How Is DL In June?

[Khokhonutt]

This is getting complicated. How about this - go Tues-Fri in late June, go early and not worry about it? Shouldn't 4 days be enough to do everything for a first timer?

For what it's worth, we're doing our first DLR trip the last week of June this summer. For us there were a few considerations on why we picked that week. My wife is a teacher, so we're limited on our vacation time options. We're also visiting my daughter at her place as part of the trip, so we'll be there for the week of the 4th. I have work commitments later in the summer. That left us with the last week of June.

You could pull your hair out worrying about the perfect dates, but we decided to get 5 day passes and go Monday through Friday. We'll take advantage of early mornings, then take afternoon breaks. We've done WDW in late July and for spring break, so we've dealt with crowds and heat. We've always done rope drop and been successful with that. For us the 5 day pass made sense, because we get as much fun out of finding the details as riding the rides. Our plan is to run a fairly aggressive morning ride schedule, then play afternoons and evenings more or less by ear (with the exception of the planning needed to see the fireworks and World of Color).

No matter what it'll be a Disney trip, so we're looking forward to it. I'll do my best to follow up after our trip with our experience.

 

[crazycatlady]

Would you experts pick an AP blocked Friday (9th) that has a Grad night over a mid week night that has a Grad night? We have 5 day tickets and are there six days we will be in town, so we were going to skip Friday, but now I am wondering if I am better off skipping a different day.

Sunday, June 4th - we have EMH (on-site), Select APs blocked, no Grad Night
Monday, June 5th - we have EMH (on-site), No APs blocked, no Grad Night
Tuesday, June 6th - off-site but could use MM from ticket, no APs blocked, Grad Night
Wednesday, June 7th - off-site, no APs blocked, Grad Night
Thursday, June 8th - off-site but could use MM from ticket, no APs blocked, No Grad Night
Friday, June 9th - off-site, Select and SC APs blocked, Grad Night

Which one of these days would you skip? I think Sunday, Monday and Thursday are for sure because of EMH and no Grad Nights, but which other two are our best bet?

 

[SMD]

This is getting complicated. How about this - go Tues-Fri in late June, go early and not worry about it? Shouldn't 4 days be enough to do everything for a first timer?

Basically you can always expect DLR to be crowded. Over the course of a multiday trip there will be days and times with higher and lower crowds, but trying to cherry pick them from a set of dates has become almost impossible. There are places with walkways that are less than 10 feet wide, you're going to know there are people around even on days that regulars would think aren't that bad. Yes, with 4 day tickets you'll have time to do a lot. (I wouldn't say everything, there's so much there, people say they can't do "everything" in 5 days, but most people mean "everything we want to do." That you can accomplish in 4 days.) Have a priority list, have a touring plan, be flexible. DLR is not WDW, it'll be a more successful trip if you embrace it for what it is.

Would you experts pick an AP blocked Friday (9th) that has a Grad night over a mid week night that has a Grad night? We have 5 day tickets and are there six days we will be in town, so we were going to skip Friday, but now I am wondering if I am better off skipping a different day.

Sunday, June 4th - we have EMH (on-site), Select APs blocked, no Grad Night
Monday, June 5th - we have EMH (on-site), No APs blocked, no Grad Night
Tuesday, June 6th - off-site but could use MM from ticket, no APs blocked, Grad Night
Wednesday, June 7th - off-site, no APs blocked, Grad Night
Thursday, June 8th - off-site but could use MM from ticket, no APs blocked, No Grad Night
Friday, June 9th - off-site, Select and SC APs blocked, Grad Night

Which one of these days would you skip? I think Sunday, Monday and Thursday are for sure because of EMH and no Grad Nights, but which other two are our best bet?

I guess it depends on what you're doing on the 6th day. If you were going to do USH, mid-week could be a lot better there. It's really hard to pick which day in any week will be the lower crowd day. Sunday's are always blocked for select APs, they're always crowded. Grad night groups can arrive at any time, you can't know how it will be on any particular grad night. Just from a vacation stand point, I'd probably skip the Wednesday. After going 3 days straight with 2-3 early mornings, you could take a day off and then either use MM on park day 4 or just be recharged for the last 2 days. On the other hand, you'd still have access to the on-site hotel's pool on check out day, so if you're spending Monday night on site you could spend time at the pool on Tuesday.

 

[kkmcan]

We are going June 12th-14th (Mon- Wed). Not sure if we picked the right dates or not. We went back and forth between weekdays vs weekends. But we just made a decision and hoped for the best. Thats all we can do. We get there at rope drop, hit the big rides, grab fastpasses every chance we get. Go back to the hotel for afternoon break and head back in for a few hours in the evening. Thats always our plan and we usually get to ride everything we want. We were there Jan 3rd and 4th this year and it was madness. Park hit capacity in the afternoon (although I don't know what level) and we can only hope its less busy than that.

 

[LaVon]

I know my kid gets out of school the first week of june. We are planning our trip for the end of june (The 25th -1st july with monday-friday in the parks) This would be only our second trip so Hopefully it wont be too horribly crowded since we did pick a week without grad nights

 

[xlsm]

We did June last year - our first DLR visit. The first part of the week was cold in the mornings, the last part of the week had record heat. We did not notice that Grad Nights made any kind of negative impact.

The report in my signature that says "don't catch snoap flakes on your tongue", while technically a December WDW pre-trip report, also contains our Disneyland TR. The second post of it is a table of contents and the Disneyland parts are labelled so you don't have to wade through any of the other posts if you're curious.

I look back at some of the pictures and think, "wow, it was crowded on Main St!", but when we were there, we didn't find the crowds any worse than WDW in summer.

 

[jhaig]

If AP's are blocked in the summer, how does that make DL compare to WDW as far as being busy?

 

[agamble]

If AP's are blocked in the summer, how does that make DL compare to WDW as far as being busy?

Remember there are multiple levels of APs. The lowest level is blocked weekends all year long and then blocked starting at the beginning of June and going to late August. But the next SoCal pass gets access to the parks on Sundays through a majority of the year and they are only completely blocked in July with plenty of dates in June and some in August available to visit too. And the Deluxe APs are a pretty good deal since they are not blocked in the summers except holidays and Saturdays. And of course there are the best APs with no blockouts (or only Christmas). Many locals may opt for one of the cheaper options, but there are many AP holders who have Deluxe APs and above. They are all still free to visit.

Rule of thumb is if local passes are blocked (ie July & holidays) it is because Disney expects a large crowd of tourists. So it is still plenty busy even with blockouts.

 

[crazycatlady]

Thanks for your help, SMD! We are (probably) staying at PP Saturday and Sunday nights to get EMH to Cali Adventure on Sunday and Monday and then moving to Park Vue on Monday. I am a little disappointed that on Sunday, June 4th the EMH for CA starts at 8 am instead of 7 am. Now I am unsure if I should bother paying the up-charge to stay on-site when the EMH at CA starts at the same time that Disneyland opens.