Planning Our Disney Trip: Crowd Calendar
July 10, 2017
Planning for Disney is just as much fun for us as going to Disney (well, maybe not as much, but you get the idea). We take into account the following things:
– Crowd Calendar
– Dining
– Accommodations
– Fast Passes
– Transportation
When to go to Disney is very important.
It depends on a lot of factors: Do you want to go go a special event, like Star Wars Weekend? A Marathon? Food and Dine Restaurant? Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party? The Very Merry Christmas Party? Or maybe you need to wait for the kids to be out of school? Work schedules? And even what your budget is!
It’s cheaper to go on certain dates. It’s more crowded on holidays, too. But if you go in the low season some rides may be closed and the park doesn’t open so late. It mostly depends on what you want and then you can go from there.
We have been to Disney in May, June, July, September, November and December. The one time we planned for Spring Break we lost our flight and rebooked our trip for early June that year.
We hated December. Don’t go in December if you can help it! We are not doing it again. EVER. It’s so crowded we had to wait about an hour just to go through security and enter the parks. It was horrible. And then if you get out of a park, you may not be able to go back in if it’s at capacity. AVOID December!
We also hate July. It’s so hot and humid! This is when I used to go as a kid and I remember always feeling like fainting at the end of the day. We also got there at opening and left at closing. No rest. At all. I do not recommend this either unless it’s your only choice.
This year, since I’m not teaching anymore, we decided on a date during a school week. The only time we’ve ever done this was when we went there for our honeymoon. In October. Apart from that, this will be our first time trying out a week when most kids are in school.
Undercover Tourist offers the best crowd calendar we have found. We trust it. We follow it. It shows you each park each day of the year per week:
This calendar offers a lot of useful information:
The best times to go are, of course, the green ones. You won’t find many of those. So we aim for low yellow (40% to 50% full). Once we choose the week we want, we begin an excel spreadsheet and begin to list the parks we want to visit each day depending on crowds on the calendar. Doing this 6 months in advance is best. Yep, we know which park we’ll visit this long in advance.
Note: We don’t go to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure when we plan a Disney trip. We now plan the trips independently. So when visiting Universal Orlando we stay in their hotels and enjoy guest perks. We don’t visit there as often as we do Disney World, nor does it need as many days, but it’s definitely worth it once in a while.
Here’s a look at our initial spreadsheet:
This takes care of our initial planning phase. You may notice how everyday we have a special NAP block in the afternoon, that’s because we can’t do Disney without a nap. We usually leave the park around 1pm and come back at 4pm after a two-hour nap. It helps us refresh and be ready for the rest of the day. We also have one day of REST divided in two evenings. During this time we do something other than going to the parks, like enjoy the pool or mini-golf. Depending on our mood we decide what to do when the time comes.
There are also some things we keep in mind when planning, apart from crowds:
- Opening and closing times. Including Extra Magic Hours in the morning or afternoon.
- We used to see Magic Kingdom 4 half days, Epcot 3 half days, Hollywood Studios 2 half days and Animal Kingdom 1 half day, but since Pandora opened in Animal Kingdom, we took a half day from Magic Kingdom and gave it to Animal Kingdom.
- We try to have each park at the end of the day at least once to enjoy the nighttime shows. Since Magic Kingdom closes early during this season we plan to see fireworks during one of our rest days.
- We must know which park we’ll be at to be able to plan for dinning.
Now we are ready to go to phase 2: Dining Reservations.
cheers!
