Stressing over May dates - need some opinions

[SKShields]

I am graduating with my masters in May and my husband and I were planning to take a trip to Disneyland to celebrate.... however, I didn't really stop to think about the high school grad nights that would be taking place throughout the month of May. And with the new set up that they have, giving the kids park hoppers for the whole day, I’m starting to stress about the possible crowds. We were originally planning on going the May 16 - 19, but since there are grad nights 3 of those nights I was hoping you all could give me your opinions on possible moving our dates to May 9-12, there are 2 grad nights that week. Am I stressing over nothing? Any help/thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[jenniferrose]

Ugh! I will be following this thread too. I was hoping to go May 13-15. I didn't even think grad nights, I figured they were all in June.

 

[HydroGuy]

I am graduating with my masters in May and my husband and I were planning to take a trip to Disneyland to celebrate.... however, I didn't really stop to think about the high school grad nights that would be taking place throughout the month of May. And with the new set up that they have, giving the kids park hoppers for the whole day, I’m starting to stress about the possible crowds. We were originally planning on going the May 16 - 19, but since there are grad nights 3 of those nights I was hoping you all could give me your opinions on possible moving our dates to May 9-12, there are 2 grad nights that week. Am I stressing over nothing? Any help/thoughts are greatly appreciated!

We will not know the impact until that time, but most of us here think that since the grads will be staying late until 3AM that they will not come til later in the day - afternoon or early evening. So it may not impact you that much - especially during the day.

Some ways it may help you is that Disney could be running shows on weeknights when they normally don't - such as Fantasmic. And if they are expecting a bit larger crowds they may have longer park hours and more ride capacity (e.g., running more trains at BTMRR).

Should you stress? I would say if you can switch to when there are only 2 grad nights that might be a good idea. I am not sure it will be all bad though on grad nights.

 

[Honeybee1983]

We ran into the SAME problem when booking our vacation! We were going to go the 2nd week of May, thinking we were in the clear from grad nights there, BUT then Disney extended grad nights, so that weekend would have been not good. It seems to me, the very best week is the first one. It's after spring break has finished, but before grad nights! I am thinking the hours should still be nice and long too from spring break. I can't imagine Disney changing the hours after for only one week, then having to just change them again for grad nights the next week. I think this will be good, I hope....lol. I just don't wish to deal with being around a bunch of potentially rude teenagers with my little kids. No offense to any teens on this board, because I am sure you are not this way, but it really just seems to me like a lot of the younger set these days have NO idea what manners are and the swearing and level of entitlement...like everything on earth is made for only them, ugh...no thanks, especially when Disney is supposed to be magical and wonderful for EVERYONE! I really don't want to subject my little ones to that! Call me crazy! lol

 

[sophies*mom]

How did you find out which nights are grad nights? We're going the very beginning of May (in the parks May 1st & 2nd) so I'm assuming grad nights wouldn't be starting that early in May. Hopefully.

 

[HydroGuy]

How did you find out which nights are grad nights? We're going the very beginning of May (in the parks May 1st & 2nd) so I'm assuming grad nights wouldn't be starting that early in May. Hopefully.

See

"The Scoop on Grad Nights at DLR in May and June" www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2298400

 

[Baloo76]

Wow, glad I found this post. I haven't been to DL in ages and of course the year and time we're going is the only time grad nights will be at DL and the seniors will be at the parks during the day. Sure, no one knows for sure what affect this will have, but I'd rather not take the chance.

Fortunately we are going to be in southern Cali for a week and are planning to visit friends in SD. So we are just going to do SD first and then finish in DL on 5/14-15. Now we just have to hope they don't extend the grad nights even further!

FWIW, i still think going during grad nights during the week will still be better than going on the weekend

 

[SKShields]

Thanks everyone - i appreciate the insight. I think we are going to take our chances with the second week in May when there are only 2 grad night (thus far anyway).

Hydroguy - that's a good point about the night time entertainment, i never thought about it, but that makes some sense. If that's the case we wouldn't have to stress so much about trying to fit fireworks and F! into the same night.