My family and I currently have our June 2020 trip rescheduled for this Dec. 14-22. This trip our party will be made up 5 people age 17 and older.
We are normally park open to park close people. I know park hours have sadly been greatly reduced compared to pre COVID days. When the park first reopened and much lower crowds, I wasn’t really worried that we couldn’t get all we wanted to do in those limited hours. With park crowds and ride wait times already increasing (particularly on weekends), going during the Christmas season and Hollywood Studios already feeling more crowded then the other parks I am beginning to question my current plan of which parks on which days and need advice!
My current park reservations:
Dec. 15 (Tuesday)- Hollywood Studios
Dec. 16 (Wednesday)- Magic Kingdom
Dec. 17 (Thursday)- Epcot
Dec. 18 (Friday)- non park day
Dec. 19 (Saturday)- Animal Kingdom
Dec. 20 (Sunday)- Hollywood Studios
Dec. 21 (Monday)-Magic Kingdom
My worry is the 2nd Hollywood Studio day on Sunday. I worry that the already crowded feeling park is going to be VERY crowded especially on a weekend day, closer to Christmas. This is my 17 y/o daughters favorite park and I know she will want to ride as many rides as she can multiple times.
Would it be better to switch the Sunday Hollywood Studio day to Friday? Or do you think the Friday will be just as busy/crowded? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Personally, I would change HS to Friday. I would make Saturday my non park day and bump AK to Sunday. Having said this, HS will probably be at capacity most if not all of your trip. So Im not sure if it’s going to make a big difference in the long run.
So many unknowns for 11 weeks or so from now due to COVID. What will Disney do in terms of park hours, COVID protocols, crowd capacity, and more entertainment? Will families go to WDW for Christmas? Will families go early to WDW for Christmas since many kids are doing distance learning?
We were there around the same time last year. Sunday through Wednesday was fine. Then it got really heavy starting the Saturday before Christmas.
I like this idea, but I would also consider making Saturday the non-park day (since Saturdays often are the busiest day of the week) and then doing one of Epcot or AK Friday and the other Sunday.
If HS is meeting ‘capacity’ most days in terms of park pass availability - even week days - I’m not sure you’ll see much difference at all l’d say monitor and see what December ends up looking like. For example - here’s October as of now. All these ‘yellow’ week days are mainly HS sell-outs. Granted, December could end up looking completely different, and Columbus Day comes into play with all of that.
We did HS this past Sunday. We got to studios by 8:30 for a 10am openeing. Sounds extreme but it made a difference. We walked on MMRR at 9:15 when they started letting us in and was able to get on RRC right after and relax till 10 to get a ROR boarding group. After that we stayed all day rode SDD, TSM x3, TOT x3, MFSR, and Star tours. We did notice the wait times listed were not accurate so what read as 40 mins was really like 25 consistently. My point is we had a great time on a Sunday and got everythimg done without huge waits. Ride early, relax late morning to early afternoon and wait time seem to drop again later in the day.
This is really valuable info, thanks for sharing. It sounds like beating all the bus and skyliner people there for RD can really set the tone for how the day will go and what you can accomplish. And getting there that early doesn’t feel like as big a sacrifice with the later official opening time.
It does make a difference. At 9 am they walked the us early birds to the temp take tent amd the about 5 mins later the skyliner and parking lot crowds showed up. Some rides did not open till 10 though. So RRc was open when we got back there at like 925, walk on, bit TOT did not open till 10. That direction seemed to be the path of least resistence as most people went to SDD and MRSR. Which had 1 hr plus wait most of the morning. But once afternoon hits the lines become managable. Thats when you ride MFSR and SDD. We rode TOT between 530 and 630 3x before we left. The last 2 hours of park time you can get alot done.
Yes We went on Saturday. It was a tough day there. SDMT was down most of the morning and BtMR and Splash all had delayed openings so no real advantage to getting there super early that day. There were a lotn of people. We did space first since it was the only big ride open in the am. Lines got long really quick we stalked BTMR until that opened and got in line for that. We ended up leaving before lunch. Went to wilderness lodge to have lunch and went for a swim back at our resort. Returned to the park at about 430 and was able to ride Splash, space, TSM x2 and SDMT by getting in line 5 mins before close. We figured out quick for all parks that if the wait time said anything under 40 we should jump i . They actual wait was averaging 15-20 mins less than that. The lines look awful but dont be scared they move pretty quickly. Space line is way outside but once inside you walk almost completely up to the ride. My guess is to keep as much of the queue out in the open air and less people congregating indoors. That would go for alot of rides.
Did u have to mobile order to get in? We wanted to do an early dinner there, taking the boat from our MK day but not staying at WL. Some people are saying certain resorts are turning people away if u do not have an ADR or are a guest at that property. Just wondering what ur experience was?
We had no issue at all. Took the boat from MK and just walked right into geyser point and sat down. No one asked us if we were staying there or had a reservation at WL. I guess you may have an issue going in the main gate while driving but dont think you would have any issue taking any disney transportation to WL or any resort for that matter.
l’d say monitor and see what December ends up looking like. For example - here’s October as of now. All these ‘yellow’ week days are mainly HS sell-outs. Granted, December could end up looking completely different, and Columbus Day comes into play with all of that.
