Crowd calendars wildly different

[gharter]

Rarely, do I find any of the crowd calendars to have the same opinions.
I look at Touringplans and Kenny the Pirate. They are sort of helpful to get an idea of how busy they are guessing it will be at that time. As noted before, they do not have access to any secret inside information to help predict how busy a park will be.

 

[rflorek]

I've never based anything on a crowd calendar, and I've done all right. I know holidays are more crowded, weekends are more crowded, etc. I just keep my expectations in check as assume that I may not be able to do everything on a given trip. To me, an inconvenienced day at Disney is still better than being home!

 

[MrJT]

I don't thnk any calendar can help to predict an accurate crowd number. Plan for busy.

Great advice, Plan for busy, and if it's slow, you get a better experience that expected.

 

[holden]

My standard rule is this: There are only two crowd levels in WDW...crowded and more crowded.

 

[ScrappyTam]

Thanks for all the comments. There's been a lot of very good info in the thread & I really do appreciate it. I've been rather tunnel visioned with my planning & it's good to be reminded to step back, slow down, and see the big picture. Thank you!

 

[Nancyg56]

Thanks for all the comments. There's been a lot of very good info in the thread & I really do appreciate it. I've been rather tunnel visioned with my planning & it's good to be reminded to step back, slow down, and see the big picture. Thank you!

I think this is the right way to manage your expectations. The days of walk on attractions and wide open parks are long gone, but that does not mean you cannot have a wonderful time. It means that you should have a basic plan, and know that you cannot get it all in on any given trip.

 

[klmall]

Now that I make my original park days plan based on FP+ that I get at 60 days I use the crowd calendars to guide me in how to actually spend the day. If after my FP+s are used the park looks too crowded I head to another park with lower numbers that day. So it definitely helps to know what numbers are predicted elsewhere.

 

[wilbret]

I agree with an above post... check ticket prices for days, but maybe also look at hotel availability and rates. ;-)
Plan on it being crowded, and that way you'll either meet or exceed expectations.

I have been before, where it was like a dream. That time was during a hurricane, lol. Two years in a row, we kept our trip in the face of a hurricane, and we were lucky that it turned to sea and not toward us. Unfortunately, like with EVERY TIP...people figure it out, and I bet there are people that don't book a trip until there's a tropical storm brewing...

 

[DadofChristaSonofRay]

We pay for Touring Plans and find their app, and service to be worth the fee. The crowd calendar helps with planning, but in the last couple of years WDW has been dynamically adjusting the staffing and capacity of the rides in the parks. I've been on crowd level "3" days and level "10" days and waited the same amount of time in standby to ride a ride.

For example, on slower days they'll take 2 or even 3 trains out of Big Thunder Mountain, drastically reducing the number of riders per hour that can go through. (They can run up to 5 trains max at one time). Sometimes they'll shut an entire side of the ride down. It artificially increases the wait time for the ride.

I will say it's easier to navigate the parks when there are less people there. Getting around is easier, but I found little difference between standby ride wait times regardless of crowd level. Getting extra FP+ is a little easier with less people in the parks as well.

I prefer to go when a) the weather is good, b) the park hours are longer, and c) there are no hard ticket events closing MK down 4 nights a week early. I don't really think about crowd levels anymore as it's pretty much always busy now. Setup a good touring plan, work the FP+ system, and you'll still have a great time.

Disney gets the real advantage with the Magic Band Technology. They know from the FP reservations within probably a couple thousand the attendance at each theme park every day. Therefore their fulltime employees work the baseload days with part time employees assigned to the higher attendance days therefore making the wait times seem more similar than before. Therefore the real spikes occur when the crowds exceed the point where even 5 trains at BTMRR or the equivalent at other rides cannot help keep wait times down.

I've also noticed the last couple of visits especially in the MK that the mid afternoon crowd drop-off when families with young children etc used to depart hasn't occurred as people are now planning their days with FP+ and may wait until later to start their day.

 

[ColonialMouse]

Disney has devoted tons of effort to spreading out the crowds, which is why you see touring groups from South America in the parks in the Fall and why Epcot has festivals Fall, early Spring, and pre-Christmas (i.e. all the traditional light periods). And as others have pointed out, even if the crowds are lighter, they take advantage to staff lighter, e.g. at EEMH at MK on 10/1 they were running only one side of Space Mountain at half staff level and only one side of Pirates. But the waits were still ~10 minutes.

I think you can get some wisdom in terms of which parks to prefer on which days. But the general rule of if you want to do rides, get there at RD to do the high-demand rides, then go back later and do the shows and FPs basically always holds. TouringPlans will get you a tool to do that and sometimes come up with some insights you didn’t think about, but that’s basically how it works.

But the biggest thing is to realize if you want to do rides to get there early and otherwise relax and enjoy your trip. If you like to sleep in, that’s fine, but get fast passes for the high demand rides and maybe stay late for rides, but otherwise don’t stress about trying to get lots done.

Bruce

 

[DavidNYC]

As I'm sure others have said here, crowd calendars are nearly useless between individual days on a planned trip (beyond taking things like EMH and special events into account which you can easily see for yourself). They're a bit better for comparative purposes when deciding between when to take a trip at different times of the year but still - not much beyond logic based on a basic knowledge of the parks.

 

[summerw]

We were expecting 3-4s all week one year and every day was a 10 because the UK was having some 2-week holiday, according to the masses of them we talked to all week. Honestly it didn't change our park strategies much, except for meals and bag check. Meal times were crazier than we'd ever seen so we switched to eating more off times and counted on that getting in to the parks would take longer than expected.

I agree with PPs that Disney has so much data on who is coming and where they've booked or are trying to book FPs that they know how much staff to throw at each park. They will reduce wherever they are expecting lower crowds, therefore causing your waits to be similar regardless of crowds.

 

[button409]

Darn! We are travelling in mid January and was really hoping the calendars would be accurate as aside from MLK weekend, most days were predicted to be a 4 on Undercover Tourist.
Will have a magical time no matter how busy though I guess!