2017 Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World, Ranked in Order
By Dave Shute
OVERVIEW: THE BEST TIMES IN 2017 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD
This site recommends arriving at Walt Disney World one of the first three Saturdays after Thanksgiving.
If you can’t go then, presented below are my rankings of the weeks of 2017 in order of best to worst times to visit Disney World.
These rankings are designed for first time visitors who do not know whether or not they will return.
For visitors on a return trip, less concerned about ride closures or the peak of the hurricane season, the later January, early February, and September weeks would be ranked much higher.
These week rankings are based on my 2017 Disney World Crowd Calendar and on the 2017 Walt Disney World price seasons.
Other factors are key as well–the Christmas season, ride closure season and hurricane season in particular.
(For 2018 rankings, see this, and for 2019 rankings, see this. For more how I build these rankings, see this.)
RECOMMENDED 2017 WEEKS, RANKED IN ORDER
The thirteen recommended weeks that follow are wonderful weeks to visit Walt Disney World in 2017.
Week number one has it all–lower crowds, lower prices and wonderful Christmas programs and decorations. The first Saturday of this week overlaps with Thanksgiving crowds, but the rest of it will be marvelous:
- 1: 11/25/17
Weeks 2 and 3 have many, but not all, of the strengths of week 1:
- 2: 12/9/17. A week as good as week 1 on crowds and holiday programs. Slightly more expensive, however, than weeks 1 or 3
- 3: 12/2/17. Largely a terrific week with low crowds, low prices and wonderful holiday programs. However, this is a week that, because of Pop Warner football demand for resort rooms, is rarely discounted beyond its already low prices. Those intending to stay at a value resort, Caribbean Beach or Coronado Springs should consider avoiding this week and target week 1 or 2 instead, as Pop Warner guests may make these resorts boisterous this week
Week 4 has lower prices and crowds, and offers in its first few days Disney World’s Halloween program
- 4: 10/28/17
Week 5 is a very strong week. It has low crowds and prices, and Disney World’s holiday program at the Magic Kingdom will be in place
- 5: 11/11/17
Weeks 6 is your best 2017 Spring Break bet, with low crowds and moderate prices
- 6: 3/4/17
Weeks 7 and 8 are similar to week 4 but projected at slightly higher crowds. They share great late autumn weather. These are near-tied, but are in calendar order as the better weather is earlier this time of year
- 7: 10/14/17
- 8: 10/21/17
Weeks 9 to 12 are all in the same 2017 post-Easter stretch, and share low crowds, moderate prices, and nice spring weather. They are in calendar order, as the weather is better earlier in this period
- 9: 4/22/17
- 10: 4/29/17
- 11: 5/6/17
- 12: 5/13/17
Week 13 is the second-best 2017 Spring Break week, with low crowds and moderate prices
- 13: 2/25/17
This completes the weeks in 2017 that are recommended.
2017 WEEKS I’M NOT SO KEEN ON
Weeks 14-20 all have moderate crowd levels, with different prices and weather. I don’t particularly recommend moderate-crowd weeks for first time visitors, but they are quite manageable, and I would go myself such weeks with no hesitation.
They are in order of least to most crowded, and within crowd groups are sorted by price.
- 14: 11/4/17. “Jersey Week”—teacher meetings in New Jersey, leading to a massive temporary immigration of New Jersey families to Orlando. Crowds moderate-minus, prices low to moderate, almost never with major discounts.
- 15: 5/20/17 Similar to week 12, slightly more heat and humidity and crowds.
- 16: 10/8/17. Columbus Day week, with higher crowds and prices than the great weeks (ranked 7, 8 and 4) that follow it
- 17: 8/5/17 Moderate-plus crowds as the summer season begins to fade away
- 18: 6/3/17. Beginning of summer–similar crowds to week 17, but slightly higher prices in deluxes
- 19: 4/1/17. Moderate+ crowds and high prices. My draft of this material had this as a better week, but the late-arriving crowd facts ended up not supporting such a position. Moreover, crowds may be higher than my forecast.
- 20: 4/15/17. The week after Easter is usually quite bad, but the late Easter in 2016 has moderated the number of kids on break, especially after Easter Monday. However, crowds may be higher than my forecast.
Note: in May 2017 I changed the crowd forecast for the week of 12/16/17 to “moderate+.” This would shift it into this group, with a ranking after 20 and before 21.
Weeks 21-28 have one thing in common: they occur during the peak of the hurricane season. Hurricanes are rare and even more rarely affect a Disney World vacation, but for first-timers who may never return, why not just avoid the risk? For returning visitors, though, the low-crowd weeks among this group can be wonderful times to visit.
They are ranked in order of first crowd levels, and within the same crowd level prices.
Weeks 21 and 22 have among the lowest crowds and lowest prices of the year.
