Will Grad Nights be added to the TP Crowd Calendar? How much of an impact will Grad Nights have on the predicted crowd levels? Looks like many days in May include them, so changing weeks won’t help, plus the great room rate I got at GCH isn’t so great the other weeks.
I read what was on the 2025 Grad Nights thread. Figured we would start in DCA on one of the grad nights and then hop to DL. Two of our park days have Grad Nights.
I frequently find myself in Disneyland during Grad Nights because we like to travel when school lets out for the summer in late May / early June (which happens to be when CA schools are still winding down).
My number one advice is not to worry about it too much. When I think about these trips, Grad Nights are not forefront in my mind, and I only remember that it was going on when someone brings it up.
That said, your plan to start in DCA and transfer to DL is a good one. If at any point you feel like you’re being crowded by kids, change location. Avoid DCA in the evening before a Grad Night. If you’re really concerned, choose a Grad Night evening to be somewhere else (like dinner at a fancy restaurant, a play, etc.)
Here are the dates:
May 8, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21, 28, 29 and 31, 2026
June 3, 5, 7, 10 and 12, 2026
Thank you.
Completely agree with all of the advice from Jeff! We have had a couple of grad nights that were very bad, where I left just wanting to punch the next teenager I saw in the face because I was so sick of them jostling around, hurdling the stroller (yes we really had a grad hurdle our stroller and a second one tried but tripped on it because we weren’t about to stop moving for them to behave badly like that). But we have also had far more grad nights that I didn’t even realize it was a grad night until after the fact.
And the couple that we had that were bad were before the dramatic price increases that Grad Night saw in the 2016-17 timeframe. Before it wasn’t too much difference to have a park hopper or not and most of the grads had hoppers so they were all around both DL and DCA. Then they hiked up the cost of the park hopper so it deterred a bunch of them from being in DL. The the price difference for just DCA all day wasn’t too much more than the cost of just the party (in DCA after hours) so the most popular pick became buying the ticket for DCA only that allowed them to still get the park the full day and the party after but because they are teens and the party goes until 1 or 2am they really and truly don’t show up in that early part of the day.
So your plan of DCA first, then move to DL is very good. DL will be slightly more full of the non-Grad night guests, especially the ones without PHs. But as a net impact it isn’t overwhelming.