Choosing the best time to visit Disneyland and Disney California Adventure is tricky, especially as crowds are less predictable and vary widely between days or weeks. This guide was designed with that in mind, sharing our favorite weeks to go and worst ones to avoid throughout the next 2 years based on attendance and wait times forecasts, plus seasonal events, weather & more.
These lists do things a little differently. As Disneyland locals, we often have family and friends asking us when they should take their trips to Southern California. During the course of answering these inquiries, we’ve found that crowd levels in Disneyland and DCA are one factor, but not the overriding one.
We’re instead addressing weather, special events, and overarching tourist trends. Not just at Disneyland Resort, but in Southern California as a whole. Because, at least in our experience, few people we know are taking Disneyland vacations–they’re visiting the beach cities, Los Angeles, maybe a National Park or two, and other popular cities and spots in California. Frankly, this balanced approach makes sense even when it comes to just Disneyland and being primarily concerned with crowds.
The reasons for that are two-fold. First, due to the limitations of traditional crowd calendars when it comes to vacation planning. It’s often the case that the worst and best individual days are dotted throughout the weeks and months. This can be helpful if you’re looking for a single day to visit and your schedule is wide open. Less so if you’re planning a 3-5 day visit that encompasses both good and bad days.
There’s also the unfortunate reality that crowd calendars are less reliable than they used to be. This is true across the board. It’s not that we’re casting aspersions on other sites you use our 2025 Disneyland Crowd Calendar. To the contrary, we trust all of them less, and even warn that you shouldn’t over rely on any of them–ours included!
The reality is that there are too many variables, especially in the era of park reservations, that give Disney granular control over attendance and staffing. (This is even worse with the automated crowd calendars that scrape last year’s wait times data and make future “predictions” on that basis.)
Not only that, but trends and patterns change based on circumstances. This makes reliance on past wait times to predict future crowd levels for specific dates challenging. We recently addressed this at length in What to Expect of Crowds at Disneyland in 2025. That explains the two countervailing factors at play in 2025, and how those will likely upend crowd calendars this year.
The good news, thankfully, is that general trends still do apply. Even if it’s difficult to predict numerical crowd levels for specific days, there are certain weeks we know without a doubt will be better or worse than others. We also know when seasonal events will happen, what weather is generally like each month, when ticket deals will occur that drive attendance, and more.
On top of all that, we live fairly close to a few of the Best Beaches in Southern California (and in our opinion, the entire world) and take regular walks there. If there’s one thing we know better than Disneyland crowds, it’s Orange County beach city crowds! While we don’t spend nearly as much time in Los Angeles or the nearby National Parks, we’ve been to them all enough to know when to visit and avoid those, too.
When combined with our Best & Worst Days to Do Each Park at Disneyland, this should offer definitive advice for picking travel dates and when to prioritize the parks versus other things to do in Southern California. This narrows down the week, and then that provides what you need to know to choose when to visit each park. It’s still more of a “teach a person to fish” rather than the “give a person a fish” mentality of crowd calendars, but it also should prove more accurate and useful.
Beyond this, we regularly share big updates, discounts that are released by Disneyland, crowd levels change, etc., we send out email notifications. To receive these, subscribe to our free email newsletter. This will give you a good idea of what things are like ‘on the ground’ at Disneyland, as well as what to expect in the future.
With all of that said, let’s dig into the data and other variables to rank the 10 best weeks and 10 worst weeks to visit Southern California and Disneyland Resort in the next 2 years–meaning dates in 2025 and 2026, plus a couple of weeks in 2027…
Worst Weeks to Visit Disneyland in 2025 to 2027
Winter Break (January 1-5, 2026; January 1-4, 2027) – There’s the perception that holiday crowds die down immediately after New Year’s Eve, that it’s like flipping a switch. That used to be the case, but no longer. These days, post-holiday crowds remain heavy through the first weekend in January, and don’t let up until local school districts go back into session following winter break.
After that, tourists are briefly supplanted by local Magic Key passholders who are no longer blocked out but are still on holiday break from work or school. Annual Passholder blockouts for January do not perfectly coincide with Los Angeles and Orange County School District winter breaks, and are much more staggered than in previous years.
Suffice to say, there’s a slight surge of pent-up demand among locals after multi-week blockouts lift in the New Year after some blockouts end but before schools go back into session. The good news is that it is like flipping a switch after that, with the days that follow being blissfully uncrowded until MLK Day Weekend.
