February 2020 Disneyland Crowd Calendar & Info

Our February 2020 Disneyland & Disney California Adventure guide offers a free crowd calendar for choosing the best days to visit, plus info about weather, new attractions & closures, seasonal events, discounts & pricing, and more. (Updated January 4, 2020.)

The good news is that February is off-season when it comes to travel to Southern California as a whole. It’s a low-volume month for Los Angeles and Orange County airports, which should be reflected on crowd calendars for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.

Unfortunately, that’s not always the case–and we really don’t think it’ll be true in February 2020. This is the first full month following the debut of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and if the debut month-plus of this same attraction at Walt Disney World, we’re in for a wild ride (figuratively and literally) at Disneyland…

We already covered this in our January 2020 Disneyland Crowd Calendar & Info post, but we’ll quickly recap it here again in case you didn’t read that. Basically, we’re expecting something similar to happen following the debut of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance as what occurred a couple of years ago.

Then, Disneyland was slammed with people the first two months of the year due to a confluence of circumstances: Main Street Electrical Parade’s return, SoCal resident ticket offer, and aggressive marketing campaigns in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

This was a significant departure from recent history. Normally, January and February are the slowest months of the year at Disneyland. February is also the holiday hangover, a stretch of nothing after the popular, back-to-back Halloween and Holiday Times at Disneyland. This is noteworthy because many in Southern and Northern California make their annual pilgrimage to Disneyland Resort between September and December.

With that preface out of the way, here’s what you can expect in February 2020 at Disneyland & Disney California Adventure in terms of the crowd calendar, weather, refurbishment, special events, closures and new attractions…

February WEATHER AT DISNEYLAND

If you don’t mind mild to chilly weather, February is a great time to visit Southern California from a weather perspective. Temperatures are usually in the 50s and 60s. The daily high temperature is 68°F, and rarely falls below 59°F or exceeds 80°F. Daily low temperatures are 50°F, rarely falling below 41°F or exceeding 56°F.

This might seem like t-shirt and shorts weather to out of state tourists, but most locals bundle up in coats…or parkas. This is especially true in the evening, when California’s crisp air makes it feel even colder. In addition to those t-shirts, we’d recommend packing jeans and sweatshirts, plus a light jacket. Layers are key this time of year.

February is also in the heart of Southern California’s rainy season. On the rare occasions when it does rain, it’s typically not just a brief or isolated shower. Nevertheless, the average February rainfall total for Anaheim, California is 3.1 inches, so days of downpours are unlikely.

It’s more likely you’ll experience near-constant sunshine, with the marine layer being less of a problem during the winter months, and most days seeing plenty of sunlight. All things considered, February is a good time to visit California (and by extension, Disneyland), so long as you don’t plan on sunbathing on the beach or swimming in the ocean!

SPECIAL EVENTS & WHAT’S NEW OR CLOSED

Over at Disney California Adventure, the Lunar New Year Celebration of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese traditions will run through February 7, 2020. If you’re visiting this first week, we highly recommend making a point of checking the food and entertainment–especially the Hurry Home World of Color pre-show and Mulan processional.

Although it had another limited run last fall, it’s reasonably safe to say Main Street Electrical Parade won’t make an encore this year. While we have no doubts that it’ll return again at some point (Disney just cannot resist trotting this parade out for “farewell” runs every so often), but it’ll be too soon since the last “farewell” run for another.

The beginning of the year is “refurbishment season.” For February 2020, refurbishment season has returned in full force. Consult our 2020 Disneyland Refurbishment Calendar for opening and closing dates. On the ‘new attractions’ front, there’s Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which we’ve covered above and will discuss again below in our crowd calendar section.

With all of that established, let’s take a look at the February 2020 Disneyland crowd calendar…

February 2020 Disneyland Crowd Calendar

Disneyland crowd calendars are no longer highly reliable for individual dates due to shifting attendance, the new Disney Flex Annual Pass, ticket promotions, and other factors. Generalized trends are easier to predict, but it’s difficult to say a particular day will have low, moderate, or heavy crowds–which is why we’ve eliminated our color-coded Disneyland crowd calendars.

