2024 After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Dates, Details, Tips, Rides & Review
After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is a hard ticket event with limited attendance and short wait times for Walt Disney World’s most popular attractions. This post shares our experience, info about the event, 2024 dates & details, tips & tricks, and whether it’s worth the money. (Updated March 11, 2024.)
After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios takes place select nights now until August 29, 2024. This event takes place from 9:30 PM to 12:30 AM. In addition to that, After Hours attendees can get a head start on the fun by entering the park at 7:00 PM—a couple of hours before the event officially begins!
Walt Disney World is now a couple of months into the 2024 After Hours ‘season’ at Hollywood Studios, and reports have been largely positive from attendees. Crowds have been sparse many nights and, aside from breakdowns, wait times have been low. Obviously, this is great news for those who attended the event–they got to ride rides with minimal waits, and next to no congestion in the parks.
The biggest change for the 2024 After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the presence of rare characters, including the following:
- Duffy the Disney Bear
- Pinocchio & Jiminy Cricket
- Mary Poppins & Penguin
- Pinocchio & Meeko
- Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers
- Glam Daisy & Donald Duck
- Glam Goofy
Other characters were also present, including but not limited to Minnie & Mickey Mouse (normal, non-glam), but those don’t qualify as rare. Regardless, all of these are additions as compared to last year and a nice ‘plussing’ of the After Hours event for 2024. These short waits for characters and rides are certainly not what you’d encounter during a normal day in the park.
After slow sales for most of the first two months of the year, After Hours has now sold out 3 different dates at DHS. The first of these has passed, but two more dates during Spring Break are now sold out: March 13 and 27, 2024. It should go without saying, but expect larger crowds on these dates than the ones earlier in the year when tickets did not sell out and attendance was sparse.
We’re not trying to rain on any parades–we happen to enjoy After Hours at DHS–just trying to properly set expectations. To be sure, it’s still a fundamentally low-crowds event and wait times are going to be low even on sold out nights–just not quite that low! This is not an attempt to discourage you from attending–After Hours is a fantastic splurge and most attendees rate it very highly.
With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about the 2024 After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Ticket prices vary based on date:
Event Date | Price (Excludes Tax) | Price for Passholders and Disney Vacation Club Members (Excludes Tax) |
---|---|---|
Wednesday, January 10, 2024 | $155 | $125 |
Wednesday, January 24, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 (SOLD OUT) | $175 | $145 |
Monday, February 26, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 (SOLD OUT) | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, March 20, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, March 27, 2024 (SOLD OUT) | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, April 3, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, May 22, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 | $175 | $145 |
Wednesday, June 12, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, June 26, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, July 10, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, July 17, 2024 | $165 | $135 |
Wednesday, July 24, 2024 | $155 | $125 |
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | $155 | $125 |
Wednesday, August 7, 2024 | $155 | $125 |
Wednesday, August 14, 2024 | $145 | $115 |
Wednesday, August 21, 2024 | $145 | $115 |
Thursday, August 29, 2024 | $145 | $115 |
These are some pretty steep price increases as compared to the previous year, with After Hours ticket costs up by around $30 to $36, depending upon the date. This was already an expensive event before, and now it’s even pricier.
Whether the event is “worth it” is obviously subjective. We’ve been saying for years that we view this as a quasi-VIP experience and think it’s one of the few upcharge offerings at Walt Disney World that is worth the money. However, at these new higher price points, it’s a really tough sell. (We’ll be voting with our wallets, and not doing it.)
With all of that said, every single date of After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios sold out last year, so it’s easy to see how they justified such massive price increases. We may not agree with value proposition anymore, but clearly, plenty of other guests do.
One of the hallmarks of the After Hours events at Walt Disney World is the unlimited ice cream novelties, popcorn, and bottled beverages. These are all included in the cost of this ticketed event–you simply walk up to outdoor vending carts stationed throughout DHS and grab a Premium Mickey Bar, Coca-Cola, or whatever else.
You can also purchase food and beverages at select dining locations, but this is typically a terrible use of the limited event time. Eat before you arrive or fill up on ice cream and other treats on-the-go during After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
During After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, attractions will include:
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster(closed for multi-month refurbishment in 2024)- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Toy Story Mania!
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
The operative question about After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is how many rides can you accomplish? Narrowing that a bit further, we assume most people reading this are concerned with headliners like Slinky Dog Dash–and how much time can be saved by paying to attend After Hours versus a normal day at DHS.