Ski Week (February 14-24, 2025; February 13-23, 2026) – Without question, the worst dates of winter at Disneyland will be February 14-17, 2025, which is the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. The entire week following that is bad due to the dreaded “Ski Week” at Disneyland. (See Avoiding Ski Week at Disneyland for a full explanation as to why a theme park, of all places, is impacted by skiing crowds.)
In any case, the result is that crowds will likely remain elevated through February 24, 2025 due to Ski Week. If at all possible, we’d avoid all of these dates. Expect crowd levels of around 8/10 during the peak of Presidents’ Day and 7/10 or higher on the surrounding dates.
With Lunar New Year ending before this and no entertainment or seasonal offerings to take its place, this timeframe becomes even less attractive. The lack of parades, nighttime spectaculars, and so forth will exacerbate the feels like crowds, as there will be little-to-no entertainment to ‘soak up’ crowds.
Early Spring Break (March 24-31, 2025; March 23-31, 2026) – March gets progressively busier in the second half of the month, first due to the end of the Kids Ticket Deal. The last two weeks also start seeing spring break crowds as non-local markets and some schools in surrounding states (namely Utah and Nevada) start having their spring breaks.
Additionally, some schools in Orange County–where Disneyland is located–have their spring breaks the last week of the month each year. Typically, local spring breaks cause crowds to spike, especially when overlapping with ticket deals that don’t have blockout dates, meaning this will be the worst week of the month.
However, March 2025 won’t be nearly as bad as last year. The biggest reason is because Easter isn’t until April 20, 2025. This is 3 full weeks later than the previous year, which will effectively spread out the Spring Break season and dilute crowds.
Easter (April 11-21, 2025; April 1-6, 2026) – This is a fairly safe prediction year in and year out, regardless of what else happens. In fact, you could accurately predict today that the week leading up to Easter will be busy in 2027-2030 or 2055.
Easter week has been the busiest of spring break season for as long as we’ve been covering Disneyland, although late March when Orange County is out has come close a couple of times. However, this week is exacerbated by the Los Angeles Unified School District having a spring break that’s anchored to easter. LAUSD has an outsized impact on Disneyland attendance, and its Spring Break is April 14-18, 2025.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter which of these spring break weeks has higher crowd levels. That’s almost entirely academic, an interesting thing to watch for those of us who obsess over crowd trends and attendance patterns. The bottom line for most planners looking at this from a practical perspective is that late March through the Monday after Easter will be very crowded.
Summer’s Twin Peaks (Late May/Early June 2025 and July 21-28, 2025; June 22-29, 2026 and July 20-27, 2026) – Summer crowd calendars are snake oil. There’s very little consistency in attendance patterns for June and July in the last several years. Conventional wisdom used to be that the weeks around Fourth of July were the peaks, but that hasn’t been the case in a while–each of the last two years, Independence Day was among the slowest of summer.
There’s now emerging wisdom that summer is the new off-season. That also isn’t accurate. Every week of June and July last year–except Independence Day–saw above-average crowd levels. When contrasted with shoulder season before summer or the off-season after, the difference was pronounced.
To the extent that there has been a trend, it’s that there are twin peaks in summer. One around the halfway point, and one that we’ve described as a “last hurrah” as travelers scramble to take trips before school going back into session. These peaks aren’t completely consistent, but have more or less been the end of June and end of July, with Mondays being especially bad (hence these dates being Monday to Monday).
However, the new wrinkle for 2025 is the start of the Disneyland 70th Anniversary Celebration, which begins on May 16, 2025. Our expectation is that the event will start out strong, with heavy crowds its opening weekend and then again the following long weekend for Memorial Day and into early June 2025. There aren’t exact dates above because it’s difficult to predict how crowds will play out.
If you have no choice but to visit during summer, and are choosing dates from a holistic perspective, we’d recommend aiming for mid-June. Crowds elsewhere around Southern California are more like a bell curve, with the Fourth of July being the high point. Our rough rule of thumb is that Father’s Day typically signals the arrival of peak summer crowds in the beach cities. Either visit before then, or after mid-August as crowds start departing.
End of Summer Ticket Deals (September 19-30, 2025; September 19-30, 2026 or so) – There’s always a huge spike in crowds during the last week of any ticket deal as locals scramble to use their remaining dates on these tickets. This dynamic occurs due to the ‘use it or lose it’ rush to take advantage of these tickets before they expire. The same thing always happens when the winter/spring offer ends (May 15, 2025), although that should be lessened this year since it’s immediately before Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary.
