Since Labor Day, weekend crowds have been back, and Disney appears to be taken by surprise, it shows most in QS locations.
Except for Epcot Food and Wine running well, QS food locations are running below par. Dinner hours and after park hours at Everything Pop is simply ridiculous.
Attraction Lines are long again, but mostly due to operating rides at low capacity, with empty seats, cutting hourly capacity levels.
There were lots of bottle necks at MK a week ago. I feel like the crowds aren’t getting dispersed properly there. I think longer parks hours and additional restaurants would help tremendously but I realize it’s a balancing act with limited cast members, etc.
We have a trip planned the week leading up to Christmas and with each day that goes by and more pictures I see, I’m really having doubts about going that time of year. The lack of fast pass and EMHs concern me.
I do believe that Monday-Thursday are still low capacity days (not counting HS). The days of walk-on each ride has probably passed.
Here is where my confusion comes in…I see from the crowd calendar that today is listed as a Crowd Level 1, but pictures would indicate that the parks are quite crowded. I don’t see how wait times can be so high if crowds are at a 1. Admittedly, I haven’t been on the forums as much lately. Can anyone catch me up on what is going on between crowd levels and wait times?
This thread may be of some help
Also, from a different thread:
One of Disney’s responses to covid is spacing in the parks… and on the rides. The ride are running partially empty, causing wait times.
Wait times and park hours could be completely different in 10 months when you go.
Thank you, @bebe80! This thread did help. Would you happen to know if certain AP passes will have blackout dates around the holiday season? I’m wondering if this could help offset the traffic at each park. I know we have been spoiled to touring with fast passes…it is just hard to wrap my head around going at a high peak time and not having the fast passes to fall back on.
We were the and lines were long everywhere except Epcot, we went on Thursday and it was empty
Yep. Appears to be weekend crowds, that have returned. Monday - Thursday still good. We did FOP about 20 minute line walk through twice an Thursday.
Idk, I’ve been watching wait times this morning & MK had some pretty long ones for a weekday. Perhaps Disney was not prepared for increased crowds. If they don’t open up some more to help disperse the crowds and/or increase ride capacity, I think the lines are going to be ridiculously long whether it’s a weekend or weekday.
Yeah, crowds are crazy. We were at WDW last week, hoping to capitalize on some lower crowds…that didn’t happen. We definitely waited in more lines last week than we did pre-covid. The parks just aren’t running efficiently right now. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone go right now.
A couple of months ago I feel like it was a great time to go…even though there were a lot of restaurants/shops/shows not running, the wait times were so low that it made up for it. Now, we have the missing aspects plus crazy crowds. Just postpone your trips until something changes. It’s definitely not worth it right now.
It definitely seems that way, looking at current MK and HS times. If there’s anything they can open up to soak up some people while sticking to their safety protocols, now is the time. Just at the time I have to make a decision on going this year or not, this is a bit discouraging.
I wonder if they won’t decide to permanently extend park hours until they can get a handle on the crowds
