Hello all!
I am preparing to book our 4th trip to WDW for summer 2024, this will be a high school graduation trip for my DS18. DH and DD16 will be along for the ride as well.
We have always travelled at the end of August, based on the crowd levels always being forecasted as lower during this time.
The question is: Should we try visiting at the end of June or sometime in July this time?
We have been visiting every other year since 2018 and always book a minimum of 8 park days and stay at FW Cabins. We stayed at WL one year which we loooved but missed the privacy and space that the cabins provide (plus WL was more $). If Copper Creek Villas were available and not too much more $ I would book that in a heartbeat!
Early June would not be as hot as July. If you decide to do July, I’d plan on taking break mid-day in the room to get out of the heat. I don’t know that I would enjoy Disney in that kind of heat.
Unfortunately we have to time this after school is done for the DD16 on 6/15. We have mastered the art of working around the heat factor after 3 Aug trips!
I think it’s a wash between late June, July, and August. All three are about the same heat and rainfall. August probably has the lowest crowds, but it also has an increased chance of hurricanes.
Given the hurricane risk, I might lean towards June, but it all depends on what factors are most important to you!
I think what I’m looking for most is confirmation that crowd levels will be noticeably higher in late June and July.
We didnt use Genie+ for our 2022 trip and still got to all the rides we wanted. I am thinking that would be impossible to get away with in June/July.
If we do use Genie+ liberally maybe the difference in ride wait times would be negligible from late June to late August.
Here it is by week as well. You can see how in 2022 the crowds dropped week by week from June through August and really fell off in the last two weeks. This year has been a bit messier but still generally busier in June-July.
My 2 cents as a mom with two kids in college — unless you already know what your graduate plans to do after high school, I would make a couple plans. If she’s going to college, each one does their orientation differently. Big colleges have an orientation early in the summer and you may not know the schedule until mid-May. Others have orientation in August right before classes start. Some colleges have special pre-orientation programs which can start in early Aug. (Of course NE colleges tend to start after Labor Day so that may mean you can take that Aug vacation.)
If not college, she might want to go earlier in the summer to either start work without needing time off in the first couple of months.
We loved taking my DD19s graduation trip last year but we had to move it once we knew when her friends were having their grad parties. (Well, we could have cancelled the trip. To DD those grad parties were important.)
I hope you all have a great time celebrating your grad and this important family milestone.
Ooo, nice long trip!
You will have plenty of time to get to what you want to do and ride even if you have to revisit and strategize to do it. Someday we will go in May or early June, maybe after the kids are done with school!
We are taking our rising seniors to Orlando this August for exactly this reason - who knows what their schedule will be like after high school graduation next summer! And it was already hard enough to plan this summer, because our DS17 had a summer job with the Air Cadets that he didn’t get definite dates for until about 4 days before he started working, and DD17 had a summer school class that also wasn’t confirmed until a few weeks before it started. Kids get difficult to schedule around once they have their own things going on!
@Chase1104 - I’d love to go late May or early June, it seems like a wonderful time of year in terms of weather and crowds, but like you, we’re also stuck with working around the school schedule for now. Our one and only previous trip to Orlando was in the last two weeks of August 2019, and we are going for the same 2 weeks this year (Universal and WDW). It looks like it’s going to be insanely hot for us, so I’m hoping we survive it ok! As long as it is just ridiculously hot but no hurricanes, then I’ll be happy. On our 2019 trip, a hurricane came through a few days after we left, and we were feeling very relieved to have gotten home when we did.
@MAFK we think we are late August experts after 3 trips, so honestly I feel less worried about how we will deal with the heat and crowds. If you time your main meal and break times right, you’ll escape boiling (poaching?) to death.
I have looked into the schedule for freshman orientation and move-in at DS18’s 3 most likely colleges and we should be good. We will have to beg forgiveness from our DD16’s HS soccer coach as she will miss tryouts.
Who knows, maybe we will cross paths next August? We will be there from 8/18 - 8/27, staying at FWCabins unless we can snag a deal or split stay at Copper Creek Villas.
