Annual passholders: How do they affect the crowds?

[Belle5]

I am guessing that most locals get the regular pass instead of the deluxe. Would that be correct? I noticed that the weekend dates in December that I was looking at are blocked out for both the two lower tiers of passholders yet Touringplans has the Saturday (Dec. 15) as a 7 for crowds. I wanted to add that someone here advised me to go into the parks on Saturday the 15th because it is blocked to passholders. On Monday the 17th the block is lifted but touringplans predicts the crowds to be a level 4. Wouldn't it be wiser to go on Monday even if the deluxe passholders aren't blocked?

 

[pennym]

I'd go Saturday. Monday seems to be one of the busiest days of the week recently.

 

[mom2rtk]

Flip a coin. Both will be busy. Saturday in December just over a week before Christmas will be busy. Monday on the last few days some APs are open is going to be really busy. They might have better staffing, park hours and entertainment on Saturday at least.

 

[blackjackdelta]

I have found Touringplans not to be very accurate about virtually anything. I live 1300 miles away and have and AP. I rely on what is posted here.

Jack

 

[mom2rtk]

Both days are rated "forget about it" on Isitpacked.com. So expect heavy crowds.

https://www.isitpacked.com/disneyland-crowd-forecast-predictor-calendar/

 

[figment_jii]

Touring Plans seems to rely on historical data to try and predict what crowd levels will be like, but crowd patterns at DLR seems to be changing. As others have mentioned, there has been a distinct up swing in Monday crowds (see this thread as an example). I would say that if you're weighing between Saturday (12/15) and Monday (12/17), I'd also probably lean towards Saturday. Only the Signature, Signature Plus, and Premier AP are valid. On Monday, only the SoCal Select is blocked (meaning SoCal, Deluxe, Signature, Signature Plus, and Premier AP are all valid). The holiday period AP blockout goes into effect at the end of the week, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a spike in APs going to the parks for one last visit before Christmas.

 

[Belle5]

Touring Plans seems to rely on historical data to try and predict what crowd levels will be like, but crowd patterns at DLR seems to be changing. As others have mentioned, there has been a distinct up swing in Monday crowds (see this thread as an example). I would say that if you're weighing between Saturday (12/15) and Monday (12/17), I'd also probably lean towards Saturday. Only the Signature, Signature Plus, and Premier AP are valid. On Monday, only the SoCal Select is blocked (meaning SoCal, Deluxe, Signature, Signature Plus, and Premier AP are all valid). The holiday period AP blockout goes into effect at the end of the week, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a spike in APs going to the parks for one last visit before Christmas.

Thanks for posting that thread! As I read through it folks were commenting that the Mondays were crowded due to people coming in for a three day weekend, a long weekend. If Saturday and Sunday are blocked to the passholders they certainly would not be there for a long weekend. They would have to be planning on starting their vacation on a Monday. I am not sure the Monday theory applies when the local passholders won't already be there from the weekend. I know that folks on this board don't have the faith in touringplans that those visiting WDW have (they've never steered me wrong when planning a WDW trip) but surely they are taking a lot of history and blockout dates into consideration when they predict that Monday to be a 4! Even if they are a bit off in their calculations, it doesn't sound like Monday will be horrifically packed! I am still leaning toward visiting Sunday and Monday instead of Saturday and Sunday, but will keep an open mind until closer to my dates!

 

[Winnowill]

Touring Plans is great for WDW. Not so much for DL.

We were there from 6/28-7/2 this year, and I can definitely confirm that the Monday was by far the busiest day of the five. The other days were busy, yes, but Monday was a madhouse. I would pick Saturday and Sunday over Sunday and Monday.

 

[figment_jii]

Thanks for posting that thread! As I read through it folks were commenting that the Mondays were crowded due to people coming in for a three day weekend, a long weekend.

The start of the thread was talking about Mondays in July/summer, when there weren't any three day weekends in effect. SoCal and SoCal Selects were blocked, but Deluxe and higher were allowed in the parks. So, while Mondays of three day weekends are unsurprisingly crowded, random Mondays are also crowded. There have been other threads that have mentioned unexpectedly high crowds on Mondays.

I know that folks on this board don't have the faith in touringplans that those visiting WDW have (they've never steered me wrong when planning a WDW trip) but surely they are taking a lot of history and blockout dates into consideration when they predict that Monday to be a 4! Even if they are a bit off in their calculations, it doesn't sound like Monday will be horrifically packed!

I remember for a while Touring Plans was reporting what they predicted versus what it turned out to be (using their metrics) and they weren't super awful, but they had a range of about +/-2.0, with a distinct bias towards under estimation (especially for DL). They also said that they only use ride wait times as the metric, so things like marathons, new nighttime shows, kick-offs of special events, seasonal activities, etc. that will increase crowds, but not necessarily wait times, will not show up in their crowd estimations. And that was before things go all wonky with tiered pricing, changing blockout calendars, changing in major events/special events, etc. While I don't think it's a bad thing to look at Touring Plans, I would make sure to look at some other sources (e.g., isitpacked.com) to get a sense of what the consensus crowd prediction will be. While anything is possible, if they're rating Saturday as a "7", I would plan on Monday being at least in the same general ballpark.

 

[DizneyMommy]

Yes, yes we do affect crowds. We smile at them, we spread magic, and we often skip rides when the lines are long leaving more room for you ;-)

Once December craziness hits AP's are not really the problem. It is vacationers. Locals have largely gotten our fill of the holiday decor and avoid the parks when they are crowd level mayhem and above.

 

[DizneyMommy]

And FWIW, I do find Touring Plans pretty on for Disneyland, except when things happen out of their control that they are not aware of. It happens. Things change. ;-) I've been using Touring Plans for probably 5+ years and their crowd calendars give a good general idea of when to go, they aren't gospel and you can't tell the difference between an 8 and a 9, but if you see 3's and 4's you know it "should" be a slower time to go.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Yes, yes we do affect crowds. We smile at them, we spread magic, and we often skip rides when the lines are long leaving more room for you ;-)

Once December craziness hits AP's are not really the problem. It is vacationers. Locals have largely gotten our fill of the holiday decor and avoid the parks when they are crowd level mayhem and above.

Yep, many of us certainly do what we can to help out when we can!

This is worth noting -- only the top two APs are allowed in during the last two weeks of the year (Sig. + and Premier -- and these two do not come close to making up the majority of pass holders), and DL still hit capacity on more than one day during that time the last two years the most recent AP structure has been in place. DLR has no problem bringing in the crowds during the holidays with or without APs. The blockout calendar will definitely affect the crowd pattern the week before/after the start/end of the holiday block, but the non-AP crowds will still be there.

 

[mom2rtk]

Yes, yes we do affect crowds. We smile at them, we spread magic, and we often skip rides when the lines are long leaving more room for you ;-)

Once December craziness hits AP's are not really the problem. It is vacationers. Locals have largely gotten our fill of the holiday decor and avoid the parks when they are crowd level mayhem and above.

We were there once on the final Saturday in December most AP's were allowed into the parks. I can assure you there plenty of APs that had not gotten their fill of the parks yet. Any final days leading up to a big AP blackout should be expected to be very busy.