Why I Am Skeptical of the Touring Plans Website DLR Crowd Calendar

[wildflower329]

Strangely, they have 2 predictions that don't match each other. There's the predictions on that page, and then predictions on the monthly calendar:
http://www.rmhtravel.com/disneyland-aug.html

They aren't the same numbers For example, Friday, August 28th shows a 7 on one and a 3 on the other.

I don't know how much I would trust that site... they don't even have the park hours correct on 8/24 (they have DCA as 8-10 and the parks calendar says 9-10) and 8/28 (they have DL at 8-12, parks says 9-12, DCA at 8-10, parks says 9-10). Between having the wrong park hours and not being consistent between their predictions on the two different pages, I would take everything on their site with a big grain of salt.

 

[HydroGuy]

I know I'm bringing up an old thread here, but being a math person myself, I have to point out that this is not what the analogy is describing. Although I do agree it has been worded very poorly. It should have been clarified like this - when they say sorted into ten groups, they don't mean total number of marbles divided by ten, they mean the 'diameter' of the largest marble divided by 10, then fit the marbles into their diameter groups. Some groups may have a lot more marbles, but for some reason they decided to normalize to 100 in 10 groups in their bad analogy. They are grouping the crowd levels, not the number of days of the year.

Here's a crude example: Say you had 356 days of the year with the crowds being 90,000-100,000 people (bear with me here). The next 9 days the crowds are 80k-90k, 70k-80k, 60k-70k, etc. Each group gets a number, so 356 days the crowd level is 10, the remaining days are 9, 8, 7, 6, etc.

Another example: Days 1-100 are 90k-100k, day 101 (a single day) is 80k-90k, days 102-150 are 70k-80k, days 151-180 are 60k-70k and so on. The resulting groups are exactly the same. Days 1-100 are a 10, there is only one day a year (day 101) with a level of 9, etc.

To summarize, the 100 marbles don't represent days, but crowd levels. 91k people, 92k people, 93k people, to 100k people are the '10 largest marbles.'

Although I appreciate what you are saying and your patience in explaining it, no matter how hard I try I cannot read that into their definition. They said they are sorting all 100 marbles into 10 groups of 10. So the top 10% of attendance days become a 10 ranking.

They went to this approach after making a strategic decision about their previous method. Their previous method had a rank based on peak wait times of major attractions. If what you are saying is somehow correct then I would say their numbers of even more meaningless than I originally thought - if different levels of meaningless even exist LOL!

 

[BobearQSI]

Although I appreciate what you are saying and your patience in explaining it, no matter how hard I try I cannot read that into their definition. They said they are sorting all 100 marbles into 10 groups of 10. So the top 10% of attendance days become a 10 ranking.

They went to this approach after making a strategic decision about their previous method. Their previous method had a rank based on peak wait times of major attractions. If what you are saying is somehow correct then I would say their numbers of even more meaningless than I originally thought - if different levels of meaningless even exist LOL!

I'm pretty sure their "crowds" are still based on wait times. For me, no matter how many times I read that, I can not make the association that the 100 marbles represent days of a single year, instead of crowd levels (wait times) from all records. In fact, their speil said this:

The Crowd Calendar is based on a percentile rank ... In our case, we are sorting all the possible crowd sizes at the Disneyland Resort into ten groups. The highest ten percent get a rank of ten; the next highest ten percent get a rank of nine, etc.

But apparently it has something to do with me, as someone else made that same assumption too, and they also said in this post on their blog from 2012 that they get that a lot:

How is that statistically accurate/honest? If your 1-10 system is based on percentiles over a 365 day year, then you CANNOT have more than 36 days of 10’s.

The crowd calendar is based on percentiles from all days of wait times since 2006, not in a 365 day period. So, if the set of days in the summer end up being the busiest since 2006, they may all be a 10 without violating the methodology.

