One thing to take into account specifically for next year is the heavy refurb schedule leading up to the 60th anniversary celebration. Already there are some major headliners that are planned for refurb right up until mid to late May. You might want to see if any of the planned refurbs are deal-breakers for you. Soarin' AND Peter Pan are down during our usual time frame for going in the spring (early May) so yeah.... we aren't going to plan to go in 2015 until the summer or fall. Usually I wouldn't encourage anyone to go around Memorial day if they want to experience a slower pace, but we learned this spring (May 9 - 16 2014), when multiple headliners are down, it creates a crush on other other rides because general ride capacity is way down. So it is not a slam dunk that the earlier time period will be the "slower" time you are looking for. As we all know, the parks are nothing but busy these days and the slow periods are getting fewer, farther between, and much shorter! One other thing: I am a morning person, and mornings are the best time to try and get some rides done with short waits. When we went at the "slow" time, the park wasn't open until 10am. That negated any benefit in being there at a "slow" time, since the crush of people arriving for 10am is a lot bigger than when the park is open at 8 or 9am. I personally don't expect to ever again plan a trip for when the park opens at 10am - it was a definite disadvantage for us. YMMV of course, because it will depend on whether your family are early birds or not.