Hotel availability as crowd indicator?

[Daniel818]

I’m looking at some various dates this winter/ spring for a family trip. I’ve looked at various crowd calendars and blogs to get an idea on which weeks are expected to be lower crowds, and I have it narrowed down to 2 options - 1 which is “low crowd” week and another that is supposedly a “medium crowd” week. The issue I’m encountering is that there is little to no resort room availability for the first week, the one with supposedly lower crowds. While the other week with supposedly medium crowds has much better resort availability. Logic would suggest that the crowd calendars may be wrong and that I should trust the availability of rooms as a better indicator that the crowd levels the second week won’t be as bad. Am I missing something? I don’t believe either date overlaps with Florida school break that would explain the discrepancy between crowd predictions and resort availability (local families wouldn’t need a hotel). Appreciate any input!

 

[Skippyboo]

What weeks are you looking at?

 

[Daniel818]

What weeks are you looking at?

Dates we’d be in the parks are:
February 8th-11th
March 1st-4th

Seeing much better Disney resort availability for the March trip despite most crowd calendars indicating those dates may be slightly more crowded than the February dates.

 

[Skippyboo]

UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship
This prestigious championship will take place on February 7–10, 2025 at Walt Disney World Resort

This is probably why. I would think that values hotels would be effected the most

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Ticket prices and hotel prices tend to be the best indicators.

 

[fla4fun]

I’m looking at some various dates this winter/ spring for a family trip. I’ve looked at various crowd calendars and blogs to get an idea on which weeks are expected to be lower crowds, and I have it narrowed down to 2 options - 1 which is “low crowd” week and another that is supposedly a “medium crowd” week. The issue I’m encountering is that there is little to no resort room availability for the first week, the one with supposedly lower crowds. While the other week with supposedly medium crowds has much better resort availability. Logic would suggest that the crowd calendars may be wrong and that I should trust the availability of rooms as a better indicator that the crowd levels the second week won’t be as bad. Am I missing something? I don’t believe either date overlaps with Florida school break that would explain the discrepancy between crowd predictions and resort availability (local families wouldn’t need a hotel). Appreciate any input!

Aside from the cheerleading event mentioned by a PP, one thing to keep in mind is that the bulk of Orlando hotel rooms are actually off property. So there could be times when the on site Disney hotels are booked but not the off property hotels, leading to lower crowds overall in the parks.

It also depends on whether you are restricting yourself to one category of Disney resort and/or whether you are only looking at rooms with a discount. Sometimes one category might fill up (like the values during a sports competition) but the rest of the hotels still have rooms.

Personally, I would choose based on which Epcot festival takes your fancy. February, through the 24th, will be Festival of the Arts and March should be Flower and Garden Festival (typically starts very end of February but 2025 dates aren’t out yet). I have been to WDW during sporting events in the winter and early spring and the parks were not as affected as the resort the groups were staying in.

 

[KPeterso]

One thing to consider for the March dates. 3/4 is Mardi Gras and that date and week are definitely very crowded. The whole state of LA (or so it feels) comes to WDW during that time. I have made that mistake twice and pushed my March trip back a week to miss Mardi Gras this year. I would think despite more limited availability that the Feb dates would be better. The cheerleaders will be busy a lot of the day with their competitions and practices, so would be less likely to be in the parks the whole time.

 

[zanzibar138]

UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship
This prestigious championship will take place on February 7–10, 2025 at Walt Disney World Resort

This is probably why. I would think that values hotels would be effected the most

We were originally going to have our wedding at WDW and were looking at a room block for this time. ALL of the All Stars were blocked out starting 6 Feb. I imagine there would be a large flow-through impact on resort availability more broadly.

 

[NYCgrrl]

For crowd indicator I’d use the ticket cost; requires the least amount of thinking