Talk to me about Florida in the school holidays.....

[tory79]

We are Florida veterans but always go at off peak times, normally June or October.

Our holiday request for dsd was (unsurprisingly) turned down for our next trip, and in any event, sd will also be at school in another 3 years, so clearly we just won't be able to continue going out of holiday time.

It's not just the cost, although obviously that's a factor, but also, even at off peak times the ride queues can just be so hideous.

So, who goes in holiday time? How do you make it work?

Thank you xx

In the second paragraph, sd should be ds!

I think I'd rather poke my eyes out with a rusty pen

Haha I think that is dh's feeling as well

But we can't not go again, so we'll have to brave it at some point

We went at Easter which is one of their busiest times and managed to do every ride we wanted to do without queuing for more than 30 minutes.
If you are Disney veterans then you will know your way around the parks and fastpass system which is half the battle!
We are going again next week and with the new fastpass+ we already have times booked on all the major rides so hopefully that will minimize the queuing.
Also, you need to be organized and book your restaurants far in advance as it can be very difficult to walk up and just find a table in peak times.

We have been twice during school holidays. It was absolutely fine. As long as you go with a plan and work out the fast passes. We hardly queued at all. In fact the longest we queued was 30 minutes. Granted we arrive at the parks at 8.30 all set to go. Totally knackered by 2 pm but we get to do all the rides. Our very favourite holiday.

We've been in the school hols and like GrannyL says, go to the parks early and you avoid the worst crowds. We got on all the big rides using fast passes when ever we could (except the new ones) with a 30 min or less wait. The weather wasn't a problem for us either as we were prepared with our ponchos!

Have fun!

Wow that sounds encouraging, thank you. We've often queued for way more time than that anyway.

Have people still found bargains in terms of cost, or is that just out of the question?

Obviously it depends on where you want to stay, but we booked flights with Virgin and hotel/park tickets through Disney. We stayed at Old Key West and got a discount and free dining, so it saved about £2000 on the Virgin package price.
We also booked using Quidco, so got some cash back too!

wdtc.disneyinternational.com/Special-Offers.asp

The second half of August is quieter than earlier as many us schools are back by then.

I would think that October and Feb half terms, as well as late August would be much quieter times than Easter or Christmas due to the fact that most U.S. kids are in school.

Easter and Christmastime are insane...as is US Thanksgiving week, but no worries for you there :)

Use touring plans.com or the free cheat sheets on easywdw.com to work out best ride order; get there for park opening and you'll be fine. We've done Easter and Xmas weeks and never queued more than 30 mins using those plans! Also, you do need to book popular restaurants 6 months ahead. Enjoy!

Sorry this is off-topic, but I'd just like to thank Vagndidit for the spoiler on Series 1 of The Killing. Not. I got to Episode 18 (of 20) when I saw you pop up on here. Which rather detracted from my enjoyment of episodes 19 and 20 - although it was a pretty compelling experience overall.

Use the time difference to your advantage, and get to the parks before they open. It is very quiet for the first hour or so. This works for the first few days until the time difference catches up.

We went in the Easter holidays this year and it was so busy that it did spoil our enjoyment a fair amount ( we had been twice before off peak and enjoyed it much more)

We used a crowd predictor website to plan our days and that helped a lot. The parks all opened extra early so we were getting up at 6am on the mornings that we were voting theme parks

The thing that I would recommend is flying indirect.

I was against this at first but the cost of flights forced us to fly via New York. It turned out to be a great option as you get to clear US immigration in New York which had no queues ( we later found out that Orlando had five hour queues the day we arrived)

We had about two hours between flights in New York which gave us a nice break ( we had a light meal while looking out at the NY skyline!) Made me wish we had planned an actual stop over.

I would also recommend a service provided by Car on the Drive. They deliver your hire car to your accommodation ( so no queues or hard sell at the rental desks) and collect you from the terminal in a limo. This meant that we could hire a smaller car than we would otherwise have needed to as we didn't have to worry about luggage space.

I have to say never again in the school holidays though.It was very very hectic!

We went last year for the last week of August till first week of September. Parks were not too busy, didn't really gave to queue for anything as we used fast passes and extra magic hours. It was hot and it rained several afternoons but cleared up quickly. Would definitely go again at that time. I just need a new job before

Def the end of August - plan to come back as close to the start of school as possible.
Disney do free dining if you stay on site - can work out cheaper than a nice hotel elsewhere and takes a lot of the stress out of it.
You also get free parking (it's about $15 per day), use of the buses, extra hours in the parks etc.

We've been twice in July and we've had a ball x

We have been 4 times in July/August and once in February - all UK school holidays.

In the summer, yes it is hot. But we have always found it bearable - you spend so much time in and out of air conditioned queues and buildings I guess. And we have never found it too busy - nowhere near like the queues you get at Christmas and Easter over there. Use the FP system to your advantage, and then go with the flow. W never overly plan our days or anything and have never missed anything we have wanted to do.