As such, our Disneyland crowd calendar points out the best & worst date ranges. These should be used as an approximation for crowds relative to other dates in the same month or season. While other sites offer numerical crowd calendars for specific dates months (or a year!) in advance, we’d be weary of putting too much weight on those. Suffice to say, there are simply too many inconsistencies for Disneyland crowd calendars to be reliable far in advance.

With that said, our crowd calendar methodology is based upon historic wait time information, anecdotal observations, special events, school schedules, dynamic ticket prices, and more. We don’t separate the two, but expect Disney California Adventure crowds to almost always track Disneyland crowds–with a few exceptions–albeit with a proportionately lower number of guests.

Finally, we do not recommend using this crowd calendar as a proxy for wait times at other Los Angeles attractions or theme parks, like Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm, or Six Flags Magic Mountain. Disneyland Resort crowds are unique; they’re sometimes artificially manipulated by Disney and also impacted by extraneous variables that do not impact the aforementioned theme parks to nearly the same degree.

Generally speaking, the best days to visit Disneyland in February 2020 will be Mondays through Thursdays. The only holiday that really has a big impact on the crowd calendar this month is Presidents’ Day. Chinese New Year is in January, and Mardi Gras has a negligible impact on Disneyland attendance.

With that in mind, our favorite week to visit will be February 24-27, 2020. We’d also recommend February 3-6, 2020 and February 10-13, 2020 as dates that should feature light to moderate crowds. However, we’re more keen on later in the month since it’s further removed from the opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

Without question, the worst dates of the month will be February 14-18, 2020, with the entire week following Presidents’ Day (so stretch that to February 23, 2020) being dates we’d avoid. Thankfully, Los Angeles and Orange County schools do not have the full week off.

The Saturday and Sunday of Presidents’ Day Weekend won’t be as bad as the Friday and Monday that bookend them. This has everything to do with blockout dates for Deluxe Annual Passholders. All of these days should be avoided if you can, but we feel the weekend itself is the better option should you have to attend during that 4-day long weekend.

Finally, we want to reiterate that this is all subject to change based on what happens with crowds following the debut of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. We will be at Disneyland for the opening of this blockbuster attraction (and thereafter) and will be closely tracking crowds. If there is a pronounced spike or dramatic shift due to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, we’ll update this February 2020 crowd calendar section accordingly.

February Pricing & Discounts

This is probably coming too late for most of you, but February is one of the cheapest months of the year in terms of off-site hotel prices. At some locations, you can expect to pay about half the price of peak summer season pricing. We booked several hotels for ourselves this month to knock out more reviews, and noticed many hotels below $100/night.

Speaking of which, we rank our favorite (and least favorite) hotels in the area in our Disneyland Area Hotel Rankings & Reviews post. Check out discounted hotel + ticket vacation packages on Get Away Today to save money on off-site hotels.

Even if our low to moderate crowd predictions for February turn out to be accurate, we still recommend an efficient itinerary for touring Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Another great option is the Park Hopper ticket, which allows you to weave between the parks. Failing that, arrive at rope drop and try to get as much done as possible before 4 p.m. Read our Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets post for full ticket recommendations.

Overall, February ranks very highly on our Best and Worst Months to Visit Disneyland. Despite the construction walls engulfing Main Street, we’ve had an exceptional time on our visits thus far this January and February, and that’s been almost entirely due to the low crowd levels. Personally, we’d take a few refurbishments and low crowds any day of the week over the insanity that was last February. As the month wears on, it’ll be interesting to see whether crowds pick up, or if Disneyland’s park hours are “wrong.” We’re banking on the latter, in which case this February will be the ultimate double-dip: low crowds plus late hours.

If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!

Your Thoughts

Have you visited Disneyland in February? Any thoughts on the refurbishment projects going on in Disney California Adventure and Disneyland this year? Did they impact your experience negatively, or do you fear that they will? Any questions? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!