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View Full Version : Where did they come from? (Semi-trip report)



bamato
10-23-2008, 06:17 AM
I don't know if any of you were in the park this last weekend. My wife and I went from Thursday to Saturday. Thursday and Friday the park was not to bad, average E ticket wait times were around 30-45 minutes. But by Saturday, that place was a nightmare. I felt like it was spring break again. By mid morning the amount of people had sky rocketed. Nemo was up to 75 minutes, and Indy had wait times higher than 60. And I know the wait times aren't "too" bad, but the sheer amount of people made the park almost impossible to navigate. I know UEA was this weekend and all, but I was pretty bummed to find the park this packed when I was under the impression that this is the off season. Don't get me wrong I still had fun, but I nearly lost my wife a few times because people would suck her up into crowds! lol

***Note to self*** Plan next trip during the weekdays. The only bummer then is I miss fantasmic or fireworks on some days dont I?

And one more rant (sorry) along with the massive crowds, came a bunch of people who had no sense of personal space. I found myself ducking, dodging and jumping out of the way of almost all the people that passed by. People would just slam into me had I not moved. Where did everyone's manner's go? And my favorite..... the strollers biting at the back of my heels... do people really have that poor of depth perception?? Ugh.... rant off....

And I thought I would comment since this was the first time I've seen haunted mansion holiday.... It was a fun ride, interesting to see, but I wanted to see the regular haunted mansion after riding it. It just seems so....slapped together I guess. Thats a crude way of putting it, I apologize, a lot of work went into it, but its in no comparison to the original.

Ok, gotta get back to planning our next trip :) (I love that place regardless)

bamato
10-23-2008, 06:18 AM
Dang!! I just realized there is a trip report forum... is this moveable? :(

olegc
10-23-2008, 07:53 AM
I don't know if any of you were in the park this last weekend. My wife and I went from Thursday to Saturday. Thursday and Friday the park was not to bad, average E ticket wait times were around 30-45 minutes. But by Saturday, that place was a nightmare. I felt like it was spring break again. By mid morning the amount of people had sky rocketed. Nemo was up to 75 minutes, and Indy had wait times higher than 60. And I know the wait times aren't "too" bad, but the sheer amount of people made the park almost impossible to navigate. I know UEA was this weekend and all, but I was pretty bummed to find the park this packed when I was under the impression that this is the off season. Don't get me wrong I still had fun, but I nearly lost my wife a few times because people would suck her up into crowds! lol

don't forget - now with year round schools it is difficult to figure out exactly when a "break" is - and many school district around the country take fall breaks as well. See another thread in this forum on the Utah schools.



And I thought I would comment since this was the first time I've seen haunted mansion holiday.... It was a fun ride, interesting to see, but I wanted to see the regular haunted mansion after riding it. It just seems so....slapped together I guess. Thats a crude way of putting it, I apologize, a lot of work went into it, but its in no comparison to the original.


well, don't forget it's supposed to be Jack Skellington trying to "redecorate" the haunted mansion for the holidays. so in some places it may look slapped together because it's supposed to be an overlay with a few changes (the stretching room, oogie, attic).

adriennek
10-23-2008, 08:23 AM
But by Saturday, that place was a nightmare. I felt like it was spring break again. By mid morning the amount of people had sky rocketed. Nemo was up to 75 minutes, and Indy had wait times higher than 60. And I know the wait times aren't "too" bad, but the sheer amount of people made the park almost impossible to navigate. I know UEA was this weekend and all, but I was pretty bummed to find the park this packed when I was under the impression that this is the off season. Don't get me wrong I still had fun, but I nearly lost my wife a few times because people would suck her up into crowds! lol

Thank you!!!!!! (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showpost.php?p=1278655&postcount=28)

Adrienne

bamato
10-23-2008, 08:55 AM
To my surprise though, they weren't too under staffed on the rides. There seemed to be no shortage of ride operators honestly. Where they were missing people were support jobs. Food service and sanitation mainly. We waited in line for food almost as much as we did for rides. A lot of the churro stands and food stands were closed or only open for a short while. That was were most of the chaos was. And some of the garbage cans we spotted were either overflowing or were surrounded by trash.

They also seemed to have a shortage of people for rope-ing off sections of the park for the fireworks. We got jammed into FantasyLand Thursday night becasue there were so many people just flocking every where that they didn't have enough people to corral the "cows".

I definately see your point though Adrienne, Disney expects low crowds during October, and I'm sure everyone was surprised there weren't.

adriennek
10-23-2008, 09:03 AM
I definately see your point though Adrienne, Disney expects low crowds during October, and I'm sure everyone was surprised there weren't.

I don't know why Disney expects low crowds. If they read here and tracked October posts for the past several years, they'd know that it will be busy. ;) They didn't ask ME. LOL.

Adrienne

dlfansx4
10-23-2008, 09:09 AM
I don't know why Disney expects low crowds. If they read here and tracked October posts for the past several years, they'd know that it will be busy. ;) They didn't ask ME. LOL.

Adrienne

Yep - I agree. October used to be a slow time. I can remember going 7 years ago on Sundays in October and it was weekday slow. But since they introduced Halloweentime, it is another very busy season. And with Veteren's Day in November, the busy season flows right from October into December.

ham
10-23-2008, 09:37 AM
So...you were surprised that Disneyland, the most famous amusement park in the history of human civilization, was crowded, on a Saturday, 2 weeks before Halloween? You people who get to regularly visit the park when there are no wait times really get spoiled!

shna
10-23-2008, 10:45 AM
So...you were surprised that Disneyland, the most famous amusement park in the history of human civilization, was crowded, on a Saturday, 2 weeks before Halloween? You people who get to regularly visit the park when there are no wait times really get spoiled!

I don't think the problem is that the park is crowded. The problem is that the park doesn't always seem to staff enough people for when the park is busy. If there are a lot of people in the park, you expect to stand in fairly long lines for rides/attractions. You don't expect though to have food stands closing early & to not have enough custodial staff to empty trash cans before they start overflowing.

BTW -- I noticed the same thing at Universal Studios last Saturday. Lots of people in the park (probably not really "crowded," but since I hadn't been in years, I don't know how crowded it actually gets). There were some food establishments not even open (El Pollo Loco), and the lines at other food places were ridiculously long. One in particular had food lines that were 45 minutes long -- largely because there was ONE cashier trying to ring everyone up. ONE. :rolleyes:

DizMe
10-23-2008, 11:17 AM
We go annually at this time so maybe I'm just used to it and it doesn't seem bad to me? We were there on Saturday (18th) and I thought it was perfect! Friday night was crowded and we left, but Saturday was fine. We did MM, rode Space 3 times (5 min wait) and Nemo once (15 min). We then collected FPs and had a wonderful day. You could walk around easily and if you got FPs, it was very easy to ride everything with little wait time. I was expecting much larger crowds based on what I'd read on the boards and was pleasantly surprised.

IdahoMike
10-23-2008, 09:31 PM
We had the same experience as DizMe, we thought Friday was far more crowded, and left early. Saturday seemed very normal to us, and we got on a ton of rides in both parks, with minimal wait times, and strategic fastpass use. Like Adrienne pointed out, each person's perception of "crowded" is different.

AnotherJenny
10-25-2008, 07:05 PM
And one more rant (sorry) along with the massive crowds, came a bunch of people who had no sense of personal space.

We were the about a month ago, and it happened to hit 102 degrees that day. I don't understand people who feel they need to stand so close behind you in line you can feel heat radiating off them, breath down your neck, or even physically touching you. Is that going to get you in the ride so much quicker to crowd me?