I’m planning a trip to DLR last week of May into early June, with my DH and 4 teens (3 are mine + a bonus one lol). We’ve been wanting to get out to CA for a DLR trip for the past couple years and this year is finally it! We’re going to do 3 days in the parks with park hoppers. I’m planning to have at least one off day to break up the busy park days.
My crew has much better staying power in lower crowds. I know we just need to plan for crowds no matter what and hope for the best, but if I can steer away from days that might be super crowded, it would be so helpful.
Here’s some details about the timeframe - somewhere between 5/27-6/1.
Monday (5/27) is Memorial Day, no plans to try the parks on this day.
Tuesday (5/28) and Friday (5/31) are Grad Days (though I read in other threads maybe that doesn’t matter).
I read that the last days of Magic Key availability before blockouts can lead to crowds. It looks like the last available days before the summer blockout for the Imagine Key are Tuesday-Thursday (5/28-5/30). They’re blocked from Friday (5/31) until August.
I was originally thinking of going Tuesday/Thursday/Friday but now I’m wondering if Saturday might be better than Friday? And maybe I should avoid Thursday?
I need to nail down the days in the parks so I can finalize our travel/hotel dates. I’m hoping to tack on a night near the coast at the beginning or end of the trip.
I don’t have any first-hand experience to add, but am planning my first DLR trip for June this year and had similar questions - am curious to hear others’ responses. Based on things I’ve read in the TP chat, forum and other sites (for example Tom Bricker’s analysis here) I ended up planning around a weekend rather than week days. We also have three park days with hoppers (and G+ pre-purchased).
For our WDW trips I’ve found that - while low crowds are wonderful - we’ve had no problems achieving everything we want to do with short waits by relying on the things learned through this Forum (including good use of rope drop, G+ combined with BG1, ILLs and touring plans). I am hoping we’ll have the same experience on the west coast
I would gravitate towards weekends. It sounds absolutely crazy but Fri-Sun especially on holiday weekends carry a much higher day ticket cost AND have higher instances of pass blockouts which lead to a thinning of the crowds.
On top of that Disney will still staff it to the 9-10 CL range and things will operationally move much smoother. So it’s become very much a pay to play system for a better operational experience.
Meanwhile, the cheaper day ticket days (value days) with less passholder blockouts see those two audiences increase the crowds and while it may not be a traditionally busy time of year and therefore has gotten a good rap as a low crowd time, Disney is not staffing it less, running less tracks/vehicles for rides that have that capacity, staffing less for merchandise and food locations, and the big kicker, less security lanes and ticket turnstiles to access and get into the parks, all of which leads to maybe some less crowds but higher waits all around.
This balancing has helped them level out the crowds so everyday is consistent. The nice thing is though, those crazy crowded packed to the gills days for events/big holidays have gone down just a touch.
But I would lean towards a Saturday/Sunday if you can for two of your days. I also like Fridays because Friday mornings are usually very well staffed for a weekend and the daytime is fairly empty. It’s Friday evenings that things can start to feel crowded. But if you don’t want all three days together, you could try a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Grad nights aren’t the worst, but it very much depends on the type of high schoolers & their level of maturity. I have definitely left the first week of June from a DL trip with an urge to punch a teenager. And other times I’ve come home and realized “Oh, I think we were there on a grad night & I didn’t even notice.” So it does vary. I wouldn’t strictly avoid it, but if your group will really be impacted by a negative crowd of immature teens vs. crowds of more average park guests, then you can.
