Coping with March and April Crowds at Walt Disney World

THE SPRING BREAK CROWDS ARE HERE…

Rick recently commented on this page as follows:

Dave – Good information on your website.

Maybe I missed it but Disney is good about extending hours during busy times.

If you are prone to getting up early you can enjoy small crowds, take a break and return later in the day. If you are only able to travel during busy times that has worked for us.

This is a really important point.

I address it in general–all this site’s itineraries include being at the parks before they open, and I posted some material on Christmas and New Years crowds here.

That said, there’s more to say, and now that we are fully in the incredibly busy Spring Break and Easter parts of the year, here it is!

HOW TO COPE WITH DISNEY WORLD MARCH AND APRIL CROWDS

There’s two things you gotta do, and one thing you can do.

The first thing you have to do is you have got to be out of bed at times that perhaps you’d rather not. That way, you avoid all of the people who are still in bed.

The secret to minimizing the effect of crowds at Disney World is always arriving before the parks open.  So many other people are still asleep then that crowds are as low as they get.

Check and double check park opening times and morning Extra Magic Hours.  This time of year, there’s plenty of 8a openings–always a sign of a crowded day–and additional morning extra magic hours.

You want to be at your park entrance at least 45 minutes before the posted opening–and if you are staying off-site, and can’t take advantage of morning extra magic hours, avoid parks offering them entirely on days they are offered!

The second thing you have to do is to have a sensible plan.

It does you no good to show up at the Magic Kingdom an hour before it opens, and then, once it opens, to immediately ride the WDW Railroad, the Carousel of Progress, and the Liberty Belle Riverboat.  These are all fun, but they are not the rides that attract the longest lines.

What you want to do first thing is see the rides on your list that will have the longest lines later.

The issue isn’t what you want to see; it isn’t what others want to see; it’s what others think that others want to see.

(This is sometimes known as the Toy Story Mania problem…)

These rides will be the most crowded most quickly, and hence the ones you should make a beeline for when the park opens.

All this site’s itineraries indicate what to do first, and what next.

If you aren’t following one of this site’s itineraries, use them as model for your own planning,  or use one of TouringPlans.com‘s touring plans, or work out your first-thing rides by looking at the most popular rides in The Comprehensive Guide to Disney World Rides.

Finally, there is one way you can possibly buy yourself out of some troubles.

You should use the FASTPASS system, of course. FASTPASSES are a tool for avoiding waiting in line. See this for more on how they work.

The problem with FASTPASS is that you can only get one every two hours (sooner first thing in the morning), and that the supply of them is quickly exhausted on wildly busy days.

This means that you may only be able to get two or three per day before they run out.

However, you can double your FASTPASS pace by throwing money at the problem.

Buy—and use—two tickets per person to enter the parks. Each ticket is its own FASTPASS privilege, which means you can get twice as many FASTPASSES per period of time.

For example, at the Magic Kingdom, you could start your (early) morning by FASTPASSING both Splash and Big Thunder Mountains, see non-FASTPASS Fantasyland rides until you become eligible for another set of FASTPASSES, FASTPASS Peter Pan and Mickey’s Philharmonic, begin using your FASTPASSES on the mountains, and so on…

You can see more details on this expensive but possibly vacation-saving strategy here.