Last year, this ticket deal ended September 26; the year before that, September 28. As a result, that last week had crowd levels of 6/10 to 9/10 during each of the last few years. We’d expect something similar for 2025, but we won’t know until it’s released, which will likely occur in June–perhaps July if Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary proves a sufficient driver of crowds.
As such, we’re erring on the side of caution and forecasting heavy crowds (7/10 to 10/10) starting September 19, 2025 and running through the end of the month. The week before that could also be elevated, but won’t be so bad. It really depends upon eligibility, when the ticket deal expires, reservation availability, and if people are “forced” to take those last-minute visits earlier due to diminished reservations. We’ll update all of this once the ticket deal is live and those details are released.
Fall Breaks (October 10-19, 2025; October 9-18, 2026) – Up until the last two years, which were arguably anomalies to an extent, October had become the #1 worst month of the year at Disneyland. With the exception of the first week, the parks were packed–for pretty much the entire month.
This was driven by a mixture of the Halloween season being incredibly popular with locals and a scattering of fall breaks for school districts throughout California and the West Coast. Disney’s solution was to dramatically raise the price of single-day tickets throughout October (now the most expensive month of the year to visit, on average) and extend the Halloween season into August.
This has largely worked. Demand has been pulled forward into August and September, and locals with flexibility opt to visit when it’s cheaper. With the exception of Fall Breaks, October’s highs aren’t as high as they once were. The reason the last couple of years were arguably anomalies to an extent is because Disneyland has overcorrected, and it’s only a matter of time before things swing back in the other direction.
For now, just be aware that many districts in Utah and California have breaks that fall between these two weekends. There’s also Nevada Day at the end of the month, but even that plus Halloween aren’t enough for that to make the list.
Thanksgiving (November 21-28, 2025; November 20-27, 2026) – Just about any Disney fan is familiar with the crowds of the final three weeks on this list, which are almost identical for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
They’re hardly a secret or surprise, and are predictably busy year in and year out. These weeks still catch some casual visitors by surprise, as there are persistent urban legends that the holidays are quiet because “everyone is at home with their families.” Obviously, that’s hogwash.
Offering a bit more insight here, Thanksgiving week crowds tend to be worst the Sunday through Tuesday before Thanksgiving before a comparative lull on late Wednesday and early Thursday. Friday and Saturday are wildcards; usually both are very busy, but not always.
We’ve officially removed Saturday from the above dates to avoid because it was downright delightful last year. We’d recommend erring on the side of caution and avoiding it if at all possible, but that’s no longer essential. The Sunday after Thanksgiving has been uncrowded for years, making that a great first day in the parks.
Christmas (December 22-25, 2025; December 21-25, 2026) – Here’s where there’s deviation between Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Due to incredibly aggressive Magic Key Annual Passholder blockouts, there’s actually this odd ‘calm before the storm’ dynamic from around December 19 to 21 when blockouts have largely taken effect, but before tourists have arrived. Not enough to make that a recommended time to visit, but enough that it’s noticeable.
The arrival of Christmas week crowds are very dependent upon the day of the week of Christmas. Due to its timing last year and this year, the week after (between Christmas and New Year’s Eve) saw or will see the worst of the crowds.
Consequently, the true peak of Christmas crowds comes that Monday and Tuesday, similar to Thanksgiving. And this week is never as busy as the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Regardless, all second-half of December dates are well above-average and should be avoided if possible. But not all days are equally busy. Some are far worse. That’ll probably be the case with the week before December 25 in each of the next dozen years.
New Year’s Eve (December 26-31, 2025; December 26-31, 2026) – It’s the exact same story here. The week leading up to New Year’s Eve is almost always 9/10 to 10/10 on the crowd calendar.
However, it once again is not nearly as bad as Walt Disney World (which has 10+/10 crowd levels) due to the aforementioned across-the-board Magic Key blockouts. This actually brings the week of New Year’s Eve more in line with Easter, with the latter notably not having as aggressive of AP blockouts and being eligible for the SoCal resident ticket deal.
Nevertheless, if you were to place a bet on the busiest weeks of 2025 and 2026, the smart money would be on this week. If I had to make the same bet for the year 2055, I’d still pick the week leading up to New Year’s Eve. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll have the worst wait times given the uncertainty of making predictions 1-2 years into the future, but it is the odds-on favorite of claiming the crown.
Best Weeks to Visit Disneyland in 2025 & 2026
Winter Doldrums (January 21-26, 2025; January 20-25, 2026) – After winter break ends, January is largely quiet with the exception of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend and Disneyland Half Marathon–and even the runDisney event isn’t busy busy. This leaves three different weeks that are potentially good options for lower crowds in January.
