Let's talk about how the opening of Galaxy's Edge will affect crowds at OTHER parks.

Will SWGE make the other 3 parks more crowded?

  • Yes, it will turn September into Spring Break or worse

    Votes: 99 66.9%
  • No, DHS will be packed but others will see little or no increase

    Votes: 49 33.1%

  • Total voters
    148
I definitely think it’s going to have an effect elsewhere. When Hollywood Studios reaches capacity I am sure people will just head to the other parks.
I agree. Last Park Day for us is August 29th; was originally planning one of the other parks, scrapped that all together, don't want to deal with crowds:scared1:..Headed to Universal Volcano Bay instead. On our December trip to Universal, we didn't make it to VB, weather was too chilly for us..Very excited for VB!:dance3:
 
I am bummed - I have saved up airmiles and $$ this last year to be able to take my 10 & 11 year old nephews to WDW for the first time. We have 9 days: 3 @ USO + 6 @ WDW. This is their first ever trip there, and I am excited that I get to take them on this adventure; I rented DVC points so I get to show them the Wilderness Lodge and the Boardwalk (split stay). I had everything pencilled in to get ready for ADRs and then fast passes, and now I haven't a clue how to plan this. We are west coasters, so far more used to planning for Disneyland, all the planning that needs to go into a WDW was already enough for me :D
I am overwhelmed :crazy2:
How generous and nice for you to take your nephews! Hope that you have an AWESOME time. Obviously, renting points you have no flexibility. Enjoy Universal; your nephews will love the trip!:cheer2:
 
But at this point they have only announced it officially for DL and until it is announced officially by Disney it is only rumor.


Yes it is only a rumor however, ,many times these rumors come to be true. I understand and feel bad for people who are really upset and want to know all they can to see if this will impact their trip. I believe there is nothing wrong with stating a rumor as it will give someone a chance to think about a scenario that could happen. I am not on this board making people panic but just giving any possible outcomes that can to help them make decisions.
 


We are not Star Wars fans and do not intend to visit SWE however, we do still plan to visit HS. We cannot change our plans ( free dining, airfare purchased, time off approved) and will be there 9/4-9/12. We are excited about Food and Wine and MNSSHP. Opening announcement was made a few days after ADRs were booked so, now I'm trying to juggle things around. Since we will be there the 2nd weekend - I am trying to figure out avoiding HS Fri- Mon but we also wanted to avoid F&W Sat and Sun so, I have to try and get creative. We had 2 evenings planned at HS for dinner ADRs and also to see Fantasmic and The Wonderful World of Imagination. Hoping that if we plan our FPs and dinners, getting into the park and just exploring those aspects wont be too bad ( during the week). Also hoping extended hours and perhaps 2 Fantasmic shows might lower the crowds. I was planning on doing the MNSSHP on Sunday 9/8 but now think perhaps it might be more crowded and might want to switch to Tuesday 9/10 but that is the only evening EHM at Epcot during our stay ( currently ).
 
very likely.
Perhaps to some degree they already are extending the hours or maybe they had already planned on keeping MK open later than last year in early September. The MK hours the first week of September have it open until 10PM every night other than party nights. In 2018 they began closing MK at 9pm starting August 29th. Don't appear to be any changes to AK or EP compared to last year yet.

https://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/hours/september18.cfm
 
How generous and nice for you to take your nephews! Hope that you have an AWESOME time. Obviously, renting points you have no flexibility. Enjoy Universal; your nephews will love the trip!:cheer2:

