Easter/Spring Break 05'? Expert Advice needed

[GrimGhost]

Ok, who has been there during this time. What are the hours typically, how are the crowds?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

 

[disneydiz]

We go every year at Easter. Everything is very, very, crowded. The MK will be open quite late the week before and after Easter. MGM will also have late hours. The waterparks will fill up by 10:30 (if the weather is good). Try and go early to the parks and leave around lunch to go back to the room. We always return early evening when a lot of the crowds have left. The MK will close for a couple hours during the week because of crowds. Make PS early -- especially for Easter dinner. There are usually two showings of Spectro, Fantasmic, etc. Always try and go to the second showing. Just make plans and be prepared and you will have a great time!

 

[GrimGhost]

disneydiz..thanks very much. I will plan accordingly.

 

[corinascot]

We're going Easter week and expecting big crowds. But, you know, the new Unofficial Guide has a day by day crowd estimate for the year. I noticed that Easter weekend and Easter Monday were rated EXTREMELY crowded (8,9,10), but the Tues, Wed, Thus, Fri after Easter weren't rated as being very crowded (6,3,3). I emailed Len Testa of UG about this. He said the crowds usually decrease as the week goes on and he stands by their estimates. I sure hope that's the case. We decided to see spring training and family on Sun, Mon and arrive at WDW on Easter Monday and stay til Sat. But we'll plan for very crowded conditions, just in case, and I know we'll ahve a great time, but it was be a pleasant surprise to have lesser crowds.

 

[civileng68]

Ok, who has been there during this time. What are the hours typically, how are the crowds?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

the crowds are heavy. We go every year in late March. Believe it or not, there's not a ton of college kids there, but many families. What we've found is that the MK gets hit very hard. The other parks are heavy but not unbearable. The MK will be nearly unbearable. The last two years they had to close the park gates during the day and not let any new guests in.

The downside is obvious. The crowds are so high that most all fastpasses are gone very early in the day and the lines are super super long. Just walking from attraction to attraction becomes taxing as you literally have to hold shirt of the person in front of you to walk down normal streets.

The upside is that the parks are normally in full force and that means later hours. This is not always true. Two years ago the MK was closing at 8:00 pm during Spring Break times. It was pathetic. Many complained very heavily for it and last year around the same time The MK was open nearly every night until 11:00. Obviously it's fun when the MK is open late and they do Wishes at like 9:00. Even during those extremely busy times, we noticed that the MK really cleared out after Wishes, even though it was open for two more hours. During the day you wait in line for an hour or more for some attractions so what we did was just chill out and relax during the day and enjoy the parks until Wishes, then after Wishes, within two hours we were able to accomplish Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, Mickey's PHilharmagic, Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain all within that two hour span.

the nights are sort of cool that time of year at Disney so you'll notice that Splash Mountain literally has no wait at night on cool nights. You can literally walk up and get on and sometimes not even get off. They'll let you stay on. Many people think they are going to get soaked. You dont, because on many cool nights they turn off the sprayer jets in the big drop. On nights that it's cool and the park is open late, just save the time from waiting in lines to do something else and go back to it at night.