Jersey Week - The Myth

[qman]

I hate to sound like a broken record but here it is again...Jersey Week is a myth. Oh, okay there is something called Jersey Week but, based on my experience, it is no big deal.

We've been to WDW for Jersey Week in 2003 and 2005 and the crowds were fine. In 2003 the crowds were uniformly quiet throughout the week (Vets Day was on Tuesday that year). This year it did get busier as the week progressed but I suspect that was more because Vet's Day was on Friday creating a three day weekend.

My three day weekend theory is based on the fact that most of the people we talked to early in the week were "from away" but as the weekend approached more and more people seemed to be from Florida.

I would suspect that Jersey Week (the week that includes Vet's Day and maybe Election Day) is busier than other late October/early November weeks. That is because many school District's take days off that week which allows people to pull there kids out of school without missing too many school days. Our school district in Maine was closed three days that week. The days off is the reason we've gone that week in the past and will again in the future.

As I said many folks with school age children go that week. In fact other families there that week included the families of:

- two other girls in my daughter's class
- a girl on my daughter's soccer team
- a girl in my son's class
- a college friend of my wife
- two high school friend's of mine

These are the people I know about, there were probably more.

However, as popular as the week is it is still a lot quieter than those other times of the year.

 

[NJ2Boardwalk]

Jersey week is called so because of our state teachers convention that closes schools on a Thurs and Fri the second week in Nov. This, combined with the Vets and election day makes the school week a joke. That's why people go at that time cause you can get a 10 day vaca in while only missing a few days of school. Thanks for taking the heat off of us Jerseyans though...it's nice to see not everyone sees the Nov crush as "Jersey's" fault.

 

[mommykds]

We were there in 2003 during Jersey week. We didn't even know what Jersey Week was at the time...parks were not mobbed at all. That was probably our best trip so far to Disney. And all the New Jersey folks we met were friendly & chatty.

 

[AllNamesTaken]

I love you all!! Our trip this year is 11/9 - 11/16. We planned it before I knew abut Jersey Week. Then I find out that 3 of our 6 vaction days are during Jersy Week. Got really nervous!! We picked Nov pre-Thanksgiving because we thought it would be slow.
It's great to hear that it's not as bad as some people make it sound.

 

[HugsForEeyore]

Thank you, qman!! This is one of the nicest posts I read!

What you posted is exactly what I been noticing about "Jersey Week", too. It is far more that the "Jerseyans" going that week nowadays. Maybe in the past it was primarily New Jersey folk, but I think school districts all over are giving kids some days off that week (Nov 5-12, 2006), especially the Friday which makes the long weekend. Anytime you have kids off from school, it helps make WDW more crowded. My nephew in North Carolina even had two days off that week!

And did you ever notice that every week there are at least two or three new threads about Jersey Week, and people wondering how crowded it is?? Almost all those posts are started by people NOT from New Jersey - which makes me wonder that people in other states pick that week for a similar reason, as their kids have days off from school, too.

I went during Jersey Week in 2004 and met many nice people from Michigan! I hardly met another Jerseyan (except those in my family, of course!)