DVDizzy Forum

Since today marks my first day of Spring Break, I was thinking of this thread...

Have any of you been to a Disney theme park on a holiday? If so, say which one?

When I say holiday, I don't mean "the Christmas season" or "Summer Break" but on the exact holiday like "Christmas" or "4th of July" or "Halloween" etc.

For me, I've been to Disneyland on two holidays:

The first was Good-Friday. While most Christains go to Church on this day, I'm one of the few who went to Disneyland on this day. So technically, for me, it really was a good Friday.

Ironically though, it was really crowded. It was surprising imo.

The 2nd holiday was my birthday(yes birthdays do count) and DL was fun as always!

It makes perfect sense that Good Friday would be crowded. People have the day off, church is only an hour or two, and you don't have to buy as much food at the park if you're fasting.

I don't think I've ever been there on a holiday. If I have, I wasn't planning the trip because I try to go during off-peak times.

July 4, 2003: Magic Kingdom. It was horrible. No personal space at all, lines were obnoxiously long, and I wasn't that big a fan of the fireworks.

All in 2005:
February 14: It was still offseason, so it wasn't too bad.
Presidents Day Weekend: Ahh, my first taste of a busy crowd.

Spring Break weeks: Spring Break is like a preview of Summer for CP's. No wonder people like to leave in May..

Holy Thursday/Good Friday/Holy Saturday/Easter: Our SECOND busiest time of the year, even outranking Christmas.

Fourth of July: The busiest DAY ever for Magic Kingdom. I hated every minute of it, especially since I had a 12-hour stocker's shift. On the plus side that meant I got to walk around a lot as opposed to standing at one wagon for 6 hours. The fireworks were so-so, I never liked 4th of July fireworks.

During regular family vacations, we usually go in late-June or early August, so aside from the CP work in 2005 and the unfortunate one in 2003, we hardly go to the parks during a holiday, which IMO is a good thing.

Escapay

Halloween 1992- WDW (Magic Kingdom)

My brothers and I wore costumes on the plane, but I was afraid my Belle dress would be ruined in the park...I was 7; that would have been traumatic, so I changed.. This was in a relatively quiet season (I LOVED September through November when I was on the College Program...), and before they even had anything like Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, so it wasn't terribly busy. I remember waiting in a decent line at Haunted Mansion, but not having to work too hard to get spots for Fantasy in the Sky that night.

Holidays at WDW 2005- College Program

Memorial Day- Epcot

Not really much different than any other day in the summer in terms of crowds...it was very busy, but not particularly awful. And the heat wasn't quite as hot and humid as it gets as the summer progresses.

Fathers' Day- Epcot

Again...a Sunday in June, so busy, but not much more or less than any other summer day.

Fourth of July- Epcot and MGM

OK, this was when it got brutal...the heat and humidity were in full swing, and the park was really busy, even for really busy season. Luckily, the Guests at Epcot seemed pretty happy and prepared for what greeted them.

One of my friends and I went to MGM after work that night to see the fireworks there (we didn't want to try to get to MK, and we'd heard Epcot's were amazing, but for once I needed out of my park). MGM's were cool...THAT was a MOB SCENE though. I can't even imagine what the crowds at MK and Epcot must have been at night. BUT! On the flipside...after the fireworks, seemingly everyone left, so we were able to stop for a quick service dinner (with no problem finding a seat), and take two back-to-back rides on Rock'n'Roller Coaster with no wait right before the park closed, which was only about an hour after they'd done the fireworks.

Labor Day- Epcot

DEAD. Apparently that's not typical; we think a lot of the abnormally small crowds could be attributed to Hurricane Katrina. My dad's been there for Labor Day and said it was useless trying to do much, but this year it was very, very slow.

Halloween- Epcot

Fairly normal...moderate crowd levels; my shift started late afternoon, and it was pretty slow until around 7 when it got fairly busy, but still nothing like a summer night in terms of crowds, or temperature...a nice cool spell came then!