All of those should be equally good, and if this were done exclusively on the objective basis of crowd levels, there’s a more than decent chance a couple of weeks would make the cut. These weeks gets you far enough outside the holiday season, with the post-blockout crowd wave having subsided, and local schools being back in session.
Our favorite of these is January 21-26, 2025. This dates is towards the start of the Lunar New Year festivities at DCA, which is always a fun time to visit. It also benefits from fewer refurbishments and usually better weather. (Note: 2026 dates are subject to change once the Disneyland Half Marathon dates are set.)
Early to Mid-February (February 4-13, 2025; February 3-12, 2026) – This is more or less a continuation of the above, skipping the dates that coincide with the 2025 Disneyland Half Marathon. (Again, this window could shift once 2026 Disneyland Half Marathon dates are revealed.)
As a general matter, winter crowds gradually increase after bottoming out in mid-to-late January. However, crowds also increase from low levels to more moderate ones by mid-February. So you really need to optimize for what matters most to you–potential refurbishments and colder weather or crowds? It’s definitely a ‘fly too close to the sun and get burned’ kinda deal, with Ski Week coming immediately after these dates.
With all of that in mind, our favorite window to visit within this timeframe is February 4-9, 2025. We’d also recommend February 11-13, 2025 as dates that should feature more moderate crowds. The last week of January into early February is usually also a good option. However, the 2025 Disneyland Half Marathon is January 30 to February 2, 2025. While it may have a negligible impact on crowds (as was the case last year), we’re not confident in a repeat of that. Accordingly, we’d err on the side of avoiding that week.
For all of these recommended January and February dates, it’s also worth noting that we are not averse to winter weather. We love wearing sweaters to Disneyland, and don’t mind the occasional rainy day that clears out crowds. We also love the extremely uncrowded beaches, but we’re also never getting in the water. These are not good dates if you’re trying to escape the snow and cold of the Midwest or wherever and want a warm weather getaway. We mention this because it always trips up planners–but Southern California and Central Florida do not share climates.
Early Spring (March 4-9, 2025; March 3-8, 2026) – These dates aren’t set in stone, and you might have similar success the following or previous week. However, there are a few specific reasons why we’re recommending these dates. First, this provides sufficient clearance from both Mid-Winter Break or Ski Week and Spring Break. Go a week earlier or later and you might run into ever-so-slightly elevated crowds as a result.
Second, this is the week after the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival starts. That draws a lot of locals to the parks, especially DCA, for its opening weekend and those aren’t always picked up by traditional crowd calendars since they’re visiting for the event and not to ride attractions.
Finally, this is a couple of weeks before the Kids’ Ticket Deal ends. This popular discount is a big draw for families, and we’ve noticed elevated crowds–and seas of strollers–in its final week as tourists and locals alike race to take advantage. It’s not as pronounced as the end of the SoCal resident deal, but it’s noticeable.
That aside, this is one of our absolute favorite weeks of the year at Disneyland, owing to a great combination of low-to-moderate crowds, lovely weather, and the DCA Food & Wine Festival. If you’re planning on a beach visit, it’s also a great time to beat the crowds there–without needing to wear a parka while you’re lounging. We highly recommend visiting Disneyland during these dates!
Post-Easter (April 22-30, 2025; April 12-26, 2026) – For this week, we’re essentially looking a week or two after Easter. Usually, crowds die down in the week immediately after the holiday, but there are still some schools with breaks then. The week following that is usually when the slower season arrives.
The added benefits here are (usually) spring weather and lower prices. That makes this a great option if you’re looking for the optimal dates between spring and summer school breaks. This is likewise a fantastic time in the beach cities, Los Angeles, and Universal Studios Hollywood.
Shoulder Season (May 1-8, 2025; May 1-15, 2026) – In looking at the wait time data, the first full week of May is usually the slowest of the month. Not by a wide margin, and the following week is sometimes better. In fact, the entire month before the Memorial Day holiday weekend is usually pretty good, and reliably uncrowded since it’s the shoulder season between spring break and summer vacation.
The big exception to this is normally the week to 10 days before the expiration of the Southern California resident ticket deal, which usually ends before Memorial Day or in early June (if nothing special is happening Memorial Day weekend). However, this year the ticket deal concludes on May 15, 2025 due to the Disneyland 70th Anniversary celebration starting the next day. That will almost certainly bring the shoulder season party to a premature end.
