Rze51's Wow IT Was Crowded 01-04-08 report

[rze51]

Upon arriving at the park today, i had to drive around the entire resort almost twice... Cars were backed up on ball past harbor... i tried heading in through timon and pumba... they were still parking cars in there and it was full by 1pm. i ended up in pumba via the exit and made my way in the park....



i have never been in the esplanade and seen both sides of the ticketbooths being used.. it was crazy busy today....



For some reason when i got in the park, there were twice as many people in line for DCA as opposed to Disneyland.



A ton of people getting in line for their annual passes... (Recession Huh?)





Not a good sign that the bottleneck was just as crowded...



Its a small world was a zoo...



Its a stroller world after all....



What would you celebrate?? My cousins birthday party is what, she got her birthday fun card, with no expiration date... of course she was going to spend it today... who wouldnt with a 20% renewal coupon on her as well.. Speaking of those renewal coupons i scored three when i renewed only two passes... woo hoo.... i still have one left...



Lastly, if you head to disneyland go check out the world of disney store. There is a lot of merchandise on sale 25%-40% off... I noticed some womens sweaters i saw in the park on new years eve 40% off... really cool styles only problem was the sizing....

[dmomof4]

I heard it was crazy. My parents tried to go around 5 and they couldn't get into the parking structure...completely full...and no parking around...so they went home. Hope you had a good time though. Thanks for the report!

[FinalAdventure]

I was at DL today too!!

Yeah, it was crowded (probably because the holiday stuff is going to be taken down tomorrow). It got so crowded to the point that Downtown Disney shut down, I heard. I was in the park at that time, and I thought the crowds were insane, but not completely gridlock.

Hope you had a good time today =D

[DisneyIPresume]

I was there late this afternoon. I was also there on NYE. I think it was just as crowded today, if not more, than on NYE.

[techskip]

I will echo the comments of others in saying that it was exceptionally busy today. We arrived at the resort around noon. Disneyland Dr was backed up to the actual 5 freeway offramp. At Ball and Disneyland Dr they had traffic cops out directing people. It was pure chaos just getting into Mickey and Friends. It is also the first time I have ever seen them loading two levels at once... we ended up on 3 (Mickey)... 4 was full... and they were loading 5 and 6 at the same time. Coming down the elevator was a challenge... but the real shock was that there was almost nowhere to stand to wait for the tram. Up until this point it just seemed crowded but the grand finale was the bag check line that was past La Brea Bakery's entrance... We did a U Turn and used the GCH entrance into DCA... much better.

So yeah... it was a bit busy today... I would venture to say it was a combination of factors; last day of Holiday decor, tourists in town for Rose Parade/Bowl festivities, first day unblocked for AP's, last day of Winter Break for a lot of schools, people redeeming XMas gift cards... all in all it was PACKED! As to DTD... it wasn't "closed" but the parking was a nightmare and caused issues on Disneyland Drive (may have closed after we left but parking appeared open at 5pm when I walked past)

To Bruce... I finally was able to have a visual to your answer of what they do when parking levels are at their max. They literally stuffed a car into any space that it would fit. I have NEVER seen a level that packed before (this is looking around and driving around when we were leaving). Every space, every "sort of" space, every "it might fit" space had a car in it! the only way they could have had cars would have been to park them in the lanes! WOW that was packed. Hats off to Parking on an improvised job well done there!

[WheresMickey]

I too went to the park today. It was just a mad house. About a 30 minutes wait to get into Mickey and Friends. It can also be due to the last day for the Christmas decorations and most of the season pass are not blocked out also.

[KevRus]

How bizarre. I visited the park yesterday, a Saturday, and it was only "typical Saturday in summer" crowded...

It sounds like it was just unbearable today, though.

[Alicefan]

I was at the park today. I arrived at around 9o'clock it was a bit crowded in my opion. It wasn't till maby 11-12 that the crowds actually got really bad. Thats just from what I could tell since I'm not one of the people who goes on a lot of rides so I have no idea how bad the lines for those were.
Amazingly at one point in the morning the lines for HM and IASW were only 5 mins acrouding to the board that says the wait times.

[sir clinksalot]

Wow, I can remember the days after New Years being not so busy in years past. Maybe it's because New Years was on a Thursday so most people had a long holiday.

But I figured by today people would be getting back to "School/Work mode".

[SrcrMkyLvr]

My friend was planning on celebrating her birthday at Disneyland today, but changed plans on Friday....good thing though. I would not have been able to put up with all the people that were there today. Thanks for the report!

**She requested for the 1day/1park ticket to use anytime after her birthday in 2009, so we should be going some other time this year.

[SplashMoun10]

Strange being that I saw crowds dying down on New Year's Day. Thought maybe it would only get less packed.

[Armadillo4]

Rze51, thanks for braving the crowds and posting some pictures up quickly! I can attest to the crowds too. Although I arrived at 9:30am, so it wasn't too bad and got really nice parking in Timon without much of a wait.

Rode HMH with only a 5 minute wait, and IASW was 10 minutes around 10:15am. But the wait times were growing rapidly--very rapidly--by 11am or so. And I can only imagine what the parking situation must have been like. Yikes!

[Micoofy Duck]

ohhhh i love busy Disney parks. I don't know why but I love crowds.

[milo]

I arrived around 4pm and they had shut down the parking structure and were directing traffic down to Katella and then down Harbor past the strawberry field near Convention Way. I never even knew they used parking lots there, but they had Disneyland signage outside.

Greyhound type buses were picking up guests at the lot and shuttling them up Harbor to drop them off in the bus lanes.

Spent most of my time at DCA where crowds were quite manageable, then left after the Electrical Parade.

[kcw]

Guess I'm in the minority, but we didn't think it was too bad? We expected it to be pretty packed being the last day of Christmas stuff and all, but I was surprised today when I heard a CM say that they hit capacity yesterday and the day before- I definitely didn't think it felt that crowded. All in all, lines weren't that insane- granted I've never seen the IASW stretch THAT long, but it moved really fast; we only waited about 25 minutes. The longest we waited in any line was ToT, and that was 50 mins. (on the 3rd) The second longest line was the AP at 45 mins! We were there for two full days and two half days, and we got absolutely everything done...... didn't seem that bad at all