Confused on crowd calendars and lack of available rooms

[Kyhome]

Hi All,
I am looking at the crowd calendars for the month of February. Obviously President's Day weekend is very busy. Crowd calendars show first weekend of February (7th-10th) as not busy but there are no value/moderate rooms left. Does anyone know why? Is this due to the cheerleading competitions using these rooms? Will the parks be slammed that weekend due to this? There are more rooms available the weekend of the Princess half marathon which seems like that weekend would be more crowded?

 

[_19disnA]

If you are referring to those crowd calendars on various 3rd party websites, good to realize they are simply educated guessing using historical data and whatever other information they put into their formulas. People often comment on here how the various sites each have different projections which is exactly what you might expect. Honestly, even Disney doesn't know on any given day how many local people with annual passes or those staying at offsite hotels will decide to go to Epcot vs. Magic Kingdom. Even if staying at a Disney property, unless you have made FastPass reservations, they wouldn't know either. Obviously, known holidays or major events will cause more people to be at Disney.

 

[Kyhome]

Okay thank you! So it is common sense to assume that if the majority of hotel rooms are booked for a weekend, the parks will likely be crowded!

 

[rwdavis2]

Okay thank you! So it is common sense to assume that if the majority of hotel rooms are booked for a weekend, the parks will likely be crowded!

Maybe, maybe not. If Disney is running a promotion to entice people to stay onsite that may reduce the number of offsite guests but not necessarily increase the overall number of people in the parks.

 

[dansdad]

Hi All,
I am looking at the crowd calendars for the month of February. Obviously President's Day weekend is very busy. Crowd calendars show first weekend of February (7th-10th) as not busy but there are no value/moderate rooms left. Does anyone know why? Is this due to the cheerleading competitions using these rooms? Will the parks be slammed that weekend due to this? There are more rooms available the weekend of the Princess half marathon which seems like that weekend would be more crowded?

Resort occupancy has very little affect on park crowds.

 

[_19disnA]

^^ I agree. People can be staying at a Disney hotel for some other special events, so not related.

 

[StarSeven7]

I think there might be a big block of rooms booked for tour groups or sports teams at that time. I started looking for rooms back in July and we decided against that first week in February because all of the value rooms were booked up then!

 

[Brett Wyman]

There are A LOT of dance, twirling, cheering etc. competitions in early to mid February. And they are obviously the type to predominantly book value resorts.

For the weeks of the 17th and 24th, after those competitions have completed, I see all of the All Stars resorts and even some Pop rooms available.

 

[Lynne M]

There's some correlation between crowd calendars and resort occupancy, but not as much as you'd think. Youth sports groups and conventions fill the resorts, but don't impact the parks very much.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Disney is just too good at spreading crowds throughout all times of the year, even what should otherwise be 'slow' times.

Competitions, large tour groups (Feb is a popular time), special events (Int' Festival of the Arts is going on during your dates), new events (two Disney After Hours events occurring during your dates). Early Feb is a lower resort rate time of year. Can't speak for the Values/Mods but the Deluxe discounts in the current promotion covering early Feb are somewhat attractive, from my perspective.

It all adds up to circumstances that keep those resorts running at pretty darn full occupancies.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Hi All,
I am looking at the crowd calendars for the month of February. Obviously President's Day weekend is very busy. Crowd calendars show first weekend of February (7th-10th) as not busy but there are no value/moderate rooms left. Does anyone know why? Is this due to the cheerleading competitions using these rooms? Will the parks be slammed that weekend due to this? There are more rooms available the weekend of the Princess half marathon which seems like that weekend would be more crowded?

For future reference you can look at this https://www.espnwwos.com/events/ which will show you what sporting events at least are occuring at any given time at WDW. For youth sports Values are most commonly booked though some Moderates may also be booked.

During Feb 7th-10th there is the National High School Cheerleading Championship (occurs Feb 8th-10th).

Before and after that there are some events where some may stay before or after their designated event at WDW. Disney Field Hockey Showcase runs from Feb 1st-3rd. National Dance Team Championship runs from Feb 1st-3rd. Twirl Mania International Championship runs from Feb 15th-Feb 18th. Atlanta Braves Spring Training runs from Feb 15th-March 31st (though I'm not sure that impacts resort availability much at all or the same as other events). USA Competitions Presidential Classic runs from Feb 15th-18th. Disney President's Day Soccer Festival runs from Feb 16th-18th.

 

[Kyhome]

Thanks so much to all, we have been to WDW over 10 times but never in February. I just assumed that the first of February would be an ideal time to visit, due to low crowds and thus was shocked that all the value hotels were booked. It was amazing to me that President's Day week has a lot more room availability because I know that is a crazy busy week. Thanks for the above poster for the link on sporting events, I found that yesterday in my search for trying to figure out what was going on that week and realized it was a prime cheerleading competition week. I guess as soon as you think you have the World figured out, you realize you don't have it all down yet Thanks again!

 

[SarahC97]

I just want to add that January/February was much more crowded last year than people expected. So, I assume next year will be anyone's guess when it comes to crowds.