What to Expect in January?

[Clemson Bama Fan]

We have our December trip all planned. Only 33 days to go and yesterday my DW got a summons for Jury Duty for the entire month of December. Nothing like giving her a lot of advance notice. Unless they allow her to defer it to another month, which is unlikely, we will have to go to plan B. We have been many times in March, November and December but never January. What should we expect? Crowds? Lighter than early December? Temperature? Similar to December? Any times to avoid? Thanks!

 

[RMulieri]

Crowds stay busy till around Jan 4th or so. The rest is average , with a lot of large South American tour groups .There is a crowd spike MLK weekend though .weather can be downright cold or warm, so in other words you need to be prepared for anything .Last year when we went it was low 70's/high 60's during the day , nights were in the upper 40's ..mornings were cold till it warmed up.The year before when we went it was really warm ( freak heat wave) and it never really got cold

 

[Clemson Bama Fan]

Thanks for the info. I had totally forgotten about the tour groups. May look at February/early March instead. Thanks again.

 

[kohlby]

The end of January was the most empty it's ever been for any of our trips. However- it was cold that year! Like actually hitting 32 degrees that year. That likely scared off some of the crowds too. We've been in the heat of the start of Sept - and even those super light crowds weren't as light as when we went at the end of January. And though I don't live in FL - I do live in the southeast and January is the coldest month where I am. It can also be a confused month - meaning, you could need shorts or a winter coat. Luckily, winter coat days don't happen a lot at Disney - but they can happen. (And one year, there were multiple days that were in the 30's. They even had snowflakes one day!)

If you do March, be careful with spring break time if you want the lowest crowds. Our end of January trip also had the first two days of February in it and it was still empty. (But Feb can get crowds certain weeks. I checked a crowd calendar for a trip and found that April had lower crowds than Feb for the weeks we were looking at!)

 

[Squirlz]

We're going Jan. 10-17. Crowd calendar shows 2s and 3s all week. I'll come prepared for any weather.

 

[angierae]

We're going to be in the parks the 9th-11th. Crowds are small except for Saturday (5) and I'm looking forward to it. It's our first trip.

 

[Clemson Bama Fan]

I guess it will depend on hotel availability. Right now HRH has limited to no availability for many dates in early 2016. I will give them a call as this seems strange for a low crowd time unless there are conventions or something.

 

[RMulieri]

A lot of conventions are in Jan..We had a huge one in our resort ( Portofino) last year that booked up the resort. That doesn't mean the parks will be busy.I will say that take the crowd calendars with a grain of salt so to speak.The last Jan trip I took the crowds ( with the exception of MLK weekend) were predicted to be 3,4 and they were bigger than that.I used 2 different calendars and they were both off in their predictions..Hope for the best, but be prepared if it is busier