April 2024 at Disney World: Crowd Calendar & Info

Our guide to April 2024 at Walt Disney World offers a free crowd calendar, weeks to visit & avoid, weather, ride refurbishments, and tips for navigating the chaos of Easter and Spring Break. Plus, info for Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Updated April 1, 2024.)

If you’re considering a spring visit, April crowds fluctuate depending upon whether Easter occurs in April. During most years, that’s the case–Easter hasn’t happened in March since 2016. The good news is that Easter occurred on March 31, 2024. That alone should shift crowds away from April 2024.

However, it’s not all good news. You can still expect the days before and week after that to be among the busiest times of the year at Walt Disney World. Spring Break crowds will descend upon Walt Disney World throughout both months. April still isn’t out of the woods, but it’s not nearly as bad as a normal year.

The down side of Easter in March is that you will NOT get it as a special event, with a few offerings for the holiday. This means no Easter Bunny (and Mrs. Bunny) meet and greet in Magic Kingdom or decorated eggs at the resorts. As enjoyable as those things are, we’ll gladly take the lower crowds!

Here’s what else you can expect during April at Walt Disney World, organized by category…

April Weather at Disney World

Outside of the first week, April is exceptional when it comes to weather. Lows at the beginning of the month are in the low-60s and creep up into the mid-60s by the end of the month. High temperatures range from 80 to 85 degrees. Take a look at the “comfortable” band on this page–those are the kind of averages we like to see!

Obviously, anomalies are possible in both the “too cool” and “too hot” directions, but largely, April is one of the more comfortable months weather-wise in Orlando. April is more predictable than March and May, both of which are more likely to have unseasonable cold snaps (in the case of March) or early humidity (in the case of May). While all 3 months are great for weather, April is the “safest.”

April Special Events at Disney World

If you’re visiting on Easter or the weeks immediately before it, it’s also worth noting that there are special festivities for the holiday. Take a look at our Guide to Easter at Walt Disney World for more on the beautifully-decorated eggs, seasonal foods, Magic Kingdom meet & greet, pre-parade, and everything else you can expect from Easter in the parks and hotels.

Much more significant than that is the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival, which continues in April and brings a vibrant atmosphere to Epcot, but there’s not much else. The words “vibrant atmosphere” don’t exactly get the kids hyped up like “trick or treating” or “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. SANTA WILL BE THERE.” The annual event will run for the entire month of April, likely continuing until early July.

There’s also the runDisney Springtime Surprise event from April 18 to 21, 2024. Registration closed long ago for this, so you can’t register. Speaking of sports, here’s what’s currently on the ESPN Wide World of Sports calendar for April 2024:

• 2024 ICU Junior World & World Cheerleading Championships
• The Cheerleading Worlds
• The Dance Worlds

These are major dance and cheerleading competitions that boost attendance at the parks and occupancy at the hotels, usually the All Stars and Coronado Springs. The impact on crowd levels in the parks isn’t significant as a whole–and tends to be overblown based on anecdotal experiences, which can be quite bad. (Meaning that you could think they’re a huge negative if you’re stuck in line for Haunted Mansion behind a group of 100 cheerleaders…or you might never see a single participant during a weeklong trip.)

Finally, there’s After Hours at Magic Kingdom, After Hours at EPCOT and After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. These occur sporadically and, as the names suggest, are held after park closing. They have minimal impact on daytime crowd levels, but result in a slight bump in crowds during the evening ‘mix-in’ time.

We do not recommend changing your plans because of After Hours at Magic Kingdom or EPCOT, but you might want to do DHS on a different evening. Normally, that park is great for lower wait times at the end of the night, albeit to a lesser degree on After Hours dates. It’s also possible to have two showings of Fantasmic (a strategy game-changer) on nights when After Hours is not occurring.

Aside from the first two weeks, expect average park hours in April 2024. It’s worth noting that park hours are a decent proxy for projected attendance levels, so the later a particular park is open, the higher Disney expects the crowds to be. Plan accordingly. For more tips on what times of year might be good for visiting, check out our Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars post for the best and worst months of the year.