During the last After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, we did the following:
- Slinky Dog Dash (x3)
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (x3)
- Tower of Terror (x2)
- Alien Swirling Saucers (x1)
- Toy Story Mania (x1)
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (x1)
That’s a total of 11 attractions, and we could’ve easily done more if efficiency were our lone goal and we didn’t crisscross the park as much.
We also ate about a half dozen ice cream novelties and had a few Cokes, each of which are also unlimited/included in the cost of admission during the event. You can learn more about pricing and 2024 Disney After Hours dates on the official website.
As noted above, After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios does not require regular theme park admission and allows entry as early as 7 p.m. As with the Disney’s Hollywood Studios version of the event, the special event begins 30 minutes after official park closing–at 9:30 p.m., and runs for 3 hours until 12:30 a.m. This means you can see Fantasmic or knock out a few less-popular attractions during the mix-in that starts before After Hours officially kicks off.
The last time we attended, we did Slinky Dog Dash as soon as the event officially began. Surprisingly, the line had already nearly or totally cleared of day guests. Unfortunately, everyone else who had arrived for After Hours had this same idea, so the line was roughly 10 minutes long. Incredibly short by Slinky Dog Dash standards, but our longest line of the night.
We probably could’ve done a bit more variety and fewer rides on the roller coasters, but those are the things with the longest daytime waits, so they were our focus. Just with the top two items, we conservatively saved 10 hours of time in line (give or take).
Of course, not many people are going to choose to wait in line an hour-plus for Slinky Dog Dash twice in the same day, much less six times, so the amount of time “saved” here is slightly deceptive. I mean, we also had countless Mickey Premium Bars, bottled water, and Coke–the value of which would’ve exceeded $50 were we paying out of pocket, but I would never buy a bottle of water at Walt Disney World in the first place, much less 6 of them in a day.
Throughout the night, the only attraction with any line was Slinky Dog Dash, which was at its longest at the beginning of the night. Tower of Terror also had a wait in the boiler room, but that’s a result of how it loads and not a function of crowds.
Everything else was a near walk-on for the entirety of the night. On Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, we had our own train once, and most rides on that were less than one-third full. The good news with both RnRC and Tower of Terror is that the pre-shows were optional. We watched each once (because unlike Flight of Passage, they’re awesome) and then skipped both on subsequent rides.
Despite this, Disney’s Hollywood Studios felt slightly busier than the After Hours at EPCOT event. Part of this is a function of park size, DHS being far more compact. We’d also hazard a guess that there were more attendees at the Disney’s Hollywood Studios event.
Going forward, we’d anticipate that attendance will increase at the After Hours as positive word of mouth spreads. However, even if double the number of tickets are sold, we still wouldn’t expect the event to feel significantly different. Most ride vehicles (save for Slinky Dog Dash) were being dispatched partially empty, so there was plenty of capacity to spare in those ‘walk-on’ wait times.
It’s also worth noting that none of Disney’s Hollywood Studios major entertainment offerings run exclusively during After Hours. This almost necessitates a return visit to the park a different day, unless you’ve already ‘been there, done that’ with all of the shows.
During that different day, we’d also recommend doing any attractions that are really lengthy from start to finish (Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run) or that don’t offer tremendous time savings during After Hours (Star Tours).
In terms of tips, our advice would be to start at the Sunset Boulevard rides and end with Toy Story Land. The latter was definitely busiest right after fireworks, and by the time that crowd cycled through Slinky Dog Dash a couple of times, it pretty much dissipated.
Our advice would be to plan your arrival to Toy Story Land for the second half of the event. At this point, your average cycle time (wait time plus ride plus exiting) for Slinky Dog Dash or Toy Story Mania should be at or under 15 minutes, and at or under 5 minutes for Alien Swirling Saucers or the meet & greets.
Another big piece of advice for After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is to save Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance until near the end of the evening. This is going to be the reason that many or most people purchase tickets to After Hours at DHS, and a lot of them are going to prioritize it. The line will almost certainly be worst early-on, and significantly shorter in the last hour of the event.
Our expectation is that a lot of guests will go in with the expectation of doing “unlimited” rides on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, with grandiose ideas of riding it dozens of times during the event. That is, until reality sets in.
In all likelihood, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will start out with wait times of at least 30 minutes when the event starts (if not longer). People will endure that once or maybe twice, before moving on to other attractions. Others will keep riding, but burnout will inevitably set-in for a couple of reasons.
