Crowd Calendars 6 months out

[hllb]

Yup, I agree with you on the Monday thing. TP doesn’t subscribe to that theory.

 

[Duffy Lover]

My problem with TP is that they change their predictions and recommendations way too much. I can recall changes to their recommendations and ratings less than a week before a trip itself. With that sort of unreliability, how can you make solid plans? You can't. Go with Kenny.

 

[LVSWL]

We pay for touringplans.com

I like their data based approach. We have used them for every trip. In the grand scheme of things, in relation to the cost of a WDW vacation, it's a drop in the bucket.

Dan

We do to, way back to the days of buying the Unofficial Guide to WDW. Our first trip with the kids we used the plans. In the dozens since we just use the Crowd Calendar. Definitely worth the cost.

 

[hllb]

My problem with TP is that they change their predictions and recommendations way too much. I can recall changes to their recommendations and ratings less than a week before a trip itself. With that sort of unreliability, how can you make solid plans? You can't. Go with Kenny.

This is a reflection of all the last minute changes Disney makes. I appreciate a responsive model, even if it’s too late to change my plan. I’d rather have realistic expectations. Park hours and shows affect crowd levels so all of Disney’s last minute changes change the predictions.

 

[ParrotBill]

Fun discussion; thanks for everyone's input!

I just did my 180 day restaurant bookings too, so I'm guessing that we are going the same week. I found the same thing you did - that many of the crowd sites don't agree and sometimes flat out contradict each other! I ended up making a spreadsheet where I laid out all "best park" and "worst park" recommendations for Undercover Tourist, Kenny the Pirate, and Touring Plans. I also loaded in EMH days (in order to avoid them!) Then I looked to see if there were any days all these sites agreed on. I tried to stay away from "bad park" warnings for all three sites (if possible), and when there were disagreements, I would chose the parks that 2 out of the 3 sites agreed with. I found that Kenny and TP seemed to agree with each other more often than UT, so I gave those 2 sites a little more weight.

Yes, I probably spent hours on this. No, I wouldn't admit this to anyone but you guys. It was a lot of work, but also fun. I came out with a schedule that hopefully I'll be happy with, taking into account other things like placement of busy days vs rest days, water park day, etc. Now the big question is...how much will these recommendations change between now and 6 months from now? At some point I'm just going to have to let it lie and hope for the best!

LOL. I was trying to do this also but gave up before you did. Good for you! And see you there

Expect 10s every day and then be happy when it's not that bad.

Ha. Disney costs too much to go expecting 10s every day. But I get what you mean.

 

[Summer2018]

I notice you say this often, but we could see a clear difference on our last two trips.

Staying at AoA which has separate lines for the parks, the lines we were in were clearly shorter than others. For example, the red parks for the day would be out of the queue while we walked up near the front of our line. It became a joke for us by the end of the trip.

I've seen so many first timers automatically pick the EMH park whether they will take advantage of those hours or not.

So who do you use to plan? I used to use TourGuide Mike when he was in business. We too saw a big difference in the lines. We were always first in a short line while others were headed to crowded parks in very long lines.

 

[pitpat]

So who do you use to plan? I used to use TourGuide Mike when he was in business. We too saw a big difference in the lines. We were always first in a short line while others were headed to crowded parks in very long lines.

at this point, I like Kenny the Pirate.

 

[kennythepirate]

at this point, I like Kenny the Pirate.

(In Elvis voice) Thank you, thank you very much.

 

[Duck143]

Do you have to subscribe to see any of TouringPlans calendars?

 

[LVSWL]

You can see the next 60 days without subscribing. Anything after 60 days out requires a subscription.

 

[Duck143]

You can see the next 60 days without subscribing. Anything after 60 days out requires a subscription.

Thank you!

 

[Duffy Lover]

This is a reflection of all the last minute changes Disney makes. I appreciate a responsive model, even if it’s too late to change my plan. I’d rather have realistic expectations. Park hours and shows affect crowd levels so all of Disney’s last minute changes change the predictions.

