honest opinions on visiting Presidents' week

[abmitch01]

my kids are too old to take out of school anymore. I see the crowd calendar for Presidents' week is crazy. But I figure it's better than Easter break, right?

is it doable Feb break without going bananas from the crowds?

I can accept that the trip will cost more than off-season

 

[gigimom4]

I don't have any advice but just wanted to say we will be there then also. My oldest dd is a senior in HS this year and really doesn't need to miss any days. We will be leaving the TH before Pres. Day @ lunch time and will come back Monday pm-its about a 5-6 hour drive for us. I am a little nervous about the crowds but we were there last year for the Memorial Day through the 1st week in June which crowd calendars had at 8 & 9 & I thought it was fine. We were at MK on Memorial Day and it was not bad at all. The heat though is another story so that's what I keep telling myself-I can wait in lines and crowds when its not too hot to breathe!

 

[woodkins]

It's pretty close to Easter and Christmas weeks. I did Pres. week 2 yrs ago with my dd and we will not be doing it again, even though our schools are closed. It is packed beyond belief, often too cold to swim which doesn't allow for long breaks from the parks for us.

 

[MinnieForMe]

Keep in mind that all of New England share President's Day week as February vacation this year. That almost never happens. NH generally has the week following MA but not this year. It is impossible to even get a decent price on airline tickets out of here for that week. I suspect it's going to be crazy busy and would not base my decision on attendance from past years.

 

[HeatherC]

I have a little different opinion. We go every President's week from MA.

What we do is arrive on the Wed. night before the week. Kids go to school that day and miss Thurs and Friday. Thurs. we do MK and Friday we do AK or MGM. Then we relax over the weekend...outlet shop, downtown Disney, etc.
On Mon or Tuesday we do Epcot and and then whatever other park we want that week. MK is usually a zoo that week, but Epcot is so big that it is easier to do.

We also rely on touringplans.com to decide what park to do what day. If MK has early entry on that Thurs, we will go there Friday and whatever park they have listed as the lightest crowd that day instead.

We have also been able to swim EVERY year....including last year when it was 50 degrees! We stay at Bonnet Creek and the pools were well over 80. Kids had a blast.

If you can plan your trip to start before the holiday or end after the holiday, it will make all the difference in the world. Just think outside the box....if EMH is one day, maybe go the day after since everyone thinks they have to go that dY. Those days the parks are crowded from opening. If you are there at rope drop on another day, you usually get a few hours in before the crowds build.

We have been going for the past 10 plus years and truly have never had a problem with the crowds.

Hope this helps!!!

 

[WDWjen]

We tried it 2 yrs ago because we didnt want the kids to miss school. The crowds were just insane! We have been spoiled by going in Dec or Jan and we were not ready for the amount of time spent in lines that week.

We went Sat - Sat and I will say that by Thurs and Fri the parks were at least manageable, but in the beginning of the week it was just too crowded.

I can handle long lines on the major rides by using FPs, but the lines were 60-80 minutes for basic rides like Aladdin and small world..EVERY single ride had long lines and all the TS restaurants were mobbed at mealtimes.

Toy Story Mania opened that week at DHS and we couldnt even get NEAR it !! that whole park was jammed all day.

We did have great weather - high 70s and 80s and sunshine so that was nice - my kids loved going in the pool (we cant always swim in Jan) but they were not used to standing in line all day for every ride.

Since this is the budget board I will say that we drove and stayed off site and I still did not feel like I got my money's worth! To pay for 5 PH tickets for the week and then wait on all those lines.. we won't do it again. I feel like for all that money we should get to do more.

That being said - if you go often and don't feel like you need to see everything in one trip you can use that week to do the overlooked /less popular attractions; you can stay onsite and use the EMH; make all your dining reservations NOW and eat your TS meals at off hours.

Use your FPs wisely - as soon as the 1hour mark is up grab another one, because they were out of FPs early in the day for most rides so we grabbed them when we could and used them later in the day when we could.

We drove to all the parks that trip and the parking lots were super full by the time we got there -then it was on the trams, to the security lines, turnstyles etc so we ate up a lot of time just GETTING to the park. If you can stay on-site you will get more time in the parks.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[kalliyan1]

Dont Do IT , I would NOT go during President's week, Christmas, Easter EVER AGAIN!!!
My kids are all decent students so I don't have a problem with them missing a few days of school if need be. They do the homework there and back so the get a good head start on that and most of the time, have it done by the time they are back at school. We don't do that very often at all but I feel if we are going to be paying that kind of money to visit Disney, I want to get my money's worth.

If your kid(s) are pretty good student(s), I would suggest looking at other dates and having them miss a couple of days. The other thing to think about is what about teacher workdays they may have off? Are there any of those coming up that you can work around?
Whatever your decision, have fun you are at Disney afterall

 

[katie111]

We've gone the past 3 Feb vacations also from MA. The first year we did Seaworld & Universal, the 2nd year we did Disney & last year we did Universal/Sea world again. I think the Universal/SW trips were definitely less crowded than Disney but we still found Disney to be doable. As another PP suggested, we didn't go Sat to Sat. Instead we left home the Tues after Presidents day & stayed till the following Tues. This was great. Wed-Sat we got to each park at rope drop and hit all the rides/fast passes that we really wanted. Then we would usually have a late TS lunch (usually around 2 or 3) as it was much easier to get ADR's for these times and that's when the parks were packed. After lunch we'd either use our fast passes or just head back to the resort. The kids went swimming every year & the adults hit the hot tub. If it was too cold to swim, we'd go out to dinner somewhere, if the kids wanted to swim, we'd just get dinner at the food court. By Sunday the crowds have really gotten a lot smaller so we could really enjoy the parks on Sun, Mon & Tues. We take a late flight out Tues night & then the kids are back to school on Wed, only having missed 2 days of school.

