I assume Disney will have Tiana open in May for soft and grand in June.
Yeah, I was thinking the same timeline for Tiana. Tiana will bring some attendance to WDW once it's opening is announced. @Tomfoolery just said the expected opening for Dreamworks is June.
I mean Easter week will always be the third busiest week of the year (behind the two weeks around Christmas/NYE), simply because so many of our "feeder" markets will be out-of-school that week. It's just tradition up north. Local Florida schools don't often follow that tradition, so you'll see a bump in whatever week the local counties decide to take a week off. A minority of guests come from Florida, but it's still the #1 state. But all the other major states combined make a huge majority.
Good logic. Interestingly, your 85% comment would be right on. A guest couldn't discern the difference in crowd, but the individual park's financials for that time period certainly would. They'll know, but we won't. And that stuff remains hidden in quarterly reports also, since Easter, unlike most holidays, falls on far different dates from year to year. Tough to compare.
Gotcha. Yes, the week before and after Easter will be as busy as the 2 weeks during Christmas. It isn't just Florida schools though and the week Orange and Seminole was off was actually not that busy. There are lots of schools in the mid west, Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee that don't follow the normal week before or after Easter. I think more and more schools are starting to begin earlier, split the semester at Christmas, and have spring break split the quarter. It is spreading out the crowds a little more, but with this year having Easter in March it caused a compressed season with 3 really busy weeks and 1 week that wasn't because for some reason OCPS and a few other made an odd choice to have the week after New Years off pushing their spring break out a week.
An unnamed moderate Disney hotel went from 100% booked Friday (and week before) to mid 60s Saturday to low 40s Sunday.
Saturdays & Sundays have been random at the parks the past few years now, they can get pretty busy but also dead thanks to demand pricing impacting when single-day tickets are purchased. Weekdays (including Mondays) have become busier at times than Friday/Saturdays... it's bizarre.
Yes, which is why I cringe when I'm told Jan-Feb is the slow season. Traditionally, sure, not anymore lol
Wonder if people left early to get home for the eclipse? I know a lot of people in the path had spring break the week after Easter based on co-workers. Maybe locals traveling? We travelled and so did several people I knew. The flights out of Orlando and then back in after were PACKED. The airport was insanely packed on Thursday. Which I expect business people, but lots of families too which shocked me.
The tourists seem to leave early on most of the vacation/holiday weeks. Disney is more tourist oriented than Universal, it died by the weekend. Universal was still quite busy on Saturday, which is always busy on Saturdays no matter what time of year it is. Just shows that Universal gets a heavy locals usage on Saturdays. Friday and Saturday are the departure town days for Disney tourists generally. So far this week, the WDW crowd levels are very September like low. Universal low moderate. Last year we went to WDW the week after Easter. The crowd levels were moderate, but not drop off low like this year. Feast or famine it seems. (I'm using Touring Plans crowd levels which are probably the most accurate when it comes to Orlando since they have actual boots on the ground that they use)
