We just moved our January DL trip to March 11-15. Since Easter is so late this year, I’m hoping the Spring Break crowds won’t be too thick during the 2nd week of March. However, TP is predicting DCA crowd levels of 7-9 while DLR is 4-6. I’m not sure how to interpret this in regards to the best strategy for park reservations. We have park hoppers and MLL. Are these DCA crowd levels likely because of the Food and Wine Festival? Will most of the crowds arrive in the 2nd half of the day - so we should start our days there?
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It looks like many schools in Utah will be on spring break that week, and that reportedly brings crowds. Even on most high crowd days, the first two hours are light in both parks. If you have LLMP for each day, you’ll do fine regardless of where you start. Will you be starting your first day at rope drop or later in the day? If after 11, it doesn’t matter which park you reserve; you can enter either after 11.
I’d reserve the park you are most interested in for your first day, and then alternnate. Most people like to do 3 starts in DL, and 2 in DCA. You’ll have hoppers, right? You can always try to change your start park towards the end of your trip if you find that you really liked starting in one more than the other.
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Also, keep in mind that the crowd predictions are not very dependable. Disney keeps changing things with special ticket deals and After Dark events, which changes crowd patterns. Just expect that both parks will be crowded, but do hold out hope for lighter crowds in the first 2 hours. Disney offers a cheap ticket deal to So Cal residents through May 15, and the $50 kid ticket deal through Mar 20. So Cal residents will be there in full swing, and, yes, they tend to arrive after 10.
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Your advice is spot-on regardless of what the source of them is, but as a Utah resident, I’m curious where you’re seeing that many Utah schools are on break that week. All the big school districts that would give rise to any impacts to crowds are all on break either Mar 31-Apr 4 or Apr 7-11. There’s only one school district (St. George) that I can see that may has a break Mar 10-14 and while it’s a growing city, it’s mostly known as an retirement/snowbird city so I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact. So just curious where it’s being reported that many Utah schools are on break that early.
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I wouldn’t rely heavily at all on crowd calendar guesstimates. If the days are discounted or there are specials running (like the before mentioned Socal tickets & $50 kid ticket deal, it’s going to be busy all around). DCA with the Food & Wine will drive more crowds there too for the festival booths and fun activities. I also love @TremDLNut’s advice to pick your favorite one to start in and alternate. I love love love doing that and I tend to give favor to more starts in DL if I’m choosing, but sometimes I will choose DCA for the rides my kids love there that are just easiest to do early on in the first couple of hours (Toy Story, Incredicoaster, Guardians & Grizzly River Run).
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Thanks, @TremDLNut and @lolabear_la! I am also in UT and found this handy calendar for all the school districts in the state. I think the UT universities tend to be the ones who have spring breaks in the first couple of weeks in March. Though that may not be true when Easter falls in March.
I can start making dining reservations today so wanted to have a sense of where we’d be at meal times each day. I also like to have more mornings in DL, so I just went with DL-DCA-DL, which also happens to be the opposite of EE.
I am having trouble getting excited about any of the table service/reservations options. My family has one kid with a severe peanut and tree nut allergy and two of us have Celiac. Fine dining and character dining are not the right fit for our crew which includes 2 teens and 2 70+yo Grandparents. When we were to be there next week, I’d planned to rely on on walk up and mobile order because the crowds would be low. Now that we are going in March, I feel like I should have some dining reservations. Any recommendations? Right now, we have one late evening reservations for Oga’s (just for the ambiance) - we will only have drinks. And, I’m planning to get the last breakfast slot for Carnation Cafe on our last day - we can’t leave without Micky Waffles 
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As @Hart says, it looks like it’s the universities that are out, not regular schools. I didn’t notice it was just Unis when I made the post, but did see that crowds were high the second week of March last year, esp in DCA. Now I don’t know if that surge was due to Utah unis being out, or if it was the final surge of ticket deals getting used, but it was a surge in crowds, and I am bracing for that myself on my visit on Mar 12 and 13.