Thank you :lovestruc
My husband and I are very lucky job-wise and we do not have children, I love that I can treat my nephews to a special trip every couple of years :)
We will still have a blast, one of them is an absolute nut about Harry Potter and I have been to USO a few times so I know he is going to be amazed!
The WDW portion will work itself out, I am a little more at peace with it now that it has sunk in :earboy2:
 


so..... after discussing with my DD(24) yesterday, we decided to leave our ADRs and plans as they are right now. We have 2 afternoon/evenings and 2 ( or 3 - our last day is flexible) mornings planned for HS. Thinking that since we have ADRs for afternoons and FPs for when we are there, hopefully it wont be too bad. Switching and rescheduling days at this point would really just complicate things for us. We might switch our Fantasmic plans from Friday the 6th to Wed the 4th ( but not even sure on that one yet ). I wanted to go to EMH on Sunday the 8th but if things seem too crazy ( we will do Ca Grill Brunch instead) and just not do a park that morning. We are keeping our MNSSHP for Sunday Sept 8th as well- while I realize that this is still the second weekend of SWE, I'm praying the overflow wont be too excessive. We can always modify as things get closer but for now, we are staying with what we got.
 
so..... after discussing with my DD(24) yesterday, we decided to leave our ADRs and plans as they are right now. We have 2 afternoon/evenings and 2 ( or 3 - our last day is flexible) mornings planned for HS. Thinking that since we have ADRs for afternoons and FPs for when we are there, hopefully it wont be too bad. Switching and rescheduling days at this point would really just complicate things for us. We might switch our Fantasmic plans from Friday the 6th to Wed the 4th ( but not even sure on that one yet ). I wanted to go to EMH on Sunday the 8th but if things seem too crazy ( we will do Ca Grill Brunch instead) and just not do a park that morning. We are keeping our MNSSHP for Sunday Sept 8th as well- while I realize that this is still the second weekend of SWE, I'm praying the overflow wont be too excessive. We can always modify as things get closer but for now, we are staying with what we got.
I wouldn’t worry about the Halloween party as they have a limit of guests allowed into the park.
 
Well, I've tried adding on 1 day before or one day after my 09/19 - 09/27 trip with nothing but the Polynesian Villas and Beach Club coming up for my party of 5. A bit pricey for me and I do not want to do a split stay. Currently booked at the CBR. When I looked at the Poly rates, it gave a disclaimer about SWGE and the park , land, and attractions having limited capacity. UGH! We really are locked into our dates, so we can't reschedule. We have 7 day base tickets and are there for 8 nights (hoping to add one more night). During our stay, MK closes at 6pm for MNSSHP several nights, so I think we'll go ahead and buy tickets for one party night. Original plan was to spend 3 days in MK and 2 days in each of the other parks, but I'm not so sure about HS now. I went ahead and subscribed to Touringplans for the first time ever to hopefully get an idea on crowd calendar estimates, but figure that won't really be accurate until early Sept.

We don't plan to have a lot of ADRs as we are not on the dining plan. Just hoping I can work the FP to our advantage and make the best of it. It's been 4 years since we were last in WDW and now I'm having mixed emotions about returning. Darn these expiring tickets!! This would have been a good year to visit the dark side methinks. :P
 
TLDR the whole thread, but I'm going to add what I think is a bit of a dissenting opinion;
If you have reservations for WDW anywhere close to the opening of SWGE, why not hang onto them and see what happens in Anaheim first? After all, only one of the rides will be open. What if it opens, crowds are crazy, reviews are good but the crowd dissipates quickly to wait for the other ride to open? How will that affect things in WDW? I wouldn't plan to BE there, but I wouldn't panic and cancel if that was the plan.
Don't mind me though, I'm just a casual observer. After all, I am in the camp of I'd rather not be there as they go through the de-bugging process and don't have a trip planned until summer 2020. I will be going to DL...the week BEFORE it opens. The off-season local deal will have ended and crowds will be a small as they are going to be for a while so we are taking advantage of that. SWGE will be there, unchanged, if not better than it will be on opening day. We'll see it, we can wait though.
 
Who else has booked their Sept dining already? I’ll be honest, I was worried it would be difficult with free dining offered during this time and now SWGE. Yet somehow we got everything we wanted and could have booked even harder reservations. (Our dates are 9/14-9/22) Not one single place was completely booked. I’m hoping this is a good sign for Sept crowds.
 
