Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

Routinely around this time of year I get comments from people trying to book one of my recommended December weeks that say something like “all the Disney World hotels are booked, so how can these be lower-crowd weeks?”

The short answer I always give is that this happens every year, and that Disney hotel occupancy is not a crowd calendar.

Quarter to quarter, Disney’s average occupancy is between 80 and 90%–it’s been around 90% for three quarters in a row.

The difference between 80% and 100% occupancy is about 5100 more rooms filled per night—or, at an average of 3 people per room, about 15,000 more people.

Fifteen thousand more people divided among 4 theme parks, two water parks, Universal, Sea World, Disney Springs, days off, etc. just don’t much matter to a set of theme parks that have a base average of more than 140,000 visitors a day anyway.

(This is the same reason that the cheering competitions, runDisney events, etc., don’t much matter to park crowding. Fifteen thousand cheerleaders or runners and family members may seem like a lot to you…but translate into less than 10 percent more people on property.)

Here’s the longer answer.

WHY THE DISNEY HOTELS ARE NOT A CROWD CALENDAR

Crowds at Disney World don’t come from the Disney hotels, which are almost always close to full (my 80-90% occupancy point above). They come from hotels outside the parks.

On an average day in 2014, there were 141,000 people in one of the four Disney World theme parks. (Math applied to this.) You can convert those into required hotel rooms by making assumptions about

• People per room (e.g. 3) and
• Rooms occupied by those not in a Disney theme park that day: people in a hotel room for a Disney World vacation but taking a day off from the four Disney theme parks and instead going to a water park, Downtown Disney, Universal, taking a day at the pool, shopping, or skipping the parks on their arrival night)—I’ll use 25% as my assumption on this.

So divide the 141,000 people in the parks on an average day by three people per room and you get 47,000 required rooms; shift this by another 25% for the folk on a Disney-oriented vacation but not in a Disney park that day and you get 63,000 required rooms.

Disney World itself right now has “only” about 25,500 rooms available, and probably can’t hit much above 95% occupancy for any sustained period (at 95% occupancy rooms are booked 19 out of every 20 nights) except in the rarest of circumstances, because there aren’t enough one night stays to fill in the tiny gaps that exist between 95% and 100% occupancy.

At 90% occupancy (Disney has been running near this level for almost a year now) it can serve 23,000 of the 63,000 needed rooms—just a little more than a third.

Occupancy at the Disney hotels doesn’t flex up and down much with crowds. Rather, Disney runs its price seasons and its deals to hit a fairly high level of average occupancy year round. Hotels fill up in the highest-crowd times, but they also fill up during times when savvy Disney World visitors (the most likely to occupy a Disney space—especially DVC owners) know are great times to visit—like early December!!

In other words, the crowds don’t come from Disney World hotels. They don’t flex enough. Rather, they come from off-property folk. So full Disney World hotels don’t necessarily mean high crowds. (They can mean that—it’s just that they don’t necessarily do so.)

Want a real crowd calendar?  See this.

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OVERVIEW: MARCH 2016 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews March 2016 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

The first week of March can be a great time to go to Disney World, and is so in 2016.  The rest of the month will be lousy–with high prices and high crowds.
[Read more →]

OVERVIEW: FEBRUARY 2016 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews February 2016 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

Early February 2016 will have some of the lowest crowds and prices of the year, but also the risk of ride closures.

The end of the month brings slightly higher prices and crowds, but better weather and few closures.

In between–the period from Thursday the 11th through Sunday the 21st–we will see high crowds and high prices.

[Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD SPRING BREAK CROWDS IN 2016

Walt Disney World Spring Break crowds are typically governed by two and a quarter factors:

• Public school Spring Break calendars, which are still largely framed around Easter but vary more than you might think
• The demand of snow-belters for a break from winter weather, which peaks in March, and
• The quarter factor, the date of President’s day.  Later President’s Days (which can range from February 15 to February 21) tend to make the first part of March better

An early Easter combines the first two factors, making for more than the usual horrible crowds in March but a great April; a late Easter spreads the first two factors out, yielding some good early March and early April weeks.

