We Want to Go to Disney. When Should We Go?
One of the first things you need to decide when are planning a Walt Disney World vacation is when to go. This is especially true of families with disabilities or special needs. You should take a good look at your family and their needs to determine what your priorities are and how that affects the time of year you want to visit Mickey Mouse.
A few examples of things you might ask yourself:
Does your child(ren) have a hard time keeping up with school? If so you may be limited to school holidays and summer breaks.
Do you need as few people around as possible? Then avoid peak times like summer and the week between Christmas and New Years Eve.
Is weather a factor? With the heat index, Orlando can feel even hotter than you may be used to. For those with Sickle Cell anemia or those with the inability to regulate body temperatures, you’ll need to be cognizant of weather patterns. Just because it may get colder where you live in September doesn’t mean it will be cool in Florida.
So what is the highest priority for your family? Below I’ll break down times of year by priorities and the pros and cons of each.
Priorities:
Priority–Crowds (especially for those with anxiety or cognitive disabilities like Autism):
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The week after Labor Day is a great time to go for lower crowds.
Pros: Most people are unwilling to pull their kids from school so close to the start of the school year. This makes for lower crowds and shorter waits compared to more crowded times.
Cons: The biggest cons of this week is the temperatures can still be high and your children will miss instruction as the school year is ramping up.
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The first two weeks of December and/or right after Thanksgiving.
Pros: Crowds are historically low during these periods too. Touring Plans (who have been tracking crowd levels for almost nine years) usually predict crowds to be around levels 2,3 and 4 with one day at 1 and three days at level 5. Level 1 is the lowest wait times. For Seven Dwarves Mine Train (one of if not the most popular attractions) has an average standby wait time of 55-110 minutes at level 1. By contrast the middle of summer at a crowd level of 10, the wait time averages 150-230 minutes. At level 1 most of the other tracked rides average 22.8-48 minutes.
Cons: If your children are in school and especially if they have any performances, they will likely miss those key performances, tests and papers. Colleges are in the midst of finals. Most grade schools change semesters in January, but in my experience lots of papers and tests are given before the holiday break. If your child has crucial deadlines for them, it is not the time to go.
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Between Mother’s Day and Memorial Day
Another historically low crowd period.
Pros: The weather tends to be nicer and you can attend the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot during this time.
Cons: So many assessment tests in schools during this time. This last year (2018) my own children had PARCC, three concerts, two AP tests and two awards nights during that two-week period. If you have a wide range in the ages of your children, or if they are a bit older, it will be difficult for you to pull them out of school and not miss much.
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Special events—Like Mickey’s-Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party
During these special ticketed events, they have a limited number of tickets to sell. This means crowds are overall smaller. They also bring out rarely seen characters like all seven dwarves and have special parades and firework shows. The last time we were there for a party in 2015, they were running the rides at full capacity even though the park crowds were lower. This meant we had a five-minute wait for Splash Mountain.
Pros: Special parades, character shows, dance parties, fireworks, treats and rare characters. Limited crowds and full-throttle capacity on rides
Cons: About as expensive as a day ticket (if not more) and you can’t get in until 4pm. People tend to congregate near the special event areas (character meet and greets, parade route, shows) so it may seem more crowded.
Priority–Weather
Weather is a huge factor for some families. I know of someone who is allergic to the cold. If he gets too cold he breaks out in hives and rashes. My own mother is intolerant of too much heat and humidity. She gets physically ill if she overheats. If your child doesn’t regulate body temperature well, has sickle cell anemia, or if you just have your heart set on swimming, you need to know about Orlando’s weather patterns and temperatures.
Other things to consider with weather—how well your service pet (if you have one) will handle heat, rain or humidity. What are you personally used to? One of my friends who I met up with on September 2018 trip is not used to humidity. She was struggling with the humidity and temperatures.
Average weather temperatures: (http://weatherbase.com)
High *F Low *F
January 71 49
February 74 53
March 78 57
April 83 61
May 88 67
June 91 73
July 92 75
August 92 75
September 90 74
October 85 67
November 78 59
December 73 53
Priority- Taking advantage of School Holidays, but avoiding summer—
First of all, let me just tell you that days around Thanksgiving, Christmas to New Years, and Spring Break all usually high (10 out of 10) crowds. If you want to go then, by all means do so, but set your expectations low and be happy if you get in everyone’s top ride choice. Staying on-property during the week of Christmas-New Years is more than double the cost of the two weeks prior.
If you have a school holiday that no one else has, you have a good shot at decent crowds at Disney. Keep in mind any special events like marathon weekends which may affect hotel crowd levels and your ability to get to the parks. Also, if most of your state has the same holiday, then you may want to pick a different time. In Utah in the fall, they have UEA weekend. It is supposed to be “Utah Education Association”’s weekend for teacher development, but it is commonly joked about as “Utah Escapes to Anaheim” weekend. Similarly, the first week of November is Jersey week at Disney World. A list of holidays which are likely to increase crowds: New Year’s (eve and day), Martin Luther King Junior Day, Presidents Day, Mardi Gras, Spring break, Good Friday, Easter, Easter Monday, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Columbus Day, Halloween (at Magic Kingdom), Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas (Eve and Day). (From touringplans.com)
Pros: You may get low crowd levels…or you may not. It depends on your specific week.
Cons: You might face room rate hikes, weather, crowds and the felt need to pull your kids out of school for more than the one or two days off. (Factor in travel—we don’t have annual passes, so we don’t usually go into the parks on travel days). Will one or two days be enough for you? Or will you want to pull them out of school a little bit, so you can cover more ground? Will pulling them out of school even for a half-day cause more headaches?
Priority—Cost
Disney trips can be expensive. One of the things to keep in mind is cost depending on what time of year you go, you may face seasonal pricing. Some months can have multiple seasonal pricing within the same month. For Instance, March in some years (depending on the Easter holiday) may have Value, move to Regular and end with Peak. These correlate with crowds and popular times of year to go. This affects one day ticket prices the most. Their seasons are Value, Regular and Peak. This can also affect on-property hotels and what specials they may be offering. Typically you’ll find the biggest room discounts during the first four months of the year and during September.
Disney Seasons are roughly as follows (May alter slightly depending on Spring Breaks and Easter Holidays):
January–mostly Value-except around New Year’s (peak)
February—mostly Value
March—Value, Regular, Peak
April—Regular and Peak
May—Regular moving into Peak just before Memorial Day
June—Peak
July—Peak for most of the month moving into Regular
August—Regular moving into Value as schools are starting
September—Mostly Value since schools have started
October—Regular
November—Regular except the week around Thanksgiving is Peak
December—Regular until around the 20th of December and moving to Peak
Conclusion:
No matter when you decided to go you can have a good time if you have the right expectations and go with a positive attitude.
Questions? Feel free to contact me.
Good luck and see you at the parks!
You may be interested in:
Timeline for Planning a Walt Disney World Vacation
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