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Oops. The above post was supposed to be responding to @lolabear.
I love Carnation Cafe. My other go-to’s are Craftsman Bar & Grill in the Grand CA Hotel, and Wine Country Tratoria in DCA. The Craftsman is poolside and has a decent but relaxed menu and good service. It’s a nice break from the hubub of the parks. The Tratoria has a nice outdoor seating area. My husband avoids all processed grains and had no trouble getting substitutions on his meal. Take a look at the menus of both places.
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Thank you, @TremDLNut - off to look at those menus now!
Also, a little forewarning on Oga’s: It’s very much a busy bar atmosphere. I took my husband in there and he lasted about 2 minutes and insisted that we leave. He couldn’t handle the noise and the tight quarters, especially after they had us stand at the bar, which is common. We are 64. I can handle that scene, but he hated it. I haven’t seen many seniors in there in the times I’ve been there (without him).
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Good to know. I’ve only been to the WDW Oga’s and it was definitely tight quarters but the vibe was pretty chill. My parents are huge Star Wars fans so we have to do it, but i could move it up to earlier in the day if the DL vibe turns more “bar-like” atmosphere. Or just send my parents, since they’d probably like that more than my teens 
. I was trying to set up a nighttime GE experience that begins at Oga’s and ends with with RotR.
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Ahhh! I hadn’t thought to check the universities. 
It’s been a minute since I was one and my kids aren’t there for another almost 5 years. But makes a whole lotta sense.
I’m not sure either! But wonder if there were any NCAA Mens Bball first round games in the vicinity where people traveled to see the team and added on time at DL. Whatever it is that caused the surge, I hope your trip goes well during that week this year!
That’s the calendar that I was looking at too trying to figure out spring breaks, but as mentioned above, totally spaced on the universities. Whoops. I did also look up Alpine (since it’s the biggest school district in the state just to make sure it’s break wasn’t that week).
I think DLR has such great availability and diversity in its QS and in most places has ample seating that you shouldn’t feel like you absolutely have to have some meals. Also, if you are feeling that’s the case, DLR does have a decent walk-up situation where you can (if close enough) to the restaurant sign up to be on the walk-up list from the app. But if you still want a good table service, we do love Carnation Cafe and Lamplight Lounge. Those are the go-to’s we return to, but I’m not sure if/how Lamplight Lounge is with allergy and their menu is somewhat limited, so definitely look at the great recommendations you got above (we’ve tried Craftsman Bar & Grill once and did love it, so it’s a very good one, we just don’t love having to go back through security to get back to the park so we tend to avoid going to Disney Springs or the hotels for eating).
Love this! Just make sure you watch out for when RotR closes for the day. Often in DLR because the park is usually open later, RotR will only operate until 10pm at the latest. Also, I have found that a lot of times it becomes unreliable in the last hour it operates, so I would make sure you have a back-up time to do RotR it if it turns out that it goes down when you are planning to ride.
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Ok. I have to confess that I didn’t think to check college breaks, either. I …er…Googled and went with the top AI response. I should have investigated it a bit more since I don’t like to trust a computer generated answer.
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Haha! And they were the ones I thought might not like it! My husband is a big Star Wars fan, so I thought he’d love Oga’s. Sigh. You just can’t get around Crowd Phobias.
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I’m pretty claustrophobic. I still haven’t done Smuggler’s Run because of it and I’ll never-ever, no way, do Mission Space at WDW. I even struggle with some of the ride lines that are indoors and very immersive (caves, mines, stretching elevators 
). Add crowds to a small space and I’m no good.
I don’t know what the standby line for Space Mountain is like at WDW, but there is one hallway at DL that feels very snug when the line is moving slowly, which it usually is. Good thing you will have LLMP! I almost lost hubs to the hotel after that line.
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I know the exact hallway you are referring to 