Crowd Calendars are all different...help me decide..

[TnTWalter]

so we will be there Monday-Saturday 3/27 - 4/1 crowds are predicted to be anywhere from heavy to crazy... 7-9 / 10 depending on who I'm reading...I've read at least 5 crowd calendars...

some days 1 park is a best bet on one plan and that same park is Worst on another...LOL.

Is there one that is consistently good? are they all just fingers in the wind? Is there a better strategy? like always go to MK on Wednesday unless EMH or some such theory?

So I charted out my week and put B M or W for 3 of the more known crowd calendars [Best Moderate Worst] and if at least 2 were B I marked it.

there were only 4 instances of all 3 having all Bests on same park same day...

Probably overthinking it but trying to plan this new fast pass system and it's stressing me out a little...

haven't park hopped since forever so maybe it will be ok knowing if it's wrong we can take off...

thanks for any insight...

 

[Trap]

I would just pick a park get the best fp for you and go have fun and if the crowds are high just roll with it

 

[han22735]

As long as you arrive early to the parks and have a good plan...line up your FP's when crowds start to increase (after 11) you'll be fine. Have a great trip!!

 

[sharkyandbones]

I wouldn't get caught up in the actual numbers. Is 7 really much different than 10? Both are busy. I like to think of it in terms of range...1-3 is quieter, 4-6 moderately busy, 7-10 Ugh. But we now just use calendars so we know what to expect and how to plan our day, we don't necessarily avoid parks based on those numbers...WDW is seemingly always busy now! We try to hit busier parks earlier or later and avoid the hottest part of the day...

 

[Minsc]

As long as you arrive early to the parks and have a good plan...line up your FP's when crowds start to increase (after 11) you'll be fine. Have a great trip!!

Agreed! Crowd calendars aren't quite as critical as they used to be. They are best used as a general guide for the projected crowd levels during that period. That data can be useful to help you check your plan framework, but in the last several years, a good strategy trumps the most accurate crowd calendar easily.

 

[ArielSRL]

The only rule that I almost always follow is no MK on Saturday or Monday. Last year we did go on Saturday and it was quite busy. I do look at crowd calendars but I don't always follow them.

 

[mster425]

Just to make your decision more frustrating, the parks I had as recommended at 60 days out, and made FP around, are now totally different (2 weeks out) and many are the "red" parks. So if your luck is anything like mine everything will be different in a month...

 

[loves to dive]

I would just pick a park get the best fp for you and go have fun and if the crowds are high just roll with it

This. Park calendars are a guess at best. No one can know how the crowds are going to be on any given day, it might rain and the crowds thin out or it might be too hot and the crowds thin out. If you have PHs and it gets too crowded, hop on over to another park. Relax and enjoy the vacation, you aren't going to be able to see and do everything any way and if you miss that "must do" ride, if you've never ridden it how do you know you've missed anything? You will be there during F&G, stop and smell the roses.

 

[TnTWalter]

great. thanks all. I guess I'll pick the 4 times all were Best parks as my main strategy for getting FP in advance.

then from there i'll just hit up other parks as needed with park hopping and checking to see if same day FPs are available etc...

did my touringplans subscription. Are they still the best touring plans? it's been 6 years!! can't believe it...

 

[maryj11]

I have given up on using crowd calendars this year. There have been so many changes going on at Disney I dont think anyone can predict the crowds. I'm just going to look for the EMH and plan around those.

 

[runwad]

great. thanks all. I guess I'll pick the 4 times all were Best parks as my main strategy for getting FP in advance.

then from there i'll just hit up other parks as needed with park hopping and checking to see if same day FPs are available etc...

did my touringplans subscription. Are they still the best touring plans? it's been 6 years!! can't believe it...

Hey we'll be there the same time as you and it's been 6 years for us too. So much has changed, so much more planning to do. I'm kinda glad it was like it was when the kids were small it was a whole lot easier. Now everyone is all grown up so we'll just go with the flow. Have a good trip

 

[tlmadden73]

I don't think there is any predicting anymore. It's worse than predicting the weather.
The parks are always crowded and there are always discounts/events to draw people to the "low" crowd times.
No one really knows but Disney (as they have access to the number of rooms booked and the number of Fast Passes reserved for each park).

