I am a bit confused with the predicted crowd levels on Veteran’s Day (Monday November 11). Overall crowd levels across all parks is 8/10. Epcot is 9, HS is 10 and AK is 8. MK is a measly 5 (reference: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-calendar/date/2019-11-11). My confusion is on this page: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-levels it states that crowd levels are only slightly elevated when they do no coincide with Jersey Week (which they do not). In my mind “slightly elevated” does not equal 8, 9 or especially 10/10.
I am trying to decide if I should visit HS on the 7th (when it is a 7/10) and MK on the 12th (when it is a 2/10) OR flip this around with MK on the 7th (when it is a 5/10) and HS on the 12th (when it is an 8/10). The problem with the latter is that MK is only open 9 hours on the 12th instead of 12 on the 7th.
If the data wasn’t somewhat contradicting I could make a better decision. Anyone have any experience over Vetetran’s Day Weekend, especially on VD itself?
Have you tried making a touring plan for both days? You may find you can do more in 9 hours with lower crowds. That being said, crowd levels are not static and will change between now and then. Traditionally party days at MK do see lower crowds, but with SWGE, everything is so unpredictable at the moment.
Adding to @kerrilux_625778’s post … The park hours are not static as well. A decision to add another MVMCP or a DAH to that week could negate that 12 hour day. Planning to this level of detail when you are greater than 60 days (and even 30 days) out is simply a rough cut.
I did a check for the historical CL for 2018 and 2017. They were basically the same as TP is predicting for 2019. They’re using that data & the excitement for SWGE to predict this year. It’s so hard to know what SWGE is going to do to the parks, especially when WDW isn’t announcing how they are going to handle it.
Welcome! If it helps, I rarely let CL determine my park days. A good touring plan will trump a CL every time. I went on what turned out to be 10s MLK weekends (predicted 7s & 8s) and between FPPs and planning, my family still didn’t wait longer than 20 for anything. I choose the parks in the order we want to do them.
I think part of it is that Veterans Day is on a Monday this year which makes it a 3 day holiday weekend for some. I only see elevated resort crowds of 8-10 over the holiday weekend which is pretty typical. The week day crowds before & after the holiday seem pretty reasonable.
How many park days do you have? Is it important to you to see the fireworks at MK?
Christmas party days tend to have low crowds at MK. Non-party days have much higher crowds due to later hours and fireworks. If you want to ride more rides with lower waits, then do MK on party day (11/12). If you want to see fireworks and have a longer MK day, then do 11/7. Or if you have PH, you could do MK during the day on 11/12. Do a different park on 11/7 & hop to MK just for fireworks.
As far as HS goes there is little noticeable difference in a CL7 vs CL8. You won’t really feel a difference, so I wouldn’t let that impact your decision.
If you post your trip dates & # of park days, I am sure people here would weigh in with suggestions on which park to go to on which day.
Personally I choose all my other park days first (depending on EMH, EMM, DAH, etc) then put HS wherever there is an empty day. HS always seem to have a higher crowd level compared to the rest of the parks. And now with SWGE … who knows!
That’s a pretty big difference in CL. I’d definitely pick MK on a CL 2 day, even if the hours are shorter. 9 hours is still a long time, as @kerrilux_625778 pointed out you might be able to do more than you can on a longer day with a higher crowd level. And have more fun doing it!
DHS is a wild card at this point, so I wouldn’t actually worry about which day to pick for that. No one really knows how SW:GE will affect CL there. In other words, every day is equally bad.
Do you plan to park hop on these days?
Also, welcome to the forum. You will learn a lot here, I did!
I could be mistaken, but from reports last year, aren’t FPPs harder to come by on party days? If it were me, without small kids, I would avoid MK on a party day unless I was going to the party. With small kids, if you would plan not to do the evening anyway then maybe?
