Friday January 19th 2024

Yesterday’s cloudy weather with occasional rain continued overnight into today. Around 3PM the occasional light rain turned into a longer period of heavy rain, but there was some real sign of clearing after it finished. The weekend is forecast to be much cooler. Today’s highs were in the mid seventies. Tomorrow it is only going to be in the low sixties.

The timing of the rain storm gave me the idea that Disney’s EPCOT would be at a low crowd level this evening. I thought people would leave when the storm hit. With that thought in mind I headed over to the theme park. Getting there was a challenge. The timing of the storm coincided with schools and business getting out. Traffic was backed up on all of the different routes I tried. Once I got to EPCOT the parking lot looked fuller than normal. The parking attendants were directing new cars to openings created by departing guests. Clearly many people had departed because of the rain. Low crowds in the park turned out to be a false hope. When I left later in the evening, the third section of the parking lot that is only used on busy days was close to full.

Wait times for rides were mostly long. Unlike yesterday, when I didn’t ride any rides, I rode a few of the short wait time rides like Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land. Most of my time was consumed watching shows and checking out the art booths scattered around the World Showcase. The lack of reasonable wait times caused me to leave early. I had planned to stay for the closing fireworks, but by 8PM I ran out of things I wanted to do. Rather than sitting and waiting for an hour or randomly wandering, I decided to return home. There will be plenty of other opportunities over the next few weeks.