Too true about reacting to changes made by Disney, but for my brain and planning style, this absolutely drove me bonkers. So my solution was to go with a more static crowd calendar - Josh's at easywdw was my favorite, but now I rely on the calendar provided by @kennythepirate. Good Stuff!

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

I look over the multiple sources mentioned here and look for a consensus or a trend.

 

[kennythepirate]

Do you have to subscribe to see any of TouringPlans calendars?

Or just view mine for free

 

[mggeary]

Or just view mine for free

Hi Kenny. Thanks for all your work. Happy character locator subscriber.

Question for you on park recs for week of 4/15-4/22.

I noticed you made AK a red/worst park for Tue 4/17, which puzzles me a bit. I understand that MK has truncated hours and no nighttime entertainment that night, but will AK really be that bad given it is still the day after Mon AK EMH. I'm thinking a little worse but not a true green vs red difference. I'm considering swapping my AK Tue and DHS Wed days, but would be a minor pain for our ADRs and our overall weekly plan.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Roxyfire]

I find it hard to see any merit in this statement. I would say if anything -- people vacations would start on Saturday or Sunday, but then factor in that some people might fly in after work on a Friday or that flights on Tuesday are generally cheaper -- i think there are too many variables for this statement to make sense. Of our recent 3 trips - one started on a Wednesday, one on Tuesday and the next one starts on Saturday. It is not like WDW sets a certain check in/check out day.

No but think about it from a different perspective. Think about the "average" family who has both parents working, 2 or 3 kids who have school and activities. They still have to plan around existing schedules. So it would stand to reason most of those people would be the most available to travel on a Sunday. Even if they're church-goers, they could attend a Saturday night service if they didn't want to skip. There's another reason why Saturdays are busy, besides the locals, and that's those people who leave Friday afternoon/night or Saturday morning and want to go to MK first.

Now if people homeschool, kids skip school days (as we did this time), or just go without kids and have plenty of job flexibility or odd weekends, then they're going to throw things off. But this has a lot more to do with the average than the outlier. As an aside, I have some anecdata to throw in there that the Monday in June that we popped over to MK it was crazy busy, much more so than the day before.

 

[kennythepirate]

Hi Kenny. Thanks for all your work. Happy character locator subscriber.

Question for you on park recs for week of 4/15-4/22.

I noticed you made AK a red/worst park for Tue 4/17, which puzzles me a bit. I understand that MK has truncated hours and no nighttime entertainment that night, but will AK really be that bad given it is still the day after Mon AK EMH. I'm thinking a little worse but not a true green vs red difference. I'm considering swapping my AK Tue and DHS Wed days, but would be a minor pain for our ADRs and our overall weekly plan.

Thanks in advance.

Tuesdays usually are pretty strong at AK and with MK closing early, it will push more people over to see Pandora after dark and Rivers of Light. You'll be fine at AK with a good plan for the day. There isn't that much to do there. I'd leave your planning as is and arrive early.

 

[mggeary]

Tuesdays usually are pretty strong at AK and with MK closing early, it will push more people over to see Pandora after dark and Rivers of Light. You'll be fine at AK with a good plan for the day. There isn't that much to do there. I'd leave your planning as is and arrive early.

That's what I was hoping to hear.

We have a 3Q day planned there, heading to Disney Springs at around 3-4pm.

The real question is will I be able to get a FOP FP+ (for before 4pm) at day 60+3. If not I'll try for Wed day 60+4 and switch it up.

Anyone out there have any luck for a party of 7 FP+ at day 60+3?

 

[kennythepirate]

That's what I was hoping to hear.

We have a 3Q day planned there, heading to Disney Springs at around 3-4pm.

The real question is will I be able to get a FOP FP+ (for before 4pm) at day 60+3. If not I'll try for Wed day 60+4 and switch it up.

Anyone out there have any luck for a party of 7 FP+ at day 60+3?

Could always split the number and just overlap the FP as needed.

 

[Duck143]

Or just view mine for free

I have yours printed and in my planning folder. We had a tentative schedule for parks so we could decide on ADR's and only one of our park days we chose is labelled "worst" on your calendar. We were pretty proud of ourselves