Disney/Universal parks in Florida - are they hellishly busy in UK school holiday time?

[ThePinkPonyClub]

I'd love to go but don't DD to miss any school. Could anyone whose been share what the queues were like, not just for rides but food and anything else.

They get less busy from mid August, as the US schools go back, but then there is the hurricane risk and the brutal humidity. Late October is my favourite time but there isn’t really a ‘quiet’ time any more.
Easter and Xmas are the busiest times by far.
Use a crowd calendar, the Dibb has a free one but I like undercover tourist.
Touring plans is a fantastic paid for resource.

Get the book unofficial guide to Disney
https://amzn.eu/d/ci85cyd (Make sure you get the correct Disneyland Disney world one for where you are going)
I haven’t been for years now but this gives brilliant advice on which parks to go to in which days ie don’t go to the parks that have early access for the Disney hotel guests as it will be heaving. Which order to do the busy rides in and which rides the queues move quicker.

At age 10 single rider queues are just about an option (I’ll be flamed on this for here but I’m older) where you skip the queue if you don’t mind doing the ride alone we saved 3 hours on the Harry Potter ride doing this and did men in black 3 times in 15 minutes where the regular queue was 1.5 hours

the book also give access to an app showing the live queue times

also if you go at the end of August just before our school year starts the US schools are already back so it’s quieter.

don’t worry about the fact the book takes a regimented approach we’ve used it 3 times and honestly it’s saved us so much time and made the overall holiday more relaxing. If you try to wing it with Disney during busy times you will end up in more queues.

The App is great to tell you queuing times.
We have been lots, went last year and it was 36 degrees, queues ranged from 1.5-3.5 hours, it completely ruined the whole thing for us.

They want more and more money out of you so to pay for the “fast passes or lightning lanes” is extortionate.

Research US school holidays and avoid them, there were hoards of young people in matching T shirts and backpacks obviously school groups, hundreds of them in every queue.

Be prepared to spend a large part of the day standing in stifling heat waiting for a 4 minute ride.

February half term is a potential option if you are going a week because few us schools are out

We’ve been Christmas and Easter and hardly queued due to military level planning by me using the Touring Plans app. I also set early alarms for restaurant and fast pass booking. The fast pass system is probably changed now. For Universal, it used to be the case that some of their hotels included fast track tickets.

Easter is really busy. We went Feb half term and took the week before off which was much quieter except for the weekend around President day (Monday of half term).

Definitely plan in advance for Disney, make use of the early opening hours or when the fireworks are on in the evenings for the big rides and purchase lightning lanes for MK and Hollywood Studios. It’s an amazing holiday!

Last 2 weeks of August is OK but weather is very steamy, the type where you are drenched in sweat when you leave your air conditioned room and you have to be prepared that it may rain every afternoon. And there is always a risk of a hurricane but they are very well prepared for them.

We found the best time was October half term.

We've just been for the Easter holidays. Because Easter was late this year I think most if not all of the US had already had their spring break.
Second week was noticeably busier with Mexicans. Definitely worth checking international holidays.

We only did Disney, I didn't want everyone to get bored of theme parks. We did not purchase any lightning lanes, we did not need to. Longest we queued for anything was 40 minutes.

We stayed in a Disney hotel for 9 nights. We did early entry every day, then around lunchtime would go back to the hotel for a swim and the back out, usually to a different park, around 4pm.

Sure there were long queues but we were not in them 😁 ticked off the big rides during early entry / just before park closing. What I would say is that some rides, like Tron, never get shorter queues. One night we left at 10.45pm, the park closed at 11pm and the queue for Tron was still 110 minutes. So it is worth getting up early.

We went this Easter holiday just been- flew as soon as school finished 5-17 April and got back on Good Friday. It was fine up until 13 April then it was very busy but we would get there for opening, leave any lunchtime then go back in the evening- at MK it’s very quiet during fireworks so we walked onto rides. We bought single lightening lanes but the longest queue we did was Flight of Passage at 60 min (no LL). MK was open until 11pm (that means if you are in a queue by 10.59 you’ll get to ride it) so 7-11pm let us crack through a lot of rides.

It was the only school holiday we could go in so we just got on with it really.

Oh and there was no military level planning. Just deciding each evening where we were going the next morning and which ride we were heading to. There are millions of blogs giving you various ideas and best order of rides etc it is worth reading them. But tbh once you've been there a few days, looking at the app, you get an idea fairly quickly of what's a decent queue time for each ride.

We went a couple of years ago, in August. Queues were around 1.5hrs for the big ticket rides, there were a couple we didn’t bother with.

US holidays have more affect than UK holidays. Last 2 weeks of August are typically quieter as Florida schools are back by then. We’re going in October half term this year for 2 weeks and August next year.

We went over Easter in 2024 (2 adults, 2 dc 10 & 6 at the time). It coincided with US spring break and yes it was busy but not hellishly so. We rope dropped almost every day (jet lag means you’re up at stupid o’clock every morning anyway so might as well make the most of it!). That meant we got to ride the most popular rides without too much hassle. We also became expert at the Virtual Queues too - managed to ride Guardians 4 times and Tron 3 times - but didn’t pay for a single LL.

Watch the Mammoth Club and AllEars YouTube channels for rope drop strategies and adapt them to the rides you want the most.

These days there’s not really a “quiet” time at Disney, and personally I’d rather queue a bit longer in the spring than endure the Florida heat in August!

We went mid-may. Apparently, it should have been low crowd, but it wasn't.
I went in May in 97 and was able to walk on all the rides! It's changed a lot since then.

Following with interest. Just booked for next Easter - I know it's going to be busy but we wouldn't cope with the heat in August.
Can't afford to stay onsite. We will do as much as we can without killing ourselves. It is a holiday. 7am-midnight for a fortnight would be too much for us although we have booked 2 nights at Portofino at Universal for "free" fastpasses.