Planning tool
When should you go?
Every month ranked on three things we can actually measure — twelve years of Walt Disney World weather we hold ourselves, Queue-Times’ published crowd index, and Disney’s rate-season calendar. Choose what matters more and the order changes.
October
Best on the two together — 73% comfortable days and about $257 a night at a value resort. December comes last.
Every month, ranked
| # | Month | Comfortable days | Days over 90°F | Wet days | Crowds now | Crowds 2017–19 | Room, cheapest night | Room, dearest night | Seasons | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | October | 73% | 1% | 14% | 32.4 | 58.9 | $241Fall 2 | $332Special | 4 | 85.3 |
| 2 | November | 83% | 0% | 10% | 40.6 | 68.8 | $241Fall 2 | $321Thanksgiving | 3 | 78.5 |
| 3 | September | 29% | 9% | 42% | 29.4 | 32.6 | $213Value 2 | $244Fall | 2 | 72.7 |
| 4 | August | 12% | 32% | 47% | 32.5 | 59.1 | $213Value 2 | $292Labor Day | 4 | 63.7 |
| 5 | April | 55% | 9% | 13% | 48.2 | 68.4 | $241Regular 2 | $350Easter | 4 | 53.3 |
| 6 | July | 10% | 43% | 44% | 34.6 | 65.4 | $254Summer | $315Summer Holiday | 2 | 53.3 |
| 7 | February | 69% | 0% | 11% | 60.8 | 69.2 | $213Value | $344Presidents' Day | 4 | 52 |
| 8 | May | 26% | 35% | 20% | 44.9 | 64.8 | $241Regular 2 | $315Summer Holiday | 3 | 51.7 |
| 9 | June | 17% | 37% | 40% | 41.0 | 71.2 | $254Summer | $254Summer | 1 | 50.9 |
| 10 | March | 63% | 5% | 9% | 57.6 | 82.8 | $281Regular | $350Easter | 2 | 44.6 |
| 11 | December | 72% | 0% | 8% | 47.1 | 72.5 | $262Winter | $396Holiday | 4 | 43.3 |
| — | January — part month priced | 49% | 0% | 9% | 59.0 | 65.1 | $21312 of 31 days priced | $213part month only | 1 | not ranked |
January is not ranked, and that is the honest answer rather than a gap. Disney’s 2026 rate chart begins on 20 January, so the first nineteen days of the year belong to the previous chart and we hold no band for them.
January is priced here on 12 of its 31 days, all of them in the cheapest season of the year, with New Year among the days we are missing. Scored anyway it came out first on a price-led ranking — not a rounding artefact but a wrong answer. So it is shown with its weather and left unplaced until next year’s chart covers it.
How the score is worked out
There is no proprietary index here and there is deliberately nothing to take on trust. Both inputs are scaled 0 to 100 across the twelve months — most comfortable days scores 100, fewest scores 0; cheapest average night scores 100, dearest scores 0 — and combined at the weight you chose above, which is half each. Every column the score uses is printed beside it, so you can recompute it or disagree with it.
Weather comes from 4,400 days of daily records for Walt Disney World itself rather than Orlando airport, held by us. “Comfortable” means a day topping out between 70 and 85°F; “wet” means a quarter inch of rain or more, which is the figure that changes a plan — most Florida rain is a short heavy shower, and the share of days with any rain is far higher and far less useful.
Crowds are Queue-Times’ published monthly crowd level, averaged across all four parks — 0 is the quietest day in their record and 100 the busiest, and it is built mainly from posted waits. Two eras are shown because one number would hide the finding: before 2020 the year peaked in March, and in 2024–25 it peaks in February, with June, July and August now quieter than every winter month. It is a crowd index and not attendance — Disney reported attendance up 3% in Q3 2026 while average waits fell, and both can be true at once.
Price is Disney’s published rate-season calendar for a value resort, read from Pop Century, tax included at 12.5%, recorded on 2026-09-07. It is the cheapest standard room, at rack rate — not a quote, and not availability-linked pricing.
The season boundaries are not the same at every resort tier, which is why the second control exists. Compared across the three published 2026 charts: Value 2 begins on 14 August at a deluxe resort and 16 August at a value one; Fall begins on 11 September against 6 September; Thanksgiving runs 25–28 November against 19–27. A site that publishes one calendar for all three is wrong for two of them and says nothing about which.
What Disney itself expects
Disney publishes park hours months ahead and sets them on forecast demand: a longer operating day is Disney committing staff and utilities because it expects the park to be busy. That is the operator’s own forecast rather than a crowd level, and it is checkable against Disney’s calendar by anyone.
- September11.7 hoursacross 104 park-days at 4 parks
- October11.4 hoursacross 88 park-days at 4 parks
This covers 2026-09-05 to 2026-10-22 and no further, so it is not part of the ranking above. Disney publishes roughly a month of hours at a time, and comparing one measured month against eleven empty ones would produce a league table of what we happen to have ingested. It grows by a day every day; when it spans a year it becomes a third column in the table.
Where this comes from
- Weather — our own backfilled daily archive for Walt Disney World, 4,400 days. Tier 2, measured by us.
- Crowds — Queue-Times — per-park wait time statistics for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, 2014 to date (average crowd level by month, by day of the week and by event type; crowd level is their index, 0% the quietest day in their record and 100% the busiest, derived primarily from posted wait times), accessed 2026-09-09. Tier 4, reputable secondary. It is a crowd index built from posted waits, not an attendance count.
- Rate seasons — MouseSavers 2026 rate chart — Pop Century season dates and rates, recorded 2026-09-07. Tier 4, reputable secondary. Disney publishes no rate API and past charts do not survive at stable URLs, which is why we record them forward.
- Park hours — our own twice-daily ingestion of Disney’s published calendar. Tier 2, measured by us.
Month pages carry the full weather picture and the party calendar: January · February · March · April · May · June · July · August · September · October · November · December.