Spring Break 2015 Crowds at Walt Disney World
The spring crowd levels at Disney World vary from year to year. The variation is driven by when Easter is and how schools plan their spring breaks. Different school districts use different rules when scheduling their spring breaks. Some school districts have a fixed week each year, and others adjust spring break based on Easter and Passover. Some school districts have the Friday before and/or the Monday after Easter off. When Easter is early, the spring break season is early and short. This causes the crowd levels to be higher, but for only a short time period. When Easter is late, the spring break season is spread out and has less effect on crowd levels. In 2015, Easter is early (April 5), so the spring break season will be early and end by April 12.
Crowd levels are inversely related to the percentage of children in school: when most schools are on a break, high wait times are found in the parks. We track the school schedules for the 100 largest school districts, and these schedules goes into our Crowd Calendar models. The chart above shows the percentage of students in session and how the numbers change year to year.
Disney has set the blocked out dates for Florida Resident Seasonal Passes between March 28 and April 10 (inclusive), which means this is when they expect to see the most guests this year.
Another thing that is going to lower the crowd levels is the snow fall from winter. Many school systems lost school days and are having to make up the snow days. Some are choosing to shorten or cancel their spring breaks or Easter breaks. Many are still experiencing winter weather and have not finalized how they will make up the time. The chart above does not include the effect of schools’ make-up days.
Are you planning to visit during your spring break? Remember, the time you spend in line is impacted far more by when you arrive at the parks and your touring plan, than by the number of people in the parks. We recommend everyone use a touring plan this time of year.
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My school district has scheduled our spring break for the last week of April 2016 next year because Easter and Passover will be a month apart. It appears that many northeast school districts will be doing the same. The first thought that popped into my head is that it would be a great week weather-wise to plan our next Disney vacation with the kids since they will be off from school. How do you think this will affect the crowd levels at Disney? I am not sure if the rest of the country will be planning late spring breaks as well.
We are actively collecting school schedules for 2015-16 school year and won’t have a complete collection for a few weeks. As a Jew living across the south for most of my life, we have never got off for Passover. With the southern schools ending their school year earlier than others, they will not have their spring breaks in late April. Late April 2016 should have light crowds and great weather.
Hopefully the same pattern will occur in 2016, Easter is 3/27/16 and we always get a long weekend for Easter and then a full week of in April, this year our spring break is 4/12/15-4/18/15 and is always this week or the week after. It is great to know that we can do a spring trip with moderate crowds that will not interfere with school schedules.
Wendy, that is my favorite week to go! We’ve done that two or three times. My kids just don’t get out until after Memorial Day this year, so we opted for Spring Break instead. Plus, living in Wyoming…I want to get away from the cold and snow for a bit. If I get a break in early April, I can push on through til summer! 🙂
Just a quick comment to note that we decided -not- to visit on spring break week based on the Crowd Calendar. That info alone was worth the subscription fee! Our family gets “peopled out” in a few hours in heavy crowds, crowd levels of 9 and 10 are nightmare scenarios for us.
Our district’s last day of school is the Friday before Memorial Day (and Memorial Day is early this year), so we realized there was a nice stretch of 4-6 crowd level days in Memorial Day week. We were able to schedule our trip into that little pocket before all the Northern schools let out and the worst of the heat sets in. 🙂
Wow! This is great information! Can we also get one for late summer 2015 (late August / early September)?!?!? Thanks!!
Yes. We’re collecting data on snow-day make-up days so we can update our models. http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/05/15/summerschool/ is the post from last year. The story will be the same: summer crowds will increase through June, peak in July, and start to taper off in August.
We are going to be there from April 1-7, which includes our two travel days. It’s Spring Break for us (Lyman, Wyoming). This is my youngest son’s first trip and his birthday week. We’ve been to WDW six other times as a family (we used to live in Alabama, and it was easier to go), but this is our first time during Spring Break. We are staying on-property and have 5 day Park Hopper tickets. I have our TPs mapped out and our FP+s booked. I’ve never had a trip where I didn’t do Rope Drop, so my husband just accepts that it’s what we do. 🙂 I’m not necessarily worried about the crowds, but I’m mindful of what the crowd level is going to be and I’m planning accordingly. Thank you for the excellent reminder post!
100% agree Lisa M! We are also going the week leading up to Easter and I have adjusted my plans accordingly. We have 2 nights on site to take advantage of some EMHs. The rest of the week will be offsite so we will be in the parks for the first few hours of the morning or a water park if its warm enough.
Rope Drop and a TP are key to Spring Break touring. We will be there the week before Easter. We have had lovely trips to WDW over spring break following those rules. You will get just as much done before lunch as you would during a low period of attendance. Nothing makes me more sad then the folks that come home from spring break and say they waited in line for 2 hours to ride x. WHY? Because they got to the park at 11AM, didn’t have a TP and didn’t use FP+. If you want to sleep go to the beach not WDW! Great reminder post.
what is a tp?
TP=Touringplan