Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

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

For example, in 2014, 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 2014 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 or July; this year, about 165 of the 180 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 eighty 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 12.6 million actual kids in the database.)

Above are the results of this for when kids go back to school in 2014.

So you can see that kids don’t start going back to school in real numbers until the week beginning 8/9; almost half are back in school the week beginning 8/16; almost 70% are back during the week beginning 8/23, and more than 90% are back in school shortly 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 2014 crowd calendar, the week of 8/2 is rated 8/high-minus crowds, the week of 8/9 7/moderate-plus crowds, the week of 8/16 6/moderate crowds and the week of 8/23 3/low crowds!

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OVERVIEW: FEBRUARY 2015 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews February 2015 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 2015 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 12th through Sunday the 22nd–we will see high crowds and high prices.

[Read more →]

OVERVIEW: JANUARY 2015 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews January 2015 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 2015 will be dominated by holiday crowds and prices, but after the 3rd, most days will see low crowds and low prices–with upticks around the Marathon (weekend of the 1oth) 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.

New Year’s week–ending in 2015 around January 3–has among the highest crowds and prices of the year. Park closings to additional guests are common in this period, as are 8a openings and daily morning Extra Magic Hours.

[Read more →]

OVERVIEW: DECEMBER 2014 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews December 2014 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 December, with lower crowds, lower prices, and wonderful Christmas decorations and events, has the best weeks of the year to visit.

Later December with Christmas and New Year’s weeks has the highest crowds and prices of the year.

Park closings to additional guests are common in this period, as are 8a openings and daily morning Extra Magic Hours.

December also has a special party, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, a special evening event–with its own ticket–that has become a family tradition for many. [Read more →]

OVERVIEW: NOVEMBER 2014 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews November 2014 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

Mid-November has some of the best times of the year to visit Disney World, with cooler weather, low crowds, low prices, and fun special events.

The beginning of the month is not so good, with moderate crowds from Jersey Week, and Thanksgiving week, with high crowds and higher prices than the rest of the month, should be avoided.

[Read more →]

OVERVIEW: OCTOBER 2014 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews October 2014 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, and operating hours; adds a few other notes; and ends with week by week summaries.

Late October has some of the best times of the year to visit Disney World, with nice weather, low crowds, low prices, and fun special events.

The beginning of the month is OK, but not so good, as the first week is still in the peak of the hurricane season, and the second week sees extra crowds and higher prices from Columbus Day.

[Read more →]