Kiwi Family First Visit to Disney - planning tips requested...

[nzers]

Hi! First time on this board - Thanks everyone for the excellent info you provide.

We're planning a trip in 2006 to California (SF,Yosemite, Hway 1, LA, SD), LV & Grand Canyon/Sedona (started out at just wanting to take the girls to Disneyland, but has turned into a 4 week roadtrip!). I am torn as to when we should do this. First I thought May, but after reading various posts, we are now leaning towards the last two weeks of Sept (our school holidays) & early October. We can do Disney (5 days) at either the beginning, middle of end of our trip. My biggest worry is that a "great" ride will be closed during our stay ie Haunted Mansion seems to close in Sept & reopen in Oct. Now I see that the Pirates is going down for refurb. in Oct this year. Is it typical that the bigger rides tend to be refurbished from October onwards? Is there any trend? Or is it just luck? This is a once in a lifetime trip for our family and we would hate to miss out on anything due to poor timing.

Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance.

nzers

 

[HaleyB]

Yes referbs are much more common in the off season. HM always goes dark in Sept while it is decorated for Christmas. I think POC may also get dressed up a bit, can't remember.

The good news is that DL has done a ton of referbs this past winter, so maybe there will be fewer referbs. We once went while 4 big rides were down!

Either May or Sept/Oct are beautiful on the east coast. Sept/Oct is more off season than May. Sounds like a fantastic trip, wish I could be more help.

 

[LucyKate]

Australian family here - and we did almost the exact same trip as you.

Read our diary (link below) for some ideas but in short, the later time sounds a little better as I think Disney crowds will have subsided a bit by then, and according to www.riderefurbs.com HM should reopen September 30.

Good planning websites for Disneyland are:
www.mouseinfo.com
www.mouseplanet.com
www.mousesavers.com
http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/feature/crowds.htm for crowd patterns

Also, check out www.tripadvisors.com for reviews of hotels in Disneyland and everywhere else.

 

[HaleyB]

One more time of year consideration- Fantasmic. It is the best show Disney has to offer and it does not run year round. If it is running it will not be every night.

May and Oct will have very close crowd levels. The slightly higher number of people in the parks in May is not noticable (I have gone both times of year many times). What will have a bigger impact on your DL time is when the park closes. Check hours to see park open and close times. Two extra hours at the end of the day is huge, because crowd levels also drop towards the end of the day.

 

[Judy from Boise]

I think that Sept/Oct are some of the best months for Ca! May and June you can get a lot of overcast days where the sun doesen't come out till late afternoon. I would start in SF in Sept, and work down. Hitting DL in very early Oct should be great, even if 1 "big" ride is down.

 

[nzers]

Wow, what a busy board this is!

Thanks so much eveyone - Great info on your website Lucykate (I have bookmarked it for future reference).

Having just read a thread re the 50th celebrations ending on Sept 30 '06. What will the impact of this be? Busier around this time - and therefore best avoided or a not to be missed event? We're still flexible with our planning so enay further ideas would be appreciated.

nzers

 

[Blackunicorn]

We always travel in September, even when we plan on going earlier. (Like this year!)

I'm sure that Disney doesn't want a whole lot of rides down during the 50th, but some things are beyond their control--for safety's sake, if nothing else. HM always goes down for the holiday overlay directly after Labor Day--which is the first Monday in September, if you didn't know. It re-opens the first Friday in October with the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. The Matterhorn seems to go down in September of every other year--this will be the first year that we will get to ride it, YAY! POTC isn't normally down during our trip.

If you want, you can go to mouseplanet.com and look at their park updates, which is what I do. At the top of the page, click on "Current Refurbishments/Attraction Closures" to see what they have listed--though, I warn you, no one knows for sure what will be closed until Disney announces it, so things like POTC being closed this October are unconfirmed as of yet. If you want to see previous years, you can look at the archives by clicking on the desired date on the right hand side of the screen, toward the top.

 

[crazymomof 4]

If you get there on the 29th of Sept. you can see HM amd POTC because they are scheduled to close the 3rd of Oct.