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

[Garlicbread]

We were there the same weeks as the last 2 posts. I’d echo the same. Quiet 1st week, busy the 2nd.

[Twinniemum]

This is interesting as we have always avoided Easter in the past but now considering it for 2020. Maybe people have started to avoid it as its always been a notoriously busy time to go.

[2019DisneyEvans]

We were in the parks the 3rd to the 13th and although I haven’t been before I had mentally prepared myself for it to be much busier! Our Minnie Cab driver said it was really quiet.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Twinniemum

This is interesting as we have always avoided Easter in the past but now considering it for 2020. Maybe people have started to avoid it as its always been a notoriously busy time to go.

See more...

It is a busy time. Based on that graph I posted earlier, the week before Easter was an 8 out of 10 (easter weekend itself was around 6 out of 10). It's just that it wasn't quite as crazy busy as it often is. And that was probably due to Easter being later this year.

The thing is, Easter in 2020 is a bit earlier in April than it was this year. So that 'lump' you can see in the graph will move to the left by 9 days or so and run into the tail end of Spring Break. Therefore, I expect Easter to be a little busier next year.

[archibald]

Spring break makes the parks busy, Easter less so. Easter was late and most Spring Breaks are over by then. The UK provides a tiny percentage of visitors to Orlando, and our school holidays influence visitor numbers far less than many think.

[Rbecking]

Wasn’t there but wouldn’t be surprised if it was quieter with Eastee being so late so well after Spring break, also school holidays seemed to be spread out over 4 week period this year.

[Mexy02]

Brexit had a lot of people stay home in the uk , Easter was really late and it didn’t really clash with spring break as it normally does. I think this year was a bit of a fluke if honest .

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by archibald

Spring break makes the parks busy, Easter less so. Easter was late and most Spring Breaks are over by then. The UK provides a tiny percentage of visitors to Orlando, and our school holidays influence visitor numbers far less than many think.

See more...

Almost all US websites will tell you that the two weeks around Easter is one of the busiest periods of the year at WDW. It's nothing to do with UK crowds (well, not just to do with UK crowds).

For example:

"Easter week (the weekend of Easter and the following week) is the second most busy time of the year" here.
"the weeks abutting Easter will be DEFCON 1" here.
"The parks are most crowded around the following holidays: Easter - April 21, 2019 and April 12, 2020" here.
"Next busiest is the spring-break period from mid-March through the week of Easter" here.

Spring Break is also very busy. And when Easter occurs during March (the height of Spring Break) it makes that time of year really busy.

I do agree with you that UK visitors have very little impact on crowd levels. It's estimated that UK visitors only make up 2% of the total crowds; 90% are American.

[Rescuer]

We were there from the 9th to the 18th
We were in universal from the 11th-17th. First 2 days were super quiet then it steadily started to get busier and busier.
We only had one disney day on the 18th at MK. It was heaving. The fast pass line for splash started in the other side of the bridge, it was nearly 15 minutes before you could even scan your band.
We generally go in July and were there over Christmas and New Year and have never experienced a fast pass line like it.

[Guest]

we are just back, we did 3 x 1/2 days at MK on sun 7th, fri 12th & thurs 18th april ….it was our first time so we have nothing to compare it too but it was miserably crowded (the latter 2 days in particular)enough for it to be our least favourite park. AK, HS & Epcot were all within what we had psychologically prepared for & we enjoyed them much more...we did manage to get new fast passes for SDMT & same day fast passes for test track ,soarin etc so fast pass refreshing can work even when its very busy, we didnt wait more than 20mins for anything that we chose to go on... but for us the general walking around wasn't pleasant & it also meant a lot of adults minus kids waiting in standby for what (in my opinion )are really rides for the younger kids... which meant that u don't have the option of riding things more than once unless you've fast passed. I was amazed to see people in standby queues for SDMT at 160 mins & even for Barnstormer at 75 mins... & the Peoplemover had a wait time of 40 mins at one point. as we are bound by the school hols & are a family that don't cope with the heat we wont be going again.