April Refurbishments & New Rides

When it comes to attractions that will be closed during April 2024, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. Spoiler alert: there’s not much closed for routine maintenance. That’s normal–Walt Disney World’s refurbishment ‘season’ is typically winter, with more projects occurring in late summer and early fall.

The construction project that has had the most noticeable impact on the guest experience is the massive reimagining at the front of EPCOT, but even that is mostly finished at this point–only CommuniCore Hall remains behind walls. The biggest construction project in April 2024 is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which is the reimagining of Splash Mountain. It’ll open in Summer 2024–probably June.

EPCOT is also home to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which is now a couple years old but still incredibly popular. Other even more recent additions to EPCOT include Moana’s Journey of Water (water exploration trail) and Luminous: The Symphony of Us (nighttime spectacular). Both are worth checking out.

Then there’s the biggest addition to Magic Kingdom: TRON Lightcycle Run. This is still the newest major attraction at Walt Disney World, and is now one year old. See our Virtual Queue Strategy Guide for TRON Lightcycle Run for details, tips & tricks for success, and more (Cosmic Rewind also uses a VQ–apply the same advice to both rides).

Another alternative for Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle Run is buying line-skipping access via the Individual Lightning Lanes. Those posts explain each option, their pros & cons, and everything else you need to know. Suffice to say, do not just show up expecting to join the standby line–as there isn’t one for either ride.

For an overview of what’s on the horizon, see What’s New & Next at Walt Disney World in 2024 & Beyond. Sorry, but nothing new is opening this month. The next round of additions all open in June 2024.

April 2024 Crowd Calendar for Disney World

We’ll start this free crowd calendar section with the same preface as other months—skip ahead a few paragraphs if you’ve already read it. We don’t have a color-coded crowd calendar here because we don’t put much reliance on them anymore. You shouldn’t, either. If we just had a visual crowd calendar graphic here, many of you would only look at that and not read the accompanying explanation that covers what you might actually expect. That’d be doing you a disservice.

While they can be useful tools, crowd calendars are one small piece of a much larger puzzle. We no longer choose our own Disney travel dates based exclusively upon crowd calendars and we’d likewise discourage you from doing so. Crowd calendars are increasingly unreliable because of the way Disney manipulates attendance patterns, staffing, closures, and ride capacity.

Walt Disney World doesn’t release official attendance numbers, so crowd calendars utilize info like school schedules, airport traffic statistics, hotel pricing & occupancy, and other indicators as proxies for crowds. For years, this approach worked and made crowd calendars reliable. Walt Disney World attendance followed an identifiable pattern that tracked with the aforementioned proxies.

More recently, wait times don’t always reflect actual crowds because Disney has become adept and more sophisticated at manipulating both attendance and crowd flow. Think of this as the difference between the actual temperature and the “feels like” temperature, but with crowds. We can still actual crowd and attendance patterns, but not wait times. The latter are what most of you likely care about (the “feels like” crowds), but it’s more difficult to accurately forecast wait times via WDW crowd calendars.

While April is not the Spring Break month for most colleges and schools with static Spring Break schedules, many schools in the United States schedule their Spring Breaks around Easter. This means that the couple of weeks around Easter (particularly the week before) will be two of the busiest of the year.

The week after Easter will still likely be busy, as many school districts–particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest–have their Spring Breaks that week or the week after that. We’ve spot-checked several of the largest school districts, and this is the case with several of them. This is actually more pronounced in 2024, as Easter is falling “too early” for many districts that also do Mid-Winter Break at the end of February. Additionally, April 18-21, 2024 is also the runDisney Springtime Surprise Weekend, so that’ll be busy.

Consequently, expect 8/10 or 9/10 crowd levels for April 1-6, 2024. After that, a reasonable drop-off is likely the following week. With fewer Spring Breaks scheduled during each subsequent week in April, crowds should peak the first week and gradually trend downwards–probably to 7/10 to 8/10 for April 7-14, and then even lower the following week.