Crowded is also relative based on what you want to do. I find it crowded when I can barely make it through the Peter Pan/Small World alley. Some find it "crowded" if their favorite ride has a wait over 30 minutes.

MK will always be busy because the other parks frankly don't have much to do in them and everyone always spends at least 1-2 days there.
DHS will "seem" busy because its space is so condensed and there is only 5 rides, making every line long.
AK - same thing.
Epcot - that will be during Flower and Garden so I would expect that to be busier than "normal" (but what IS normal?)

Just pick what you want to do and when you want to do it and prepare for crowds by going early or staying late. (or both). Going early is key.

I am going generally the same time (3/26-4/1) and those days were just recently downgraded by Touring Plans to have "smaller" crowds (but that is all relative). We just aren't stressing over the crowds. If we can't get on a ride or two because lines are too long, we will just change our plan. We have our fast passes, I plan on using the Express bus to save time with Park hopping, and that's about all we can do.

We just know it will be crowded as it is Spring Break time (though it is sorta between the typical Spring Break and Easter, so we figure it won't be "AS" crowded).

 

[erc]

Last weekend I think I was playing around with my MDE app on my phone and decided to look at wait times at about 5PM on a Saturday. 7DMT was showing 200 minutes. I'm guessing there was a breakdown, but I had to wonder who the guy was that looked at the wait time board and thought, "Okey dokey. No problem. We'll get on the ride at 8:20".

 

[disneyvoice]

If you get to any park early enough so you can do rope drop it really doesn't matter what the crowd numbers are. Although most of us on this site are obsessed with planning, most people kind of take their time getting up and going in the morning on their WDW vacation so around after about 10:00 is when larger crowds start arriving. We have been to the parks on many 9/10 days and always get there before rope drop. We have always been able to get several attractions out of the way. A good way to handle really busy times is to do as much as possible early on, then when it starts to feel crazy in the afternoon do some of the shows and some less popular attractions that hold lots of people - you won't be waiting long for those. Or you can even leave the park and hang out at the pool or in one of the bars at a resort. When evening rolls around head back to the park, families with young kids tend to leave by that point. When everyone else is watching the nighttime show or fireworks, hit the popular rides again or schedule your Fast Passes for late afternoon/evening.

 

[TnTWalter]

I'm offsite so I can only book 1 day at a time.

I booked day 1 today Hollywood Studios. RNR fp not available. Earliest time for TSM was 1pm...so it's probably going to be busy. But at least I got some fastpasses squared away so I can plan the day around it...
We are early morning people [I am therefore everyone else is. lol]. We'll do what we can....if gets busy maybe head back to bonnet creek for relaxing around the pool...

i'm excited to be able to park hop again so we can see what same day fast passes are available and go wherever in the evenings... won't take advantage of the express bus though because we'll hit our resort before hopping I think..

 

[megs1313]

I think *at least for now* crowd calendars just aren't that valuable to the average guest. this is the strategy now (IMO):
1) arrive as early as possible and hit your must do's
2) use FP+ effectively during the peak times of the day
3) utilize in park FPs whenever possible after you've used your first three

 

[mslhb]

We are going to be there the same week arriving on Sunday. Other than avoiding MK on Monday we are picking what works best for us. I expect heavy crowds all week so don't think it will matter too much. Below is our current plan.

Mon - EP
Tue - MK
Wed - Typhoon Lagoon / DHS
Thu - MK
Fri - Open, we will pick whatever we feel like!

 

[clawmachine]

I'll be the lone voice here and say that on our recent trip, using Josh's crowd calendar from easy wdw worked perfectly for us. I checked this page while we were there and saw complaints of crowds at some parks but they were never the ones we picked using his calendar. YMMV but I'm still a believer..

 

[Steel78li]

touring plans is still solid!

 

[Biceratops]

I feel like if you're are looking at a crowd calendar for a particular day and see one park having the lowest crowd level, either...

1. Everyone will be at that park because it's the lowest of the "four" so I should pick another park
2. I'm going to that park because it's the lowest