- 21: 9/9/17
- 22: 9/16/17
Weeks 23 to 25 are similar, but with slightly higher crowds than 21 and 22–with 25 forecast to have slightly higher crowds than 23 and 24
- 23: 9/2/17
- 24: 9/23/17
- 25: 8/26/17
Week 26 is at the outer range of low crowds
- 26: 8/19/17
Weeks 27 and 28 are the only moderate-crowd weeks in this hurricane group
- 27: 9/30/17
- 28: 8/12/17
2017 WEEKS TO AVOID AT WALT DISNEY WORLD
There’s two groups of weeks to avoid: high crowd weeks and weeks when rides are often closed.
The first group, ranked 29-45, should be avoided because of crowds ranging from high to unbelievable.
This group includes all of later June, July and early August (massive crowds). It also includes the busy March Spring Break weeks beginning 3/11/2017, and the holiday weeks—President’s Day week, the week before Easter, Thanksgiving week, and the weeks around Christmas.
Click the table for exact rankings within these lousy weeks.
The next group includes the January and early February weeks when rides are often closed for repair or refurbishment—weeks 46-52.
Some of these weeks have the lowest crowds and lowest prices of the year.
(But not all--click the table above.)
However, this is the peak time for ride closures at Walt Disney World, especially the January weeks.
If this may be your only family visit, why go when you know some of the best of Disney World will be closed?
If you must go during this period, avoid the first days of January (massive crowds), the Martin Luther King Day (1/14/17 arrival date) holiday weekend, and the week before the Pro Bowl (which is January 29th).
The Marathon Weekend (affecting arrival dates of 12/31/16 and 1/7/17) complicates the parks as well.
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237 comments
Hi Dave, were visiting 27 Feb to 13 March 2017… I think you’ve already said the vast majority of this visit should be good crowd wise. I’m thinking itineraries now… Do you have any thoughts or a link to a busy day calendar?
Cheers
Richard, in general avoid parks on days they have EMH, and in addition avoid MK on Sundays and Mondays.
Cheers Dave.. Where would I find when EMH are for that period. Am I over analysing things ? Basically I’m taking my son , who has a life threatening illness, on a wish trip… I want it to go without hitches… It’s hard to plan ahead as he has specific medical needs every day . I’m getting stressed just trying to sort things never mind thinking about fast passes/ qsdp/ and now when I should visit each park??
Richard a good plan is essential. See this for an example.
You can see EMH for Feb here and for March here.
We are booked at POR the week of Feb 5 – 12 and I was concerned about ride closures but having just looked it up, it appears that there is no ride closures currently. Am I mistaken about this or are they not posted yet?
Lorelee, it’s too early–they commonly show up 6 weeks or so ahead of time.
Hi Richard –
If you haven’t done so yet – it would really help you to create a MyDisneyExperience.com account. (There is also an app). If staying on property, you’ll be able to link your reservation. But on or off property you’ll be able to make dining reservations, schedule FastPass+, see park hours and so much more. It’s really a great resource for any Disney trip.
Be sure to visit Guest Services when arriving at the parks so they can help you, and depending on your sons medical condition, possibly provide you with a Guest Assistance Card. And let you know of the resources available to your family.
Remember that ultimately this trip is about making memories. Even the most planned days can have hiccups. Don’t over plan. Allow for the unexpected. Plan what you must to meet your sons needs, but leave room for the special Pixie Dust filled moments.
Thank you Dave and Kelly, for your advice.Its very important to me that this goes well. I’ve already been on to both Disney and Universal… Disney are helping with planning fast passes and itinerary at beginning of year( they’ve very kindly given us 5 FPs a day and a VIP viewing experience …. Universal ,very kindly, are giving is a Gold VIP pass for our visits. So the pixie dust has started already. I’ve logged into MDE too. I think it’s still important to have a rough plan of where we’d like to visit each day . I noticed the EMH are in the evening .. How does that work? Also Dave .. Have I read it wrongly? Are there no parades when we visit… It says’ none’ on the page you linked to.
Regards Richard
Richard, the evening parade at MK will be shutting down shortly, with no announced replacement. During evening EMH the park stays open two hours later for eligible guests. Evening EMH has less of an effect on overall park crowding than morning EMH.
Hi Dave,
We will be arriving Sat, April 1st/2017. We will be leaving in the afternoon on Sat, April 8th/2017.
We are staying outside of the parks.
My question for you is…do you have an itinerary we could follow? This will be our 2nd trip to Disney. The last time was 2011. In 2011, we used your Christmas itinerary and it was AWESOME!
Hey Brad, you can use this as a start–it’s not an exact fit for your days, and I have to update a few things but that will happen well before your FastPass+ date, but its a start. (This itin is for a Saturday arrival, but crowds might be too high for it–you can use it, though, to pick days, and modify the days based on the daily agendas in the high crowd version.)
