Easter Week 2009

[disneyjo-91]

Hi Everyone!

Due to some unexpected things that have happened in our life.. we had to postpone our trip to disney from Free dining last week of Aug- to April of 2009 which just happens to be Easter week.

How are the crowds.. lets say compared to xmas week. ??

I went to disney this past April.. However, it was not Easter.. So crowds were OK.. Not sure how they will be 2009 due to Easter.

[donnah77]

We are planning to go Easter week as well, so I'm also curious to hear from people who've gone over the holiday. I think traditional wisedom is that it is one of the most crowded weeks after Christmas - is that true?

We were there the same week in April this year (we're from CT too - must be school vaca week!), and I was pleasantly surprised at how (relatively) light the crowds were. But it was a much earlier Easter in 2008.

We decided that the opportunity for extra days there (only have to take DD out of school 2 days for a 10 day trip) outweigh the crowds. Easier to say that when we go every year too - what we may miss in 2009, we can get next time.

[Strmchsr]

The week before Easter is extremely crowded. Same as the week between Christmas and New Years. However, no matter how crowded a week is, it's always doable. During those times WDW has extended park hours, extra CM's, etc to help handle the crowds. Just go with a plan, realize you won't be able to see/do everything, use fastpass a lot, relax, and you'll have a great time.

[barnaby]

We went this past Easter week (March 23-29), arriving in WDW on Easter Sunday.
I think there are good and bad, just like any high travel week.
Also, it is the second highest price matrix for the resorts that week.

The Bad -
I think it is the second highest price matrix for the resorts that week.
It was very crowded at the parks. We were told the Tuesday we were there at MK, that there weas 75,000 in the park.
Waits for big ticket attractions like Soarin and Expedition Everest were over 2 hours from 10AM on. Fast passes were for much later; say you arrived at 11AM for example, FPs for Soarin weren't good until 7PM that night.
All the shows and parades were crowded, even late ones. We ended up not getting a good view for Illuminations (arrived about 45 minutes before) and missed Fantasmic altogether.
Lines to eat at counter service were LONG. If you didn't have ADRs, it was very tough to get a table service meal at a reasonable time.

The Good -
The park hours are great. MK was open to 1AM regularly and open until 3AM with magic hours. It opened at 7AM with morning magic hours.
Animal Kingdom was open until 8PM and 11PM with magic hours. Epcot was open until midnight and Hollywood Studios until 1AM with magic hours.
Every morning and every night, one of the parks had magic hours.
The dining was open late as well. We ate at the Electric Umbrella in Epcot at 11PM one night.
There were 2 shows of Spectromagic and Fantasmic every night, Wishes was shown every night and the "regular" shows had added times too.

We are not early risers, so we did 11AM-ish to closing the park with the late magic hours. We stayed at MK until 3AM the first night and last night we were there. Ended the last night with a half-asleep trip in the front car of the monorail.

If you've been to Disney before, I'd say go for it. It is tough to get all the attractions and shows done. We had six day park hoppers but never did get to ride Soarin'.
But with everything open late and alot going on in the parks, I'd do it again.

[Nurse Kim]

My kids and I went this past March the week before Easter. It was our first trip and we didn't feel the crowds were bad at all except the weekend before Easter the crowds started getting bigger. I think AK was the most crowded.