WDW spring break 2019 1st wk April?

We are from Calif and done DL numerous times so wanted to try WDW next spring break 2019 (1st week of April). But I’ve read how terrible the crowds are at spring break (even though Easter is late --April 21, 2019) and am reconsidering. I’ve looked at a number of crowd calendars which have the crowds ranging from moderate to very bad. I don’t know who to believe. Any thoughts? I don’t want to fly the five of us out for terrible crowds, we can drive/stay in DL and have crowds but save money. We would probably stay offsite of WDW so wouldn’t get the 60 day FP + or the EMH but honestly being from the west coast time zone, I wouldn’t see us using the EMH at all. I’m also wondering if not having the FP+ 60 days out means we won’t get on a number of headliner rides (I’ve heard the FOP and other headliner rides are near impossible to get for FP+ without the 60 day reservations).
I saw one post that much of Georgia and Michigan have the same spring break in 2019 so could indicate large crowds?
Your input is appreciated, We are quite torn. We are used to working the DL crowds but have also read the wait times in DL aren’t as bad as WDW (its just smaller land wise so seems more crowded)- it is such a huge investment that I don’t want the intense crowds to prevent us from experiencing much!

A good touring plan is better than trying to plan based on crowd levels.

It’s hard to know what the FOP wait times would be like for FOP this far out.

For my daughter, Spring break is the week after Easter. I was in WDW this time last year, and while the crowds were high on the crowd level scale, they didn’t feel that bad to me. I would not let 2 states spring break schedules impact your trip. People will tell you, there are no more “slow” or low crowd times at WDW anymore. Go when it is convenient for you.

EVERY school district has different spring break weeks, even in the same city. It doesn’t really matter when Easter is; it’s all based on each school’s calendar. Some districts go earlier; some later.

Here is TP’s article about the wide range of spring breaks, with lots of details as to what dates various regions tend to favor: School Schedules and Crowd Levels | TouringPlans.com Blog . Actually, this article analyzes school breaks throughout the year, not just spring break.

I was in the World, with my family, during the last week in March this year. Crowds were high, no question.

On our MK day, with an optimized TouringPlan, we hit 20+ attractions.

We stayed offsite, and didn’t have access to 60-day FP+ reservation. TouringPlan gave us a good time to hit FoP with only a 2 hr wait. Nowhere close to ideal, but far from terrible. I’d gladly do the 2-hr wait for FoP 1x per day.

Family had a great time. Nobody came away feeling like they’d missed out.

Yes, WDW takes somewhat more planning ahead, not to mention day-of flexibility to have a great day on a high crowd day - but it can totally be done. Don’t let the CL scare you away.

We are planning a spring break trip next year too. I have always gone during school for lower crowds but we cannot next year. The May crowd calendar update purportedly will take into account the super late Easter next year and school calendars from across US and adjust accordingly (based on the TP blog post). Whether that will increase the levels for your dates or not remains to be seen. Currently, I think a lot of schools have spring break near Easter but with it being so late next year, I think that will change some things. We have state testing the first week in May so coming back from spring break right before testing is not ideal. I’m guessing that having late Easter will make the crowd levels higher (8s-9s) for more weeks across spring but then not have quite as high of crowds right around Easter. we won’t know until we know :slight_smile:

We have been the first week of April 4 years out of the last 5. This year is was pretty busy due to Easter. Next year it will still be busy, but not as crowded as the years when Easter is in early April. The Star Wars races have been moved to that week though, so it will probably be busier than it would have been without Star Wars. With a good plan you will be fine. I would stay onsite if possible, while it is okay to stay off site at DL, the onsite experience at WDW is much less expensive. Worth it to us. We are from WA and use EMH, it takes a few days to get used to the time change, but then we are good. The weather is usually pretty darn good the first week of April. We keep going that week, so it must be good! My kids’ spring break is always this week.

FWIW I can confirm that much of Michigan’s spring break is the first week of April, although this might not be true statewide.

