When is the best time to go to Disney Florida?

[Superslickwebchick]

Hi all,

I am beginning to think about organising a trip to Disney World Florida this year. I have two girls 8 and 10 so need to travel in school holidays/term breaks. Is there a good time to go there? I was thinking about weather, people and also queue for rides etc.

Any comments gratefully received :)

Best time to visit Florida is Easter - weather is warm but relatively mild, so good for visiting all the theme parks (far too hot for that sort of thing in the summer) but warm enough to enjoy the pool and beaches. Also you miss hurricane season - June to November. However it is peak season so will be more expensive. Hope you have a good holiday.

Thanks JitterBug2 - I suspected Easter was the best time. I'd best check the money box and see if we can afford it this year!

Did you go to Disney then? If so what were the queues like?

Is there a ticket premium you can buy to "jump" queue's?

Haven't been to Disney for years, I'm afraid. Last time was at Easter and the queues were fairly lengthy but seemed to go quite fast. You need to be quite regimented about the rides that you want to go on - have a plan, cos Disney is huge!!

I'm not sure if you can get fast track tickets like you can for Alton Towers but I think you can get in early if you stay in a Disney resort hotel - again probably quite pricey.

Don't go at Easter! It's when 'America' goes to Disney.
My sister lives there, and she says they close the parks because they get so full - people queue for a couple of hours along the road to get in, drive through the gates and find themselves back out on the road because they've been diverted away from the car parks.
Spring bank holiday is a good time - weather good, before it gets too hot, and not as busy.

I would try and avoid the period around Easter and Christmas if at all possible. These two times are the busiest for the parks. Also flights for Easter this year and perhaps June are likely to be now fully booked.

August can be very humid as well as wet.

Disney does a "fastpass" ticket at some of their most popular rides. What happens is that each person puts their park ticket into the fastpass machines outside the ride. A few seconds later a fastpass ticket is issued with a time slot of 1 hour for the ride. This will enable the ticket holder to join the fastpass line between those times and hopefully have a shorter wait. Fastpass is popular and many of the more popular rides run out of fastpass tickets long before the park closes.

Read thedibb's website and read as much as possible on the general area before travelling.

Do not forget that the ESTA (the online electronic travel authorisation) is now mandatory for all passengers so you would need to complete one for yourself and your children. The Americans now charge each passenger $14 (around £9 sterling) for each ESTA application.

Thanks igivein & AttilaTheMeerkat - really helpful comments. Seems that planning ahead is the key here :)
Thanks for the reccomendations too - they'll come in handy.

have a look at florida4less website, i found it to be the cheapest for accomodation, i also did lots of research on tripadvisor, go on skyscanner to compare prices for flights.
im going on the 25th may for 13 days.
9 days in orlando then 4 nights in clearwater for a relax after the madness.

After Christmas, Easter is the busiest time of the year for the parks. Parks do close during the day due t capacity and this happens mpost days over the Easter holidays every year.

The weather is nicer than the summer as less hot and humid, but the parks will be very busy.

My parents have been in late September/October and have sid the weather is nice then.

We always have to go in school holidays so go in July and August. We have encountered one hurricane during our three holiday so far but all it meant was that we missed half a day of the parks. They closed early due to the weaher and opened one hour latr the next day. No rides were affected and all ran as normal. TBH you'd have never known about the weather by the next day.

It is extremely hot - can be 100 degrees and 100% humid, but you spend a lot of time inside, on rides or in aircon/fanned queues. So ime it is very much bearable, althought the waterparks can be hot going.

In July/August, ime, the queues are not bad at all - nothing like DLP that's for sure, fast passes are easy to get, and the parks are not heaving.

We are going again in August. DD will be 9 (she has been at 2y, 4y and 7y) and loves it. She is a roller coaster and ride fan and can't get enough of it. No days off here!
I would avoid Easter and Christmas generally.

we went the last 2 weeks of August last year and yes it was hot but not unbearable at all. American schools go back around the 16th so queues were not too bad at all.