Just out of curiosity Jim, we get that statement a lot from people but I have not been able to find anywhere where we state that the calendar is based on a 365 day period. Do you recall where you read or heard that?

And regardless of how they are calculating it or what the marble analogy means, based on what I've seen, I just don't trust it. They pay a staff statistician. I'm sure their numbers are sound. The percentile method makes sense to me. They just don't work well enough for accurate predictions purposes in something as volatile as Disneyland. They seem to get the general idea right, but being off so much every now and then is difficult for people to trust. Since posting this, I've read their methods work much better for WDW which is more predictable than DL.

 

[BobearQSI]

And, I'll add this: us trying to decipher their dumbed down analogy to hard numbers is probably the most meaningless

If you dig deep enough into their explanations (which a large portion of their general users are not likely to do), they do describe exactly how they calculate the numbers:
Each individual attraction on their list has peak wait times measured (apparently since 2006).
Each individual attraction's peak wait time is divided into percentiles, and given a "crowd level" from 1-10.
The crowd level for any given day is generated by combining wait times for all attractions (I don't know if some attractions have more weight).

So, if a one day is assigned a 10, it may be different attractions that day contributing to the overall 10 than on a different day. So each attraction could easily have less than 36 days a year rated 10 while the overall park levels of 10 could be more than 36 per year. But I still don't think the numbers mean "the 36 busiest days from Jan 1 to Dec 31 on any given year."

 

[HydroGuy]

I'm pretty sure their "crowds" are still based on wait times. For me, no matter how many times I read that, I can not make the association that the 100 marbles represent days of a single year, instead of crowd levels (wait times) from all records. In fact, their speil said this:

The Crowd Calendar is based on a percentile rank ... In our case, we are sorting all the possible crowd sizes at the Disneyland Resort into ten groups. The highest ten percent get a rank of ten; the next highest ten percent get a rank of nine, etc.

I have no problem with their crowds being based on wait times - which probably is the most meaningful number anyways to most people. I just read the blog you linked and the comments that gives their explanation - and frankly find it ridiculous. If DLR or WDW crowds continue to grow into the future then eventually all days all year will be ranked as a 10 - unless Disney builds more rides for people to spread people out - or builds another park to spread people out.

I am sorry, I just could not care less how crowds tomorrow compare to crowds in 2006. And I doubt anyone else cares either. When I am choosing days to visit DLR or WDW and attempt to use a crowd calendar I want to know if I am going at a busy or less busy time of that year compared to other days in that year. Comparing 2015 to 2006 is absurd.

And their marble analogy is still highly confusing. I see now they are talking about all marbles from 2006 to 2015 and not just the 2015 marbles. But then they do have to "re-rank" all the previous years if crowds grow in future years. Which is also crazy.

The way Josh at EasyWDW does his calendars and daily rankings is exactly the way one would think TP is doing theirs.

 

[BobearQSI]

I am sorry, I just could not care less how crowds tomorrow compare to crowds in 2006. And I doubt anyone else cares either. When I am choosing days to visit DLR or WDW and attempt to use a crowd calendar I want to know if I am going at a busy or less busy time of that year compared to other days in that year. Comparing 2015 to 2006 is absurd.

Yeah, after I read that "2006" on their blog, I started thinking, maybe the past 365 days would be a better way to calculate!

In my book, the method used to calculate is pennies compared to what really matters: How accurate have their past predictions been? They don't make that information easy to get on their website (you basically can only view a single day at a time, and only as far back as 2014), and the few examples I've looked at aren't encouraging.

 

[goofyfan13]

I appreciate a lively discussion as much as the next guy, great post and conversation, thanks for all the thoughtful posts .

My .02
I used TP to help plan out my trip from 3 years ago and again for Oct 2016, as a single data point and as a prediction and on a whole, was pleased with the accuracy of my findings.

