Campground before Easter

[Tinkmom]

We will be camping the week before Easter (arriving March 19th and leaving on Good Friday). I think that since Easter is so early this year it will help a bit as far as crowds (a lot of schools which try to make their spring break in conjunction with Easter seem to be having them the week following Easter) but I was curious about the "worst" of the Easter crowd as it relates to the campground.

We are Disney regulars so don't do the parks commando-style. We plan to spend a lot of time at Fort Wilderness. Do you notice a real difference there in mid-March? We have camped the last two years during July 4th, so it isn't as if we aren't familiar with crowds at WDW, but hoped that it would be cooler, if not less busy, in March!

 

[Cousin Ed C]

We are leaving Palm Sunday because the crowds will be getting bigger than we want to deal with....but then we will have been spoiled by Jan and Feb.

 

[Tinkmom]

So, has anyone been there before Easter and July 4th who can tell me if there is any noticeable difference -- particularly at Fort Wilderness? We will only have a few "must do" meals/activities and will plan ahead on those, using PS and EE days. Otherwise will spend most of our time in the campground area and can't imagine how it could be much different than July 4th crowds EXCEPT it can't be nearly as hot and humid!

If you've camped before/during Easter, would you do it again?

 

[FWCamper]

Hi, we camp at FW every holiday. We rarely go to the parks because it is a holiday and just stay around the campground. From my experience the week after Easter is the busiest i have ever seen it. It is the only time we are unable to get seats at the pool unless you go early. I also thought Easter is the busiest week out of the whole year, from what i've heard. I also am there at Christmas and July 4th but Easter is definately crazier.

 

[VAN]

We were there this year the 2 weeks prior to Easter. The first week was quite nice, the 2nd week (Holy Week) was a zoo.

We also spend most of our time at the campground but are early risers. We would go to the pool around 10:00 and so would always get chairs. Going past the pool to get a paper at 8:00, there were already towels on chairs. At 10:00 they were still there with no people and even later into the day.

This is a real pet-peeve of mine (and others) for people to reserve chairs with their towels and then go to the parks for the day!!!!

Anyway, the only other real non-park problems I found when it is crowded is:

Boat rental ... every boat from every marina is on the lake. It is not relaxing with that many lunatics out in boats. Also, if you have one of the plans, you will need to come back in every 30 minutes and wait in line again.

Crockett's Tavern ... there was a wait for tables. Noticed this year that people from the buffett were eating in the Tavern as well. Very slow wait staff at the Tavern (for pizza/drinks).

As far as the parks, this was the first year in a long time that waits for Space Mountain and Test Track were over 2-1/2 hours long!!! We never did ride Space Mountain this year. We heard reports that the parks were closing by late morning because of crowds.

 

[FWCamper]

I agree that the chair thing is totally out of hand at the pool. There also seems to be alot of family reunions at Easter so people will save a chair for each adult and kid. The kids are in the pool the whole time, but they save the chair anyway. That really bugs me! Easter weekend the pool is outrageous because all the families have visitors and everyone hangs out at the campground. We usually end up taking our own chairs to the pool as do many other people. The pool is so crowded i don't even go in. If i didn't have kids out of school , i would not go that week.