Park calendars. Accurate?

[DisneyBliss7]

We are going to WDW is May. I looked on Undercover Tourist for the crowd calendar to plan our week of park days before I make some dining reservations. How accurate are these calendars? I'm picking our park days that have the green check mark on certain days. Is there a better website?

TIA

 

[Robo]

They are all "guesstimates."

 

[CAS239]

Anything more than about 45 days out is just a shot in the dark. May is way too far out for anything concrete. Hours will be updated from what they are now and the guesses on crowd calendars will be adjusted

 

[EmilyMaude]

I've used Touring Plans for their crowd calendar and found the updates they send over time to be useful--but yeah this far out I would not rely on any of them. I think in general these calendars are great to help you decide what time of year to go and can help as planning guidelines, but I would not hinge day-to-day plans on them by any means.

 

[Rach3975]

They give you a good starting point, but some days the predictions will turn out to be accurate and some days they won't. There are just too many factors that go into it, some of which are last-minute influences like weather. For example, we were there last week. I'd mostly used the Touring Plans site to plan our days. Our Epcot day was predicted to be a 5 (on a scale of 1-10) but ended up being a 9. Our last MK day was predicted to be a 2 and really was a 2. Some of our other days the predictions were off, and other days they were spot on. That said, all of the crowd predictions changed multiple times between when we started planning (late June) and our trip. Sometimes they went up, and other times they went down.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

We've been going in May for the last few years. Unless you're going around Memorial Day, the day isn't going to matter too much. It's a below average crowd time. Weekends will be more crowded, weekdays less so. I would pick your days around what works best for your schedule.

 

[Klayfish]

They are all "guesstimates."

At best.

 

[wilbret]

Word to the wise... they are estimates, but as these sites become increasingly popular, guests are getting more savvy. So, if they publish "November 13 is the best day to go, EVAR..." Guess what their 500,000 followers on twitter or whatever are going to do? We've seen it happen, for sure. I'd check school calendars, special events, and holidays to be sure. You'd hate to arrive at the same time as the International Cheerleading Competition during Georgia spring break week while the North American Accounting Association Annual Conference are all converging at the same time as Star Wars opening or something...

 

[gharter]

No, they are not accurate. Published a long ways out, they are a guess at best.
Hours change, sometimes several months before, weeks before or even day of.
They are a good starting point, but nothing definite.
There are 3 main crowd calendars I am aware of, touringplans, kenny the pirate and undercover tourist. Its interesting to compare these as they often disagree on crowd levels.
All you can do is plan based on the information you have available and do the best you can. Modify as information changes.

 

[DisneyBelle27]

I kinda like the one at wdwprepschool as a reference. Not because I trust their recommendations over some other site (I don't really trust the accuracy of any of them that much) but because they conveniently put the 'other' things that could affect crowds (Pop Warner, cheer competitions, holidays, spring breaks, RunDisney races, etc) onto a single calendar, so it's easy to see when these things are happening with a single glance.

 

[MickleSt]

I do find it interesting to compare the different crowd predictions. Kenny The Pirate never recommends going to a park with evening EMH, recommending instead a different park on those days. Which has me rethinking our plans. That idea does make sense to me, frankly. But I don't know if anyone here has ever used Kenny's recommendations. TP seems to be the one everyone relies on.
But wdw prep school also recommends not doing parks with EMH. Hmmm...

 

[Robo]

I do find it interesting to compare the different crowd predictions. Kenny The Pirate never recommends going to a park with evening EMH, recommending instead a different park on those days. Which has me rethinking our plans. That idea does make sense to me, frankly. But I don't know if anyone here has ever used Kenny's recommendations. TP seems to be the one everyone relies on.
But wdw prep school also recommends not doing parks with EMH. Hmmm...

"Not doing" a park with EMH ignores the option of USING the EMH, but not being in that park the rest of the day.

AM EMH can be the very BEST time to be at a given park.
As MANY guests (regardless of their pre-arrival intentions) simply will not "get up early"
on vacation.
That means, that the earlier in the day, will see fewer guests in the park.
And, if that park starts filling up by, say, 10:30am... a smart visitor can park-hop elsewhere.

Also...
For certain parks, a late (the later the better... say, after 10:30pm) PM EMH will spell much shorter lines than during regular hours.
And, hopping INTO that park later in the day can be a good strategy.
(Again, to make PM EMH "pay off," it needs to be a LATER event.)

 

[scrappinginontario]

I use Touring Plans to help me plan which park I'm going to attend on days that I want to make dining reservations within a park. In the past we did not have park hoppers so due to needing to book ADRs at 180 days I needed to make decisions early. This time since we needed PHs to qualify for free dining so it opened up the option to move between parks.

That being said, we have a pretty solid plan in place about which park(s) we intend to visit by the time our 180 day mark rolls around. We may change but not often.

 

[QueenElinor]

I use Touring Plans to help me plan which park I'm going to attend on days that I want to make dining reservations within a park. In the past we did not have park hoppers so due to needing to book ADRs at 180 days I needed to make decisions early. This time since we needed PHs to qualify for free dining so it opened up the option to move between parks.

That being said, we have a pretty solid plan in place about which park(s) we intend to visit by the time our 180 day mark rolls around. We may change but not often.

The ADRs do make it harder. I like to have ours in the middle of the day to get out of the heat & crowds. I would hate to have to turn some of these loose and wing it trying to get others later, but I will if I have to change park dates. They used to be easier to get, it seems to me, but luckily I don't really have my heart set on any one place, just something convenient to where we are (planning to be).

I think if there was a restaurant I really wanted to visit, I wouldn't change parks and drop that ressie just because the crowd level prediction changed. They're just too unreliable to make a major adjustment to the schedule like that.

 

[Lisa F]

Disney has taken to adjusting staffing based on anticipated crowds which keeps the crowds up there. Not very accurate although certain things hold true, like Epcot will be busier on weekends during a festival. josh at easywdw did an analysis of crowds nad park days and there is not a lot of difference anymore so do what works with what you can get.