If you're limited to school breaks, what's your favorite time to visit?

[disneycat321]

We did Sat-Sat that week. It took us a long time to get on ME, just be warned. DO NOT go to Festival of the Holidays on Black Friday. It was a madhouse last year and I hated almost every moment we were there. EPCOT on Thanksgiving day was a lot of fun. I heard from friends that MK was actually not that bad though. If you like TS meals, you'll have a great time seeing the resort decorations. We picked a new resort every day. MVMCP also had a party the Sunday or Monday (I forget) before Thanksgiving, so you could do that. It was really busy because it was the only one that week, but an upside is MK doesn't close down early any other night you're there.

Our absolute favorite day was Wednesday. Slept it, had a meal at Boma, then went to AK for a half day. We took the Elephants tour and all agreed it was perfect mid week for a break.

I had forgotten that there was an MVMCP Thanksgiving week before! (2019 right?) I looked into Thanksgiving pretty seriously awhile back, and I think I saw that. Hooray! That does help, because we really want to do that party.

So you'd recommend not doing Festival of the Holidays at all? That makes me so sad. But I am sure it's too insane to be any fun that day. What about the Saturday after Black Friday? Is that just as bad? That would be our departure day, but we did Epcot on our departure day last time we went.

I am super intrigued by the AK tours, but it's always been so ridiculously hot when we've gone that I just didn't even want to try it. That's a great idea, though!

 

[disneycat321]

Another question - are there ever room discounts over Thanksgiving or Presidents Week? I looked at Mousesavers for historical discounts, but I'm wondering if those dates are exemptions from the discounts. I know Christmas does not have discounts. I know Presidents Week has discounts in 2021, but I figured that might be a COVID era special, and not the norm.

 

[nycdisneygal]

We also can only do vacations as we have school age children. Have done xmas /new years and loved it. We did the 3rd week of august twice even though we hate heat and loved it because of low crowds. We have done spring break even the week right after easter and leading into easter and had a great time. With proper planning it is all good...have fun.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

I had forgotten that there was an MVMCP Thanksgiving week before! (2019 right?) I looked into Thanksgiving pretty seriously awhile back, and I think I saw that. Hooray! That does help, because we really want to do that party.

So you'd recommend not doing Festival of the Holidays at all? That makes me so sad. But I am sure it's too insane to be any fun that day. What about the Saturday after Black Friday? Is that just as bad? That would be our departure day, but we did Epcot on our departure day last time we went.

I am super intrigued by the AK tours, but it's always been so ridiculously hot when we've gone that I just didn't even want to try it. That's a great idea, though!

Sorry, I didn't mean to turn you off of ForH completely - if you really love the FotH, go ahead and go but just know it will be extremely busy so go as early as you can. I really wanted to do the Cookie Stroll and they kept running out of cookies, typical first day of festival stuff. It is really pretty though. My kids liked seeing Pere Noel in the France pavilion. I got some really neat AP merch that day too. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet Saturday would be busy too, just because it's a weekend. Giving it two days to get through might be a good idea.

You definitely should do the rhino or elephant tours! They're really not that much $$.

We're DVC so I can't speak about room discounts.

 

[ArielSRL]

Lots of votes for Thanksgiving and Presidents' Week! Those are both looking like great options.

Originally, we actually were 100% set on Thanksgiving because we want to be there at Christmas time and the crowds would be at least a little bit lower. But then we realized we wouldn't be able to do Epcot Festival of the Holidays much or would be stuck doing it on Black Friday, we might not be able to get Candlelight Processional (though it sounds like we could on Friday), and we wouldn't be able to do MVMCP. Epcot is our favorite park, especially World Showcase, so it's a hard thing to think about not getting their holiday offerings. But is it worth it because the crowds are so much less than actual Christmas?

Is there anything else we'd miss by going that week? Would we still get to see all the resorts' decorations? The gingerbread displays?

If we did Thanksgiving, we'd most likely arrive Saturday night or maybe Friday night the week before Thanksgiving. We can't do earlier in the day with the 3 hour time difference and the long travel time. We'd leave Saturday afternoon the day after Black Friday.

We have done Epcot on Black Friday the last two years and it has been fine. We also booked a Candlelight Processional dinner for that day in 2019 with no issue. Also, if you arrive to Disney as early as you say you will, you would probably be able to do a MVMCP. And, this year we were able to do the last day of F&W as well as the first day of FotH, so that was nice.

 

[ArielSRL]

Another question - are there ever room discounts over Thanksgiving or Presidents Week? I looked at Mousesavers for historical discounts, but I'm wondering if those dates are exemptions from the discounts. I know Christmas does not have discounts. I know Presidents Week has discounts in 2021, but I figured that might be a COVID era special, and not the norm.

We have gotten discounts both in 2019 and 2020 for Thanksgiving week. And I'll just say again, we had no problems going to FotH on Black Friday. We always go for school breaks so maybe we are more used to crowds than some?

 

[KristaZ]

Another question - are there ever room discounts over Thanksgiving or Presidents Week? I looked at Mousesavers for historical discounts, but I'm wondering if those dates are exemptions from the discounts. I know Christmas does not have discounts. I know Presidents Week has discounts in 2021, but I figured that might be a COVID era special, and not the norm.

I'm also a teacher, so we can only travel over school breaks - I've been President's Week several times of the years, and a discount is usually available, though it's typically not a great one (I believe the one for this upcoming February is already available if you want to check it out) - it's definitely a peak crowded week, but the trade off is typically pleasant weather. We also often go the last week of August/first week of September because school starts after Labor Day for us - the weather is terrible then, but crowds and discounts are great, so I find it's all a balance and knowing what to expect.