Introduction

Something every guest wants to know, whether they’re first-timers or frequent visitors, is this: When is the best time for my family to visit Walt Disney World? What happens there during every month of the year? That’s the information you’ll find in A Mouse for All Seasons.

By “the best time,” people want to know: (1) when is the number of guests the lowest—meaning that time spent waiting in long queues will be the shortest, (2) when is the weather most comfortable—meaning a time when heat and humidity are mild and the risk of rain and storms slight, and (3) what special events might be happening during our visit—meaning things that could either enhance or disrupt a vacation. Besides those three questions, another crucial question people should ask but often overlook is (4) which hotels, attractions, and restaurants at the resort will be closed for refurbishment, rain, or replacement? Plan in advance and you can avoid disappointment so that you don’t discover a much-anticipated attraction or experience isn’t open when you arrive.

Living near Anaheim, I visited Disneyland frequently during every season, every month, and under all possible conditions since it opened in 1955. I learned even more about the best (and the worst) times to visit Walt’s personal theme park as it expanded and changed over the years. Finally, when I turned eighteen, I got a dream position working throughout college vacations as a VIP hostess and tour guide. I got to share the best of what Disneyland had to offer with individuals and families from all over the world. Those early years are chronicled in a memoir titled The Cream of the Crop: Tour Guide Tales from Disneyland’s Golden Years (Theme Park Press, 2016).

Things changed dramatically and definitively in the summer of 1970 when we veteran Disneyland cast members were tapped to train the very first Walt Disney World cast members. The Floridian tour guides would wear costumes identical to ours in every respect but their color. Ours were mainly red, theirs would be blue. (Our velvet riding caps, vests, long sleeves, neck ties, Pendleton culottes, and wool knee socks didn’t last very long in the Orlando heat!). It was difficult to imagine another Disneyland, an East Coast upstart. We were skeptical about the new kid on the Disney block taking shape in the wilds of central Florida. Truth be told, our noses were more than a little out of joint about the idea of competition. We’d had the world’s attention all to ourselves, and now we’d have to share it with Florida.

After visiting Walt Disney World with my family and sometimes by myself during every season over the past four-and-a-half decades, the amazing “new”resort won me—and the rest of the world—over. There’s simply nothing else like it. As much as I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Disneyland, the entertainment colossus that is Disney World overshadows it exponentially. As Walt Disney’s early Florida dream has grown into the four major theme parks of today, as the first two resort hotels (the Contemporary and the Polynesian) have ballooned to twenty-five, and as the Magic Kingdom itself has been cloned from Paris to Shanghai to Tokyo to Hong Kong, there seems to be no end of exciting new ways to experience Disney.

Still, when you go can make a whole world of difference in the kind of experience you will have on your vacation. I’ve been to Walt Disney World in late June when school was out across the country and the temperatures soared right along with the humidity levels and the wait-times. Big “misting” fans were turned on us in the attraction queues as though we were livestock at the state fair. It was difficult to move or breathe, let alone savor the Disney experience. Our daughter, Liz, was working there that particular summer, which is the reason why we went at that time. Sometimes, you simply have little choice about when you’re visiting. There may be a professional convention dictated by your place of employment, a school vacation schedule you need to work around, a special wedding anniversary, a milestone celebration, or a variety of other reasons that make one particular time the time you’re going to Walt Disney World.

So why purchase a traditional book like this one in the days of rapid-fire information exchange and a bucket-load of blogs? There are a lot of reasons. No matter how good I am (or you are) at navigating the net and scanning a myriad of blogs and websites, both official and unofficial, it takes months and months of research to evaluate all the information and distill down the giant funnel of facts into a pocket guide of manageable size like this one.

I’ve created this guide to be easily accessible and clearly written with just what you need to know to compare every month of the year at Walt Disney World, right at your fingertips. I will give you advice plainly and simply, present information that is clear and concise, and organize facts so that you can find what you need quickly and easily. I’ll do all of that for you right here—give you everything you need and nothing you don’t. Believe me, as someone who has spent more time at Walt Disney World and navigating the best available websites, it’s a great help to get your information in one convenient place the “easy way.” That’s what you’ll find in the following twelve chapters.

Believe it or not, I can tell you from experience that there are tried-and-true ways to make the best of any month of the year. If you’re fortunate enough to have your pick of times to vacation, I’ll let you know the benefits and the trade-offs of every single month. With some advance planning and armed with pertinent information, you’ll be able to get the most out of any visit to Walt Disney World, no matter when you go. The main thing you need to do (and it’s the one thing you’ll be able to personally control) is to plan carefully before you go. It’s the one thing that can make all the difference between having a fantastic visit and one that leaves a lot to be desired.

Page through A Mouse for All Seasons and see what each month has to offer. You’ll save time and energy, two of your three most important resources, by planning ahead. The other resource is money. Going at a not-as-busy time can save you cash, but there may be other drawbacks in the off season that you shouldn’t overlook. One of those is the “closure” or “refurbishment” issue. Don’t know what that is? Don’t worry! I’ll tell you about it in the pages that follow. You decide which of the key factors I’ll share with you here are the most important ones to you. It’s always a balancing act, and every guest has his or her own particular biases, me included (I detest humidity, for example, and adore Halloween). I’ll give you the information you need to make good choices, choices that will work well for you.

Remember, there’s no “right” or “wrong” time to vacation at Walt Disney World. Just make the very most of the time of year when you vacation. After all, as Walt Disney reminded us, “Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.”

Let’s get started on making those Disney dreams of yours come true right now!