the day before and see if the crowds lighten any. We are mainly going for the meet & greets, dance party, parade, etc...I am sure we'll do some rides, but will have plenty of non-party time to hit those. It's just a lot of $$ if the rides are the only attractions where we don't have to stand in line forever!

 

[arthuruscg]

I'll be there Monday too!
I do think FD does play a part. Hopefully it won't be as bad over the next few weeks. I do agree with the PP who mentioned contacting Disney and letting them know how disappointed you are by the massive crowds and that it affected your night and you are not planning on returning for MNSSHP. $ talks and if enough people don't come back, eventually they would have to do something.

The problem is for every 1 of us that does not go, 2 people go in our place.
We went the last week of Sept 2010 and it was amazing. The last week of Sept 2011 sucked and from what i have read the last week of Sept 2012 sucked as well. Is there any anniversarys in 2013? My family is hoping to go back but do not want to go anywhere near anniversarys, festivals, or marathons.

 

[mesaboy2]

What are these cards????? You sold one and it paid for a ticket??? WOW!!

Search here or on the web for "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom", and that will likely answer your question. A special-event card for SotMK is being handed out to any party-goer who asks, but is available nowhere else.

 

[Kristine316]

We went to the party on the 18th. I have nothing to compare it to.. it was our first party and our first trip to Disney in the fall.

I can tell you this... the party was busier than I expected. I had heard how slow September is and how the first few parties of the year are not busy at all so, I think in my head I was expecting something much less hectic.
Not that that party was packed or anything but, it just felt much busier than I had anticipated.. tons of people in the walk ways and fairly long lines for candy.. although those lines move pretty quickly.


Now having said that it was walk on all of the rides all night. And we went for the rides basically... I have teens and they had no interest at all in meeting characters and getting pictures. So.. we still had a ton of fun. We also had a pretty decent spot for the fireworks.. although we couldn't find any place to stand for the parades because everything was pretty well filled in when we decided to hunt for a spot. I am not the type to push in front of people to get a spot.. I mean they have been waiting for who knows how long to get a great spot and pushing in front of them seems extremely rude and inconsiderate.

I have been to Disney three times... all in "low season". We have gone in January, February and now this past September. I was told September would be the quietest time and boy was that dead wrong!! September was by far the busiest... January seemed like a ghost town compared to September and February was even slower than September.

I know for me I see a crowd level of "1" or "2" and know these are the slowest days Disney has all year, and I am imagining a quiet park atmosphere. I thought a 1 in January would be the same in September but, oddly enough a 1 in January is very different than the 1's we experienced a couple weeks ago. I did expect what I experienced that January and it was soooo different.. like night and day.
For one thing.. there was way more kids than I expected, which really surprised me because I figured that early in the school year parents would think twice about taking their kids out for a vacation. Then you realize the vast majority of these children are from families who are visiting from other countries... everywhere we went there seemed to be more vacationers from overseas than US tourists. And there were tons of elderly... we have never seen so many scooters and older vacationers. I think its great.. they love Disney too and it seems they wait till Free Dining and the fall to start heading out for vacation, which would make sense.. why go in the blazing heat of summer with those intense crowds.. wait till fall and things are better.
That to me explains why ride lines were shorter but, the walkways and restaurants were just jammed packed... older vacationers don't ride the rides as much.

I don't think we will go back in September ever again... the heat and humidity and what seemed to be pretty heavy crowds just wasn't worth it. I think our next trip we will try early December, not necessarily for low crowds, cause I know its busy but, more for the Christmas atmosphere and cooler weather.

 

[wdiosa]

Yikes! I see to be reading alot of similar post about the parties being overcrowded this year. We were planning on going 10/23, and I think we may wait to buy tickets the day before and see if the crowds lighten any. We are mainly going for the meet & greets, dance party, parade, etc...I am sure we'll do some rides, but will have plenty of non-party time to hit those. It's just a lot of $$ if the rides are the only attractions where we don't have to stand in line forever!

We are planning going 10/23 also, it will be our first MNSSHP. After watching the boards though I am seriously rethinking it. I would hate to pay all that money and not be able to do at least some of the things we wanted. We will probably wait to buy tickets too. If they are sold out then we will be ok anyway b/c it will definitely be too crowded.

 

[constancefamily]

Yes, I do think so. And the late September crowds were influenced by the cast member discounts and the military discounts.

The discounts move the crowds more than anything.

They have now released additional military and cast member discounts for October. These will still affect crowds but the discounts are for days that are not likely to sell out anyway. We just got our tickets for Oct 14. I'm very excited since I haven't done MNSSHP before. I think the crowds will be fine as long as you go with a plan.

 

[glaserjm]

We have our tickets for 10/23, and I'm just going in assuming the party will be crowded. It's just DH and I so we won't be doing character meets unless by some miracle we walk by an interesting person with little or no line. For us it's about seeing the parade, fireworks and decorations and doing a lot of rides with slower wait times, so I'm still very optimistic that we'll have a fantastic time!

 

[flicx]

What are these cards????? You sold one and it paid for a ticket??? WOW!!

Actually we had two of them and a couple of packs from our trip. Got about 70 bucks outta them on ebay,so it paid the 59.59 price tag for one of us. The sorcerers of the magic kingdom game can be explained to you at the fire hall.If you go to MNSSHP be sure to get your special edition card. You only get one per ticket however,they are sought after by collectors right now. They had no value to us so I looked at them like a discount coupon.

 

[nkereina]

We went to the same Tuesday party last year (on 9/27 last year) and thought it was very crowded as well. There were rumors that it was a sold out party and people attributed that to people in town for the 40th anniversary which was on 10/1 last year. I wouldn't say crowds were higher than normal during the day at the parks, so I wasn't sure I bought the "party is crowded because of 40th anniversary" line. I think it's just gotten more and more popular over the years, along with the month of September in general. We definitely found the ride wait times to be longer than they were during the day. Overall, we found the party to be mediocre and it will be a while before we go again. A little disappointing after all the hype on here

 

[OhhBother]

We were there Sunday for the Sept. 30 party, and we thought it was deserted. No lines of any consequence for rides -- we rode Dumbo with only six or so people, and we were the only people on the entire Buzz Lightyear ride.

We watched the first parade in Frontierland and then walked to Main Street, where we watched the fireworks dead center. For the second parade, there were empty spots on the curb along Main Street.

The lines for candy were very short and fast-moving, and we literally got handfuls of candy at every stop.

The only thing we don't do is character photos -- we prefer to trick or treat and ride.

All in all, we had a great night!