June or August?

[NelleBelle]

We are wanting to take our oldest DS to WDW/Universal to celebrate his 8th-grade graduation. He gets out of school June 1, 2018 and as much as I despise the time of year, we're kinda limited as he no longer wants to miss school for WDW trips (dang it)!

Should we plan a trip for early June or early-mid August? Not sure if there are any benefits to either? We typically visit Sept/Oct, Jan (we've run the marathon and then stay), and then May. Have done July once (never again!) and late August. Can't recall if there are any new rides that are supposed to open next year? Would love to hear thoughts/opinions.

 

[englanddg]

With that window, early June is better. In fact, leave as soon as you can.

That said...

Mid august is when I like to go (working around the late return of my kid to school)...and I notice a distinct decline by third week.

In general, a good indicator of crowds (outside of planning projection sites) are Disney Parks hours postings. You'll note around mid August, for example, they start to close parks earlier and move from two shows to one show for things like Fantasmic.

This is...a dead indicator from the people who know (not estimate) crowd levels the best that they expect lower volume.

 

[Bullseye1967]

We have always found June to be not so crowded in the first week or so, and crowds to decline in August by the fourth week. Weather should be about the same for both time periods. Are you renting a car? You can get a rental house with a pool for about the same as Bonnet Creek, unless you are using Wyndham points or something.

 

[NelleBelle]

I think we are definitely leaning more towards June and would leave likely June 1 or 2 (DS graduates Thursday nite 5/31, and Friday is a 1/2 day and party so he wouldn't miss anything). We tend to always rent a car and we will have grandparents and DS's friend going with so will likely have to rent a house to keep costs manageable. I wouldn't mind staying on property but for party of 8, I really don't want to do 2 rooms at a moderate (sorry, can't do any of the value resorts) and definitely not a deluxe with this many people. We could rent points for DVC but why? We can get a close house for a fraction of the price. We won't be spending all our time exclusively at WDW anyway. The boys definitely want to go to universal and I want to do Volcano Bay.

 

[correcaminos]

No question I would do 1st week of June. We've done it and crowds really do not start picking up until mid to late June. Even the first few days of June some areas on FL have school (near family in Tampa area have had it depending). So do it before the high humidity and crowds kick in. Definirle NIF as bar as later in the summer