First, as great as Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is–and we think it’s the #1 attraction at Walt Disney World–it’s not incredibly re-rideable in the back-to-back-to-back (etc.) sense. It’s a great storytelling attraction, not one that delivers thrills or prompts a visceral reaction.
Second, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is long. It’s a multi-phase attraction, and it won’t be possible to skip all or perhaps any of the pre-shows during After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We’ve found that even with perfect timing, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance takes 18 minutes to experience from start-to-finish.
That’s the absolute best case scenario. More likely, those attendees who line up early are going to sink almost an hour into one ride on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Those who do two rides back to back at the start of the event are likely to eat up nearly 90 minutes of their After Hours time. Few will do 3 consecutive rides as a result.
Even if you did Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance from the moment you could enter DHS until the conclusion of After Hours, it’s likely you’d only manage about 10 rides on the Galaxy’s Edge headliner. So not exactly “unlimited” rides no matter how you slice it. (Honestly, that’s fine by us. We absolutely adore Rise of the Resistance, but I couldn’t do it 10 consecutive times. It would start to lose its luster and the magic would wear off. For me, twice during the evening is pretty much perfect.)
Accordingly, our strong recommendation is saving Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance until the very end. If you only want to do the attraction once, you can jump in line 1 minute before After Hours ends. This will effectively extend the event, as you’ll do your waiting in line and most of the lengthy attraction duration after the event has officially ended.
If you want to do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance twice, consider doing it once around 90 minutes before the event concludes, then bounce over to Toy Story Land for a bit, and then return to Rise of the Resistance again 1 minute before After Hours ends. This is a better balanced approach, and also mitigates the risk of downtime (if you wait until the very end, there’s always a chance that Rise of the Resistance will be down and not come back up during the event–it still suffers from reliability and downtime woes).
We’d also recommend sticking to one area, doing that on repeat, and not returning. Even though Disney’s Hollywood Studios isn’t huge, the walk from Toy Story Land or Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to Sunset Boulevard is a time eater.
We didn’t follow our own advice here, instead doing each a couple of times, grabbing some of the included refreshments, and then slowly meandering back towards the other while eating our Mickey’s Premium Bars or what have you.
After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios bears similarities to the Animal Kingdom event. As is the case there, this is a headliner-heavy event. Whereas you can go for variety at Magic Kingdom, the lineup here is more limited. To get the most value from a time-savings perspective out of After Hours at DHS, you need to be interested in riding Slinky Dog Dash and/or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster multiple times.
We think that’s really what the event comes down to. You certainly don’t need to ride them both a combined 10 times as we did, but you’ll want to do them more than a few times. If you’re a roller coaster junkie, this is a great event, and the fact that both of these headliners are near walk-ons (and that you can skip the RnRC pre-show) means you could do loops of both and get your ride counts into the double digits over the course of the night.
Conversely, if you’re only interested in experiencing everything once, arriving for Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios or even doing our Half-Day Disney’s Hollywood Studios Itinerary with a strong Genie+ game should be sufficient.
Whether you should do After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios comes down to your personal attraction priorities (are you a roller coaster junkie who wants to loop the two major ones here?), budget, and averseness to crowds. If you hate crowds and are willing to splurge on ~$175 per person tickets, After Hours at DHS will be a good event for you.
For thrill junkies, doing Slinky Dog Dash or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster on repeat is a great strategy–and one that will result in a high ride count, as both of these attractions are short duration and can be looped pretty easily. In particular, Slinky Dog Dash is a great attraction to do during After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as it has no pre-show and normally is a top 5 attraction in all of Walt Disney World in terms of the posted wait time! DHS is also the most difficult Genie+ Lightning Lane to book, so doing After Hours instead relieves that pressure.
Ultimately, there is no “perfect” approach to efficiently approaching Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Genie+ works well, but not nearly to the degree that it does at Magic Kingdom–and it requires staying the whole day at DHS due to return windows getting pushed out. Early Entry is another excellent option, but will only help you hit ~3 headliners. Showing up late is another savvy strategy, but it also won’t allow you to get everything done, let alone multiple rides on headliners.
