Here now 9/9 - 9/14 Crowds are a little bizarre

[ArmyVet80]

Depends on the length of the trip. For our current trip we paid $200. That's for 8 days/7 nights. When we were there for the Princess Half/Fairy tale Challenge we paid $230 but were there 10 days/9 nights.

 

[tex1989]

We generally don't get trip insurance and have never had to cancel or change a trip until February of this year when I was diagnosed with a detached retina the day before we were going to leave. It wound up costing us nothing though. We have AP's so the room reservation was one night's rate and Disney refunded that when we called to cancel. We fly SWA so we were able to apply all the funds to another flight later. So we tend to not get the insurance but that is just because of the way we take our trips. In other situations I could see it being worth it.

 

[AngiTN]

Looks like September is a good month to go although isn't it also hurricane season?

Which plays directly into why Sept is when they also do Free Dining. It's not a coincidence

 

[emmabelle]

walking around the countries last week was soooo crowded at night. So on our last day we got to the countries by 11:30am and it was great crowd wise, but I was so hot walking around that we just ate at Les Halles. All those booths and I let the ac make the decision for me.

 

[Meghan4]

We are there 9/22 through 9/29 and am hoping the waits are at the lower levels. Who knows about WDW anymore? Crowds are very unpredictable. My mind wonders about why all the time, since school is in session maybe most of the folks don't have kids with them so rides are not a priority. Then we go and dispite school being in session there are a ton of kids. Maybe the focus is F&W and Epcot is packed with people wanting to eat and drink, but the MK is packed with long waits. Our other theroy is interesting but never verified, that theroy being that Saturday is "moving day". What I mean is a lot of people start their vacation on a Saturday morning flight so they don't go to a park on Saturday and a lot of folks end their vacation on a Saturday (flying out) and don't go to the parks. Some of our least crowded days at MK seemed to have been Saturdays during even the busy seasons. Not the same park but we did a vacation to Disneyland one year got in on a Saturday went that afternoon and evening, all day Sunday and all day Monday before leaving Tuesday morning to drive to Monterrey. Would have thought the weekend would have been the most crowded but we rode a ton of rides and had a great time. On Monday we could hardly turn around the place was so crowded. I would have never guessed that!

So crossing our fingers our week will be full of short wait times and decent weatther.

We will be there at the same time. My kids have fall break that week, so we are taking advantage. When they start school on August 1st, we are all ready for a vacation by then.

 

[tex1989]

We will be there at the same time. My kids have fall break that week, so we are taking advantage. When they start school on August 1st, we are all ready for a vacation by then.

In Texas school does not start till late August (August 22-27 this year) and Fall break is Thanksgiving week. Other than in service days here and there the only breaks are Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

How much do you usually pay for trip insurance? I'm curious.

I just purchased insurance for our trip. It cost $63 for our ten day trip. Our cost is lower because we don’t do “cancellation for any reason.” We only get it for medical, job loss or death cancellation and travel interruptions that aren’t our fault.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

I have to wonder if people are evacuating NC, SC, and VA and heading to Disney and how this will be affecting the crowds this week. Totally possible that people are headed to Orlando. I know that if I lived that distance from Disney and was under mandatory evacuations, that would be my plan.

I’m pretty sure if people have to evacuate their homes, the last thing they are thinking about is going to Disney to spend money they might need when they come back.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I’m pretty sure if people have to evacuate their homes, the last thing they are thinking about is going to Disney to spend money they might need when they come back.

There’s been whole threads of people who evacuate to Disney during hurricanes.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I’m pretty sure if people have to evacuate their homes, the last thing they are thinking about is going to Disney to spend money they might need when they come back.

There’s been whole threads of people who evacuate to Disney during hurricanes.

I have more than one friend who evacuated from sc to wdw today.

 

[disneyfreak202]

Wanted to chime in that I am also here and crowds aren't too bad. We noticed on Monday Epcot wasn't that busy but when we hopped over to Hollywood Studios for a few hours it was packed in the walkway. Wait times have been super low, only things we have really seen long lines for is FOP and Slinky, but everything else has been 25 or less and if it is posted at 30 plus, we will be able to fastpass it and come to find out the wait time is wrong as there is NO ONE in the standby line.

 

[Meghan4]

In Texas school does not start till late August (August 22-27 this year) and Fall break is Thanksgiving week. Other than in service days here and there the only breaks are Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring.

I went to high school and college in Texas! Since my kids start so early, they get fall break, thanksgiving week, Christmas break, winter break (in February), spring break and the service days. We are in Georgia.

 

[jerseygal]

I just purchased insurance for our trip. It cost $63 for our ten day trip. Our cost is lower because we don’t do “cancellation for any reason.” We only get it for medical, job loss or death cancellation and travel interruptions that aren’t our fault.

We always get trip insurance wherever we travel. Just never know...

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We always get trip insurance wherever we travel. Just never know...

The ONE time I didn't get insurance we had a major travel delay due to mechanical failure on the plane. We lost an entire day. If I had insurance that day would have been covered.

My coworker got trapped in Disney due to a snowstorm here in NJ. She was reimbursed $1500 for her hotel, food, rental car and fee for plane changes (they went with a different airline to get home quicker since her DH had to be at work so they had to pay OOP).

You just never know!

 

[missnic]

I have more than one friend who evacuated from sc to wdw today.

Our local news was interviewing evacuees yesterday and at least 2 of them were headed to Disney. Heck, I spent Matthew at Pop because I was evacuated, and already had it booked.

 

[tex1989]

I went to high school and college in Texas! Since my kids start so early, they get fall break, thanksgiving week, Christmas break, winter break (in February), spring break and the service days. We are in Georgia.

That's a lot of time off! Makes it nice for the kids. Texas has decided that they won't grant many waivers to start school earlier than the fourth Monday of August and we have a absolute stop date of the first week of June for some reason so it limits the number of breaks schools can take. Two years ago they changed the rules from days of instruction to hours of instruction. Seems like a small change but schools in our district lengthed days by like 7 minutes and carved several days off the school year. My wife worked in our district up till last year but has since retired. Makes taking vacation for us much easier now.

 

[WillowRain]

We just left today. From 5th to 13th. The crowds were strange. I did Combo of KTP and TP calendars and picked accordingly. Green park days were fairly accurate, but i would say the 1 days were much bigger, like 4 or 5. Yesterday at MK and i check times and FOP was 50 mins!! What?? Was 180 the days we went and that was"best park"

 

[My2Qtz0205]

I’m pretty sure if people have to evacuate their homes, the last thing they are thinking about is going to Disney to spend money they might need when they come back.

A former co-worker is in Disney now. They drove down yesterday after evacuating from SE VA. If we weren’t already going next Friday I would have considered it!

She was in Animal Kingdom this morning and said the crowds were very low.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

They closed schools here in Virginia yesterday for the rest of the week due to the hurricane and I have 2 friends and their families at WDW now.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

Same experience during Labor Day weekend. Soarin’ was 15 minutes for us then too.

That's because once you ride FOP, Sorin' just plain blows. The graphics are horrible unless you sit row 2 or 3 in gate B. We rode it Sunday and today once each day. I was able to grab another FP for it while we ate dinner at Teppan Edo but when I told my girls we could ride it again they said they didn't want to. We rode Little Mermaid instead. No wait of course. But wait times have been super slow this week for everything except 7DMT and it wasn't that bad so we did a stand by just because we could.