Presidents week in Feb or Easter week?

[frannn]

Going to cancel our trip that was to start 12/26 ☹ (second cancellation this year) and resched for either President's week or the week leading up to Easter. We need to stick to school breaks and would prefer Easter week cause 1) less chance of weather issues canceling flight, 2) close to our anniversary and 3) more time for things to get closer to normal-ish. Will it be much more crowded than President's week? Any other thoughts why one time period is better than the other?

 

[mkb3]

We are considering Presidents week too. Not sure if I trust crowd calendars during this time, but they have that week way more crowded than Spring Break. Not sure I buy that.

 

[lanejudy]

Presidents' Day week coincides with Mardi Gras in 2021. How much that will impact crowds this year is unknown, but it would normally be a double-whammy.

 

[mkb3]

Presidents' Day week coincides with Mardi Gras in 2021. How much that will impact crowds this year is unknown, but it would normally be a double-whammy.

Good to know. I would assume less than Spring Break Crowds though correct?

 

[gharter]

I would expect crowded, but would not expect it to be Spring Break crowded.
Ultimately, it depends on where Disney puts their capacity limit at that time. As important or maybe more so is what other rides and attractions have or have not opened and the number of CMs working have a huge impact on how crowded the parks seem.

 

[buzzgirls&dad]

Also Valentine's day is on Sunday as well as the Daytona 500 if that is still live. I can see Sunday bringing in the locals and Daytona crowds if they race.

 

[mkb3]

Decided to bump our trip back to June instead. Doing this gives us the option to add an extra 2 days in the parks to offset crowds.

 

[KristaZ]

I've been President's Week and the week of Easter - I would say the crowds are roughly the same. I think Easter Week tends to drop off a little more after the holiday than President's Week because it's not bookended with a race weekend. Of course, next year is anyone's guess what it will look like during either of those weeks.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

We have done the Presidents’ Day/ Mardi Gras double whammy several times, as we have Mardi Gras off. It can be crowded, but IMO spring break and holiday weeks (thanksgiving, Christmas etc) are way worse. We are a little more than 6 weeks out, and all parks have park passes, hotels are wide open for the most part. I don’t think the crowd is going to approach what we are used to for that week. Many people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who would normally be traveling have had their Mardi Gras break cut very short because on top of delayed starts to the school year because of COVID we had 2 major hurricanes this year causing kids to miss almost 2 total weeks of school that need to be made up.

 

[mitchsfan]

In 2017, my parents wanted to take us all to Disney. My brother was adamant about it being Spring Break week, the week leading into Easter. We went but my wife and I vowed never to go again, even if Disney offered us a free trip. The Magic Kingdom was literally walls of people. I was in the Magic Kingdom for 4-5 hours and literally went on 2 rides. I hear that Presidents Day weekend is crowded but I cant imagine it being nearly as bad. Good luck. As someone else said, this year is anyone's guess.

 

[Brian Noble]

Presidents' Day week coincides with Mardi Gras in 2021. How much that will impact crowds this year is unknown, but it would normally be a double-whammy.

I've been during most of the high-crowd times: peak summer, President's Week (many times, both with and without Mardi Gras), Easter Week, and Christmas Week. The only one I haven't done yet is New Years Week. Things have been shifting over the years, but I'd put them in about that order from easiest to busiest. In my experience, Mardi Gras doesn't make that much of a difference to P-Week; there are a lot of people from NOLA in their purple, green, and gold, but I think the fact that they are all "flying the colors" makes them seem more numerous than they are.

Having a good plan for each day was a LOT more important than when exactly we went. I'm not sure how much that is still true in the no-FP/park reservation days post-COVID, but I bet it still is. So, my advice:

We ... would prefer Easter week cause 1) less chance of weather issues canceling flight, 2) close to our anniversary and 3) more time for things to get closer to normal-ish.

Go with Easter for all of these reasons. Will it be a little busier than P-Week/MG? Probably, but probably not enough to matter if you are willing to be a little strategic about how you plan each day.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Mardi Gras doesn't make that much of a difference to P-Week; there are a lot of people from NOLA in their purple, green, and gold, but I think the fact that they are all "flying the colors" makes them seem more numerous than they are.

it isn’t just New Orleans. Almost all of Louisiana, and the southern half of Mississippi and Alabama are out of school that entire week. Huge numbers of people from this area head to Disney. We tend to look at tags in hotel parking, and the last time we traveled that week our resortparking was easily half from those states. It makes a BIG difference in crowds from what I have seen.

 

[Brian Noble]

I guess. Like I said, I've done P-Week many many times, both with and without MG. It doesn't seem to make that much of a difference to my experience of the parks.

 

[havoc315]

Going to cancel our trip that was to start 12/26 ☹ (second cancellation this year) and resched for either President's week or the week leading up to Easter. We need to stick to school breaks and would prefer Easter week cause 1) less chance of weather issues canceling flight, 2) close to our anniversary and 3) more time for things to get closer to normal-ish. Will it be much more crowded than President's week? Any other thoughts why one time period is better than the other?

So hard to predict given the current situation.
On the one hand, during normal times -- President's week has gradually gotten far more crowded than it used to be. Still not as bad as Easter, but pretty horrible in its own right. So you get to a point.. does it really matter if the line for Small World is 70 minutes or 60 minutes? And as long as the current capacity issues are in place... I would expect them to hit capacity both for President's week and for Easter.
That said... these aren't normal times. President's week crowd should be significantly lower than normal due to the pandemic. But lower attendance doesn't mean the lines will be any shorter: With more social distancing still in place, with lots of entertainment still offline, lines could be longer than ever during President's week, even with crowd at only 50% of the normal President's week crowd.

.... Now, I don't know if things will get any more normal by April. If things don't get more normal, then April and February may have the same issues. 35% capacity but with limited entertainment, etc.
If things do start to normalize by April, then Easter could see increasing attendance but also return of entertainment and capacity.

A long-winded way of saying, who knows..

 

[eeyoreandtink]

I guess. Like I said, I've done P-Week many many times, both with and without MG. It doesn't seem to make that much of a difference to my experience of the parks.

I have watched the data on wait times and it definitely influences them.

 

[Brian Noble]

This is probably the important part:

Having a good plan for each day was a LOT more important than when exactly we went.

One of our best days in the parks was Christmas Day 2015. We opened Studios, hit up a bunch of attractions with little to no wait, had lunch, and took a break. On the way out, we saw one of the longest lines we've ever seen...of people waiting at the ticket booths to buy a ticket! We took a nice break at the resort, and came back to see the Osborne Lights (it was their last year) and then had a great Christmas dinner at Cape May.

If you were in that line waiting to buy a ticket, I'm sure you told everyone who would listen for years to never, ever go to a Disney park on Christmas Day. But we had a blast.