January/February crowds

[AngieInOH]

Sunday of MLK was absolute chaos at the MK. And it was FREEZING, which made it so much worse to us.

I'd rather it be freezing than have hot sweaty bodies bumping into me.

MLK Sat Sun and Mon I'm planning on just doing 1/2 days in the parks. Hoping it clears out then!

 

[SaintsManiac]

I'd rather it be freezing than have hot sweaty bodies bumping into me.

MLK Sat Sun and Mon I'm planning on just doing 1/2 days in the parks. Hoping it clears out then!

We were just really uncomfortable. Our hands were frozen and we were layered up to the point of feeling too bulky. I don't care for 100 degrees, either. November is perfect to me

 

[cusack1020]

OK, so i was planning on going for a long MLK weekend trip from 1/17 to 1/21. It will be a girls trip for me and my 13yo daughter and she will miss two days of school. I am wondering now if I am better off waiting for spring break and just doing a week for the two of us. I know spring break will be super crowded but we would have more time and I assume longer hours, plus she wouldn't miss any school. And I'm realizing now that MLK weekend is going to be super crowded too. Thoughts on this? Should I stick with MLK? We don't mind the cold but spring break would have the benefit of being swimming and water park weather.

 

[SarahC97]

Josh at EasyWDW posted on his blog today about wait times so far this year. Really insightful. According to his breakdown, the wait times in July were lower than January and February. August saw the lowest average wait times of the year so far.

Truly, I think the crowds are simply shifting. Summer has become the new slower season, with higher park attendance on average higher in the fall and winter. That's been trending the last couple of years, so I guess we'll see if it sticks.

 

[MaxsDad]

Also a bit terrified. Booked MLK weekend and the following week. We went the same time in 2016 and I thought it was bad then..... but the crowds last year sound insane. Hoping the opening of Star Wars will keep people from going until later in the year.

We will be there the same time too, and because of the holiday I expected bad crowds also, but now I am starting to get worried. My mom recently decided to join us and while looking for a room at Saratoga Springs we found the availability at all the dvc resorts that week is very limited, which worried me some.

We booked this week because my daughter will only miss two days of school and we get a seven day trip out of it so I like the advice of planning when you can go, not around the crowds, and not worrying too much. We are also planning a halloween 2019 trip so that helps a little.
We are just going to go and roll with whatever we get. We have talked about summer trips but can't stand the heat.

 

[tinkerjo]

We found the last week of February this year to be very warm (almost too warm) but it was very busy. We thought about changing resorts 2 months before and there was very little available with quite a few resorts with no available rooms. I know there are marathons during that time frame but the parks were pretty busy. We have noticed crowds are heavier than they used to be during that timeframe

 

[Pdollar88]

I'm going January 31-February 4, 2019, staying at POFQ. Hopefully it'll be fine. I feel like I can handle crowds fairly well, particularly while I'm traveling solo.

For this year -- I was surprised at how crowded it was the first week of March 2018. Crowds were insanely low for my September trip, though.

 

[mom2shayleeandlogan]

We were there last Jan. 21-28th.The crowds were insane we even had to wait in fP lines. I was shocked when we would wait 20/30 in FP lines. Walk ways were crowded, it was annoying to get places. I think part of it was we weren’t expecting it. Thought the crowds would light and light 3,4,5. They were really 7,8,9

 

[Disneybiginner]

We were there during Jan 23-28. It was supposed to be a lower crowd level week, but it was completely opposite. We had to keep say “excuse us” to push the stroller around to avoid bump into people. We still had good time. Then we read some articles that explains the crowd level been off, rescheduling trip because of Irma, Probowl in Orlando, lower staffing ratio, etc. since it was our first WDW trip, so I can’t really compare to other time though.