Side note on Halloween:

I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party twice, and it was amazing...yes, the ticketed events are pretty crowded, but a lot of people spent the evening trick or treating and/or just taking in atmosphere. You had to get a parade and firework spot fairly early, and some food lines were long, but if you wanted to do rides, they seemed to be all walk-ons. Although, we really only felt we had to do Haunted Mansion, ride-wise, but even for a Halloween event, it didn't have a long line at either party.

Thanksgiving- Epcot

Significantly busier than early in November, but still not on the same level as most summer days. Crowds are also easier to take when you're not dying of heat.

Christmas Eve- Downtown Disney

By some twist of fate, I got Christmas Eve off, but I did some last-minute shopping at Downtown Disney. It was busy, but not nearly the mob scene I expected.

Christmas Day- Epcot

I was lucky and had a morning shift...it was rather slow in the morning, but it was DEFINITELY getting to be really crowded by the time I left. I didn't see the highest crowd point since I was off by mid-afternoon, but it was starting to fill up a lot faster than it had earlier in the day.

Side note on Christmas: Went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in mid-December, and that was really nice...like the Halloween party, you want to be early for the parade and fireworks, but again, the lines weren't long (I think we did Space Mountain twice and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin once, since we'd missed Tomorrowland when we'd been at MK earlier in the day...we being my parents and me; I took some time off when they visited. They came from the 10th through 14th of December, and that was a great time; the crowds were moderate to light except in MGM when they lit the Osborne Spectacle of Lights on the night of the 10th...but that was either a Friday or Saturday night.)

New Year's Eve 2005- Epcot

ABSOLUTELY INSANE. I started work around 2 in the afternoon and could barely move to walk to my location. New Year's is listed as one of the busiest times of the year in all the WDW Guidebooks; that's an understatement. It was easily the busiest day that I worked. The people who were there to enjoy the atmosphere and be in WDW when the New Year came in had fun, but there were a lot of people in bad moods because they hadn't expected crowded to mean as crowded as it did. I thought it was a pretty fun day, though; yes, it was annoying that someone decided that every WDW guest would get a free noisemaker on New Years Eve and we had to listen to honking plastic horns all night, but the whole thing was really too funny to be upset over, IMO. And I got off of work just in time to get to see the New Year's Fireworks which were INCREDIBLE. If you can handle insane crowds, the fireworks ARE worth seeing. But if you've never been to WDW before...don't pick New Year's Eve to go.

New Year's Day, on the other hand, was a slow day. Go figure.

--

Valentine's Day 2006- Disneyland

The weekend before V-Day was busy, but...it was a weekend at Disneyland, and during the Happiest Homecoming on Earth. My mom and I managed to do a lot on the weekend without going too crazy, and we saved all of what we didn't get to on Saturday and Sunday the 11th and 12th for Valentine's Day (we went to the Studio in Burbank on the 13th). It was very very pleasant; we didn't have long lines for anything; the difference between an off-season WEEKEND (oxymoron? ) and off-season WEEKDAY was amazing, even though it was a holiday. We saw everything that we wanted to in both Disneyland and DCA (and meet lots of characters!) without wearing ourselves out too hard. (We did observe a LOT of PDA around the parks that whole trip though, but nothing that was inappropriate.)

I was at DisneyLand on Thanksgiving day last year, I have also been at Disney World on MLK Day and Easter Sunday

I've been during the Halloween celebration! What an awesome event! I bought for my brother, sister and I tickets for their birthday. We got to the park at 7pm and we were given out these great bags waiting to be filled to the brim with candy! We got to do all the main rides with little to no wait! Splash Mountain at night is great!! Many characters were scattered with cool costumes, and the parade was a refreshing change from the usual Magic Kingdom ones. In short, we all had a blast!

[This was back in October 2003]

I'm fairly sure I've been on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day, though the park doesn't do anything special for those, and when I was younger they were just another day out of school, so I'm not certain. I do know that those times of year bring moderate, but not exactly disastrous, crowds.

I was there on July 4, 2004, and we went to MGM. Crowds were pretty light for the first half of the day and they didn't worse than "moderate." The reason, of course, is that everyone was in the Magic Kingdom, but I actually think that MGM is the best place to spend the day anyways.