Easter 2016, on March 27, is early in its possible range. President’s Day 2016–covered in more detail here–is also early, February 16. Unusually, Passover 2016 is decoupled from Easter, and begins April 22.

As a result, 2016 Spring Break crowds at Walt Disney World will be

• Bad Presidents Day Week
• Fine the weeks beginning February 20th and February 27th
• Bad the week beginning March 5
• Very rough the weeks beginning March 12, 19, and 26
• ..and back to fine after April 2.  The weeks of April 2nd and 23rd may in fact have more crowds than I am forecasting, but not enough to move them into the “bad” category.

2016 PUBLIC SCHOOL SPRING BREAKS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON WALT DISNEY WORLD CROWDS

Although more and more school districts are moving away from an Easter-centered Spring Break, the plurality of kids still have the weeks before Easter or following Easter off.

As a result, the single biggest factor determining better and worse Spring Break weeks at Walt Disney World is the date of Easter–which can range from March 22 to April 25.

A later Easter has a couple of different effects: first, it spreads out the dates of breaks for school districts that don’t frame their breaks around Easter, and second, if particularly late, will push districts that typically take the week after Easter off into the week before Easter instead, to keep from compressing their May academic calendars.  

An earlier Easter has the opposite effects.  Districts that traditionally try to take the week after Easter off will be able to do so, and districts that don’t base their calendars on Easter will be largely compressed into a couple of March weeks.

The date of President’s Day–which can range from February 15 to February 21–also has an effect. Because many districts both have a spring break and also take the week of  President’s Day off, the later President’s Day is, the better early March will be–as parents avoid taking their kids out of school the weeks after a long President’s Day break.

The effect of the various dates in 2016 is to compress most 2016 school spring breaks into three consecutive weeks: those beginning March 12, March 19, and 26.  There’s also breaks clustered the weeks of April 2, 16, and 23rd, but since these weeks are not nearly as attractive to snow birds, I don’t forecast they will be bad.

ACTUAL 2016 SPRING BREAKS

The chart above illuminates this.

It’s based on data from a weighted sample including more than 165 of the largest relevant US public school districts.

(For how the database is built, see this. Weekends are in black, except Easter, in red. Click the image to enlarge it.)

President’s Day week–not charted, but see this–has a crowd ranking of 10/higher.  Crowds will start to show beginning the Thursday before and remain high through the 20th.

Next to no kids are on break in 2016 between the week after President’s Day and March 5. I rate the week beginning February 20 4/low-plus crowds–higher early in the week, better later.  The week beginning February 27 is rated 3/low crowds. Both of these are recommended weeks.

The week beginning March 5, 2016 has fewer kids on break than I thought I’d see when I published my draft crowd calendar 9 months ago, so I’ve bumped it down to 8/high-minus crowds. It may even turn out to be a moderate crowd week–but don’t bet on it.

The weeks beginning March 12, 19 and 26 have a lot of kids on break, and even more visitors coming to take a break from the snow. For 2016, I rate all three as 11/highest crowds.

Only scattered districts are on break in April 2016–e.g., Georgia districts the week of the 2nd, Massachusetts districts the week of the 16th, and New York districts the week of the 23rd–and people escaping winter are much less prevalent in April compared to March.

So I don’t see any real crowding issues from April 2, 2016 through mid-May. Almost all of these later spring weeks are recommended. If I’m wrong, the weeks of the 2nd and 23rd will be worse than I’m forecasting–but still OK.

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OVERVIEW: JANUARY 2016 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews January 2016 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

Early January 2016 will be dominated by holiday crowds and prices, but after the 2nd, most days will see low crowds and low prices–with upticks around the Marathon (weekend of the 9th) and the Martin Luther King Day three day holiday weekend.

Late January has some of the lowest crowds and prices of the year at Walt Disney World.

Even so, January is not recommended for first-time visitors who may never return, because of ride closures. For returning visitors–and first timers who know they can return–it’s a great time to visit.

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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 →]