Crowd Blog

Predicting Crowds During Spring Break 2011

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April crowds at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort have always been a bit of an enigma. Holidays like July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas are super crowded but at least they are easy to predict because they stay in the same place on the calendar every year. Easter is a holiday based on the lunar cycle, the solar cycle, the division of the year into 365 days and a 1,700 year old ruling by Emporer Constantine I. Just confusing enough to keep us on our toes.

This year, with Easter falling at the end of April (which hasn’t happened since 2006), it means very little overlap between School Breaks and the Easter break. The majority of Spring Break vacations will be taking place between March 12th and March 27th. There are always a minority of school districts that schedule a Spring Break outside the others but this year that minority appears to be a little larger than normal. As many as 10% of school districts will have their Spring Break between March 27th and April 10th including some school districts in Florida and Georgia. Our estimates for the crowd levels during this time have increased to account for those vacationers.

There is no doubt that crowds in March and April are among the most unpredictable of the year. We strongly encourage you to use a Touring Plan during your Spring Break visit. Touring Plans are your best insurance against large crowds.

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Fred Hazelton

Fred Hazelton maintains the crowd calendar, theme park wait time models and does hotel rate analysis for the Unofficial Guides. He's also done the models for the new mobile wait times product Lines. Fred Hazelton is a professional statistician living in Ontario, Canada. His email address is fred@touringplans.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @DisneyStatsWhiz.

8 thoughts on “Predicting Crowds During Spring Break 2011

  • There will definitely be crowds down here in South Padre Island for spring break 2011. We would highly recommend using touringplans.com when visiting the island. Another way to avoid the crowds is by taking up kiteboarding lessons. No one will bother you on the water. Check out Air Padre Kiteboarding on SPI.

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  • Had a Disneyland vs Magic Kingdom question. Does a 9 (or a 1 for that matter)means the same thing between MK and DL? Was just wondering if lines were generally longer or shorter at one vs the other.

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  • I am going April 2-5 and was hoping for lower crowds bc it’s between Spring Break and Easter. Most days aren’t bad but MK seems swamped. 6.8 on Apr 3 and 8.6 on Apr 4, yikes! Any idea why MK would be so busy when the other parks average 3-5?

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  • Sounds like there is some hope of the crowd levels being a little lower in March than predicted? We are going that last week and hoping that the late date of Easter changes things a bit!

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  • I’m headed down there for spring break with my children and parents and I am definitely going to use a touring plan so I was just wondering if there will be revised touring plans available before mid March with the elimination of ToonTown. Thanks 🙂

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    • Hey Sandy,

      All of the Magic Kingdom’s touring plans should be updated now to reflect the closure of Toontown. These went live yesterday (January 31).

      Thanks for using the site!

      Len

      Reply
      • Great! Thanks for the update. Going to check it out right now 🙂

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