Like the December itinerary, it’s integrated and goes everywhere. On a return trip you might be more selective, and more interested in days off. To build an itinerary for that, start with the one and two day park plans in Chapter 6 of my book.
We are planning a big family vacation Nov 12th 2017. Does that week have jersey week or food and wine with it?
Dena, F&W dates for then are not out yet, but my guess is that the last F&W day will be 11/13. Jersey week formally ends 11/12 in 2017, but you may see spillover into 11/13. The rest of that week should be great!!
Planning a trip next year. Teying to decide between late April and early September. 3rd trip overall 2nd in 2 years. Not to worried about the hurricanes just trying to plan around crowds. These seem to be the 2 slowest times of the year and take advantage of package deals that allow price reductions. Any recommendations?
Chance, also consider January after MLK into February (ending by 2/14/17). That period also sees low prcies and crowds–both lower than late April. I would choose between this period and September.
One last question. Wife now has the idea to go sometime in October for my sons birthday. How are the crowds and wait times. Looking at your chart the week of the 21 looks doable. I know epcot has the food and wine festival, but are there any other events at other parks?
Chance see this–about 2016, but events should be similar
Hi there. We are planning a trip to Disney either 3/4/17 – 3/10/17 or 4/15/17 – 4/21/17. Will we run into high crowds or high prices?
Shannon, your March option will be better on every dimension.
I am trying to decide between 1/28/17 and 2/4/17. I am only concerned with crowd levels. You have 2/4 as slighy lower crowd levels. Does that mean that the cheerleading competitions that week shouldn’t affect crowds (or volume level, lol) at the parks that week? Do you think 2/4 will be noticeably less busy? Thank you so much!
Kelly in an average week there’s more than 150,000 people on site each day. So the small increment from cheerleading makes no material difference.
We booked a last minute trip this coming Martin Luther King weekend (Jan 13-16, 2017). I’ve seen many other crowd predictor calendars as being highly crowded predictions for that weekend. I though it wouldn’t be so crowded, not like Easter break or feb crowded. Any information on what crowds looked like past MLK weekends? Also any event or group tours that might increase crowd attendance that weekend?
Thank you so much!
Lisette, see this http://www.easywdw.com/easy/calendars/january-2017-disney-world-crowd-calendar/
Thanks Dave for getting back to me. The website you recommended rated that MLK weekend crowd rating as a 8 out of 10 and your firstvisit ranking above said 4 low +. Any reason for the discrepancy?
Lisette–sorry, I misunderstood your question. My crowd rankings are for the 9 day periods Saturday-Sunday. That overall period is low+, with high- crowds the first few days, then low the rest of the week…
Ohhhh…that makes sense. Thank you for the clarification. I should expect to see a big crowd the weekend we go.
Hi Dave, We are starting to plan our 2017 WDW trip for late November. We are trying to take advantage of lower crowds but also school days off, what do you recommend for the day after Thanksgiving through Wednesday the following week? Looking at the crowd chart we will have both extremely high but also very low crowds.
Sara, Friday and Saturday will be crowded but manageable with a good plan. The rest of your dates will be fine so long as you pick the right parks the right days, which I can help you with, after the November calendar comes out in a few months.
Dave, thank you! I’ll look for the November calendar. We used your site and book on our last visit in 2015, it was spot on and made our trip even more magical. Thank you again for your consistently impeccable advice.
Great, Sara!!
Looking at Columbus Day week 2017. We will not be going for the whole week so is there a better time to be there during that week. Better to wait until Tuesday? or another day?
Heather some schools have the whole week off as their fall break, but crowds do drop after Columbus Day.
We were thinking of going to Disney 5/12- 5/15. First time visitors. Do you think that is a good time to go?
Marshaq, see my comments about that week on this page.
Are there better resorts to stay at that makes it easier to get to magic kingdom & epcot?
The resort that is most convenient to both, Heather, is the Polynesian.
My daughter and I have one day to visit – January 19th. Any recommendations on Fast Passing, buying ticket ahead of time, etc. We’ve decided the Magic Kingdom would be best. We both love rides. Any advice you have would be appreciated.
Donna, I can’t particularly recommend that–one day Magic Kingdom tickets are wildly expensive, (~$112 each that day), park hours are short (it closes at 8p) and at least some FastPass+ (7 dwarfs mine train) are already booked up.
If you must do it, get your My Disney Experience set up ASAP, buy your tickets through it, and pick and set up your FastPass+.
I don’t have any one day itineraries on this site, but here is an example from my book
Basically, select the rides you want to see. This might help. Of the most popular, pre-book 3 FP+ and then arrive well before open so that you beat the crowds and see three or four of the rest of the most popular then.
Hi Dave, were still on plan for 27 Feb to 13 March…… Are things still looking good for this spell? Any further tips you have would be welcome
Cheers
Hi Richard, yes, that will be good until March 10.
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