Disney World "Days of the week"
 

We will be visiting Disney World for a week this May. I heard that certain days of the week are less crowed then others for each theme park. Can anyone tell me which days are better than others?
Thanks

Usually any day except the weekends are fine. The middle of the week tends to be even better. Make sure to avoid holidays, such as Mothers Day and Memorial Day Weekend, including that Monday.

For great information on this and everything else Disney, go to www.wdwig.com and www.disboards.com

We were @ WDW in May. Perfect time to be there. Weather is gorgeous....sunny & hot but not humid. We were there Tues, Wed & Thurs to avoid the "Friday arrivals & Monday departures". We spent 3 days @ WDW then headed to the beach for the weekend!

Try to get the VIP pass that lets you go to the front of the line. I believe some hotels provide them. They are well worth the money -- and the evil stares from others who don't have them.

Okay, this will sound a bit overdone, but the first time I visited I used both the Fodor's guide and the Unofficial Guide to WDW to see which park to visit on which day. They have different opinions on that, but I charted it on a spreadsheet and used a consensus. Worked pretty good.

We went in September which was listed as an off time, but lots of international travelers.

Also, after the first day, my partner decided that I hadn't planned a path through the park very well. She was right about that so she took over and planned each parks agenda. I was miffed I didn't get Space Mountain first thing in the morning, but her system worked pretty well. Plus we weren't running around the parks all day. We stayed at WDW so they have maps at the hotels.

Have fun.

Its Universal that offers the front of the line pass to on property hotel guests- not Disney. Disney uses a system they call Fast Pass. Definately use it. Its available at the entrance of certain rides and gives you a scheduled timeframe to return to the ride to minimize the wait. disboards.com will give you a better description than I can.

As far as which days of the week to avoid, the rule of thumb is that the park that has the early entry privileges will be the most crowded. IE if Monday is early entry day for the Magic Kingdom, then if you don't arrive early enough to take advantage of the early opening, then you may find that park too crowded on Monday. Go to MGM, Animal Kingdom or Epcot instead. Of course if you do get up early to take advantage of the early entry you will find the Magic Kingdom very comfortable until about 11am. After that the crowds will start to build and it may be time to take a lunch/swim break back at your hotel. Follow the same plan for the other parks. Get there early on early entry day and leave by 11am or take your time over breakfast but go to a non-early entry day park. The schedule will be posted on disboards.com or wdwig.com

Now having said all of this, we have found in recent years that the Fast Pass system has really helped with avoiding long waits in line. A ride will have 2 lines - one for Fast Pass holders and one called Standby. Fast Pass holders are allowed on the ride ahead of the standby line. Usually reducing the wait to about 10 minutes. A real time saver plus it allows you to do other things while waiting for your time.

The problem with the Fast Pass is that there are a limited number available for a given ride each day and on very busy days the passes will all be distributed by mid afternoon. For example, we wanted to ride a particular ride at Epcot on a non-early entry day. We didn't arrive at Epcot until 3pm. We were unable to get a Fast Pass for that ride as they were all distributed for the day. The ride said there was a 90 minute wait. We decided to wait and fortunately the wait was "only" 45 minutes. Had we been able to get the Fast Pass we probably would have been given instructions to return to the ride between 6pm and 650pm and have had only a 10 minute wait.

Anyway - its worth doing a little reading on disboards and wdwig.com to understand the system so that you avoid lines, crowds and get the most out of your vacation. Have a great trip.