For our 2016 trip, In the spirit of one who loves data and over analyzing everything I looked at:

• Disney's own "seasons"
• The Dis's recommendations
• Posts on this and other boards
• Various articles, opinions found online
• My kids school calendar
• National holidays
• Sites listing College spring break weeks in 2016
• Average weekly temperatures predicted for the year
• TP's crowd calendar
• books, Including TP's unofficial guide
• My experience from 2013 in the last weekend of October

After adding in my and my wife's personal restrictions and putting all of it into a blender, I came up with MY families perfect dates for 2016 - Oct 3 through 7th. Will these dates work for everyone else? Heck, I'm not sure they would work for anyone else.

My biggest take aways associated with crowds and lines -

• Have a plan, any plan or strategy. Don't show up flatfooted. I did that on the first day and felt lost and out of control.
• The consensus is to hit the park first thing in the morning with a battle plan for at least 1/2 the day. This is more to keep from indecision and family arguments on what to do next than anything else.
• Know how long is "too long" in a line for you and your family
• Manage your families expectations

For the record, the TP predictions and the consensus from other sources cited before the Oct 2013 trip aligned with my experience.
For me and my family: (dunno about anyone else in the park, I didn't ask)

• Saturday and Sunday were unbearable at DL, we ended up at the pool and DCA for most of those days.
• Monday and Tuesday were good. There were lines, but manageable, we hit all the must do attractions for my family, at least twice each day.
• Wednesday was walk in the park. By this I mean 15 minutes or less, typically less than 10 minutes for all major attractions, minus RSR

We are Me, DW (age unknown), DD 12, DS 11 and DD 8.

Thanks for reading!
Dylan

 

[realrellim]

Touring Plans or any other similar website is a waste of money. Anyone who regularly attends the parks can far better tell when the parks are going to be crowded or not so crowded.

Which is great if you can go regularly but is pretty much useless advice to those of us who live in that large area of the nation located between California and Florida.

As a previous poster said, I'd rather have TP as an estimate rather than go in blind. What worked best about our trip earlier this month was that we knew Saturday and Sunday would be really busy and we were geared up for really busy. I'd assumed TP was underestimating Monday's crowds (it suggested 4/10) and figured those would really be a 6 or 7. They said it was 8 but compared to the 8s on Saturday and Sunday, it was definitely a 9 or 10--and we were just not mentally prepared for that degree of gridlock in moving around the park. But even DL itself was offering tickets at the lowest-price option, presumably because they didn't think it would be a peak day. So, lacking other options, I'm willing to put a bit of trust into someone who has data and a system, even if the system needs an update.

 

[wench]

A number of regulars around here have expressed some skepticism of the TP crowd calendar for DLR. I am a subscriber for both DLR and WDW and for DLR there always seems to be something off about their calendars.

I am going to visit DLR Thanksgiving week this year for just a day trip and decided to check their calendar. I found out that of the two days I am considering going both are ranked as "10" for the resort as a whole on a scale from 1-10. FWIW, TP gives a rank to each park and then a resort combined rank.

Out of curiosity I checked the historical ranking of the three days we visited in August this year and two days were 10s and one was a 9. Those days did not seem especially crowded to me based on experience I had over past summers. It seemed strange they were ranked so high. I would have said they were more like an 8.

Out of further curiosity I checked all days ranked 10 this year. Here is what I found:

Jan - 3
Feb - 2
Mar - 5
Apr - 3
May - 1
Jun - 2
Jul - 15
Aug - 8
Sep - 0
Oct - 3

That is 42 total days ranked as a 10 for this year up to today. Looking at their projections for Nov-Dec I found:

Nov - 6
Dec - 8

So TP is projecting 56 total days this year as days of 10 level crowds. How do they define a 10? Here is what they say:



What that means is that with 365 days in the year there will be 36.5 days ranked as a 10, 36.5 days as a 9, and so on. In other words 10% of all days in a year will be a 10 and 10% a 9.

