Spring Break 2012 - I'm bummed

lebeau

Well-Known Member
I'm venting. Please indulge me.

I have been tentatively eying spring break 2012 as a good time to make a return trip. Mostly because my youngest daughter will be turning 3 in the spring and I figured we could squeeze in a trip before her third birthday (and before she would require a park ticket).

So this morning, I checked to see if the school had published it's spring break calendar yet. They had. But the dates were not what I had hoped.

In 2011, Spring Break was in March. It was actually very far from Easter. I was hoping for something similar this year. But no, in 2012 our Spring Break starts on Holy Thursday and runs through the week after Easter.

To make matters worse, my youngest daughter's third birthday falls on Easter. So the parks will be packed, everything will be more expensive and the primary reason I was looking at spring will be null and void almost as soon as we arrive.

:(

Oh well. I haven't ruled it out completely yet. But it looks like Spring Break 2012 wasn't meant to be.
 

wolf359

Well-Known Member
How was it?

Like I mentioned first off I didn't think the crowds were too bad. Easter that year was in March, so the weather was really beautiful. We hit the headliners early to avoid big waits, but I recall Fastpass for most rides lasting much of the day. At that time I think Soarin' and Everest were the only two rides that normally saw waits over an hour.
 
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brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
We have visited the week before or the week after Easter 3 times now. While the crowds are large, they are certainly not Christmas week-sized. In fact, when planning for a 2012 visit, we asked our 7yr old what she would prefer - a little bit longer lines during Spring Break but with less heat and humidity OR a little bit shorter lines with the heat and humidity of July. She quickly chose Spring Break. Since it is a school break time and holiday, the crowds tend not to be morning people, so get to parks at opening and enjoy the 4 hours before they fill up!
 
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lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Our kids are in Catholic school too and we took them out last year (1st and Kindergarden then) during thier fall break so they only missed 3 days and one was church and a all school program...we lucked out...:)
The mid winter might be workable, we have been throwing around going for the Immaculate Conception, they will be off on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th of Decemeber as a teacher planning day. You could do a long weekend or perhaps take the Wedensday before or the Monday after for travel and he/she would not miss much. We have wanted to see WDW at Christmas but do NOT want the Christmas crowds...hope you figure something out:)

You're definitely on to something with Catholic schools. It seems like there are always some in-service days and some church program days in which the kids wouldn't miss much. Last year, it seemed like we had one of these every time I turned around. Somehow, they always seemed to take me by surprise.

I'm going to need to figure out when all of these things are. There's probably a good break in there somewhere.

Like I mentioned first off I didn't think the crowds were too bad. Easter that year was in March, so the weather was really beautiful. We hit the headliners early to avoid big waits, but I recall Fastpass for most rides lasting much of the day. At that time I think Soarin' and Everest were the only two rides that normally saw waits over an hour.

That's not bad at all. I was looking at the pricing for the holiday period and it's kind of outrageous. I think the holiday rates will probably be enough to keep me away from spring break/Easter 2012. I'm not expecting to find any steals that week.

But it's okay. I'm finding lots of alternatives

We have visited the week before or the week after Easter 3 times now. While the crowds are large, they are certainly not Christmas week-sized. In fact, when planning for a 2012 visit, we asked our 7yr old what she would prefer - a little bit longer lines during Spring Break but with less heat and humidity OR a little bit shorter lines with the heat and humidity of July. She quickly chose Spring Break. Since it is a school break time and holiday, the crowds tend not to be morning people, so get to parks at opening and enjoy the 4 hours before they fill up!

We've employed the same strategy for spring break trips before and it has worked well for us too.

I was up late (for me) last night looking at dates. I noticed that our school starts in late Aug whereas Disney's value season usually starts Aug 15. If I wanted to go this year, I could actually get a pretty good deal the week of Aug 15-Aug 22 with school starting the next day. This isn't really a good year to make such a trip. But perhaps next year this would work.

Or if not, perhaps spring break 2013 will be more accomodating and less holiday-filled.

When do your kids get out for the summer? Any possibility of a trip around Memorial Day?

They haven't posted the final day for school next year yet, but based on their typical schedule that would be an option. This year, the last day of school was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. They stick to that schedule pretty closely from year to year.

The tough part about planning around the end of the school year is that if you run into a lot of snow days, the school year might get pushed out. It rarely happens, but you have to figure the minute I lock in a trip right after school lets out, we'll get hit by freak blizzard.

Another challenge when planning (which I'm sure many of you will be able to relate to) is that none of my windows seem to line up very well. By this I mean, I'm always waiting on some piece of info. If I get the school schedule, my vacation availability will be uncertain. Or Disney won't have their deals available yet. Very frustrating. But thankfully, I am ever vigilant when it comes to WDW planning.

Thanks to all for the helpful suggestions! I am definitely less bummed about spring break after looking into plans B-E. As always, it helps to hash things out with the ever-helpful and like-minded members of this forum.

:sohappy:
 
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wendysue

Well-Known Member
Just for FYI. In Illinois, court doesn't even come into play until your student has missed 10% of the school days, which is 18 in this state. If a student is threatened with court here, it's because they missed a whole bunch of days besides the vacation.
 
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coltow

Well-Known Member
I don't know about the laws in the original poster's state, but in our state there are compulsory attendance laws (that are enforced) that prohibit this. They get pretty ugly about it here- even as young as pre-K.
I have no idea what this means. Can you please explain?

As far as I know kids in MA can miss up to 10 days a trimester with no penalty. I fully intend to pull my kids for a week in October 2012 (3rd grade and K)
 
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brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
I have no idea what this means. Can you please explain?

As far as I know kids in MA can miss up to 10 days a trimester with no penalty. I fully intend to pull my kids for a week in October 2012 (3rd grade and K)

Not to belabor the point, but I have taken a couple courses in educational law. All states have some form of Compulsory Attendance Law for school. They vary pretty widely from state to state, but everybody has one. When No Child Left Behind became law, states, districts, and even individual schools were forced to prove that they were doing things to improve attendance. Most states passed laws that required some kind of contact with parents at 5% absences per marking period and investigation at 10% absences per marking period. How it is dealt with, again, varies great by the state, but eventually, the end product of excessive absences without legit/court accepted reasons will result in parent jail time. Usually, a district investigator or lawyer or even social worker deals with things around 10%, but once you hit 20% things get serious.

OK, enough of that.
 
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Ham

Member
I have been tentatively eying spring break 2012 as a good time to make a return trip.

I'd been wondering if you (or if you could get your wife) to cave in! I remembered the countdown to 2014 thread you started because I was looking at the same sort of time frame.

I've been able to squeeze our next planned trip forwards by six months or so now into October 2013, I'm at least taking some comfort in that I can think about booking at some point next year! Similar plan, we currently have an 8 month old so the plan will be to take her just before her third birthday.
 
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