Christmas Day is often their most crowded of the year. I've been there around Christmas, but never on the day.

-Aaron

I've been to Mickey's Not-so-Scary Halloween twice. It's pretty cool. I love the parade with all of the villains. Maleficent rapping never gets old.

lord-of-sith wrote:I've been to Mickey's Not-so-Scary Halloween twice. It's pretty cool. I love the parade with all of the villains. Maleficent rapping never gets old.

The villains in the parade were awesome. I liked their little castle stage show/meet and greet. Maleficent's grand entrance with Jafar was awesome...they seem perfect together, but that's a tangent. So I'll just reiterate that Not-So-Scary is wonderful...just seeing the Headless Horseman ride was worth the ticket right there.

i went on thanks giving last year, but im canadian so it was in october and it was all about the halloween stuff

I went on Christmas 1999 but there was not much holiday fun going on in the park with the year 2000 coming and the big deal they were making about that.

I went with my family to WDW over the Christmas holiday one year...pretty much a mistake, in terms of having chosen when to go. The crowds at Epcot, where we spent Christmas Day, definitely offset the festive mood of the season. My mom had to take my niece to the Magic Kingdom on Christmas Eve, and I felt for them. My niece ended up riding just the Dumbo ride a few times as it was the only one without an hour-long wait or longer. I went to the Kennedy Space Center on Christmas Eve which was unbelieveably crowded (the worst I've ever seen it), so there was no escape. Plus, it was not too warm that year by Central Florida standards...highs in the mid-upper 50s with wind. We kept running from building to building trying to stay warm.

I've also been several times during Spring Break in March...it has never been so bad since not all schools take their Spring Breaks at the same time, and each time it was several weeks before Easter so we never had crowds from that. At Epcot there was often a high school marching band or cheerleading competition, so those were fun to watch.

Overall, I'd say early-mid March is the best time to go...not all schools are on break, and the weather usually isn't too bad: mid 60 to mid 70s and no hurricanes.

Karushifa wrote:
Overall, I'd say early-mid March is the best time to go...not all schools are on break, and the weather usually isn't too bad: mid 60 to mid 70s and no hurricanes.

I was part of one of those high school marching band trips you mentioned in your post, and we were there the first week of March, 2000...I completely agree that it's a GREAT time to go. We had 3 days at the Disney parks and 1 at Islands of Adventure. Islands had lines because we were there on Saturday. None of our days at the Disney parks were bad at ALL in terms of crowd...the only time I felt we had to stand in a line was to ride Rock'n'Roller Coaster, and that was all of a whopping 10 minutes.

Disney Princess Ariellen wrote:I was part of one of those high school marching band trips you mentioned in your post, and we were there the first week of March, 2000...I completely agree that it's a GREAT time to go. We had 3 days at the Disney parks and 1 at Islands of Adventure. Islands had lines because we were there on Saturday. None of our days at the Disney parks were bad at ALL in terms of crowd...the only time I felt we had to stand in a line was to ride Rock'n'Roller Coaster, and that was all of a whopping 10 minutes.

You brought up another good point, which is to go on a weekday if you can. During the weekends, I think there is the added traffic of locals or other Floridians who maybe come up for a day or two when the kids and parents have some free time together.

I also just thought of another wrinkle to this: college bowl season. There were quite a few bowl games in Florida this past year around New Year's, and when I went to Miami a couple of years ago around the time of the national championship Orange Bowl, the town was absolutely packed. I'm not sure how much of the football crowd would trickle over into Disney World, but the interstates were jammed with people going to and from Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville. Probably not the best time to be anywhere in Florida.

I've been to Disneyland on Thanksgiving several times. It's generally really crowded, but certainly no worse than any mall on that day.

I also went to Disneyland on New Year's Day a few years ago, and it wasn't too bad... especially the first few hours of the day. I figured that most people would be too tired or hung over from celebrating the previous night to be there too early, and I was right. It felt like we had the place to ourselves until at least noon.