Actual Crowd Updates-

[vikame]

I have been following the crowd posts & am curious how the
actual crowd compares to the updated UG predicitions? Especially since the
th.
Secretly, I am hoping to get the 3's that were originally predicted
for when we'll be there....

 

[Karmel96]

Me too, Me too!
15 hours till WDW!

 

[Nik's Mom]

I was there last week when the predictions were crowds were going to be very large (7/8's on the crowd blog at UG), but we walked on many rides or had less than a 10 minute wait. We kept waiting for the crowds as we got closer to the 5th, but it never happened for us.

 

[penguinande]

Same here... I'll be arriving Saturday night

 

[RevBob]

Len, any updates to the UG Crowd Blog for May, considering the reports coming back that the crowds haven't been bad so far for the month? Will be leaving on the 14th and am curious to what to "really expect" for the following week.

 

[smjj]

We arrive on the 15th and hope all this talk has scared people off. One can only hope but if they are there, well, we are going back in Nov. anyway...smjj

 

[Yippieskip]

MUST HAVE CROWD LEVEL OF 3 OR HUSBAND IS THREATENING DIVORCE!!

Just kidding....

Seriously, I promised my DH crowd levels of 3-4 the week of May 21-27. Now that week is a 7-8. What gives?! Could the crowd blogger wrong?!

 

[wright1baby]

anybody have that link?? I really need to save that one to favs, sorry.

 

[GarrettJD]

Here you go....

http://www.touringplans.com/BestDays.htm

 

[dani12]

We were there the May 4-10 and it wasn't very crowded. The longest wait we had was around 15 minutes. Sometimes the stand-by times said 30 but we NEVER had to wait that long! YAY!

 

[lillygator]

My sister went to MGM for the day yesterday and said they rode TOT and RNRC time and time again....hardly anyone was there....they never made it to the other parks though.

 

[Yippieskip]

Oh please say it's so - the great crowd blogger has miscalculated...

9 days and counting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Mellie0119]

Are all these updates and changes killing anyone else? For our travel dates I've seen 3's (from the 2005 guide) at one point 7/8 from the blog and now we're back to 3's. I'm hoping that the 3's are right! BTW- less than 12 hours until I can single digit dance!

 

[susykt4]

We were at WDW the last week in April and chose that week because of the predicted 3 crowds. The crowds were actually 6-8 that week. It turned out to be a GOOD thing for us because park hours (at least at MK) were extended. We arrived at park open every morning, rode ride after ride with no or short waits, left at noon or one when you could barely walk because there were so many people and returned to same or different park around 5:30pm for more walk-ons and short waits. We were at the four major parks for 6 days. We rode every ride we wanted to with short waits and had the best WDW trip ever!

Plan before you leave, show up at the parks early and use fastpasses and you will have a wonderful time regardless of crowd size!

 

[LittleDino]

We were just at WDW this past Saturday through yesterday (5/7 through 5/11.) We did Epcot on Sunday, MGM on Monday, Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, and Animal Kingdom yesterday. A lot of rides we were able to walk on. Most rides had a 20 minute wait by 2 PM, but they actually took less than 20 minutes to get on. The longest wait times we saw were for 50 minutes. For those few rides, we just grabbed a fast pass and came back. Early morning and late evenings, almost all rides were back to "walk on" status.

Our only annoyance was the sun... it was brutal! Drink lots of water and use sun screen!

 

[JudicialTyranny]

I was at:

May 5 (evening) MK
May 6 MK
May 7 AK & MGM
May 8 MGM
May 9 MK & Epcot
May 10 Epcot

Lines were not really a problem on any of those days. I was very pleased.

I only used Fastpass three times over those days - once for Peter Pan, once for Space Mountain (both on 5/6) and once for Test Track (on 5/10).

 

[lentesta]

Hi folks,

The crowd blog has overestimated peak wait times at the MK by about 18 minutes on average over the past two weeks, so I'll make some adjustments to the numbers and see if we can make that more accurate.

The average peak wait time at the MK's headliner attractions has been just under 55 minutes since April 28th. For the year, that average is 65 minutes. Rather than terms such as "slow" and "busy," the absolute numbers are useful for putting these wait times into perspective.

One of the things we're trying to figure out is what level of ambiguity people are willing to accept with these crowd levels. For example, if we had a scale of two values ("high" and "low"), where "high" mean waits of 65 minutes or more at peak times at the MK headliner attractions, is that good enough? If so, our current accuracy rate is better than 93%. I would guess that most people would say that's not enough, however.

If we went to a high/medium/low scale (i.e., three values), with low < 45 minutes, medium 45-84 minutes, and high 85+ minutes, our accuracy rate would be around 80%.

If we went to a four part scale of 0-34 minutes, 35-54 minutes, 55-74 minutes, and 75+, our accuracy rate is about 65%. Of the roughly one-third of the time we're wrong, more than half the time is because the numbers are just on the other side of the scale (i.e., we predicted 75+ and it's 70, or we predicted 55-74 and it's 75). We're working now to see whether any of the individual pieces of info we collect might help us with that classification. Unfortunately, it requires more statistical knowledge than I've got, and our regular statistican (the sublime Fred Hazelton) is swamped with transportation data.

So the question I'd ask the group is what kind of scale they're looking for. A 1-10 scale might be overkill, and beyond the accuracy we're able to get with the data we've got. Maybe something like a scale from one to four or six would be better. What do you think?

Also, if anyone can think of any other metric that might help predict wait times, drop me a line: len@touringplans.com.

Thanks!

Len

 

[dani12]

I like the four part scale. It's nice to crowds by those wait times...