But TP has 56 days ranked as a 10 - or over 15% of all days at DLR.

Since I apparently have a lot of spare time on my hands I checked the number of days ranked as a 9.

So far this year there have been 59 days ranked as a 9 - this is historical data and not projection - plus another 7 days in Nov-Dec projected to be a 9. That is 66 days ranked as a 9 or over 18% of all DLR days.

In other words TP ranks 33% of all DLR days as a 9 or a 10 although it should only be 20%. No wonder their rankings seem off so often. A 9 or 10 day at DLR happens once every third day.

Until TP can present their data in a way that is consistent with their own definitions I will continue to advise folks to ignore their crowd calendars as they are virtually meaningless and not helpful in trip planning.

As a general rule of thumb, I've found TP to be fairly accurate for WDW. And I used to think they were ok for DLR too, but not anymore. They severely under predicted the crowds for DLR on all 5 of my trips in the past year. As a general rule, it was much more crowded than they predicted. If anything I would expect there to be more 9 & 10 level days than they predict.

 

[tarheelalum]

Which is great if you can go regularly but is pretty much useless advice to those of us who live in that large area of the nation located between California and Florida.

As a previous poster said, I'd rather have TP as an estimate rather than go in blind. What worked best about our trip earlier this month was that we knew Saturday and Sunday would be really busy and we were geared up for really busy. I'd assumed TP was underestimating Monday's crowds (it suggested 4/10) and figured those would really be a 6 or 7. They said it was 8 but compared to the 8s on Saturday and Sunday, it was definitely a 9 or 10--and we were just not mentally prepared for that degree of gridlock in moving around the park. But even DL itself was offering tickets at the lowest-price option, presumably because they didn't think it would be a peak day. So, lacking other options, I'm willing to put a bit of trust into someone who has data and a system, even if the system needs an update.

Save you money and just post a question on the forum and we will tell you how crowded it's going to be. Many of us go every month or every week and we know how crowded it's going to be. And we won't charge you for the info.

 

[Frozen2014]

There are a bunch of free apps for lines (e.g. Wait Times for Disneyland, Disneyland Lines, Disneyland MouseWait). Are any of these accurate? (I didn't read the entire thread but I think someone mentioned earlier the Disneyland Lines as this is touring plans)

 

[realrellim]

Save you money and just post a question on the forum and we will tell you how crowded it's going to be. Many of us go every month or every week and we know how crowded it's going to be. And we won't charge you for the info.

It's all of $7 per year. And because I'd purchased the most recent Unofficial Guide, it was only $5. Trust me when I say this is not the expense keeping me up at night. (The garage door spring that broke this week, the dryer that's on its last legs, and the refrigerator that becomes increasingly noisy by the week, on the other hand...I could only wish that $7 would fix them.)

 

[tarheelalum]

It's all of $7 per year. And because I'd purchased the most recent Unofficial Guide, it was only $5. Trust me when I say this is not the expense keeping me up at night. (The garage door spring that broke this week, the dryer that's on its last legs, and the refrigerator that becomes increasingly noisy by the week, on the other hand...I could only wish that $7 would fix them.)

Its not the cost of the app that is expensive. It's relying on bad information that is going to cost you in heartache.

 

[lalasmama]

There are a bunch of free apps for lines (e.g. Wait Times for Disneyland, Disneyland Lines, Disneyland MouseWait). Are any of these accurate? (I didn't read the entire thread but I think someone mentioned earlier the Disneyland Lines as this is touring plans)

These are all based on user input.. So, sitting in my home in Salem, OR, I can put in that I just waited for 5 minutes for Peter Pan... Not that I believe many people are doing that. But, the potential is there. That being said, they may be "good enough" for a general idea. Personally, I use the Disneyland app put out by Disney. Not always completely accurate (said FPs for Hyperspace Mountain were out by 10:00am, but when I got there at 10:45, I had a return time around 2pm), but better than nothing.