It’s also important to keep in mind that CL2 and CL3 these days is not the same as CL 2 and CL3 from 5+ years ago. Last fall, we were at MK for a CL2 day and a CL3 day and the the lines were relatively long starting from about 10:30 am and thereafter compared to the lines during my fall trips in 2009 and 2011. My wife said “if this is low crowd levels now, I can’t imagine what high crowd levels would look like.”
So, while a CL2 is always better than a CL 5 (or higher), it no longer means a bunch of walk-ons and low waits like it did years ago.
I completely agree! Our last full WDW vacation was back in April 2009 during their “buy 4 get 3 free” deal. Completely different crowds!
That being said, we did have one MK day this past Mar. 14th with a CL 8 and with our TP basically FPP our way through the entire day. The only time we waited more than 10 minutes was for JC (20 min) and ETWB (60 because of the timing of the shows and no remaining FPP). Gotta love those TPs! Made me a believer for sure!
I really miss WDW from those 2009 days. So much could be done in a day at the parks. Because my kids were too young, I did not go to Disney between 2014 and 2017. When we went to Disney last fall. I was shocked to see how the parks were much more crowded than pre-2014, even on supposed low level crowd days.
The recession was nice for crowds if you had a job and could afford a vacation, but I wouldn’t wish for another one just for that! I’ll take the crowds.
Yeah. Our last recession didn’t touch DH a and I. I can’t say that would be the same this time around as he’s changed fields. We did some indoor best trips in that time frame.
I will say that I was also fortunate to have a job at the time and did not have a family to support yet, so I was able to take a trip to Disney that year. I wish there was a way to get the best of both worlds - low crowds and a good economy!