Admittedly, we don’t have a complete picture of what to expect in May 2025, which is a fairly unprecedented month as a result to these countervailing factors. Given this, we would personally be more inclined to visit in late April than early May, but both options should be attractive.
Post-Summer (August 19-28, 2025; August 18-27, 2026) – August 2025 crowds drop when Orange County and Los Angeles schools go back into session. Orange County schools resume around August 12, 2025 and Los Angeles County resumes on August 11, 2025. That second date is key; there will almost certainly be a precipitous drop starting that week.
That’s partially offset by the summer Magic Key Annual Passholder blockouts for the lowest tiers of passes ending around roughly the same time. There will be a lot of pent-up demand for locals who have been blocked out for ~2 months, and they will return in droves that week.
On the other end of the date range, Halloween now starts earlier, on August 22, 2025. Expect that weekend and the following Monday to be slightly elevated, before returning to off-season levels on Tuesday. Whether you want lower crowds or spook season festivities is a personal question, and why this date range offers both.
Our expectation is that the pre-Halloween period in 2025 will be more attractive than normal, as it should be the first window within the Disneyland 70th Anniversary celebration with low crowds. By contrast, the start of spook season could bring with it locals taking advantage of ticket deals who want to double-dip on the 70th and Halloween.
Around Labor Day (September 2-7, 2025; August 28 to September 3, 2026) – The week starting the Tuesday after Labor Day has been the least busy of the entire year for 3 of the last 5 years.
This trend will almost certainly continue in September 2025. That timeframe is after the initial rush of Halloween, well before Fall Break, and also sufficiently prior to the last hurrah of whenever the upcoming ticket deal expires. This should be a fantastic time to visit, with only weather being a wildcard.
By contrast, Labor Day will happen later in 2026 and the week after might be too close to all of that for comfort. Accordingly, we’re moving the recommended week in front of Labor Day. (Subject to change once the ticket deal is released and Halloween dates are announced.)
Between Two Holidays (November 1-6, 2025; November 3-10, 2026) – Last year marked the first time that the Christmas season kicked off after Veterans Day weekend. This year will mark the second time.
Last year, this first week of November was one of the slowest of the year as a result. It did get busier around Veterans Day, but still nothing like in previous years when that holiday was part of the Christmas season–to the point that we wouldn’t be averse to visiting around Veterans Day or anytime before November 14, 2025.
Whether this trend continues in 2026 is anyone’s guess. From a quantitative perspective, this timeframe is too good to ignore–especially with Haunted Mansion Holiday already underway, Christmas decorations starting to go up, and typically great weather. From a qualitative perspective, we would trade the lower crowds for a fully-fledged Christmas season. Accordingly, the next two weeks are much stronger recommendations.
Post-Thanksgiving (November 29 to December 7, 2025; November 28 to December 6, 2026) – The beginning is immediately after Thanksgiving, which may call this recommendation into question. But crowds fall fast after the holiday as people there for that week head home.
Everything about this week is great–the weather, post-holiday lull in crowds, pricing, and the full slate of Christmas season entertainment. We joke that this used to be Disney’s “second-best kept secret” after Disney Vacation Club, which is to say it was a secret in name only since so many people knew about it.
Second Week of December (December 8-14, 2025; December 7-13, 2026) – The following week is only slightly busier, so it’s not like you need to get out of town before December 8. Last year, both of the two weeks after Thanksgiving had an average wait time of 25 minutes, which is very low.
We’ve come to really like the weekend of Candlelight Processional, which artificially suppresses attendance and wait times at Disneyland that weekend. Many resources will suggest avoiding that weekend. They are wrong–that’s an outdated perspective in the era of park reservations. You just have to be smart about it, and use that special event to your strategic advantage.
This is precisely why the second week of December is our #1 favorite time to visit Disneyland. It’s not the objective best from a crowds perspective, but it does tend to be very low (average wait times in the ~25 minute range) and you can leverage savvy strategy to your advantage. Seeing Candlelight Processional, even if from a distance, is also an awesome experience that’s incredibly memorable.
Ultimately, that’s a rundown of the top 10 weeks of the year and the worst 10 weeks at Disneyland for all of 2025 and 2026. As you might’ve gathered by reading the entries, there are good and bad windows that stretch beyond what’s covered on this list–you should be able to deduce most of those based the rundown above.
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and many other SoCal cities!
Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our Disneyland week rankings for now through early 2027? Are there any months you think are better or worse than we have them ranked? Any specific ideal weeks that you’d recommend people visit California? Other dates to avoid the parks in 2025 or 2026? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
