Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

DISNEY WORLD CROWDS FROM LATER DECEMBER 2012 TO EARLY JANUARY 2013

Disney World usually 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 2012/2013, many more kids are out Christmas week than New Year’s week, but there’s enough on break New Year’s week to still crowd the parks…

SCHOOL BREAKS AND DISNEY WORLD CROWDS

[Read more →]

ANALYSIS OF 2013 DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTEL PRICE CHANGES

Walt Disney World’s 2013 prices came out last week, and as usual on average they’ve gone up.

The only big deal for first time visitors is the switch of the third week of December 2013 from Fall Season to the Peak Season, raising hotel prices that week 25-50%.

But there’s some other interesting and unusual features to Disney World’s 2013 prices (actual reductions; effective reductions; new seasons; changes in the traditional dates of old seasons), so what follows analyses 2013 price changes at Walt Disney World resort hotels compared to 2012 by resort price class.

VALUE RESORT 2013 PRICE CHANGES: POP CENTURY EXAMPLE

Across 2013 price seasons, at first blush Pop Century 2013 prices have gone up a lot.

However, when you adjust to this site’s 8 night itineraries, and back out the $10/night charge for refrigerators that’s now gone, for all major seasons prices are either barely up or lower than 2012. But three 2013 weeks have been re-seasoned compared to 2012, and as a result, their prices are peppered. [Read more →]

DECEMBER 2013 NOW INCLUDES PEAK SEASON PRICES

Disney World made most of 2013 available for on-line booking yesterday, and has also set its 2013 prices.

In recent years, December has had two price seasons: “Fall,” which is just a bit more expensive than the lowest prices of the year, and “Holiday,” the most expensive prices of the year, with the break between them around December 20.*

December 2013 is different. [Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD 2013 PRICES RELEASED

As of this morning, almost all of 2013 is now priced and bookable on Walt Disney World’s web site.

Bookable dates go out 500 days, so later November and all of December 2013 is still not bookable.  By my math, any arrival date in the year will be available by August 18, 2012.

If you neglect your real job and do a lot of test reservations, you can also infer the 2013 price seasons.

Having done so, it seems the projections on this site were dead on with a few exceptions:

• The regular season at the deluxes does not run from the week after Easter through mid-July.  Instead, it ends May 30, and a new deluxe summer season–with slightly lower prices–runs from then til mid-July
• The fall season at the values and moderates starts a couple of weeks earlier than I had thought it would–on September 14th.
• December 2013 now has a third price season–“Peak”–from 12/13/2013 through 12/19/2013, making this week much more expensive than I’d thought it would be.

This site’s 2013 price seasons page is still labeled as “projected,” because while the “x% higher than the lowest of the year” stuff, is pretty close, there’s still a lot of detailed slogging to do…which will take a while…Also there seems to be some weirdness still in the Disney World 2013 prices (e.g. Caribbean Beach being $190 some nights, and $191 the next).

DISNEY WORLD 2013 PRICES TO COME OUT NEXT WEEK

Multiple sources, including crack commenters Brandon and Terri, have noted that Disney World will begin online booking for 2013 visits next week, on July 11.

This means that the full 2013 Disney World resort hotel price schedule will be out by then as well. (2013 Disney World ticket prices were announced in June, and will be good until Disney raises them, likely in the summer of 2013.)

THE 2013 VALUE SEASON AT DISNEY WORLD TO BEGIN JANUARY 6TH?

We won’t know for sure until Disney release the prices itself, but it looks like the value season for 2013 won’t begin until January 6.

You can currently book into January 2013 if your arrival date is in 2012, and the 2013 prices Disney shows when you try to book, as I write this, are sky high January 1st, drop like a rock the 2nd, then go up again for the 3rd, 4th and 5th, and then on January 6 drop to what looks like value season levels for the rest of the month, other than the Marathon and holiday weekends.

This may change next week–the 2nd looks especially odd–but is consistent with the thought that the week beginning 12/29/2012 will be much busier than I had earlier forecast.

WHERE ARE THE JANUARY 2013 ITINERARIES?

Usually by now I would have published suggested itineraries and To-Do Lists for January 2013, and published an overview of the month (like this one for December 2012).

However, Disney’s calendar for January 2013 is incomplete–it’s still missing Extra Magic Hours.  These affect the itineraries, so I won’t publish material for January until they are up. Josh at easyWDW.com suggested last week that the delay is because Disney World is sorting out how to schedule and price for the crowds the week of the 29th, and perhaps also for the Marathon.

If Josh is right–and he usually is–then the January schedules should be sorted out by the 11th as well, and I’ll get the updates out as soon as I can after the Extra Magic Hours are posted.

WALT DISNEY WORLD CROWDS THE WEEKS OF 12/15  AND 12/29/2102

I now have data from ~180 of the around ~200 school districts whose vacation calendars I track (more calendars than you’d think don’t come out until June or later), which is enough to say that

• Crowds will be lower at the end of the week beginning 12/15/2012 than I thought they would, and
• Crowds will be worse from January 2 2013 to January 6 2013 than I thought they would.

Specifically, many fewer districts than I had projected are taking off from 12/18 through 1/1, and are instead taking 12/22 though 1/6 off.  As a result, in 2012 crowds will be lower December 18, 19 and 20 than I’d been projecting, and they’ll be higher January 2 through January 6th 2013. [Read more →]