This leaves the After Hours event as the best way to efficiently “do” DHS in a frustration-free way. Obviously, this comes with a very high price, so After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios isn’t going to be “worth it” for most or even many Walt Disney World guests…but that’s kind of the point. A limited capacity event keeps things manageable, and results in a more pleasant experience for those who can afford it. We won’t be doing the 2024 After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but if you have a big budget and don’t mind splurging, this event is fun and a good minimize stress and headaches that often occur at DHS.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ After Hours event? Planning on doing the 2024 After Hours at DHS to see how many times you can ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance in a single night? Is this something that interests you, or is the cost too high to justify? How many times would you want to do the two coasters in a single night? Do you agree or disagree with our review of the event? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Oh bummer! We arrive March 10 and stay till March 19th, just missing those dates (yes I know we are going during spring break, unfortunately Alaska’s spring break falls same week). We are staying at a villa. Tom, do you think there is a chance they will open up some extended evening hours during spring break?
Do you foresee there being EMH for DHS? My wife and I are going for our 15 year anniversary May 16-19. My ONE can’t miss for the trip is Galaxy’s Edge and all the rides that go with it. We are staying at Old Key West, so we would get the EMH for Deluxe Villa. I was just curious if you knew if they would offer this for DHS at that time. GREAT SITE! You’ve been a HUGE HELP! Thank you!
Oh funny, we asked the same question at the same time
Do you know if they have photographers out at the after hours events? We are going on the 11th and I’d love to get some crowd-free pics.
They did last time, but that was also a different ‘era’ when staffing shortages were not a thing. There were also PhotoPass photographers out at last year’s Magic Kingdom After Hours (Halloween and Christmas), but that’s also a bit different as photos are really popular during seasonal events.
So…I don’t really know. I think some PhotoPass photographers would make sense, but I wouldn’t be surprised by any range of outcomes: none at all, a few scattered around, or tons standing around despite little demand. Sorry!
I got some great pics at the after hours last Christmas! Which I will forever miss, since the regular parties this year were far too packed for any nice photographs. It’s good to know they were at the 2019 After Hours though…that at least gives me some hope! Plus I’ll have my photographer with me, but…it’s still nice to get some Disney shots so that said photographer can be in a pic or two (which I’m sure you’re personally familiar with, heh).
We are thinking about doing the after hours event at Hollywood studios on Saturday, March 23. Do you expect it to stay slow like this with no lines or will the spring break crowds change this? I would love to go when it is like this but would not want to go and fight crowds and only have a few hours Just wondering what your thoughts were. By the way I always enjoy your posts
I think it was worth it not to have wait in crazy lines for Slinky Dog. I am curious if they will still offer this when Star Wars opens.
I would expect it to be similar to Jan 5th which was the first party after Christmas/New Year’s. Everything was walk-on or 5-10min wait. Slinky Dog was consistently at 20 min. Well worth it in my opinion for our quick stop for the day. We did as much or more than most people in do in a day. The low crowds lowered our anxiety and increased our enjoyment of the park. The included snacks were a great bonus. We also got their early enough to see Fantasmic.
Thanks for the review! We are hoping they release more dates over our “pre-cruise” stay on property in July!
I have a question about the treats included… Did you happen to notice if they had dairy free choices available? All 5 of us have a dairy allergy, but have enjoyed alternatives in the park. Hoping Mickey’s crew thought of us with their treat planning 🙂 TIA!
Very informative read! Are there PhotoPass photos for the rides that normally provide photos during After Hours?
We went on January 5th and yes, there were PhotoPass photographers at all meet and greets. We also had our picture taken at the entrance to Toy Story Land. I know they were out on Hollywood Blvd at the beginning of the night, but the park was technically still open at that time.
Thank you for this! I am planning on trying this event during a work trip. I won’t be going to the parks during the day, my AP has expired, and I think this will be the best use of my time and money.
We went to After Hours at Hollywood on December 22. I believe it was a lot more crowded than the first 2 events they offered. Not to say that it was overly crowded, but we paid the big extra expense to ride Slinky Dog because we can only afford to go every few years. The wait was 35-20 minutes the whole time we were there. I know that is not long when you look at regular wait times, but it was disappointing when you only have a few hours to ride and you are paying big for the short wait times. Everything else was 5-10 minute waits, and we definitely enjoyed it. The Woody and Jessie line also stayed long all night. I don’t know if this was because more people are just finding out about it, if Disney is selling more tickets, or just because of Christmas crowds in general.
We attended the DHS early morning hard ticked event during our trip November 26- December 1. We only had access to Toy Story Land, but it was totally worth it! We were able to walk on to Slinky Dog 6 times, Toy Story Mania twice and less than 5 minutes for Buzz, Woody, and Jessie. The park was opening as we headed for the included breakfast. Cast members who were waiting on the crowds were kind enough to warn us and guide us to the side of the street. We were grateful! The massive crowd that was headed toward Toy Story was just that- MASSIVE! It was nice to have checked all of that off our list… especially for my 5 year old granddaughter.
