Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

FALL BREAK CROWDS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD?

One of the things you’ll see now and then on blogs and discussion boards is the claim that “fall breaks from school crowd 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 Columbus Day weekend. [Read more →]

2014 RESORT PRICE SEASONS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

The material below shows the different resort price seasons at Walt Disney World at different times of the year in 2014.

Resort prices, however, are almost twice as high during some periods as they are at others.

(For 2015 prices, see this, and projected 2016 prices, this.)

2014 DISNEY WORLD PRICE SEASONS

[Read more →]

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

For example, in 2013, crowd rankings go from 9/high at the beginning of August down to 1/lowest 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 2013 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 almost 200 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, about 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 2013.

So you can see that kids don’t start going back to school in real numbers until the week of 8/10; almost half are back in school the week of 8/17; almost 70% are back by the week of 8/24, and almost 90% are back in school by the week of 9/2.

Thus, in the 2013 crowd calendar, the week of 8/10 is rated 9/high crowds, the week of 8/17 6/moderate crowds, the week of 8/24 2/lower crowds, and the week of 9/2 1/lowest crowds!

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2014 DISNEY WORLD PRICES TO COME OUT JULY 10

Disney World’s 2014 prices and packages will be out, reportedly, on July 10.

If this happens (sometimes delays come up) and if things works as they have in the past, as of that date or shortly thereafter you’ll be able to book packages for 2014 up to 500 days ahead on Disney World’s website–through the week before Thanksgiving 2014.

(Note that you can always book “room only” 500 days ahead–just not always on the website…)

Once the prices come out, I’ll fix my 2014 price seasons forecasts, and use those–and an updated version of the 2014 Disney World crowd calendar, which I’ll also get out in July–to revise the 2014 week rankings, if needed.

OVERVIEW: JANUARY 2014 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews January 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 January 2014 will be dominated by holiday crowds and prices, but after the 4th, most days will see low crowds and low prices–with upticks around the Marathon (weekend of the 11th) 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 2014 around January 4–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.

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FALL FREE DINING MEANS SLIGHTLY LONGER LINES–BUT NOT ENOUGH TO MATTER

Every year shortly after the traditional fall free dining offer comes out, I start getting questions like Katie’s about whether free dining will make the parks more crowded than my forecasts.

The short answer is “no.” Free Dining this period has been happening forever, and is thus already built into the crowd forecasts.

The longer answer is a little more complicated, but still mostly no:

• Yes, free dining increases crowds more than they otherwise would have been (though, as noted, this is already reflected in the crowd calendars). But not much. If Disney sells 30% more of its hotel capacity because of free dining, that’s on the order of 30,000 more people in the hotels per night.  But divide this across four theme parks, the water parks, Downtown Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, and off days, and it’s a drop in the bucket!  And, to boldly repeat myself, this is already reflected in the crowd calendar.
• Because the free dining periods is shorter this year, it may have slightly more of a crowding effect in September 2013, as people who can do so–most can’t–move trips from the later August periods traditionally offered into September.  The effect of this is naturally capped by both the limited number of WDW hotel rooms, and resistance to taking kids out of school their first month back. Moreover, savvy travelers avoid going to Florida during the peak of the hurricane season–which (along with September being a tough time to take kids out of school) is exactly why Disney offers this deal!
• September crowds have been going up bit by bit for years now, principally because of growth in South American visitors on their “spring break” (recall that the seasons in South America are upside down). This actually has more of an impact than free dining, but it’s still small.
• Finally, because of the kick-off of Mickey’s Not-So-Halloween Party September 10, 2013 which days you go to the Magic Kingdom will really effect the level of crowds there.  See this.

Now when people like me talk about “crowds” we really mean “wait times.”

You may well see larger crowds in the streetscapes of the parks (you have larger street crowds during low-wait times, as not as many guest are in the lines!), and because of free dining, all the more fun restaurants will be booked solid.

But the wait times for rides will still be low compared to other times of the year. 

Now if you roll in at 11.30a, wait times will be high–as they always are by late morning.  Common sense and a good itinerary are still required. But wait times will still be much better than the equivalent times during the more crowded times of the year!