I’m currently trying to decide which month is going to be best for our next trip to WDW. I’m looking at either Sept.2021 or January 2022. Yes, I know these are both a little far out but I don’t want to be there until all of the chaos is good and over, hopefully. I had hoped to go earlier but I can wait…Pensive face 
Pensive face Crying face 
Loudly crying face 
Also I’ve been telling my husband for years that I WILL be there for the 50th anniversary!! So I do want to be there for this! I know that right now we have no way of knowing when they will be celebrating or which months, so given that my biggest thing here is crowd levels. I know it’s hot in September we’ve been several times during this time. We’ve been in January also and in July, August so I know all about the heat. I’ve also been at Christmas time. Our biggest and most important concern is the crowds, we like minimal crowds! So I’m trying to decide which might be best and if one in particular might have more events for the 50th!!!
I’m a mid-late September person. The only downside is that it’s Hurricane Season. If you can be ok with walking around in a poncho and still getting wet, then it’s a blast with low crowds. (Now… it isn’t always that way, which is why I go then. When you get a Sept. trip that isn’t having hurricanes it’s always my favorite time.)
I’m planning on going for the 50th, but now with all the construction delays that may turn into a 2022 trip instead of 2021. I don’t want to go if Tron / GotG and such are still under construction.
Given the way this whole mess has impacted everything, delaying construction and everything else, many are speculating that the big celebration will be put off. Whereas it might have started mid-2021, it may not start until the actual anniversary and then continue for about 15-18 months thereafter.
But like anything WDW related right now, that’s purely speculation
I think you’re wise to put it off for later, and I do think January will still be in the celebration window.
Can you book a few and then cancel what you don’t want as things become clearer?
Considering how far out we are I think anything is possible. I can always book and reschedule, that is entirely possible. I’ve never been this torn about booking a Disney vacation, ya know?
I totally get it. I have multiple reservations for a trip this year to Disneyland and still unsure if they’ll even be open in 2020.(Ugggh… this is the first time I’ve booked a Disney trip at the 499 mark. Having the countdown be at almost 100 days to go & still not know if I can go is so frustrating.)
I feel ya. It’s really is a struggle.
A good starting point might be last week of January 2021.
I had a smartalec answer : whichever one it’s open! 
End of January/early February has been good for crowds, iffy for weather - could be cold, could be pleasant. All in the same week.
September could be your back up date. If you’re likely to be driving I’d definitely say September. Sept 2019 the airlines were so on/off with flights because of Dorian some folks were fed up. We loaded up the car and went anyway. Missed a little touring but otherwise had a decent time even with the heat and humidity.
Good luck! !
We had our March 2020 trip cancelled and have decided on Jan 2022. We think 18 months should be as close to normal as we are going to get. Coming from Australia adds extra complication, so can’t see it being any earlier than Jan 2022 for us. Enjoy the planning 
Thank you. Good luck and stay safe. I really think and hope that by January 2022 things should be as normal as we are going to be. It will be our new normal anyway. That’s why I am struggling with my decision. I’m leaning more towards that time frame though. 
Booked a December 2020 bounce back trip while there in October 2019. Never had any reason to doubt that we would be there. Now, doubting that we will be there. Have a backup trip planned for April 2021. Now doubting that will happen. Looking at November or December 2021, but DGD will have started kindergarten. DD worried about school attendance policy. ADR date in 24 days. I have not sketched out plans, what parks will be open, what will character meals look like,will WDW be open, will it be safe to travel?
Same here. I have called to add a day onto the end of our December bounceback trip and was told they could not add the day at POR or switch us ANYWHERE else for those dates. Although plenty of resorts appear to be available for our dates and I could book the extra day separately. I wonder if they are not allowing bounceback package changes similar to recovery packages? At the same time I am increasingly doubtful December is realistic. For my cancelled April trip I have reschedules booked for June, August and October. For my cancelled May trip (different group) I have a rebook scheduled in August. Plus the December bounceback. No idea if any of these will happen but I feel better planning them and being hopeful than having no trip to plan. Regarding kids out of school, unless the school has really strict policies I would not worry about taking a kindergartener out for a few days. They will catch up and have fantastic learning experiences at Disney. Missing school does however get harder the older they get. For our kids by high school it’s not an option.
I have been trying to add a day to the front of our bounceback offers, we had 2 rooms, have 2 rooms booked. I was not able to get the extra day since trying to add if before the closures, at least January. I have rooms booked as 2 separate reservation the day before the bounceback reservations. We are at POFQ.
First child, (DGD)not sure of the policy, I will probably book a trip just after Thanksgiving 2021 and for her spring break 2022 and see what happens. Lots of deposits on my card.
As said, you can always cancel and reschedule. We are schedule for October 2021 just to have the reservation - hopefully things will be much better by then! If not, we’ll reschedule.
I’d choose January just in general. Add to the equation, construction likely on going in September '21 still. I went late January '18. 7 full day, no rain and nearly perfect temps.
I just called to try to add December 4th to our bounceback reservations. No luck. I have a room only for the 4th. I tried to add another night, December 3rd to that reservation at POFQ, no availability even at rack rate.
Our bounceback deal date range is for 12/9-12/24. We are booked 12/9-13 and I have a separate booking for 12/8, coming in that night. I’d like to add night of 12/13 also to stay for MVMCP. Depending on what room offers come out and how many 4-park magic tickets we have that have gone unused from the cancelled spring trips, I may just scrap the bounceback and book the 6 nights at a discount. Or maybe we won’t go at all. So many unknowns.
Another thought I’ve had if we end up doing 6 nights stay but only 4 nights of free dining is to upgrade to deluxe DP since we would have a full 5 days to use it. Does anyone know if they are still allowing dining upgrades on bouncebacks?
My DW & I are now talking a bout cancelling our DLR trip entirely. It doesn’t look like California is going to allow them to open this year. We are considering going to Orlando in December. We’re much more confident that Florida will be open this summer.
Plus, the cost of going to California is almost double of a Orlando trip. We can save even more if we just go to Universal only (We love it there - idk why more ppl don’t try it!)
I’m going to wait at least until plane tickets go on sale next week and probably until WDW offers fall discounts. (Typically in July).
One reason is Universal is not great for young children. I love Universal too and on my last adult trip (pre-kids) I spent 80% of the trip at Universal and 20% at WDW, but now that I have toddlers, our trips are exclusively WDW. There is a lot at Universal which young kids cannot do.
That’s totally valid. What I hear from a lot of ppl is more “loyalty” to one park vs. the other. Some ppl refuse to even try USF/IOA because they are so blindly dedicated to WDW they won’t go any place else.