Best time to go

[littlelambie]

I am looking for everyone's opinions on the best time to go, where there is low crowds, but still pretty good weather.

 

[hlbtimes2]

Very late April (after spring breaks end), early May (before Mom's day) or Mid to late Oct. However those are all off season times so the park hours will be shorter, more rides will be in refurb and the entertainment schedule will not be as full.

 

[dizzyami]

Mid October last year had great weather - but as hlbtimes mentioned the park hours get very short, many rides are refurbed and the entertainment is usually only on the weekends.

 

[HydroGuy]

As Linda and Dizzy posted, there is tradeoff in "best times to go" at DLR, because low crowds often coincide with minimum entertainment and ride refurbs. See "HydroGuy's High Season/Off Season Tradeoff Rule" www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1199852

Everyone is different, so you can make your own call here. If you want to go during off-season, you will have to skip a lot of the entertainment options at DL and DCA, or schedule your visit over a Fri/Sat/Sun to see "weekend only" entertainment. However, with all of the AP holders at DLR (650,000) the weekends look like high season almost year round with so many locals visiting. So you will not have low crowds on weekends in general.

The better off-season weather will happen in April, May, Sept, and Oct. In the Nov-March time frame the weather may be great - or it may not.

It is a hard choice to make regarding visiting time. We like to go on summer weekdays, and the crowds have never seemed terribly bad to me. But it is more crowded than off-season.

Also be advised that since the 50th anniversary celebration started at DLR two years ago (and ended last year) attendance at DLR has been way up. Many folks have commented that off-season at DLR does not exist anymore. While some people have found this to not be entirely true, many others have gone to DLR during what they thought was off-season, only to be confronted with much larger crowds that they were expecting. To make matters worse, the shorter park hours during off-season is a double whammy when the parks are still crowded. Finding a truly reliable off-season at DLR has not been easy over the last couple years and most probably for the foreseeable future.

 

[tinkerbelt]

Very late April (after spring breaks end), early May (before Mom's day) or Mid to late Oct. However those are all off season times so the park hours will be shorter, more rides will be in refurb and the entertainment schedule will not be as full.

Yes. Especially after the end of the 2fer deal (which ends April 26 this year). Early November is also good, except for Veterans Day.

If you hit the park during mid-week off season, it closes early, but a lot of times the crowds will be light enough that you can get a lot done. We have had several trips where we were bored and ready to go home at 6:00 because the crowds were light enough that we had done everything that we wanted to do.

If you don't want to deal with weekend crowds, Fridays are usually really good and a lot less crowded than Saturday and Sunday, and usually they have most of the weekend entertainment running on Fridays.

The weather is almost always tolerable. In my experience, November and January tend to be the rainiest. It gets cold in the winter, but not so cold that it is miserable to be outside.

 

[DangerMouse]

I agree with Hydro's assessment that there really is no "off season" anymore. We went in January. We were there for the very last day of the Christmas season (so we could se EP and the Christmas parade and fireworks), and the two following days (Monday and Tuesday). Sunday (peak season) was our least crowded day. The parks were very crowded on Monday and Tuesday. Oh, and very atypical weather. High 80's. We were sweating and had to do all the water rides to cool off.

One of the best and least crowded trips we have ever had was Labor Day. We went on the Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend and we were shocked that it was so quiet.

I am beginning to think it's a crapshoot. You really have no idea who busy it will be until you get there. Of course your best bets are still when schools are not on holiday and mid-week.

 

[DangerMouse]

Yes. Especially after the end of the 2fer deal (which ends April 26 this year).

The two-fer is working a little different this year. The first use has to be by 4/26. You then have (I think) 13 days to use the second park ticket. I understand that they were trying to avoid the last-day-of-2-fer-special DCA nightmare they have had the last few years.