March 20th-28th or May 22nd-30th? Please Help!

jdm70

New Member
Hello all, I have been reading on this forum daily since my wife and I decided to take our children to DW in 2020. I have read, studied, and planned nonstop, because it's what I do. This will be our first trip with our children that will be 7 and 5 at the time of travel and we will be flying in and staying at a DW resort. Our two current options are March 20-28 and May 22-30. I have looked at every crowd calendar, read every trip report I can find for these times, and I have subscribed to touringplans.com and made/compared custom touring plans for both weeks. We are still torn on when to visit, as there are pros and cons for each and there is so much conflicting information about crowds, etc. Please provide any additional insight you may have and help us make this decision. Thanks so much!
 

DryerLintFan

Premium Member
One major factor because your kids are little will be the pools. We went during Christmas week and the temps were around 65* and we still swam because why not, but not everyone will want to do that. May will have warmer weather than March. And most young kids favorite thing about Disney seems to be the pool.
 
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John park hopper

Well-Known Member
May temps can be well into the 90's We were there this past My 5-12 and it was hot hot hot in the parks--- March would be much cooler. If you are not worried about the heat and the kids will spend a good amount of time at the pool May be a good time for you
 
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jdm70

New Member
Original Poster
Thanks for the replies. We are planning some time for the pools but I think we would be fine to use them if it were normal high 70s/low 80s at the end of March.

Crowds and temps are definitely two of the major concerns. I obviously realize that the end of May is going to be hot, that was actually the reason that we were initially just planning to go in March. We have recently seen a lot of things that point to avoiding the end of March due to ridiculous crowds, including the projected 10/10 crowds on the touringplans crowd calendar. Will the crowds the last week of May be that much lower to warrant going during a much warmer time?

I also just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything that we completely overlooked and didn't consider when planning for either of those times.
 
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DryerLintFan

Premium Member
The crowd level makes a huge difference, imo. We went during 10/10 crowds and it was wall to wall people. We couldn't even see snack carts, let alone escape the flow of traffic to get them. We hit every rope drop, because otherwise we could only do our fastpasses. And the lines to the restrooms were insane.

I went again when the crowd levels were around 5 and it was much more enjoyable. I've heard some weeks in April have the best of both worlds, low crowd and nice weather. Any chance you could swing that?
 
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bigorangeandy

Well-Known Member
I would tend to the end of May, crowds should be lower as most schools will still be finishing up while your at DW. The Memorial Day weekend will bring more crowds, but mostly for that weekend. We have done the last of May twice and the crowds were not bad, but we did notice the difference in crowds for the Memorial Day weekend. Go early in the morning, come back after lunch for rest and swimming, then back to the parks in the late afternoon.
 
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OneofThree

Well-Known Member
I have read, studied, and planned nonstop, because it's what I do.

And I can assure you as a resident and someone with decades of experience, that it's a total roll of the dice. The only reliable (semi-reliable at that) difference between those times frames is the weather.
 
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SaltyD

Active Member
March you may get a lot of college students on spring break. May 25th is Memorial day which may draw crowds for the weekend but if you are thinking up to the 30th you may get some less crowded days towards the end of the week. I would suggest not booking something based on weather - I have been in April when the temps were in the high 40s and you couldn't find a sweatshirt to buy anywhere. And I have been in December with packed jeans and long sleeve shirts and temps were high 80s. As for crowds, take the crowd calendars with a grain of salt. I've been when the projected crown calendar gave it a 1 or 2 and the parks were packed!

Regardless of when you choose to go, as long as you plan ahead, figure out a great but also flexible schedule, and plan to go with the flow, either set of dates will work out.

I don't know where you are coming from but a March trip could have travel issues due to weather. Again, you never know and stuff like that can't be planned.

It's Disney! It'll all be good!
 
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