We went October half term. All the US children are in school so it's full of Brits. Weather lovely, we fast tracked for all the famous rides but the queues weren't long at all. And we were there for Hallowe'en which is taken very seriously. Don't take your DCs to Hallowe'en Night at Universal though, very scary for children. And you have loads of time to save up for it. I would love to go back

Hi,
Firstly, the American Spring Break is usually in March. You can check these dates online. The parks are absolutely heaving, so avoid this time!
We got caught out when Easter was early one year, and clashed with Spring Break. The Disney waterparks were full within an hour of opening, and all Fastpasses for rides in the parks were gone for the day before lunchtime.
Luckily we had been a few times before, so knew our way around, and didn't need to do everything. It was an extremely busy 2 1/2 weeks.
Apart from April / May outside school holidays, our quietest trip was in October half term. We only got one week holiday, so I had to apply for a 2nd week off school for my boys.
We had low crowd levels as no American holidays, and lovely weather. It only rained for about 10 mins ( torrential downpour ) on the last day.
It gets darker earlier though, and the parks close earlier than at peak times.
There is plenty do do in the evenings though - my boys loved DisneyQuest in Downtown Disney which was open until late at night, or playing crazy golf in various locations.
There is no guarantee of good weather though - or how hot it will be. We have been in March / April/ May and had various weather. Sometimes a bit chilly, with a wind, and sometimes blazing hot in the high 90's for two weeks!
Last December was very disappointing for visitors - cold and wet.
It is not so much the heat that gets to people in summer months, but the very high humidity, which can be exhausting, especially for young children.
Yours are a good age though. We took our boys to Disneyland Paris regularly until they were 9 and 13, then went to Florida for the first time.
I was glad that we waited, so they could both cope with the busy days and late nights, and we could go on most rides together.
The Trip Advisor Orlando forum people can help you with trip planning.
People start making dining reservations about 6 months ahead!

If you stay in a Disney owned hotel, you get Extra Magic Hours. When we were last there, this was 3 hours in the morning in a particular park, before regular opening time, and 3 hours after park closing time in a different park.
There was a sign in hotel reception telling which parks were open early or late for EMH.
We were in the Magic Kingdom park until 3am, then it opened again at 7am the next morning!

We've been twice in the October half-term and the week after. It's been perfect, weather great and no queues in the parks.

We've just come back from Disney with our preschooler so travelled off peak and avoided US Spring break. Personally I think you will hit large crowds whenever you visit during school holidays. Even off peak, the parks were rarely quiet, especially Magic Kingdom, where queues for popular rides regularly exceeded an hour. I would either travel off peak or stay on site at Disney and benefit from the extra Magic Hours.

Even Feb/March, temperatures were regularly high seventies/early eighties. Crowds plus high temperatures - not a good mix. Personally I'd avoid Easter and summer holidays and go for October if you are confined to school holidays but be prepared to plan ahead and prioritise what you want to do. Highly recommend the Disney Ultimate ticket - we got a special deal so got 14 day pass for price of 5. Covered all Disney parks and allowed us to be fully flexible. This offer is still on at Disney website.

We went in Feb during 1/2 term plus a few extra days and the weather was pretty good (suited us) as it wasn't too hot and unbearable. My parents have been in nov/dec and said that the christmas disney stuff is just fantastic. Oct/beg nov is tail end of hurricane season so best avoid. My niece went in june/july and they found that it was too hot to do anything except water parks & stay in air conditioned hotel room.

Hurricane season is more August/ September and maybe into early October. Very unlikely later October into November.
We had 2 weeks from 8th October on our first trip, and had fantastic weather - no rain at all until a 10 min torrential downpour on the last day, and just comfortably hot.
Florida is tropical, so you can experience storms anytime really. We arrived in a raging tropical storm in late March one year, and after trying to land unsuccessfully a few times in Orlando had to divert to Tampa to refuel. We have also had the hurricane warnings sounding one morning in April, and had to stay in our Disney hotel room until the storm had passed.
June/ July/ August/ Sept is very hot and humid, with highest rainfall. I would definitely not recommend this time for young children - I have seen too many hot,tired, miserable, screaming children in the Disney and Orlando parks.