Feb or April

[mfleeting]

When's a better time to visit Disneyland Feb or April? Specific dates would be the week of Feb 15th or April 18th for about 4 days.

Thanks!

 

[califlorican]

April is spring break for a lot of kids, so I don't think that would be "better" if you're wanting lower crowds.
There will probably be more refurbs happening in February though, and shorter park hours, so it depends which is more important to you!

 

[Geemo]

Feb 15th is Presidents day and there will be crowds on the weekend and into Monday. The rest of the week should calm down and be fine

 

[figment_jii]

It would be helpful to know if you're looking at weekdays or weekend-days?

You can get a sense of the historical hours and entertainment offerings here: http://www.disboards.com/threads/historical-dlr-park-hours-entertainment-and-refurbs.2291124/
Note that 2015 was a bit of an anomoly with F! being offered nightly in the winter and no WoC. While WoC was down, and a smaller firework show was being offered, DL also presented F! nightly. This is not really common and I would expect it to go back to the weekends only schedule in 2016.

As Geemo mentioned, Feb 15 is President's Day, so expect high(ish) crowds for that three-day weekend. The weekdays (Tue to Thu) are probably pretty quiet. Some Northern CA school districts and a few others do get the week off, so there may be moderate crowds due to that.

April is a toss up whether of not you'll run into the tail end of Spring Break crowds or not. When I surveyed school districts on the West Coast, many seemed to take their Spring Breaks somewhere from mid-March through mid-April. DLR is expecting the peak Spring Break crowds the week before and after Easter (based on the AP blockout period). My guess is that by the week of April 18th, the bulk of the Spring Break crowds will be over, but there might be some crowds.

 

[mfleeting]

We are probably going to do a mix of weekdays and the weekend. Not really sure depends on how I can work my schedule as I really don't want to take time off.

We're not worried about crowds - we went over Thanksgiving it was pretty crowded. We're just wondering which time frame would give us the best experience between weather, rides not being down, crowds, and hours.

 

[figment_jii]

We're not worried about crowds - we went over Thanksgiving it was pretty crowded. We're just wondering which time frame would give us the best experience between weather, rides not being down, crowds, and hours.

In that case, I'd probably go with the April dates in terms of the weather (less likely to be rainy) and potentially fewer refurbishments (although, it's hard to predict these). I think operating hours are a toss up (though, in 2014, DL opened from 9 am to 11 pm on the weekdays of Presidents week, but was open from 9 am to 9 or 10 pm on the weekdays in mid-to-late April).

 

[Aladora]

Feb pro: lower crowds
Feb con: weather can be iffy, shorter hours, more refurbs likely.

April pro: better weather, longer hours, fewer refurbs.
April con: higher crowds.

We were there this February and the weather was magnificent and the crowds were quite light but a few 8:00pm closings and a higher number of refurbs although this was right before the 60th so more refurbs than normal.

 

[figment_jii]

It's funny, I totally thought that February would have uniformly shorter hours than April, but when I scanned back through this year's calendar, they were actually running almost summer-type hours the week of President's Day. That's not to say they'll do that again in 2016, but I was pretty surprised when I saw that for this year (2015). I don't think prep for the 60th had anything to do with it. I just wonder if they've been finding that President's Week is becoming an increasingly popular week to visit DLR. The rest of February has pretty short hours during the weekdays, but President's Day week is the exception in 2015.

• President's Week in February: 8:00 am to midnight (Sun, Mon, Fri, and Sat) and 9:00 am to 11:00 pm (Tue to Thu)
• Third week in April: 8:00 am to midnight (Sun, Fri, and Sat) and 9:00 am to 9:00 pm (Mon to Thu)
• Last week in April: 8:00 am to midnight (Sun, Fri, and Sat) and 10:00 am to 9:00 pm (Mon to Thu)

 

[tarheelalum]

The last couple of days of April are usually not to bad with the crowds and you'll have fewer refurbs than in February. On average you also have better weather at the end of April.

 

[mfleeting]

Finally realized hotel dates were up for April and it is actually cheaper to get a hotel in April than Feb. So looks like that will be the decision maker. Now I have to decide between DL Hotel again or just do Paradise Pier and save some extra cash...

 

[Aladora]

Finally realized hotel dates were up for April and it is actually cheaper to get a hotel in April than Feb. So looks like that will be the decision maker. Now I have to decide between DL Hotel again or just do Paradise Pier and save some extra cash...

We just got back from staying at PPH and now that we have stayed at all three onsite hotels, I have to say that PPH is actually my favorite one. Even if we could get the GCH at the same cost of the PPH, I would still pick PPH.

 

[Winnowill]

We did five days in late April in 2013, and we had really low crowds. On the downside, the parks closed at 8:00 most of the nights we were there, and both Space and BTMRR were closed.

 

[agamble]

I would go in April, especially with the increased probability of rain this winter. Easter is early this year, so by mid to late April the crowds should be pretty good. You could have ride closures at either time, but April is a little less likely as they tend to close the water rides in February or so and try to open them before Spring Break.