Help me pick my dates in Oct!

[VandVsmama]

Hi everyone!

I hope that everybody who's out there in Anaheim right now is having a fabulous time! I imagine that the 60th anniversary stuff on Friday was really neat.

Our next visit to Disneyland is this October. Originally, our kids' school calendar was such that Fall Break was the week of 10/11. Well, now they just changed it to the week before, so the week of 10/4. Thankfully, we aren't flying (we're driving ), so I don't have to deal with changing our flights around. And thankfully, I was able to change our motel reservation just fine. We'll be staying at the Best Western Plus Stovalls and the nightly rate for the week of 10/4 is only $3 more per night, so that's not painful at all.

We're going to the parks for 3 days. This trip is going to be more wedding anniversary celebration rather than our short June visit, which was DH & kids' birthdays' focused. So my 2 options are as follows:

Option #1:
drive to Anaheim on Sat 10/3
in the parks Sun 10/4 - Tues 10/6
use our Magic Morning on Tues 10/6
drive home Wed 10/7

Option #2:
drive to Anaheim Wed 10/7
in the parks Thurs 10/8 - Sat 10/10
use our Magic Morning on Thurs 10/8
drive home Sun 10/11

I have mixed thoughts on this and am curious about your opinions! On the one hand, option #1 is quite attractive because I've read that Sunday mornings are pretty quiet and that things don't start to get really busy until late morning. And we are always rope drop people anyway. Downside is that we won't be able to use Magic Morning until our 3rd day and we might be a bit more tired, but we can power through that. Another plus is that we'll have a couple of days at home to recuperate and unpack before the kids have to go back to school.

On the other hand, Option #2 would allow us to use Magic Morning on our first day there.

I'm not sure what the other school calendars are for schools that have Fall Break. At the moment, we are not planning on doing the Halloween Party, although I really want to! Depends on cost.

 

[jina]

Are you interested in any of the nighttime shows? It's likely not all will be available in option 1 other than perhaps Sunday. Having said that, if I was picking dates I would pick option 1 as nighttime stuff isn't as important to us (although we LOVED PTN & fireworks at DL so I'd definitely try to do that Sun night) and I really prefer Mon-Tues to any other days of the week just because it is less crowded. I have had horrible luck with Thursdays - and a few times we had MM and it seemed even worse to us. Sunday is a non-MM day for DL so getting there at rope drop will still offer you a less crowded park. Our last 3 trips did not have MM and we are rope drop people - we had a great time and had plenty of empty park time even though we did not have MM - even on MM days at DL we'd just hit the left side of the park first one day, then do the right side on a non MM day. For your last day maybe don't stay out too late and remind everyone this is their chance to do a whole bunch of right side stuff they may not have gotten to the first 2 days. That always works for us. Our last trip we did 4 rope drops in a row - we were tired but it was worth it and we went back to the hotel in the afternoon to rest and swim.

I'm jealous that your kids have vacation weeks which do not align with the masses. DD5 has the typical days off and it's been hard for us to adjust to having to go places during peak times as we were always off season travelers before.

The only other thing I'd throw out there is I don't know if they've announced the dates for the halloween parties but that may also play into your choice depending on whether you'd want to go to one of those or avoid those days.

Either option you'll still have a great time!

 

[VandVsmama]

Thanks for your suggestions! We have never seen World of Color. Ever. Our kids are finally old enough to be able to stay up late enough to see it! So I would like to try for that one night. We saw the new DL fireworks and nighttime parade in June so that is not a priority this time.

We also have never been on RSR and I would like to ride it once at night.

 

[VandVsmama]

Shoot that weekend is Gay Days at DL. Does anyone know how crazy crowded DL gets on that Sunday? We will be doing afternoon breaks at the motel on Sunday and Monday

 

[hiroMYhero]

Halloween Parties are October 5, 7, and 9.

We were in DL on a Goth Day one year and didn't notice that it affected the crowd level. Just a lot of people wearing black and having serious demeanors. You'll probably just notice a lot of people wearing red shirts and having a great time.

 

[Avery's mom]

If it helps, we're going on your dates for Option #2. We wanted to avoid the busy Gay Days weekend (just for the crowds - no other reason!) We will be going to the Halloween party on Wednesday 10/7 after driving down and spending the afternoon at the GCH pool There should be longer hours on this option, so since you like to take breaks, those hours might work better for you. If you haven't seen WOC, it will be a good option on nights where DL closes early for the parties - M/W/F.

As far as how crowded that Sunday might be - I don't know. The only thing I can compare it to is Dapper Day that we attended this February. I certainly didn't think it was too busy at all.

 

[VandVsmama]

I just read some older threads on Disboards where people asked pretty much the same question in previous years and it sounded like Gay Days weekend wasn't too bad but that Sunday of Columbus Day weekend was REALLY busy because of a special walk/athletic event that day. I think we will stick with our first day being Sunday of Gay Days weekend in that case!

We will hit the parks at rope drop and do our normal "go on rides all morning" thing and then stop about 1-2pm.

I think that on Monday 10/5 during the Halloween party, we will spend it at DCA and we will go see World of Color that day.

 

[ADLFAN]

That sounds perfect! I think I would rather have the Gay Days crowds than a three day weekend build up of crowds.

Also, I believe Gay Days will have an event scheduled for each night, so they'll draw some of the participants from the park crowds.

Have fun planning!

 

[VandVsmama]

Yeah, that's what I was just thinking, too! A 3-day holiday weekend will definitely result in tons of people at the parks, so maybe the fact that our school days off changed isn't such a bad thing!