#ACNH #AnimalCrossingNewHorizons
#Animalcrossing
Sakura/Cherry Blossom Event info thread!

Just wanted to make a quick and easy, but still comprehensive guide for friends!

The Sakura petals and DIY recipies are available until April 10th in the Northern Hemisphere. (October in Southern.)

It may be possible to time travel back after the completion of the Easter event (which is until April 12th). This is uncomfirmed. Pls lmk if you have info!

Catch Sakura petals with your bug net. You get two tries before the petal disappears, and they may also only last for a certain amount of time before despawning. Don't worry though, they will respawn!

(Don't run at them or they'll vanish!)

Sakura DIYs can be obtained:
Normal Balloon Presents
From villagers
From the daily Message in a Bottle

The chances are quite low. Be patient!

Normal balloons are the solid colored ones, not the rainbow colored Easter ones--which will drop only sky eggs or Easter DIYs.

Isabelle will give you the DIY for the picnic basket. She may not do this on April 1st exactly, if you have 2 or more announcements. (E.g. new villager + shop). If you don't get it on April 1st, you will likely get it the next day, or sometime during the event. Don't fret!

You'll eventually get it when she has only one (or no) other announcements to make. The picnic basket is also obtainable from the balloons/villagers/message bottles, though.

I got it through a balloon, myself!

As for more details on getting Sakura DIYs from balloons:

Normal balloons have a set spawn pattern: every 10 min on the [xx:x5] o'clock. (E.g. 1:15, 1:25, 1:35...)
Extra spawn on the hour and half hour
Spawn from left side of island during day, right side at night (6pm)

These normal balloon spawn times CAN & WILL be overriden by the Easter Balloons, which is why it's extra difficult now, unfortunately!

Easter Balloons also spawn IN ADDITION to the regular times, btw. But yes, they will take up normal slots too.

PLEASE NOTE: There is a confirmed bug where if you shoot down 300 balloons, no more balloons will spawn on your island. There are a few work arounds for this. Some people are reporting that not collecting the nook miles reward prevented the bug, but other are saying otherwise.

It may be prudent to only shoot down normal colored balloons for Sakura DIYs first, and then go for the overly abundant Easter balloons later. Hopefully Nintendo will patch this ASAP.

Additionally, different colored (normal) balloons will have a higher chance of dropping certain goods (but it's mostly random, just higher % chance):

Green - DIYs
Red - Furniture/Clothes
Yellow - Bells
Blue - Materials

(Tho I have gotten DIYs from red, for example.)

Extra tips:

Different DIYs seem to have different rarity
You CAN get dupe recipies
When hunting balloons, turn music up to listen for the soft wind rushing noise signalling a balloon in the area
If you stand at the beach and walk along the shore, you can see them come in

(Additionally, as said before, once the Easter event is over, you can likely time travel back to April 1-10th to hunt the remaining recipies with less headache. )

Good luck sakura hunting, everyone!