Monday, May 4, 2009

Planning to See The Mouse: Crowd Level

Off the top, I need to clear the air a little on one question I see in various WDW forums around the net: Will it be crowded when I go?

YES!!

You’re off to the #1 tourist destination in the world, there will be other people there when you get there. How many people will depend on the season you go, but even in the least crowded time of year, there’s a bunch o’folks at Disney.

Disclaimer: Everybody’s definition of “crowded” is different.

Crowd Levels

The Unofficial Guide has a nice crowd calendar that they keep up to date for a continual calendar year if you’re a subscriber. If you’re not, I think you get the next 30 days. That’s good for specific days, and they’re pretty accurate for the most part.

For broad generalizations, crowd levels are as follows:

  • Highest: Week between Christmas and New Years
  • Next Highest: Weeks on either side of Easter
  • Still High: Summer, early June thru mid-August
  • Not as bad: Spring break (March) and other no-school holidays
  • Least crowded: September thru mid-October, early December, and early January into spring break

Overall, if the kids are in school, the crowd levels are usually lower. Summer vacation, even though its surface of the sun hot in central Florida that time of year, still has high crowd levels because of summer vacation. If you can go while school is in session, you’ll see lower crowd levels.