Touringplans.com Crowd Calendar

[sunshine girl]

Regarding the price for Touringplans, it isn't just the crowd calendar you get access to. There are also the touring plans themselves. Yes, I know there are plans in the book but the ones that come with the subscription are narrowed down for individual preferences. They also have touring plans for both the Halloween and Christmas parties.

This is a good point regarding the online subscription. I haven't taken a really good look at all the extra touring plans and other stuff on the site yet but I definitely will! Thank you for mentioning it!

 

[mom2aandj]

We will be there then and I see they have crowd levels at an 8 for most days. I do not think this has been that high in previous years at that time.

they have. We went June 7 in 2008 for a week and the entire week was rated 8s and 9s by touring plans. It was very crowded.

 

[gandbsmom]

I think the bottom line is that with both UG and TGM, how much you use them determines if they are worth it. If you are an obsessive planner who likes to be very knowledgeable about what's going on at WDW, then both are well worth the money. I know that reading a lot before trips has really paid off for my family. For example, there was an unbelievable mass of people trying to board the monorail to MK over Christmas. My family moved to the resort monorail side, where there was NO line, jumped on the train that was pulling up, and happily rode away. Yep, there were a couple extra stops, but knowing how the monorail worked probably saved us a half hour or more of waiting. I hate lines and waiting, so knowing how to avoid them, to me, is well worth the cost!

 

[RandFamily]

As an obsessive WDW planner, i love the book and the website and think it's worth every penny. However, I don't pay attention to what they say are good or bad parks for a particular day - I just use the crown calendar in general and then I pick the parks that DO NOT have early or late extra magic hours.

In that past I found that the extra hours were wonderful, but not in recent years - more people go to those parks early and then just stay. I've been very successful in avoiding crowds this way and we usually go 3-4 times a year. I've also found the crowd calendar to be pretty accurate so far.

 

[gandbsmom]

I agree - extra magic hours are BAD! We try to figure out who has late night extra hours and go to that park bright and early the following day. This strategy has worked well for us.

 

[lentesta]

I have been planning our second trip to WDW for several months and have been anxiously waiting for today because it is 30 days out and the touringplans.com crowd calendar will show crowd levels at MK and which parks to visit/avoid.

Hey Autin,

Thanks for reading the book. Our statistician, Fred, is always happy to answer questions about the crowd calendar, including how it works and why a particular recommendation is made. PM me for his email address if you're interested.

Len

 

[ppony]

I used that site for my guide for planning my last long trip and was burned on many days actually. I'm realistic, I expect crowds, and no one has a crystal ball, (I travel in early to mid Dec. usually) but some of the days they said were lower expected and some of the parks they recommended ended up being about the worst ones at that time. I just wanted to be short and to the point in my answer.

 

[sunshine girl]

Hey Autin,

Thanks for reading the book. Our statistician, Fred, is always happy to answer questions about the crowd calendar, including how it works and why a particular recommendation is made. PM me for his email address if you're interested.

Len

Yes, this sounds like it will be much better than any random answer you get from me or any of us here! Straight from the sources themselves.

 

[fairestoneofall]

i have to say that i think the online membership is worth it. i don't use all of the features. but i am definitely loving their new mobile site (or app for iphone) with the live updates of wait times.

we have two trips and my sister has one trip in the next year. i felt that the subscription was worth it for the "lines" app alone!

 

[Autin]

About 3 weeks ago, I started this thread because the Crowd Calendar at Touringplans.com recommended that on June 5th (the first day of my WDW vacation), DS was a park to visit and MK was not a park to avoid.

This caused me to question the Crowd Calendar's recommendations because this did not make sense to me. DS is hosting Star Wars Weekend, so this did not seem like a likely park to recommend. Furthermore, Gay Days was descending on MK, so I could not figure out why it was not listed as a park to avoid.

At the time, I had determined that EP would be best because the other 3 parks had a good reason to avoid them (EMH at AK as well). Being new to the boards, I did not realize that this would kick up a few responses letting me know that I should not question the wisdom of the Crowd Calendar.

Well guess what? Crowd Calendar 2.0 has been released and on June 5th, the park to visit is now EP and the other 3 are listed as parks to avoid. I feel like common sense has prevailed and my analysis skills have been vindicated.

I also feel psyched that the crowd levels for that week have been reduced from solid 8's to 5's and 6's. Since the Crowd Calendar now agrees with me, I'm a believer.