My family is considering attending the EMM next week. When I look at my options it allows you to pick a 7 or 7:30 time slot do you know what is the difference? also we are staying at Pop Century will the buses run early enough to get us to this event
What was breakfast like at the HS morning event? From the description on the WDW site, it looked like less options than the MK one.
I’m staying on site in February and was interested in attending this. Do they keep Disney transportation running or no? Thanks!
Thanks a lot for giving everyone a very nice opportunity to read this in detail!
Nice pics!
I just bought tickets for this event for Jan 5th. I was honestly planning on skipping HS entirely this trip, as it’s my least fave park by far, but when I realized we could do the rides we’re most interested in (without having to endure rope drop and/or “wasting” FP) and without having to use a park ticket, I decided it would be worthwhile for my husband and me.
I have a couple of questions though:
How were the lines for the characters? Some worse than others?
Do you have any advice of what to do between 7:00 (when I think they’ll let us in) and 8:30?
Always appreciative of your input!
I cannot believe you did RnR and Slinky a combined 10 times and you’re still alive :). Once is plenty for me. DHS after hours would not be worth it to me since most of the rides, once a visit is enough and I feel if you arrive at rope drop and book FP+ accordingly, you will visit all those attractions in half a day.
Tom saw some Gondola s tidaybusbthat the size I was thinking more like europenor or out west?
Thanks for the info. We are doing this in January and based on what you’ve said it is a good value as I’m a DVC member and at just at 100usd I’m looking forward to the small crowd.
since disney does not make people get off lines at closing time,how log does it take for the line to thin out?
Hi thanks for your posts. Im going in Feb for the first time and staying on site. They offer magic hours for those staying on site so would that mean that we wont have to pay the extra to get in after hours? Thanks.
This is different than Extra Magic Hours. That’s free…and fairly crowded. This is an up charge, and less crowded.
Personally, I’d stick to EMH, but that’s just me. Have a fun trip!
Lovely thanks x
Different thing. Extra magic hours will give those staying on property an extended window; this is a hard ticketed event that is a different set of hours and requires an additional ticket cost.
I was there on the first night of the event as well and had a great time. I spent about half the event taking pictures and still managed to get a ton of rides in (Slinky 3x, Saucers 2x, Midway Mania 1x, Star Tours 2x, ToT 2x, RnRC 1x).
I’m bummed I didn’t run into you and Sarah and get a chance to say hi. I’ve met you guys a couple times in the past and your always super nice! I was lucky enough to meet Josh of Easy WDW fame at this event at least!
Then why the hype on repeating what months are best to go? Like December being #2 ? I would suggest not printing speculating or leading people to the trough in hopes they will hit a lower crowd level. Because every blog speculates on “ THE BEST TIMES TO GO” while I don’t believe all and it would seem as if Monday -Thursday are best days to go as well.
Bloggers are paid to “Blog” I do however believe they get perks such as free entry or compted rooms etc. there has to be a reason for their continuing to rate by month.
I assume you’re talking about our best & worst months to visit post: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/best-worst-crowds-disney-world/
You’ll note the introduction to that discusses how we take a holistic approach, rather than a statistical one.
Any time we receive a comp (which is incredibly rare), we note it in the post–like this one. The value of comps this blog receives on an annual basis is almost nothing compared to the tens of thousands of dollars we spend at the Disney Parks each year.
We have absolutely no ulterior motives in recommending one month over another. I think you’ll find most guests prefer visiting in December over going in July, taking all factors (weather, crowds, seasonal events, etc) into account.
Does the blog subsidize those tens of thousands? Are you hiring?
Thank you so much for this post. I recently bought tickets for this in January and didn’t know what all we could ride. It is a surprise for my family and from what you posted it seems like it is going to be a blast. Love your site! Love LOVE the information! Thanks for what you guys do. Merry Christmas!
We were there 12/06-12/09/2018 at a time when the crowd level was suppose to be a 1-2 at MK / 3-4 at Hollywood studios / 3-4 at Epcot and 1-2 at AK. The crowds were so HUGE it was 2.5 hrs for mine train, 1.5 for space mountain, over an hour for thunder mountain and the next day 2-5 hrs for slinky dog. But go figure they “changed “ the crowd calendar up by 3-4 points per park. That’s after we were there. I researched for months read your blogs and other Disney blogs and I believe it’s highly possible that they “misprint” “ miscalculate or misinform people of the crowd levels so as to boost attendance at times when the Disney promoters believe the sales or attendance will b low. Is this possible. Oh and congrats on scoring comp to the parks
Crowd calendars are really losing they’re effectiveness the past year or so. As Tom has mentioned in posts on here, there really is not much of an off season anymore. Parents seem to have no issues pulling their kids out of school and the internet has pulled back the curtain on when all the best times to visit were (ironically leading them to no longer be the best times to visit due to high crowd levels.
