When to go
February is a good month with one bad week in the middle of it. Presidents' week is the sharpest single-week spike of the first half of the year; the three weeks around it are quiet, cheap, and carry more festival content than any other month at either resort.
Excellent everywhere except Presidents' week, which behaves like a holiday week. Four festivals run this month — more seasonal content per day than any other point on the calendar.
Expected — not yet announced · Checked July 2026
Crowd and cost shapes are multi-year patterns we plan against, not a forecast for any single year. Weather figures are 1991–2020 climate normals for Orlando and for inland Orange County and do not decay. Festival openings follow typical windows; the Arts-to-Flower-and-Garden changeover in particular is never confirmed far ahead.
Moderate crowds
Climate normals for each resort. These are averages over a long reference period, not a forecast — the only figures on this site that do not decay.
| Resort | Avg high | Avg low | Rain days | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walt Disney World (Orlando) | 75°F | 53°F | 7 | Climate normals for Orlando, not a forecast. February is the driest stretch of the Orlando year with the lowest humidity, and the afternoons are the most comfortable the park schedule ever offers. Mornings and nights are cold by Florida standards — a 6 PM temperature in the upper 50s is normal, and the water parks close outright when a front pushes through. |
| Disneyland (Anaheim) | 69°F | 48°F | 6 | Climate normals for Anaheim, not a forecast. February is the wettest month of the Southern California year on the normals, and when a system stalls it rains for two days rather than twenty minutes. That is a planning risk and a planning opportunity in equal measure, because rain is the one condition that reliably thins a Disneyland crowd. |
Moderate cost
Each of these has its own page with pricing, strategy, and a verdict.
Festival
The best EPCOT festival to build a whole park day around and the weakest one to eat at — come for the Broadway concert series, the working artists and the lowest crowds of the Walt Disney World year.
Expected — not yet announcedNo extra ticket
Festival
Along with the spring Food & Wine Festival, this is one of the two quietest good windows at either Disney resort: a real food festival included with admission, running through the deadest stretch of the Disneyland Resort calendar, with headliner waits at their annual low and a genuine chance of walking on to Radiator Springs Racers before noon.
Expected — not yet announcedNo extra ticket
Festival
The best food value of the four EPCOT festivals and the worst calendar — go in the opening fortnight before spring break arrives, and it is comfortably the strongest of the four for families with children.
Expected — not yet announcedNo extra ticket
Festival
A two-month food festival included with admission, and the whole value sits in its first three weeks, before the spring break crowd arrives - that stretch is the second of the two quietest good windows at either Disney resort. After the schools break, it is the same festival in a park twice as full at a higher ticket price.
Expected — not yet announcedNo extra ticket
After hours
The best per-ride value Walt Disney World sells, and only if you ride hard for the full three hours — buy it at Hollywood Studios or Magic Kingdom, and do not buy it at Animal Kingdom.
Last confirmed cycle
After hours
A series of separately ticketed themed nights rather than one recurring event, and the theme is what you are actually paying for - the short ride waits are a side effect, not the product. Buy it when the night's theme is something you would pay for on its own, and never buy it as a way to skip lines.
Last confirmed cycle
The asymmetry in this week is the useful part. Attendance ramps into Presidents' week over several days as districts release at slightly different times, but it clears in about two days afterward, because a synchronized break ends synchronously. That means the week after is materially quieter than the week before at the same ticket tier.
If the dates are genuinely fixed to the holiday week, the highest-leverage decision is which parks you take on which days. Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios absorb a holiday crowd worst; EPCOT and Animal Kingdom absorb it best, because EPCOT's festival footprint spreads people around World Showcase and Animal Kingdom's acreage swallows them. Put the two hardest parks on your arrival Sunday and departure Friday, not on the Tuesday and Wednesday in the middle.
At Disneyland the equivalent move is to buy the park hopper and use it in reverse — Disney California Adventure in the morning while everyone queues for Disneyland Park, then cross over after dinner.
February is the only month that can put two EPCOT festivals in a single trip. The Festival of the Arts runs into late February and the Flower and Garden Festival opens at the end of February or the start of March, and in some years the two overlap by a handful of days. Treat that overlap as a bonus if it happens rather than as something to book around, because the changeover dates are not published far enough ahead to plan against.
The Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival also opens in the back half of the month, which means the last week of February can hand you festival marketplaces at both resorts. Nothing else on the calendar does that.
The practical note on all festival marketplaces: the booths open with the park or shortly after, and they are close to empty for the first two hours. Anybody who eats their way around World Showcase before 1 PM has a completely different experience from somebody who starts at 5 PM.
The Lunar New Year celebration runs from mid-January into mid-February and uses the same marketplace structure as the resort's other festivals, plus a procession that runs a few times a day rather than continuously. No ticket is required beyond park admission.
The actionable detail is showtimes. The procession's weekday early-afternoon runs have room along the parade route; the evening and weekend runs do not, and people stake out curb space forty minutes ahead for them. If seeing it matters, take a weekday and take the earlier showing.
The food here is better value than the equivalent booths at EPCOT and the lines are shorter, which is a reasonable argument for putting a Disney California Adventure day in the front half of a February Disneyland trip.
Southern California rain empties the park in a way Florida rain does not, because Anaheim's crowd is heavily local and locals with passes simply come back another day. Disneyland keeps most of its capacity running in rain — the indoor dark rides, which are the bulk of the roster, are unaffected — so a wet Tuesday in February can deliver waits you would otherwise need to visit in September to see.
Pack a poncho, not an umbrella. Umbrellas are unmanageable in a switchback queue and several attractions will ask you to collapse them anyway. Waterproof shoes matter more than a waterproof jacket, because standing water in the walkways is the part that ends the day.
The attractions that do close are the outdoor ones with exposed track and the aerial ride at Disney California Adventure. Build the wet hours around New Orleans Square and Fantasyland and save the outdoor headliners for the clearing.
February compresses two dining problems into four weeks. Valentine's weekend removes most of the table-service availability at both resorts, and Presidents' week removes the rest. The reservation window opens well ahead of either, and the good tables are gone within minutes of it opening for those specific dates.
The non-obvious workaround is lunch. Signature restaurants that are impossible at 7 PM on Valentine's weekend are frequently available at 11:30 AM at a lower price for a nearly identical menu, and a midday table also solves the problem of what to do during the busiest hours of a busy day.
If the reservation does not materialize, the festival booths are a legitimate dinner. That is more true in February than in any other month, because there are marketplaces running at both resorts simultaneously.
Height requirements, ride mechanics, accessibility detail, and permanent dining live on our evergreen guide, our year-round sister site. They do not change with the season, so we do not repeat them here.