Rumours this Easter was quite quiet? Any truth to it?

[Hel22]

We were there from 3/4-20/4 and were expecting much higher crowd levels tbh. Our first week was quietish, but it was quite wet and humid so may have kept some away. We went to Typhoon Lagoon and there was only a dozen or so cars in car park, no queues! A couple of later days saw high crowds and long waits in MK especially. Good Friday from 3 pm was really really quiet with 5 min waits at Epcot at one
point. The torrential down pour and storms emptied the park! We were expecting much busier parks.

[glenandem]

We’ve just gotten home today and went from the 30th March until 23rd and from what we found and comparing to usually going late April into early may was that the very first week it was busy but not crazy busy then second week seemed a little quieter in the fact that the 3rd week was nearly every ride every day of the week was generally an hour wait with the prime rides like slinky,tot,avatar 7dmt etc closer to 2 hours most of the day time however we went a few late evenings when mk was open till midnight last week and although we had fast passes for the main things we only had to wait 10-20 for a lot of other rides.
Here’s another thing to throw a spanner in the works about generalising crowds, the second week when it was generally quieter at Disney universal was heaving and one day we got islands done that week and just about coped and another day we went just to finish off Harry Potter as we’d done studios the first week and it was really stupid even by 10am, the Harry Potter train broke down while we was about to get on it and they gave us a free fast pass for any ride we wanted and we still just hot tailed it out of there as we can’t stand big crowds, we gave the fast passes to a family queuing to get in!
This is the first time we’ve gone early March due to my daughters exams coming up and personally we won’t do it again, we’ll stick to very last week April into may time again as spring break isn’t as simple as you’d think, the first week we saw loads of cars from Georgia down then second week when it was quieter we didn’t notice as many plates then 3rd week loads from New York and other states, I was told by a local that different states have different spring break times off so you can’t judge it too well.
Wasn’t just the parks that got us stressed, the supermarkets like Walmart was stuffed and the rd’s are struggling with the congestion too.
Having said all this, we are thorough planners and always get to park for rope drop and we did everything but just wasn’t as cool and calm as we’d of liked!

[aqualiv]

Our first day was the 6th April and I’d say 6-11th quieter than expected 12th onwards rammed!

[RobandLynsey]

Touring plans on twitter last week said it was a lot quieter than they expected. They have put it down to Easter being so late, it hasn't been this late for a good few years.

As others have said Easter is not a big holiday in the US. When Easter coincides with spring break then it is madness, with Easter being away from the end of spring break I think that it is quieter overall but probably average busier for longer (if that makes sense?) with the inevitable madness of the Easter weekend.

Europe contributes very little in terms of crowds and thus why end of August is usually quieter as most of the US is back at school or at least preparing to be. People can get caught out in June thinking it will be a perfect time as our schools are in, however most of the US isn't and is very busy again.

We went in 2011 when Easter was late and thought "oh this is nice" comparing it to DLP crowds. We went again in 2017 at Easter and I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, madness!, I would never do an Easter near spring break again!

[Wordsworth]

My mum is just back from a stay between 5th to 19th. She says first week was really quiet, and they were told it’s because spring breaks were all done, but the second week was much busier.

[Wiganer83]

We got back on Monday morning after arriving on Thursday 4th April. It was my first visit so nothing to compare it to but we found the crowds much better then we expected from April 5th up until the Monday before Good Friday, when it got much busier in the Disney Theme Parks and Universal. The water parks were never as busy as I expected, even in that Easter week so that was a bonus.

The highlight for us from a low crowd level point of view were going early to SeaWorld on Saturday 6th April, when we took the little one straight to Sesame Street and everything was walk on and she could stay on time and again if she wanted and then our first visit to Universal Studios on Tuesday 9th April, when everything was probably 15-20 mins wait at the very most. I walked straight on Rip Ride Rocket around midday and I don't think we waited more then 15 minutes for anything at all (and less in most cases). As a non lover of crowds that was a fantastic day:-)

[Nicbry]

We all had different school holidays this year, I’ve not known that happen before. Some schools broke up 29th March some the 5th April and some the 12th April.
That would probably have a small impact though.

[BuzzStarkiller]

We went to MK this last Monday, 22nd April and it was the busiest I’ve ever seen the park. Touring plans rated it a 6/10. If that’s a 6 then I’m done. All day I never witnessed any let up. Like somebody mentioned earlier, the people mover was 40 mins at one point.
Was better yesterday at HS, saw a few cheerleaders, I know there’s a comp on, but apart from Toy Story land, it didn’t feel that bad. Touring Plans rated it a 5/10.
Doesn’t make sense.

[bighal]

More and more UK schools now have fixed dates for the Easter holidays which means it does not cover the Easter weekend which just becomes a Friday to Monday weekend only. So less and less UK school children will be going over the Easter period unless it falls in the new fixed 2 week breaks.

Dates for the next few years for Easter Sunday are 2020 12th Apr, 2021 4th Apr, 2022 17th Apr and 2023 9th Apr. Based on these dates Easter period will be busier in 2021 and 2023 than this year or 2022.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by bighal

More and more UK schools now have fixed dates for the Easter holidays which means it does not cover the Easter weekend which just becomes a Friday to Monday weekend only. So less and less UK school children will be going over the Easter period unless it falls in the new fixed 2 week breaks.

Dates for the next few years for Easter Sunday are 2020 12th Apr, 2021 4th Apr, 2022 17th Apr and 2023 9th Apr. Based on these dates Easter period will be busier in 2021 and 2023 than this year or 2022.

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As mentioned earlier, UK visitors make very little difference to crowd levels. The number of UK visitors to Orlando is relatively small.