Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar – April Preview

When looking at April Crowds at Walt Disney World it all starts with Easter. This year Easter Sunday falls on April 16. Historically, Sunday is not the busiest day of the Easter season although you can expect to see very large crowds every day around the holiday. The Christmas peak season that we see every year happens between December 27 and January 1, a few days after the holiday itself. For Easter, the busiest days at the Disney World parks happen before the holiday. Guests of the Disney parks can expect to see peak Easter crowds on the Tuesday through Thursday before Easter (April 11 – April 13).

Easter is not the only date of interest on the April calendar. In fact, April is chock-full of special events. Here is a breakdown of what’s happening in April and how it might impact crowds in the parks.

Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot

Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival continues throughout all of April. Guests can expect the parks to be extra busy on weekends, especially in the afternoon. The festival includes temporary food kiosks all around the park which bring in curious locals who come for the food but don’t ride the rides. This is why you might see very crowded parks with manageable wait times at the attractions. Avoid weekends unless you have no choice or if you are visiting for a specific concert.

Grad Nights

Grad Nights are back but now they are at Typhoon Lagoon. We don’t think those grads will spill over to the other parks in great numbers but beware if they do. There may be a premium on arriving early at the parks on days around Grad Nights – they tend to sleep in.

Easter

The Disney World Crowd Calendar is predicting very busy parks during the second week of April (April 10 – April 17). Two-thirds of the largest school districts are off at least one day that week and that means large crowds at Disney World. The good news is that park hours are extended to accommodate the influx of guests so the savvy planner can take advantage and arrive as early as possible. Do that and you will be ahead of the game. After the Easter break, 95% of school districts are back in class so we expect to see the parks return to moderate crowd levels fairly quickly after Easter Monday.

Star Wars Half-Marathon

The Star Wars Half is the next event on the April calendar (April 20-23). Like all runDisney events, the Star Wars Half Marathon will bring lots of guests to the resort but the majority of their activities will happen outside the parks and we don’t expect see a large impact on wait times.

Dapper Day & Morning Magic at Magic Kingdom

Once the Star Wars Half-Marathon weekend comes to an end the Disney World Crowd Calendar predicts that the parks will see their lowest crowd numbers since January. There are two events to note on the calendar in the final week of April. Magic Morning (not to be confused with Extra Magic Hour), a ticketed event at Magic Kingdom continues on April 25. The impact of these magic mornings has been minimal. Dapper Day (April 29 – 30) brings in a few thousand well-dressed guests that although easy to spot, don’t have a huge impact on wait times at the attractions.