WDW right after New Year's. Any advice?

[wendibird22]

We are planning to go to WDW 12/30-1/5 this year as the school schedules here (DH is a teacher) gives us 2 full weeks of school vacation. We don't want to go at Christmas because we've heard the crowds are unbearable but I'm not sure how much better they'll be the following week. We aren't staying at WDW because ILs have a winter home just 15min away from MK. We plan on doing a 4 day pass.

Are we crazy for considering going this time of year? Although honestly, with DH being a teacher our only options are school vacations like thanksgiving, easter, feb recess and those are all crowded times.

Anything we should consider about doing parks these days? Should we do park hopper in case we need to switch to avoid crazy crowds?

Can we come and go during the day as often as we wish?

[jjordan]

We've been twice now starting on 1/1. We've found that it is very busy through the weekend after New Year's and then it drops way off. So this past year, we got there 1/1 (Tuesday) and it was very busy through Saturday (1/5), fairly busy on Sunday (1/6), and then dropped way off on Monday (1/7). For 2014, 1/1 is a Wednesday and so I would expect things to be super busy through Saturday (1/4) and somewhat busy on Sunday (1/5).

I'd definitely do a park hopper. With that, you can come and go as much as you want and go to whatever park you want, whenever you want. (Otherwise you have to stick with one park per day.) Also what worked well for us was taking advantage of extra magic hours in the morning, though since you're not staying on-site, that's not an option for you. But really getting in there first thing in the morning is your best bet; the parks just get more and more busy as the day goes on.

I'm thinking that February break is probably a better shot as far as crowds go, because different schools have different vacation times. The exception would be holiday weekends (President's Day?), but even then, I'm thinking it wouldn't be as busy as New Year's.

On the plus side, the weather is really nice that time of year, not too hot.

[acmom]

DH and I went (pre-kids) one year right after New Year's. We arrived on the 2nd and were there for 5 days and had a great time. We had a great weather and crowds were very manageable. In fact, lots of WDW cast members commented to us that we had just missed the big holiday rush and were there at good time. I can't remember how the days of the week fell when we were there though and I can imagine that affects crowds then bc people may or may not still be on school breaks.

[cntrymoon2]

Weather will be beautiful, most likely, so for that reason alone, I say it's a great time to visit. There have been a few years in the past that MK had to close admission part way through the day on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day because they reached capacity. Even when they stopped admitting guests, other parks still did. I would expect crazy crowds on your first couple days, and decent crowds towards the end of your vacation. If you are crowd averse, you could plan Downtown Disney or a hotel day for 12/31 or 1/1. There are also plenty of fun places to watch Magic Kingdom's New Year's fireworks without having to be in the park (beach at Polynesian, sky deck at California Grill, etc) if the crowds become unbearable for you.
Where is your ILs winter home? If they are 15 minutes away, you might be able to sit on their back pato and watch the fireworks there.

[wendibird22]

They are technically in Davenport, just off US-27. I mapquested it and it's 12 miles from their house.

So DH and I bit the bullet and bought our airline tickets last night because we knew they weren't going to get any cheaper. We'll probably buy our WDW tickets this week and MouseSavers suspects a price increase coming soon.
We fly to Orlando 12/30 and fly home on 1/5. We plan on doing a 4-day pass so we could easily just hang out with the ILs on 12/31 to avoid the crowds and do the various parks 1/1-1/4...and plan to do just one park each day. My kids are up by 5:30am every day so we should have no problem getting there when a park opens.

So I know I'll be back to this board in a few months seeking more advice for our trip!!!!

[egoldber]

For that week, I would make any dining reservation that you want as as the window for reservations opens up.

[cntrymoon2]

FYI, Universal raised ticket prices today, so Disney and Seaworld will follow in the next couple days. Don't wait to buy tickets :)

Davenport will be such an easy drive into the parks- you will have some traffic on Hwy 192, but it's only bad at rush hour. Have a great trip!