I am pushing for my family of four (DH, DS (age 7) and DD (age 4) to venture out to Disneyland one more time before Galaxy’s Edge opens. While we are Star Wars fans, we are willing to wait a couple of years after the opening (in hopes that a small portion of the insane crowds will begin to dwindle). We took the kids to Disneyland when they were pretty little (3 and 18 months) and none of us have ever been to California Adventure.
We already took the kids out of school for a trip to Disney World last month, so we need to schedule this Disneyland trip when school is not in session. Crowd calendars seem to indicate that end of May is a little better than Spring Break or June or July. Our kids get out of school on May 22nd.
Being that Disneyland is not my home park, I need some advice.
Do you think that a fair amount of people are going to feel like us, and try to squeeze in one more trip before the opening of Galaxy’s Edge? Or are we the unusual ones, and the majority of people will be delaying their visits because they want to see Galaxy’s Edge?
Is the last week of May a bonkers time to visit with Memorial Day weekend and Grad Nights? We would probably spend 7 days in California and plan to visit the parks 3-4 days. So perhaps we could schedule our parks days around some of those Grad Nights.
I don’t have a good answer. This is our home park, but we are debating the same thing. The Grad Nights in general can be weird. Lots of high school students showing up when the park is usually slowing down, but the actual Grad Night I think is in DCA? So they move that direction.
We have gone around Memorial Day weekend and it is crowded, but not insane. We usually don’t go on the actual day, but on the week before or after.
For me the debate is exactly when is Galaxy’s Edge opening. I assume it will be early summer to take advantage of the summer visitors, with some speculation of early June. We will probably get one more trip in before it opens.
I think it is going to be a mixed bag on that one. I think you are going to have several people (myself included) taking a break as the SWGE opens to avoid the crowds. We are taking our last big trip this week though, as our AP will expire and we don’t want to renew with all the blockouts coming. I also think you will have just as many waiting until it opens.
With the block out dates on the weekend of memorial day, I think you will be good. In this case the weekdays are going to be more crowded rather than the weekends. It was that way all summer. Your best bet for park days would be May 24, 25, and 26. Grad night date for that time period are : May 22, May 28, May 29, May 31, so they shouldn’t impact you too much if you go on Memorial Day weekend.
I am thinking the same thing. My Bestie and I have booked our trip for May 15th - 17th. We will only have a half day on the 15th so we are going to do CA, especially with Grad Night being on the 16th and 17th strictly in CA. We will be doing full days on Thursday and Friday at DL and taking advantage of the Magic Morning on Thursday. I am hoping that because it is in mid May before any schools let out and on weekdays while kids are in school that the crowds will be lower. Plus I, like you, am hoping that people planning trips around this time will want to wait until June when SWGE will be open.