Then why the hype on repeating what months are best to go? Like December being #2 ? I would suggest not printing speculating or leading people to the trough in hopes they will hit a lower crowd level. Because every blog speculates on “ THE BEST TIMES TO GO” while I don’t believe all
Bloggers are paid to “Blog” I do however believe they get perks such as free entry or compted rooms etc. there has to be a reason for their continuing to rate by month.
I don’t know – I’m not saying those waits aren’t accurate, but we were there at exactly the same dates and noticed crowds that were exactly what were predicted. We avoided Magic Kingdom on a Saturday (as suggested by bloggers) and did HS & MK on the 6th with MVMCP, then AK on Friday and Epcot Saturday. We employed the rope drop strategy and even with 30 day FP our longest wait was 37 minutes to get on FoP first thing in the morning. Of course everything hit a huge wait in the afternoon, but following the advice of bloggers, we just did shows and lunch at that time and then everything settled down. Maybe I’m biased because the last time we went was during the 12/10 crowd week from Christmas to New Years and we were shoulder to shoulder with people—but I found the crowds pretty low from 12/6-12/9. Sure it wasn’t a ghost town, but I don’t think Disney ever is anymore. Sorry you had a crummy experience!
Maybe re-read the post about when to visit – it’s not all just about crowd size. Reading or following a blog is your choice. As with anything you read or watch, you need to evaluate it for what it is. I happen to find this blog incredibly helpful and while I don’t agree with everything written, the information helps me plan the best vacation for me. For that, I appreciate all the work put into the sharing of information and experiences.
I think it’s best to remember that crowd calendars are a GUESS based on historical data and planned openings/events. There’s no crystal ball that bloggers use and often, random factors come into play. For instance early this year when it should have been quiet (historically anyway) everyone who had planned a trip that was cancelled due to a hurricane last year (I don’t remember which one) showed up. Or when North Carolina was getting hit by another hurricane, tons of people flooded an otherwise quiet time to escape it.
We went a couple of years ago for the first time during Christmas week. I braced my family for the hellish crowds and nightmare lines and insane crowds I had read about. On Christmas Day we were the only people waiting for ANY bus from our Disney resort to the parks at 8am! After a quick bus ride and walking straight through security with no line, we rode test track 6 times all with fast passes! I almost didn’t bother to look for extra fast passes because everyone said it wasn’t going to happen but I’m glad I did because we rode over and over! We also scored Everest fast passes over and over the next day. Due to one of my kids getting sick I had to rearrange my park days at the last second and therefore all our coveted fast passes, and even though I did it numerous times over the next few days I still got every fast pass I wanted.
As Tom has said before, Disney has clued in to the “least crowded times to visit” and done their best to draw crowds with festivals, marathons, discounts, etc. Not to mention the ease of finding that “least crowded times” information, as you pointed out, on numerous blog sites. Therefore it’s not a secret anymore. I think it’s wise to always assume Disney World will be always be popular and busy and if you happen to hit a quiet time? Do a little dance and ride seven dwarfs over and over again:)
You can’t judge crowd levels by the wait times on the most crowded attractions! 7DMT often begins the day at opening time at 60-90 minutes and only goes up from there. Slinky is a brand new attraction and fastpasses sell out at over 60 days ahead, so of course it has a huge standby line. And one hour plus for the mountains is just standard unless you are going in the first hour of park open. It’s when you start to see 90 minute waits for buzz lightyear and its a small world that the park is really crowded.
I think the blogs, including Tom and Sarah have all been pretty clear that there is no such thing as an empty park these days.
Your dates are weekend dates. I assume its crowded on weekends no matter the time of year.
I would think it’s unlikely that the crowd calendars are a ruse designed to benefit Disney. If the numbers changed, it’s likely that they got new info or corrected based on the day’s projections. If Disney wants to boost attendance, they’ll offer a discount on hotels, a ticket package deal or even free dining, but I don’t see them doing something as nefarious as giving bloggers fake info to draw crowds.