Category — Disney World Crowds

DISNEY WORLD 2016 SUMMER CROWDS: THE PRINCIPLES

Walt Disney World summer crowds are governed by two factors:

• Public school summer break calendars, which have start and end dates more varied than you’d think
• The beginning of the peak of the hurricane season, in mid-August

Pretty much all kids are off all of July. As a result, July is the busiest summer month, and during it, the week that includes the 4th of July the busiest week.

Varied dates for when summer breaks begin means June can start well, and then build to high crowd levels.

August has the opposite pattern, beginning with high crowds, but, through the combination of a trickle turning to a flood of back-to-school dates, and savvy travelers avoiding the peak of the hurricane season, it ends quite un-crowded.

Families that can only visit in the summer (for example, school teachers) should go as early in June or as late in August as their schedules permit. [Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD PRESIDENTS DAY CROWDS

Based on the comments I get on this site, year after year one of the things that most surprises people is how crowded the week of Presidents Day is at Walt Disney World.

Most schools just have one day off–the Monday holiday.

However, even so lots of other school kids have a four day weekend (Friday-Monday or Saturday-Tuesday).

Even more have the whole week that includes Presidents Day off. Most of the latter are from the Northeast, and really, really need a break from the snow and cold…and thus the massive crowds that week at Disney World!

See the right side of chart, which shows the weighted proportion of the 12.4 million kids in my 2015-2016 school year calendar database with more than a three day weekend over President’s Day:

In 2016 Presidents Day is February 15th, shown in red.

Breaks begin the Friday before, continue at high levels through Tuesday, then stay at medium-high levels the rest of the week. As a result, crowds peak through Tuesday but are at high levels through Saturday the 20th.

In my 2016 crowd calendar I have the week that includes Presidents Day rated as 10/higher crowds.  By day, expect 11/highest crowds Saturday through Tuesday, and 9/high crowds the rest of the week.

MARDI GRAS CROWDS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Mardi Gras, on the left side of the chart, is the opposite. My comments worried about it tend to come from the few southeastern areas that have a multi-day holiday around it. But hardly anyone else does.

So Mardi Gras has little effect on February crowds unless it falls (as it did in 2015) the day after Presidents Day, in which case it makes a lousy week even more horrible.

In my 2016 crowd calendar I have the week that includes Mardi Gras rated as 5/moderate minus. This rating combines low crowds early in the week and high crowds later. Expect lower crowds through Wednesday the 10th, building crowds Thursday, and highest crowds Friday and over the weekend.

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DISNEY WORLD CROWDS FROM LATER DECEMBER 2015 TO EARLY JANUARY 2016

Disney World sees its highest crowds and prices of the year in the later third of December and the beginning of January, in the week that includes Christmas, and the next week that includes New Year’s Eve.

This is for a pretty basic reason: kids are out of school these weeks.

However, not every school district has the same break schedule.

In 2015/2016, more kids are out  New Year’s week than early in Christmas week, but there’s still plenty enough on break Christmas week to wildly crowd the parks…

SCHOOL BREAKS AND DISNEY WORLD CROWDS

Most years, there two typical sorts of breaks:

• Long breakers–districts that take at least 2 full weeks (and three weekends) off
• Short breakers–districts that take off as close to only December 24 to January 1 as they can

In 2015, a Friday Christmas, and the patterning of school breaks around it, will make it easy for many families to head to Walt Disney World either week.

But the Friday New Year’s Day results in no schools re-opening between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

So almost all kids will be off all of the week that includes New Year’s Day, and unlike some years–like 2013–both weeks will be really lousy all week long.

ACTUAL 2015-2016 CHRISTMAS SEASON SCHOOL BREAKS

The chart above illuminates this.

It’s based on data from a weighted sample including more than 160 of the largest relevant US public school districts.

(For how the database is built, see this.)

The weekends are in black and the two holidays–Christmas and New Year’s Day–in red.  Click the image enlarge it.

You can see that many breaks begin Saturday the 19th, with hardly any kids on break before then, but almost 30% of kids are still in school the first three weekdays of Christmas week.

By Christmas Eve, though, everyone is out, and pretty much everybody stays out of school through January 3, 2016.

A few–very few–breaks continue past January 3.

So I’ve classed both weeks as 11/highest crowds, but of the two, New Year’s week will be the worse.

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This site’s Disney World crowd calendars always show crowds dropping off in later August.

For example, in 2015, crowd rankings go from 8/high-minus at the beginning of August down to 2/lower in early September.

This page both explain how that comes about and also reviews how the site’s crowd calendars are built.

END OF SUMMER 2015 CROWDS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

The highest-crowd periods at Walt Disney World all have one thing in common: they are convenient times for parents to take their kids to Orlando. That is, they are times that kids are out of school and that parents traditionally can take off of work.