Two weeks left!!! WOOO-HOOOOOOO

 

[sharadoc]

Well guess what? Crowd Calendar 2.0 has been released and on June 5th, the park to visit is now EP and the other 3 are listed as parks to avoid. I feel like common sense has prevailed and my analysis skills have been vindicated.

I also feel psyched that the crowd levels for that week have been reduced from solid 8's to 5's and 6's. Since the Crowd Calendar now agrees with me, I'm a believer.

Two weeks left!!! WOOO-HOOOOOOO

Hi. Just make sure you understand the new rating system. An old 8 is around a new 5 or 6. The crowd levels haven't gone down necessarily, it's just a better prediction that takes all 4 parks into consideration.

Now if they could only figure out how to rate "how close are strangers to me when I'm walking around", then I'd love it. Like walking around World Showcase, will I bump into someone or will I have some personal space? That, I'd pay for!!!!

 

[Autin]

Hi. Just make sure you understand the new rating system. An old 8 is around a new 5 or 6. The crowd levels haven't gone down necessarily, it's just a better prediction that takes all 4 parks into consideration.

Now if they could only figure out how to rate "how close are strangers to me when I'm walking around", then I'd love it. Like walking around World Showcase, will I bump into someone or will I have some personal space? That, I'd pay for!!!!

If that's the case, sounds like the top of the old scale should have been maybe 13-14. I always viewed the old scale as a ranking of 1-10 with 1 being the lowest crowds to 10 being the greatest crowds. It now appears that the reality of the values on Crowd Calendar 2.0 has finally caught up with my perception. I'll take a 5 on a scale of 1-10 over an 8 on a scale of 1-10 any day; even if it means the reduction of crowds is only in my head.

 

[Timestop]

Oh great. That means this weekend going from 8's to 9's and 10's is an even more drastic change than I thought. And the drop from 8 to 3 during the following week is a little less bizarre but still bizarre. At the last minute (for me) they've turned every prediction over on its head for each day I'm going to be there! Well at least I'm going.

 

[andreadoiron]

the thing to keep in mind w/touring plans is they are telling you which park is best based on the crowd level for the whole day. they always say to avoid emh parks but we've always had good luck w/emh mainly because we have small kids, are up early and are quite done w/the park, walking and the heat by mid-day . you do see a significant increase in the park attendance by midday.
honestly if you don't care about star wars, definately avoid dhs if you can until monday. i'm sure it will be very very crowded regardless of the day.
by the way, friday june 4 is the emh at dhs so that is prob why it's listed as best park on sat with the theory being that the park is the least crowded the day following emh. i feel that sww throws that theory out.

 

[LG2]

Any thoughts on why crowd level prediction for Tues June 1st is a 9?

 

[MAYNARDS99]

It has never made any sense to me to recommend each park at least once a week. There are peak times when it is just crazy to visit ANY theme park.

WDW is a complete resort and you do NOT have to go to a theme park every day of your vacation, whether it is for three days or three weeks!

 

[Tinkerbella001]

I went ahead and downloaded the ap for. Phone, and have been playing around with it today. AK is the park to avoid, but wait times right now are really low. KRR is 45 min and evrything else is lower. Epcot is a best park, and wait times are long. Over an hour for TT and soarin, with fastpasses gone for the day. What are we to make of this?

 

[Kidztheater]

Any thoughts on why crowd level prediction for Tues June 1st is a 9?

YES! I was wondering the same thing!!! Any ideas?

 

[Timestop]

I went ahead and downloaded the ap for. Phone, and have been playing around with it today. AK is the park to avoid, but wait times right now are really low. KRR is 45 min and evrything else is lower. Epcot is a best park, and wait times are long. Over an hour for TT and soarin, with fastpasses gone for the day. What are we to make of this?

Some parks may generally be more popular than others, so I think it might make more sense to compare the same park on different days than different parks on the same day. A good day at EP may still have longer lines than a bad day at AK, ...maybe?

 

[selina4disney]

It has never made any sense to me to recommend each park at least once a week. There are peak times when it is just crazy to visit ANY theme park.

WDW is a complete resort and you do NOT have to go to a theme park every day of your vacation, whether it is for three days or three weeks!

They are simply saying which is the best park to visit each day. If people have chosen to go over a busy time, knowing what park might be the least busy is a big help. Some of us don't want to hang around the resort all day because most of what the resorts have to offer we can get elsewhere, and we prefer to go to a park every day because that's why we chose to go to Disney. For the parks.

Touring Plans never said you HAD to go to a theme park every day. They said IF you are going to a theme park, THIS is the best one to go to. If you don't want to go to a theme park, then don't---just don't look at park recommendations for the days you aren't going to parks.