Who else has booked their Sept dining already? I’ll be honest, I was worried it would be difficult with free dining offered during this time and now SWGE. Yet somehow we got everything we wanted and could have booked even harder reservations. (Our dates are 9/14-9/22) Not one single place was completely booked. I’m hoping this is a good sign for Sept crowds.

Good to know! I actually was going to ask this question in the September board. Our ADR date is April 1st so I was getting nervous, esp bc I want to try to get Ohana on our second day there! Maybe Star Wars fans plan to spend their whole day in line so they won't have time for a SD dinner. :D
 
Good to know! I actually was going to ask this question in the September board. Our ADR date is April 1st so I was getting nervous, esp bc I want to try to get Ohana on our second day there! Maybe Star Wars fans plan to spend their whole day in line so they won't have time for a SD dinner. :D
Haha I thought the same thing, maybe they want to keep their options open. But even HS restaurants were available which I thought people would book as a guarantee to get into the park. I can tell you for our dates Ohana was open and we had a split stay with DVC so I had to wait until 9am to book days 3-9 through member services. I was convinced some of the greats would be gone by 9am since others had a few hours on me but I was pretty much able to eat wherever I wanted whenever I wanted.
 
hi all,

I have a friend who is choosing dates this August to to go WDW. I have read about star wars opening but I don’t know a lot. I’m curious if I should steer her to earlier in August (she was thinking that last week when it was opening, right around Labor Day ). I’m curious as to what the impact of it opening will be. Will it just be more crowded at Hollywood studios? Or will hotels and everything else be super crowded that last week before Labor Day weekend?

Thanks for any feedback, Marina
 
We are there 09/18-09/27 and I still see multiple times for CRT, BOG, Ohana and so many more on our checkout day. We aren't on the Dining plan, but I feel like I should grab a few ADR's just because I can LOL!
 
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I just switched my days from opening week to 9/9-9/14 and there were a lot of open rooms in most of the hotels. I’m sure they’ll fill as it gets closer, but I was surprised at the availability at 6 months out.
 
Again I think whatever happens with the opening at DL we will see an increase in bookings, if it's amazing and getting rave reviews or it will be pretty normal booking if the reviews are less than stellar (pun intended)
 
I'm giving serious consideration to just eating my MNSSHP ticket price and the change fee on my airline tickets and going to visit my parents over the weekend of Rosh Hashanah (yes, I know it's sundown Sunday through sundown Tuesday). I haven't bothered with anything in the Studios in years (I only like Muppets, ToT, and Fantasmic anyway now that the Great Movie Ride is gone), but the overflow idea is NOT fun. Since I have an AP and room only, I can wait a bit longer to cancel, but I'm going to take my first feel of the temperature on March 31 when I can make ADRs. If it's hard to get even the usually easy to get ones, immediate cancel. If it's not, the next test will be FP+. Again, not even planning to go near Studios, but I'll see what the availability is. Too crappy and I'll cancel. And final stage if FP+ are not horrid, I'll probably hold onto the reservation until after the first couple of weeks and then make a call on it, cancelling if the other parks are insane.
We booked in January for 9/16-9/23. My ADR was Wednesday. I booked BOG, Storybook Dining at Artist Zpoint, breakfast at 8:25 at CRT, Crystal Place breakfast at 8:40, Hollywood Brown Derby Fantasmic package, Sci-Fi Dine-In, and others without an issue. I was even able Thursday and Friday to tinker with the reservations - switching them to different days in order to get our trip planned like we want. Touring Plans crowd calendar did increase crowds some over pre SWGE announcement levels but not a lot. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. We haven’t been to Disney in 30 yrs. Just my DH and I going. It would be cool to see SWGE but there is so much at WDW we have never seen that it will be ok if we don’t get to see it.
 

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