How bad will crowds be the week of 4/6?

[theMoreDisneytheBetter]

I hope this week was an aberration given where spring break/Easter fell, but would anyone care to speculate how bad crowds will be this coming week? April can get bad but my mom is really hoping for NOT 10s on the crowd calendar.

I was watching the lines at MK yesterday and 65 minutes for small world is just insane.

 

[hsmamato2]

I was there in mid Feb and saw those wait times like that.... IMHO it's always busy there now. Spring break times are usually the busiest time of year I think.

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

I would offer an observation (nothing scientific) but my DW is a school teacher and has been for decades. She is amazed how parents today are far more willing take their kids out of school, any time of the year, for a vacation versus when she first started teaching.

Not all these families are going to WDW, obviously, but it appears that sacred "school of thought" that you leave your kids in school is changing.

Remember: just one observation.

 

[4Hawks]

I would offer an observation (nothing scientific) but my DW is a school teacher and has been for decades. She is amazed how parents today are far more willing take their kids out of school, any time of the year, for a vacation versus when she first started teaching.

Not all these families are going to WDW, obviously, but it appears that sacred "school of thought" that you leave your kids in school is changing.

Remember: just one observation.

The Daily did an episode on this a few days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/...s-are-missing-school-at-an-alarming-rate.html

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

The Daily did an episode on this a few days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/...s-are-missing-school-at-an-alarming-rate.html

I guess my DW isn't crazy.

 

[Yensid67]

I'm also a school teacher...you're not crazy. Parents take their kids out of school all the time.

 

[lovethattink]

Monday and Tuesday are good to go days for AP. So Disney must be expecting a slow down.

 

[StageTek]

I hope this week was an aberration given where spring break/Easter fell, but would anyone care to speculate how bad crowds will be this coming week?

The crowds will be heavy this coming week. Not 10's but over 6 on the crowd calendar.

 

[lorileahb]

We are going in May, not expecting yesterday's crowds. I did use thrill data Genie+ and wait times (using data from 4/4 at Magic Kingdom) to throw together a touring plan just in case. No guarantees, but at least something for me to follow.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I always look at the Public Holidays calendar and it has each state's calendars by county and city. Doing a random check on several of the states, it looks like the majority had their breaks from the latter part of March to the first week of April, though I did see a couple breaking next week. It shouldn't be too bad. If I'm going to attempt a Spring Break WDW trip, I try to pick a year where Easter isn't close to the first week of April (our schools always break the first week, regardless of when Easter is). That said, I have vacationed there during a busy Spring Break and managed to get around fine. Remember: if staying onsite, take advantage of early mornings. Mid day seems to be the busiest, so break and come back later after dinner as it seems to calm down a little. I always say rain is your friend. (short of thunder and lightning storms). Throw on a rain poncho and have fun!

 

[juxtapose]

I would offer an observation (nothing scientific) but my DW is a school teacher and has been for decades. She is amazed how parents today are far more willing take their kids out of school, any time of the year, for a vacation versus when she first started teaching.

Not all these families are going to WDW, obviously, but it appears that sacred "school of thought" that you leave your kids in school is changing.

Remember: just one observation.

We generally take our kids out 1 week a year for vacations, however my parents did that with us also growing up so it's not necessarily new for me. I'm not really doing it for lower crowds/people but mainly for the substantial cost savings of traveling when kids are in school vs not. We've saved as much as 50% on trips traveling during the school year vs breaks.

 

[juxtapose]

I've had okay luck guessing crowds based on MK posted hours. Weeks with Sun-Thur 8am-11pm hours seem to have overall higher crowds than weeks with 9am-10pm MK hours.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I'm going myself next week and I think it will fine. Hotel occupancy doesn't seemed packed, in fact just got the AP rate I have been hunting for months this morning. Swolphin had some sweeeeet AP deals for next week that briefly showed up over the last week so I don't think they're bordering on full occupancy either.

The week before and after Easter are just super busy as not a small amount of schools use Easter as Spring Break coordinates. (No parent in their right mind paid the absurdly high prices last week/this week to take their kids out of school, these kids are mostly on break.) Imho Disney failed to account for it being a hugely popular time when they started the 4 day ticket sale on Tues + got hit with miserable weather Wed so people put off going to MK = the disaster that was yesterday.

 

[pinkxray]

I think next week might a sweet spot for better crowds. We just got home today from our spring break. We are from CT and our town had spring break the week following Easter. Different towns in CT have spring break April 14-19. I haven’t heard of many places being off next week. But of course, I could be wrong.

Disney did throw out those discounted park tickets starting this week so maybe that had people switch. Who knows. I feel like Disney is just always busy and if you happen to find a lower crowd week you just got lucky.

 

[princessjilly]

Looking on wdw passport at the historical crowd data, last year the week after Easter was 8s and 9s but the week following that (the equivalent of next week) was down to 3s and 4s.

 

[traveler9]

April 25-27 DHS is scheduled to stay open until 10pm. Could be large crowds at the end of the month.

 

[elvispursley]

I would offer an observation (nothing scientific) but my DW is a school teacher and has been for decades. She is amazed how parents today are far more willing take their kids out of school, any time of the year, for a vacation versus when she first started teaching.

Not all these families are going to WDW, obviously, but it appears that sacred "school of thought" that you leave your kids in school is changing.

Remember: just one observation.

When my boys were in elementary/jr. high we would pull them out of school. I worked in a trauma hospital in one of the largest burn centers in the country. We were not allowed to take vacation in the summer as “trauma season” and the start of new residents occurred. So from Memorial Day to Labor Day, prime family vacation time, we couldn’t do anything. We were very lucky our kids teachers worked with us by getting their work ahead of time. We made sure every assignment was completed before they returned. I’m sure it helped they were at a small private school and were very understanding. The principal stated that family time is just as important as education. By the time the boys entered high school, they did not want to miss class as labs and group assignments were too hard to make up.

But as to the OP’s question, I’d venture to say it shouldn’t be like this last week was. I think there was a mix of things that. Ollided and made a mess of things!

 

[ThreeMountains]

We'll be there this coming week, as well (me, my wife, and our two kids), and I'm very curious to see how crowds will be. We booked based on the hope that by two weeks after Easter crowds will have died down a bit and not yet picked up as much since schools (including colleges) will still be in. I would say it was a risk since this is a rare full-length family trip to WDW, but it seems pretty much any week is a risk at best these days; some are just guaranteed to be heavy crowds.

 

[saraheliz]

I think there's a decent chance this coming week will be decent (busy, but not like last week). The week after (April 14th) is April Vacation in NE so there will likely be an uptick at that point.

 

[_19disnA]

We went in early May a couple of years ago and even in the middle of the week, some parks were wall-to-wall people making it difficult to just walk around. My impression is that far more people go to Disney then 10-15 yrs ago, but the basic layout of the parks hasn't changed that much. There are many basic things they could do like widen narrow walkways or eliminate areas when everyone has to squeeze though some small area, but that doesn't seem to be a priority to them. I would expect it to be crowded regardless of when you go and hope for the best.

Disney clearly has some idea of expected crowds in the near future based on hotel occupancy rates. However, locals with AP's may decide to show up or those staying at a non-Disney hotel wouldn't be anything even Disney could know ahead of time.