Hey Howdy Hey Summer and welcome to planDisney!
Here in the Buckeye state we know one of the best times to visit Walt Disney World Resort is in the dead of winter, right? It's so nice to get a break from the cold and soak up as much of that Florida sunshine as we can while we anxiously await the arrival of spring around the corner! It is true the crowds in the parks recently have been unexpectedly higher and the resorts continue to show reduced availability as well. There has been a lot of speculation as to why but let me tell you what we do know.
It seems that there is a lot of pent-up demand to get out and visit the Most Magical Place on Earth as a lot of trips were canceled or postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions in different countries. Now that a lot of those restrictions have eased, it seems the flood gates have opened up in Walt Disney World which you did experience recently. While Disney does continue towards full reopening, not all experiences, resorts or rooms are at full operating capacity quite yet, but a lot is still to come. So there may have been the perfect storm of higher demand outpacing some of the gradual reopenings of the resort as a whole that might have contributed to your experience. While crowds in Walt Disney World were more "predictable" in the past, recently we have seen uncharacteristically higher crowd levels in the parks for this time of year. No one is completely sure how long this will last, or if this is the new "normal" for the resort, time will surely tell!
One thing that you can count on, as offerings continue to expand at Walt Disney World, demand might tend to ebb and flow based on these demands. One of the biggest things is with
RunDisney events. Usually, the parks and resorts get busier the week leading up to and after race events. This year the Princess Half marathon race was around the time of your visit, so that may have added to the lack of availability of some of the parks and resorts. For your next trip, I would keep those events in mind as well as other big predictable things such as the festivals in EPCOT with opening weeks and closing weeks drawing bigger crowds as well as the starts to special events like
Disney After Hours Boo Bash Halloween events in Magic Kingdom.
As we navigate these uncharted waters together, we have no idea what the future holds, but we know that trips to Walt Disney World are always in high demand and are always trips full of Magical Memories. It's hard to predict when and if there will ever be a slower time to visit, but keep up with
Disney Parks Blog for more announcements around future openings and celebrations at the Vacation Kingdom of the World!
Have a Magical Day,
Nick