May 2026 Disneyland Crowd Calendar

Our free May 2026 Disneyland crowd calendar covers everything you need to know for choosing the best days to visit Disney California Adventure and Disneyland. This includes special events, weather, pricing, and of course, attendance levels at the parks.

The month of May is usually “shoulder season” at Disneyland, falling between spring break and summer vacation during a time when schools are largely back in session throughout the country. This makes May 2026 a potentially good time to visit Disneyland–at least, part of May is a good time of year to visit, particularly on weekdays when Grad Nites are not occurring.

The other half of May can be a different story as the parks get more crowded, but not unbearably so. Along with our crowd predictions for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, in this post we’ll offer other thoughts on what to expect during this month at Disneyland Resort. With that in mind, there are a few wildcards for May 2026 that will have an outsized impact on crowds.

First, whether Magic Key Annual Pass sales will resume again, when and for how long. Last year, AP sales started in early 2025 and were not fully suspended until April 2025. They then resumed again in May. Even as revenge travel has been fizzling out, demand among locals is holding strong. So much so that we anticipated the window for AP sales being very brief–a few days or weeks at most. Instead, it lasted a few months.

The end result of that, predictably, was that Magic Keys were oversold and reservation availability was scarce. The second half of April was fully booked up, as was most of May. If something like this happens again, May won’t be shoulder season–it’ll be just as busy as Spring Break.

Second, there was the 2025 Southern California Resident Disneyland Ticket Deal. This discount was much better than 2024, seeing a very rare price decrease–and a massive one. The superior savings enticed locals who haven’t visited in a while or got priced out of Annual Passes to make a return. That further increased crowds.

That ticket deal ran through May 15, with the end date not being coincidental (see below). As is normally the case, there was a spike in crowds in the last 1-2 weeks of this deal, as guests rushed to take advantage of the final days on these “use it or lose it” tickets before they expire. Usually when this happens, reservation availability is reallocated away from the Magic Key “bucket” to the regular tickets “bucket” of park reservations.

Finally, there was the Disneyland 70th Anniversary Celebration, which began on May 16 and runs through Summer 2026. Here are the major pieces of entertainment during this 18-month event:

• World of Color: Happiness
• Paint the Night Parade
• Wondrous Journeys Fireworks
• Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration!

Head over to our Guide to the Disneyland 70th Anniversary Celebration to read even more detail about what’s to come for the huge celebration.

It’s also worth noting that there is a general public Disneyland 70th Anniversary Ticket Deal that started on May 16. Normally, there wouldn’t be yet another deal right at the start of a big anniversary campaign. That elevated crowd levels even further during the first few weeks of the celebration.

All of this is to underscore just how many monkey wrenches were thrown in May 2025 crowds. Some of these things will not be repeated in May 2026. There will be no milestone anniversary beginning; it’ll be winding down. But there could be aggressive deals, Magic Key sales, and other wildcards.

With that backdrop set, here’s what you can expect in May 2026 at Disneyland & Disney California Adventure in terms of the crowd calendar, weather, refurbishment, special events, closures and new attractions…

May Weather at Disneyland

We’ll start with a look at weather. This section of these posts should just be titled “Another Day of Sun” because this is pretty much just a thinly-veiled opportunity to remark on how Southern California’s weather is perpetually nice. For May, you can expect humidity to be low as high temperatures hover around 75º most of the month. Lows will be around 55º early in the month, rising to around 60º by the end of May.

As you can see by the second graph on this page, May in Anaheim is comfortable for most hours of the between noon and 8pm Temperatures are cooler in the morning and drop once the sun goes down, so we recommend packing a sweater or thin jacket for the evening hours. Spring can chilly outside the middle of the day, and the “feels like” tends to be cooler due to the lack of humidity.

What’s Happening in May 2026 at Disneyland

As already discussed, the big thing happening is the Disneyland 70th Anniversary Celebration, which runs through the end of Summer 2026. The highlights of this are Paint the Night Parade, Wondrous Journeys Fireworks, and World of Color Happiness. As the celebration hits the one-year mark, it’ll be interesting to see whether Disneyland does anything to give it a shot in the arm during the home stretch.

In terms of attraction closures, our regularly-updated Disneyland Refurbishment Calendar will cover everything that’ll be down during the month. Thankfully, a lot of the projects on the list wrap up in early May, but there are some that drag into the middle of the month and beyond. It’s also possible there are a few last-minute projects added to the calendar lasting a few days–we’d expect most of those to wrap up by Memorial Day.

Otherwise, the most notable seasonal event is the return of Grad Nites at Disney California Adventure (and to a lesser degree, Disneyland). This will be held on select evenings, and will impact crowds on the dates listed below. As the name suggests, it’s for graduating seniors. (Sorry to anyone wanting to relive their high school glory days, but it’s not open admission.)