I think the absolute key to enjoying this week is to get to the parks at rope drop & have a plan of what rides you want to go on. We had a couple days when we got to the parks less than an hour after rope drop & we got so much less done on those days.

 

[abmitch01]

thanks for all the advice. It's a tough decision.

 

[Gina]

Honestly? I would rather drop a bowling ball on my foot -- repeatedly -- than go during President's Week ever again. I don't think I would do it if they gave me a free trip. But everyone has different crowd tolerances... For me, those kinds of crowds have their own cocentric ring of Hell.

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

We normally go the week after Presidents week. This year my break falls on Presidents week. And we won't be going. Maybe next year my break will get back to normal, LOL!

 

[kalliyan1]

Honestly? I would rather drop a bowling ball on my foot -- repeatedly -- than go during President's Week ever again. I don't think I would do it if they gave me a free trip. But everyone has different crowd tolerances... For me, those kinds of crowds have their own cocentric ring of Hell.

 

[chabs]

I would never go again that week either-we went last year and it was so freezing cold that it was hard to enjoy ourselves (we're from NY-so it's not like we're not used to the cold either). I still say to this day that I'm sorry we wasted all that money. Part of our vacation is swimming every day and we couldn't do that. The kids wouldn't go near any of the water rides because they didn't want to get wet and those are the favorites in my house. It was awful. I would sweat it out during the summer instead. We typically go every Labor Day weekend and I guess we are used to it because we don't mind the heat.

 

[clanmcculloch]

We'll be there. We were also there last year over Christmas. It's totally doable if you know how to tour. I subscribed to TourGuide Mike before my Christmas trip because I was afraid of the crowds. Boy was I surprised. Following TGM's advice, the crowds felt less than they felt to us during much slower times of the year without TGM. Now that I know about TGM, I'll never fear busy times again.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Advise from someone who has gone many times during Presidents week and Easter.. It is not overly crowded like it is for Easter but it is crowded. The weather can be cold! So pack a coat/hat/gloves. So don't go with the idea of it begin balmy warm in Feb. Pack warm clothes Going to the pool can be a bitter cold experience.

Flights are usually overbooked because remember the Daytona 500 is also that week. We love to go during this time because always get bumped from our flight and get a travel vochure for next year. You will see a lot of people at WDW with the racing appearal on. A lot of them will opt to stay at Disney because the hotels near and around Daytona fill up.

Every year during this week they host Twirl Mania - AKA baton twilling- at WDW so the value resorts are filled up will out of control girls. These girls are just set loose to do as they please. The last time we went a bus driver yelled at a group of girls who were running along side of a bus trying to get him to stop and let them on. They are loud and very rowdy Here is the info on 2011 events
http://www.silversupremes.com/twirlmania2011.htm

 

[momtoce&j]

ok, so I get that it's going to be crowded...

I took the kids myself this past July 4th week. We were only able to do Magic Kingdom (gift from family was 1 day tickets.) I was thinking of taking the 2 kids back for this February break. Is it as crowded as summer??

 

[Bearvet]

We've gone during Presidents Week off and on for the past 18 years. Some years it's sunny and warm (70s and 80s) and other years - like last year - it barely gets out of the 40s and 50s!

Yes it's more crowded, but if you go with a solid plan and research best park days and use fastpasses, you'll be fine. Also make all ADRs and any other reservations well in advance.

Last year Presidents Week coincided with Mardi Gras so we had the Northeast and many southern states there for the week. We had our Give a Day fastpassses which really helped; also the cooler weather kept late night crowds down a bit. We had planned to stay at MK until 1 AM but we so frozen by 10 PM we left - there weren't many people left in the park! We went to Fantasmic and it was only showing 2 nights that week. You may need to avoid water rides or may not - last year was unusually cold in Florida.

We stay off-site, so can't comment on how resorts are affected. I'd still rather go and get away from the snow than stay at home. Good luck with your decision!

 

[janets]

We're heading down that week in 2011. We'll be celebrating our son's bar mitzvah, which is on Feb. 5th. We're flying down on Friday and staying until the following Saturday.

We've don Easter, Christmas and summer as well as the second week of September which was the best.

I know it will be crowded. We go often so we're not stressed about doing every single thing. We have all of our dining planned already so that's done. We are early rope drop people, do as much as possible before lunch, eat, then maybe head back to the resort for a while. Hopefully the weather will cooperate but we can swing as needed.

We managed to get decent airfare down on Southwest out of Philly so we have a bit of a drive (we're in NW NJ) but the price couldn't be beat. It was less than 1/2 what it would have cost out of any NY or NJ airport.