We are in WA state and just did our first wdw trip after 4 DL trips. We flew in late Friday and stayed at the airport. Went to our resort on Saturday but didn’t start parks til Sunday. So 48hrs in, we actually left our room by 8ish!

We went our kids spring break. Which happened to be a full week after Easter this year. We just lucked out, that the 2 weeks prior were the busiest spring break weeks. It was still CL5-7 most days.

Some rides are similar, some are better, some are not as good as DL. the only one I would say to avoid is buzz lightyear, if you like it at DL. It’s one of our favorites there.

I did some daily reports a few weeks ago during our trip. Happy to answer any questions as someone used to DL that just did first trip to WDW.

It’ll be great. We’ll go back in 2-3 years. Back to DL summer 2019 first though…

I’d love your perspective since you are a DL-West Coaster, did you and your kids love WDW more? Same? If they had to pick one, which one and why? The flights are an additional several thousand $ for us since we can drive to DL so that is still something we have to consider!
My kids love the Buzz at DL! Thats too bad!
Sounds like your crowds weren’t too bad your week and you guys stayed onsite though so got the early FP+. I’ll look up your past trip report too, thanks!

Our spring break this year was the week after Easter (CL pretty high, although not as high as the week before). Ditto the advice for a good touring plan. We stayed offsite and the only thing I couldn’t get at 30 days was SDMT and FOP on day 30. After that I was able to modify to get SDMT around 10 days prior to trip. Never got FOP and didn’t ride it but that was ok with us.
I guess it really all depends on if you are a planner and or dislike crowds.
Haven’t been to DL so have no comparison but I’d never talk anyone out of going to Disney regardless of when it it is on the calendar. :slight_smile:

MK is definitely bigger and at first I was really liking it more. But after a few days, I boiled it down to DLP > MK but WDW is on a whole other scale than DLR. i would definitely go if you are able to. We’ll go again and will still do MK, just not 2.5 days out of 6-7 like this last trip. Before we went I too wondered if we’d like it more and not want to go back to DL. But not the case. And after scheduling/planning so much for WDW, DL will be a breeze (we last went in 2016, before maxpass). I’m kind of looking forward to same day FP without all the running. Any other specific questions, let me know.

@stefaniemae is this your real name? My real name is (first and middle) - Stephanie May. :-):smiley:

thanks for the responses! I’m just catching up being offline a few days—so after reading the responses, would mid June (around 14-21 week) be better crowds-wise? Weather-wise is it already humid and hot and rainy? Is it hurricane season?
I don’t mind having a good touring plan but we aren’t going to be the ones to get there an hour before rope drop (west coast time, we just aren’t morning people realistically and the one time we’ve been on the east coast it was torture getting out before 9am!). And we can’t afford an on-site stay (been looking at accommodations and off-site is more affordable so we’ll miss the 60 day FPP). So I’m concerned we won’t be able to get a lot of the more popular rides, especially the ones like 7DMT and the Avatar ones (these aren’t available at DL so we really want to do those).
We are used to doing the FP system at DL which is so much easier but this whole 60 days in advance is totally different!
I also contemplated doing a split stay with one or two nights on-site just for the FPP access for two days but then I have read posts that people still couldn’t get FP at 60 days out either!?

We came from west coast. We did stay onsite. We didn’t start going to parks til our 2nd day after flying. We stayed at a cheaper airport hotel the first night. We didn’t quite do rope drop, but even with teenagers on a 3hr time difference, we were still out of the room by 9ish most days. Good luck, it will be great no matter what!

Hurricane season runs from August to November, more common September and October. Sandy and the “Perfect Storm” happened the end of October. I survived Sandy living two blocks from the coaster that ended up in the ocean. I now suffer from PTSD and I will start to shake when they say a bad storm is coming. I could not watch any news footage from Harvey with out having a panic attack. June is hot and humid but being from NJ it is no worse then July and August for us. It does rain often but not for long, two hours is long for that time of year.