FP + Passes In October..

October is becoming steadily busy, now I've never been in July so I don't have the comparison, but I can say October used to be one of the quietest times to come, but it gets up to 7/10 crowd levels some days now

Yeh, as all our visits have been in July, we just think this is the norm, but he said it was crazy and South American tour groups were horrendous..He said he would rather pay the extra bucks and miss out July..

All of September and the first part of October are low days because kids are back in school in the US and MNSSHP and F&W aren't in full swing until the end of September.

The MK was much busier in November 2013 than it was when we were there in July 2011. I didn't find it any busier in July than our trips in November and December. The parks are open longer hours in July too. We are going in July this year so I will let you all know how we find the crowds this year.

We've gone to WDW every October for 2 weekends since 2008. In 2010 and 2011 we went 3 weekends because there were 5 weeks in October both years. Each year has been busier than the last, especially the last few weeks of the month. With F&W, MNSSHP, and daytime WDW visitors that go to Universal Studios Horror at night, by the second week of October it's quite busy.

I've never been to WDW in July so I can't compare the crowd levels, but I wouldn't count on being able to walk right on the popular rides. At least in October if you're waiting in large crowds and long lines, you'll be waiting in beautiful weather instead of the unbearable heat and humidity of Florida in July

I've never been in July but have been the past 3 Octobers. We have never had problems with getting on rides. The longest we waited last year was 30 minutes and that was for the Soarin without a fast pass (but we hit it at the very end of the night during Illuminations). We utilized single rider for some of the bigger rides like RnRC and Everest and either paper fast passes or were able to just walk on to everything else.. Like I said I haven't been in July so I can't compare but I have never had a problem with rides in October.. Now those lines at the Food and Wine booths... that's a different story.

I usually go in October, February or Early March and honestly I almost never use FastPass. I think in all my years I have used FastPass maybe a total of 10 times. I just have never really needed to, I always consider the crowds when travel planning and go during the slower times. I also consider which park is the most crowded on what day and avoid it. If the crowd calender shows more than a 5, I'm checking the other parks.

I.E. If it's a weekend night during F&W, you're not going to find me at Epcot. Rarely do I run into a ride that has more than a 20 or 30 minute wait. There are of course exceptions (Soarin' and Toy Story Mainia always seem to have at least and hour wait no matter what.)

We have been there in March (school trips), June and July. We were there for the 4th of July as well. I have to admit, it's always busy these months, but aside from it being really hot, we rarely walked straight onto a popular ride. We use FP+ to manage our day (jump on a ride and/or get a FP for later. It seemed to work for us BUT, we now pace abit better so we aren't across a park and need to mad dash back for the FP time. I do think we will like having 3 FPs booked at a time where with the paper you only had one at a time.

Summer rule is pace yourself. If I have to stand in a line more than 45 minutes, I wasted time I could be doing something else.

Having just come back it is a lot quieter in October and yes there were the tour groups but I still use FP to ensure I do what I want without waiting too long.