Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

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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For Spring Break 2012, click here.

OVERVIEW: DISNEY WORLD DURING THE 2011 SPRING BREAK SEASON

As I noted previously here, Disney World Spring Break 2011 is a little different because of how late Easter is–April 24, as late as it has happened since 1943.

Disney World Spring Break crowds are driven by three factors. 

• The least important is college spring break dates, which will peak the first two full weeks of March 2011.
• Next is the wish for Northerners to get out of the cold, which begins over President’s Day weekend and continues through March
• Most important is the timing of school kids’s Spring Break dates.

I’ve recently analyzed 2011 public school spring breaks (March to May) for 135 school districts covering more than ten million kids. 

Based on that and other data, this page highlights the best and worst weeks to visit Walt Disney World during Spring Break 2011.

See also 2011 Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World, Ranked in Order.

SCHOOL SPRING BREAKS AND THEIR LIKELY EFFECTS ON 2011 WALT DISNEY WORLD CROWDS

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CHANGES TO 2011 WEEKS TO VISIT, MOSTLY MINOR

I’ve just published a revised version of this site’s 2011 Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World, Ranked in Order.

Nineteen of 2011’s 52 weeks had changes to their week ranking–but for 16 of these 19, the changes were minor–up or down 5 positions or fewer, and no change in how the week was categorized.

(I categorize the weeks as Recommended Weeks, Worse Weeks, and Weeks to Avoid.)

…BUT NOT ALL CHANGES ARE MINOR…

Three weeks, however, had major changes in their rankings, and two of these three also had changes in their category.

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OVERVIEW: JANUARY 2011 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews January 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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MADE YOUR PLANS FOR YOUR FIRST VISIT TO DISNEY WORLD YET?

This site recommends that first time family visitors arrive at Walt Disney World the Saturday a week after Thanksgiving—in 2010, that’s December 4th.

It also recommends that your Walt Disney World plans be firm more than 180 days in advance, because with that timing you can reserve the best—and most quick to book solid—Disney dining venues.

Well, 180 days before December 4 is tomorrow…so have you made your plans for your first trip to Disney World yet?

WHY IS THAT WEEK THE TARGET DATE?

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