Although there are some straggler school districts, expect April 15 (Tax Day!) to be the unofficial end of the Spring Break season. That will be partially–but not fully–offset by early arrivals for the runDisney weekend and ticket deals, but crowd levels should still be trending downward April 15-21. We’d expect below average (4/10) crowd levels that week, even with the runDisney Springtime Surprise.

That trend should continue for the remainder of the month and into May 2024. Our expectation for all of those weeks is average crowds in the 3/10 to 4/10 range. That’s about what happened last year, and the end result was Slowest Six Week Stretch at Walt Disney World in 2 Years from late April through May. We aren’t predicting crowd levels that are that low, but it’s possible that 1/10 to 2/10 crowd levels are more common than 4/10.

Finally, be aware of the above-referenced cheer and dance events at ESPN Wide World of Sports. All three of these events more or less coincide from April 24 to 29, 2024. In the days prior to the events and during them, you can expect elevated crowd levels to varying degrees in the different parks.

As noted above, these do not have much impact on overall crowd levels for Walt Disney World as a whole. There simply are not enough participants with park tickets to move the needle. However, they can contribute in a major way to localized congestion and crowd levels, spiking wait times at various attractions. if you visit the same park as their entire (or large portions of) their group attends your perception of their impact might be very different.

Meaning that if you have the misfortune of getting in line for Haunted Mansion behind a huge group of cheerleaders, dancers, flag football players, etc., it can spike both the wait time for that particular attraction and feel unpleasant for various reasons. (Ask us how we know!!!)

These groups can have a major impact on resort room availability, as there are tons of attendees and they take up huge blocks at the All Stars, Coronado Springs, and a few other hotels. That, in turn, reduces inventory there and pushes other people to different hotels.

Long story short, a lot of hotels can sell out completely, causing planners to freak out that the parks are going to be chaotic and crowded. Which can be true…sometimes. But there are two things to keep in mind. The first is that the majority of guests in the parks at any given moment always come from off-site.

The second is that the youth groups are primarily participating in sporting events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, not going to the parks. So to some extent, they are occupying rooms and displacing guests who would otherwise visit the parks. (See Why Are Walt Disney World Resorts Sold Out in 2024? for a more thorough explanation.)

All things considered, the first week of April 2024 will be busy at Walt Disney World, but not nearly as bad as March 2024. The rest of the month will be below average. If you visit in April, you should be in really good shape after that first week!

April Pricing & Discounts

In terms of promotions, don’t expect much. It’s way too early for the Free Disney Dining Plan promo (the holy grail of Walt Disney World discounts) offered in the fall, and slightly too early for the scaled back Free Summer Meal Plan promo. Instead, you’re typically looking at the tried and true room-only discount offer for all of the month outside of the Easter holiday window.

In terms of pricing, April is again normal outside of the first week. For 1-day park tickets, most of April is “regular” season; for hotels, pricing is also at the “Regular Season” rate. You might be able to do better scoring deals off-site, because April is a fairly competitive month for Orlando tourism.

Ultimately, we normally warn of April being one of the worst months–at least the first half–to visit Walt Disney World. However, that has been because Easter has fallen during April for the last 7 years. That isn’t the case for April 2024, making it a more desirable month to visit outside that first week.

Beyond crowds, April is actually appealing for other reasons. The weather is great, refurbishments are rare, and Epcot is looking great with Flower & Garden Festival. If last year was any indication, the 3+ weeks of April after Spring Break season have ended should be absolutely fantastic–the intersection of pleasant weather (knock on wood–it’s Florida, so heat and humidity are always possibilities!), low crowds, and Walt Disney World in bloom.

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

Your Thoughts

Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts on April? Do you think it’s average, exceptional, or somewhere in between? Enjoy visiting for Easter? Any questions we can help you answer? 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!