May or early June?

[Snurk71]

We're starting to seriously look at a trip for sometime in May or early June. Probably 4 or 5 nights at DLH or GC if I can swallow $100 more a night (I think DW and DD actually prefer DLH though). I don't have a problem pulling DD7 out of school for the trip (we've done it many times already), but DW would try to work around the school calendar with teacher institutes, Memorial Day, dismissal, etc.

We've been 3 times before in May and found the crowds pretty tolerable (outside of Mother's Day one year that seemed horrid). So I defaulted to looking at mid-May times again. But DW threw out that she read SoCAL schools don't get out until the 2nd week of June and suggested looking at the first week of June. I see the park hours extending as you move along the last week of May, 1st of June, etc - so I'm assuming this mirrors crowd levels?

We don't tend to worry too much about having extended park hours at DL with only the two parks, and the nighttime stuff isn't a huge difference maker for us - we've passed on Fantasmic and fireworks when we've been in the past because of the crowds (we have seen them all at one time or another). So we'd take lower crowds and reduced hours over extended hours and the nighttime stuff going on more than the weekend nights. Cost isn't really a factor when we get down to it, though we don't like to spend more money than we have to like anyone else.

So...

Based on the above, what do you think?

1) Stay with mid-May or try the 1st week of June? Which week of May?

2) Where to spread the 4-5 nights - Fri to Tues, Sun - Thurs, etc? If the weekends are going to be packed (aren't they always at DL?), I probably wouldn't want to have the majority of the days across the weekend - I'd rather have more short hours weekdays.

Thanks

 

[mystic_path]

I know others are going to say Mid to late may but for me I really like the first week of june. Longer hours during the week, warm weather, all the shows are up and playing and if any major referbs were going on, they would or should all mostly be wrapped up by that point. Oh and schools are still in as well.

To be honest from what I hear there really isnt much of a difference between the end of may and early june. As for when you go well it all depends on if you want to catch the fireworks or fantasmic, or the electrical parade which plays only on weekends. If you arnt concerned about missing those shows then I would say do the week days. The parks are usually less crowded during the weekdays.

 

[hlbtimes2]

I would try to find out when Grad nights are. I think you are getting pretty close to them, and personally I would avoid that! The park does have shorter hours during grad nights. They also screw around with the MM schedule. And, I wouldnt want to be there with a park FULL of teens.

 

[JenDisneylandlver]

We plan on going the first week of June, for all the reasons mystic path mentioned!

There is a Grad night that week, it's on Thursday. We have plans to go to Universal that day. But I love early June to go, we always go then. But there is NEVER a park full of teens on a Grad night. They get bused in late at night, after the park is closed. We've never noticed any difference between a Grad night and another night. Other than the park closes early at 9pm.

 

[DLR29]

Also by going in early June you probably have more of a chance of getting a soft opening (or actual opening) of DCA's new Toy Story Midway Mania.

 

[S. S. Columbia]

FYI, here is a list of the Grad Nights for DL:

Grad Night events:
Thursday, May 15
Thursday, May 22
Thursday, May 29
Thursday, June 5
Wednesday, June 11
Thursday, June 12
Thursday, June 19

On these nights DL closes at 9:00 p.m.

If I'm not mistaken, the Grad Nights should not have too much of an effect on the Magic Mornings (since there are no MMs on Fridays). But I would guess that the MM on Thursday, June 12, would probably be cancelled.

HTH