Summer crowds

Pdollar88

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
I just glanced at the DL app and was surprised to see so many reasonable wait times. Radiator Springs and such at DCA had a longish wait, but WDW waits look much worse today.

Are summer crowds not as bad at DL? I’m still toying with the idea of going in the near future. (I know next summer will be entirely different with SWGE).
 
I just glanced at the DL app and was surprised to see so many reasonable wait times. Radiator Springs and such at DCA had a longish wait, but WDW waits look much worse today.

Are summer crowds not as bad at DL? I’m still toying with the idea of going in the near future. (I know next summer will be entirely different with SWGE).

Summer crowds were not that bad at WDW earlier this month either (we were there July 3-14). July is the BEST time to visit both WDW and DL, crowd wise. Seems counter intuitive, but it's panned out that way for the past several years. In particular, Saturdays in July are the best days to visit DLR.
 
I think it depends on what's going on. 4th of July was very manageable in my opinion. I'm not exactly sure where it is on here, but I think there's a thread with conventions and activities around Anaheim that could impact attendance. Also, you can look at the AP Blockouts (although, this year those changed in June).

Yesterday was pretty packed, but there is a Scentsy Convention going on, so that may have been the culprit. I didn't get there until 7:30 pm, but all of the fastpasses at DCA were out. DL only had fastpasses for Small World and Haunted Mansion left. I even tried refreshing to get a cancelled one, and nothing. RSR had a 150 minute wait, Space was 100 minute, Guardians 120 minute, Star Tours 105 minutes, IC 100 minutes.. But after PTN and Fireworks people cleared out and it was fine.
 


We were in DL for 4 days in April, 4 days last week (2nd week of July) and we also spent Wednesday this week in the parks. Late April was less crowded than July for us. Last week crowds were pretty nice. This Wednesday had very high crowds (to me at least). We were fine because we started early with EMH and have a good knowledge of the parks and used Maxpass well. However, by afternoon major rides were 120-150 minutes in DCA. DL lines were a little better. Goofys Sky School was 65 minutes & the swings were 30!!! Again, starting early with good Maxpass use is key. We still had a fairly relaxing day in the parks, rode what we wanted to and left around 6.
The high humidity last week may have kept the crowds down a little.
 
We were in DL for 4 days in April, 4 days last week (2nd week of July) and we also spent Wednesday this week in the parks. Late April was less crowded than July for us. Last week crowds were pretty nice. This Wednesday had very high crowds (to me at least). We were fine because we started early with EMH and have a good knowledge of the parks and used Maxpass well. However, by afternoon major rides were 120-150 minutes in DCA. DL lines were a little better. Goofys Sky School was 65 minutes & the swings were 30!!! Again, starting early with good Maxpass use is key. We still had a fairly relaxing day in the parks, rode what we wanted to and left around 6.
The high humidity last week may have kept the crowds down a little.

Agree! We love the summers and were there over the 4th and going back again in August. Starting early is the key. Getting in and getting your Maxpass going makes for an enjoyable day. We have little ones so always take a break when the heat picks up and the crowds increase (but nothing like fall/winter time). My DS still managed to ride the Incredicoaster 24 times over our 4th of July trip this year! I doubt if that would be possible in the fall, LOL! ;)
 


Wow
Agree! We love the summers and were there over the 4th and going back again in August. Starting early is the key. Getting in and getting your Maxpass going makes for an enjoyable day. We have little ones so always take a break when the heat picks up and the crowds increase (but nothing like fall/winter time). My DS still managed to ride the Incredicoaster 24 times over our 4th of July trip this year! I doubt if that would be possible in the fall, LOL! ;)
Wow!!! 24 times?!?!? We average about twice a day, lol. The nice thing about summer is the long hours. Start early, take a nice long mid-day break, stack up your evening Fastpasses via Maxpass and go back in the evening for more fun. We had a little pixie dust after a bad restaurant experience and ended up with 7 Fastpasses at one point....and one of them was good for an entire week so we were able to use that one on Wednesday when we came back for one day!
 
We were there from 12th-18th and I was surprised how low crowds were the first 4 days. Beginning the 16th, it seemed busier but still not packed like I was expecting for a Monday. Tuesday was packed, most likely because of DLs Birthday. Wednesday was our last day and it was packed again so we swam instead. This was our first time going in summer and I was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t as busy as I was expecteing it to be.
 

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