What’s not so clear until you do the numbers is that actual school vacation dates are much more varied than you’d think.  And there’s no good source you can go to that explains what all these varied dates are.

So every year about this time one of my nieces goes to more than 180 school district websites and captures all the key vacation dates for the upcoming academic year.

(This time of year because you’d be surprised many districts don’t put their calendars up for the upcoming year until June; this year, 170 of the 186 had their calendars out by the time we agreed to stop collecting data.)

These include the 100 largest school districts in the U.S., plus almost 90 more of the next largest school districts in the more highly-populated states east of the Mississippi–that is, the states from which in particular Walt Disney World draws its visitors.

I then create a database that shows based on district enrollment every kid who is off on every date, sum these by state, and weight them based on the state’s proportion of total US visits to this website (because Disney won’t tell me actual visitation by state!). See the image above for a screenshot example.

Finally, I calculate percentage of total weighted kids on break by date and use that to inform the crowd calendars. (There’s about 12.4 million actual kids in the database.)

Above are the results of this for when kids go back to school in 2015.

So you can see that

• Kids don’t start going back to school in real numbers until Monday 8/10
• More than a third are back in school the week beginning 8/15
• Almost 60% are back during the week beginning 8/22, and
• More than 80% are back in school before Labor Day.

In 2015, pretty much all kids are back in school by the Wednesday after Labor Day.

Moreover, vacation patterns typically don’t have people returning from their vacation the night before school begins, so the effect of these back-to-school dates is offset into earlier August by around a week.

Thus, in the 2015 crowd calendar, the week of 8/1 is rated 8/high-minus crowds, the week of 8/8 7/moderate-plus crowds, the week of 8/15 6/moderate crowds and the week of 8/22 4/low crowds.

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FALL BREAK CROWDS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD?

One of the things you’ll see now and then on the web is the claim that “fall breaks from school create big crowds at Walt Disney World.”

“Fall breaks” are multi-day school holidays before Thanksgiving, and, if material, would have an effect on Disney World—because Disney World is most crowded when it’s easy for kids to go.

If you check the facts, though, you’ll find that fall breaks are both uncommon and scattered across October and early November—other than Jersey Week and the weeks before and including Columbus Day.

Outside of those three weeks, you are much more likely to run into trouble in the fall by choosing to go to the Magic Kingdom or Epcot on a bad day—

• Epcot on a day when it’s open late for Food and Wine,
• The Magic Kingdom on a day when Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is not showing, and evening hours and entertainment offerings are thus more extensive.

See the chart, which shows the weighted percent of US school kids in my database with more than a three-day weekend in 2015 in October and in November before Thanksgiving week.

In it, weekends are in black, and Columbus Day is in red. (The mid-week Veteran’s Day has no impact on breaks in 2015.) Everything else is blue.

The first conclusion you can draw is that the only time when more than 5% of kids are having more than a three day weekend is just before and then over the week that includes Columbus Day.

These are already known to be moderate crowd weeks—from the Columbus Day holiday and Canadian Thanksgiving—so as a “fall break” there’s no real news here.

Note also that no kids in my database of the 2105-2106 school year calendars of more than 12.4 million kids have a break weekend that extends to Veterans Day.  This holiday is celebrated on its actual date—November 11–although if it occurs over the weekend, days off will be on Friday or Monday.  So more than half of years, it does not lead to a three day weekend, as it does not in 2015. Since it is a Wednesday in 2015, breaks are not built around it at all.

Moreover, even if it does lead to a three-day weekend, most private, non-unionized employers don’t have it as a holiday, so it’s not a particularly great time for parents to go to Walt Disney World.

Second, beyond those, there’s not a lot of material fall breaks.  Yes, you can see them every week shown, but not much–at most around 5% of kids during Jersey Week. and more typically much less.  There’s just not enough here to materially affect your choices as to when to go to Walt Disney World, other than Jersey Week and the weeks before and including Columbus Day.

Note: none of this is about Thanksgiving week, which is quite crowded and a lousy time to go!

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The latest edition of WDW Magazine, which focuses on crowds at Walt Disney World, is now out!

The magazine is available on iTunes, for Android, and on the web.

(You can also sample a free issue here.)

The edition covers many topics related to crowds at Disney World.  The centerpiece this month is a dialogue between Carl Trent (editor and publisher, and also Chief Dad behind Dad’s Guide to WDW) and me on the best times each month in 2015 to visit.

Those keeping track at home will know that this is third version of such that I’ve helped with

1. This dialogue with Carl
2. The Week Rankings, designed for first timers who may never return, on this site.
3. The material I co-wrote with Josh in Chapter 4 “When to Go” of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit

Each is good–and largely consistent!

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