Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World has released its 2011 resort hotel prices, and you can now book packages with Walt Disney World (or a travel agent) through December 2011.

See  2011 price season at Walt Disney World for more.

(I was a little cocky in my initial post on this, and to aid humility have left my original material below…)

I got one date wrong in my forecast 2011 price seasons –I had the summer season beginning a week earlier than in fact it does.

I have fixed that, but continue to leave my 2011 price seasons  page labeled “forecast” and “projected” as there are some oddities in December 2011 that I need to resolve first before shifting it from forecast to actual. 

More to come on December 2011.

MORE ON WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2010 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2010 Week Picker App, see this
  • For 2011 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2010 price seasons, see this
  • For 2011 price seasons, see this
  • For projected 2012 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

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NEW YEAR’S EVE AT DISNEY WORLD

New Year’s Eve festivities will happen on December 31, 2010 at Disney World’s Epcot and Magic Kingdom theme parks.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios has no special New Year’s events, but will be open late. The Animal Kingdom has no special events and closes at 8p.

• Epcot is open until 1a on New Year’s Eve; Disney’s Hollywood Studios until midnight for the general public, and 3a for Walt Disney World Resort hotel guests; and the Magic Kingdom is open until 2a
• The Magic Kingdom will have New Year’s Eve fireworks at 8.30 and 11.50p, and Epcot will have fireworks at 7.30 and 11.45p
• Note that alcohol is not available at the Magic Kingdom, but is available at Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios

For more details on operating hours, see this.

The Magic Kingdom will have the same fireworks at the same times on 12/30.  This date will likely be a little less crowded than 12/31.

For more thoughts on how to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Walt Disney World, see this from the Disney Parks blog.

For thoughts on how to manage the crowds, see this.

For dining discounts during this period, see this.

DISNEY WORLD PARK CLOSURES ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

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OVERVIEW

Winter at Walt Disney World—loosely defined as November through February–is the most variable of seasons.

The weather is literally variable—cooler, and with typical daily highs ranging from the low 60s to the 80s. Tornadoes can be an issue during this period. See this for more.

Crowds are both near their lowest—in January between New Years and the Martin Luther King day weekend—and at their highest, over the week that includes New Years Eve.

Prices are the lowest of the year twice—between the end of Thanksgiving weekend and mid-December, and from early January through mid-February (the value season). They also hit their highest level of the year in winter, over the weeks that include Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
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OVERVIEW: FEBRUARY 2011 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews February 2011 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, operating hours, adds a few other notes, and ends with week by week summaries.
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OVERVIEW: TOURINGPLANS.COM’S “CROWD CALENDAR 2.0”

The crew behind the Unofficial Guide—creators, among other things, of TouringPlans.com, Lines, and The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2011, have released a new version of their venerable daily crowd calendar.

The new release takes a great resource and makes it even better.

While it has many new features, the most important one is that the crowd predictions on the TouringPlans.com daily crowd calendar now match the most typical reason people look for crowd calendars. That is, the calendar now represents an estimate of general Walt Disney World theme park crowds on a given day.

Users of this site’s guidance on when to go, or its crowd calendar, or its itineraries, don’t need the touringplans.com daily crowd calendar.

But even so, it is a great and very affordable resource to use to double check my thoughts, valuable for all, and especially valuable for those designing their own itineraries.

MORE ON CROWD CALENDAR 2.0

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THE WALT DISNEY WORLD PEAK SEASON

I recently posted on the 2012 Spring Break season at Walt Disney World.

Because this period is during Disney World’s “peak season,” and there’s a lot of confusion about what “peak” means, I thought I’d clarify the peak season and its implications for crowds and prices at Walt Disney World.

The key messages?

• While prices are quite high during the peak season…they get even higher! The peak season is not the peak of Disney World prices…
• While some periods of the peak season are quite crowded, some are not…and other times of the year, not in the peak season, are even more crowded! The peak season is not the peak of crowds, and some periods within it are relatively uncrowded.

THE PEAK SEASON AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

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