May 2026 Disneyland Crowd Calendar

Normally, the beginning of May has relatively low to moderate crowds, as it’s a relative lull between spring break and summer vacation. There’s usually a pre-summer lull, making much of May less crowded than the months that follow. Keep in mind that all of this is in a normal year.

May 2025 was not a normal year, so we’re basing our forecast on May 2023-2024. In those years, the first two full weeks averaged crowd levels of 2/10 and the third week was 3/10. That’s one of the best three week stretches of the entire year, and it followed similarly low post-Easter crowd levels at Disneyland. Crowds finally started picking up on May 18.

We expect crowds to spike towards the end of the month, not because we’re drawing closer to the summer months and traditional vacation season, but because tickets purchased via the SoCal Resident Deal typically expire right before Memorial Day weekend.

Every year, the last couple weeks of this promo see a surge in attendance as locals want to take advantage of the offer before it ends, or use days on tickets they already purchased. We would expect this year to be no different. While the dates of the 2026 ticket promo have yet to be released, based on past precedent, the worst of the ‘last hurrah’ ticket deal crowds will be around May 18-22, 2026.

May 23-25, 2024 will be busy due to Memorial Day. However, as far as holiday weekends go, this one isn’t nearly as bad as a lot of them. In fact, it’s likely that the lead up to the long weekend will be worse due to the aforementioned ticket deal. But again, that’s still tentative–we know for sure that Memorial Day is happening, and when.

May 26, 2026 will be the start of shoulder season again. Most school districts in Southern California are not out of session until mid-June 2026. That’s also around the time Disneyland starts seeing an influx of tourists.

Again, it’s important to emphasize that there are still a lot of unknowns about May 2026 crowds. If you’re booking a trip now for 2026 and have an open calendar, we recommend instead consulting our 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Do Disneyland in 2026.

If you’re looking for a convenient resource for planning a weeklong or so vacation to Southern California and want to know when to visit or avoid based on crowds & congestion, weather, special events, and more–look no further, and check out that list instead of reading the month-by-month calendars below. That list emphasizes Disneyland, but also takes into account beaches, cities, National Parks, and other popular points of interest in California.

Honestly, I like that resource more than these crowd calendars and send friends and family that post as opposed to this when they want help choosing dates. From my perspective, it’s foolish to rely solely on quantitative measures when qualitative factors can be more make or break. Not only that, but if you’re a tourist planning a trip to California, it’s more helpful to have a range of dates that are good, as opposed to cherry-picked individual days.

If you’ve already determined that you’ll visit sometime in Summer 2026, see our list of the Best & Worst Days of the Week to Do Disneyland to choose the best individual days within any week.

Finally, Grad Nites throw a monkey wrench into crowd levels throughout May 2026. Grad Nites are something of a rite of passage for high school seniors in Southern California, as they participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event where they get to experience one final night of high school memories with their friends before they embark on their new adventures.

Generally speaking, Grad Nites cause a spike in crowds on those dates, particularly at Disney California Adventure, and most notably later in the day. Read our Grad Nites at Disneyland post for more info and thoughts on how these evenings impact crowds and the guest experience.

For most of the month, dynamic ticket prices are at “value” or “regular” prices. Likewise, Annual Passholder blockouts are minimal outside of normal weekend blockouts, as well as Memorial Day. Even these factors are not enough to cause a precipitous spike in attendance.

Read our Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets post for multi-day ticket recommendations to avoid having to deal with seasonal pricing. On the plus side, there are some multi-day ticket discounts currently available for all guests.

As far as hotel prices go, rates should be fairly average throughout the month. We rank our favorite (and least favorite) hotels in the Anaheim Resort District 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.

If you visit on weekends in May, efficient touring plans for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will be essential. Even if you during weekdays early in the month, having a solid itinerary is not a bad idea. Across the board, crowd levels at Disneyland Resort are higher than they were a few years ago.

Overall, we usually rank May near the top on our list of the Best & Worst Months to Visit Disneyland. The main reason for this is because it’s a lull between spring break and summer seasons, and even the spikes caused by Grad Nites aren’t enough to upset crowd levels too much.

The biggest impact on crowds outside of that will pretty much be locals taking advantage of the SoCal ticket offer at the last minute. If you can visit earlier in the month on one of those green weekdays (or even the yellow ones), you are going to have a far better experience–if we only factored in those days, May would be one of the best months of the year to visit!

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 tons of other places!

YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you plan on doing Disneyland in May 2026? Which dates are you targeting? If you’ve visited Disneyland during May, what did you think of the experience? Did you find the crowd levels to be manageable? Have any problems with Grad Nites? What about the weather? If you’ve visited in May, do you have any tips to add? Are you heading to Disneyland Resort during the month of May? Share any questions, tips, or additional thoughts you have in the comments!