Crowd Calendars Are More Worthless Than Toilet Paper and Fake Dollar Bills

[DizzKneeGeek]

I wonder if the crowd calendars and sites that predict lower seasons isn't part of the reason for the higher crowd number.

This is my thought as well.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Doesn’t help that easywdw isn’t doing them anymore. His were the best imo.

Josh has said that the reason he isn't doing them anymore is because Disney isn't putting out hours as early as they used to.

And the topic of this thread is the EXACT reason he doesn't do them.

@siskaren and @AngiTN each have hit the nail on the head...

Josh has indicated numerous times here on his reasons for stopping and the logic is sound and should make us all question why anybody is attempting a crowd calendar at all. Here's the reasoning he has cited:

• Old patterns don't hold true anymore (i.e. avoid EMH or no Magic Kingdom on Monday)
• School Calendars seem to have less of a bearing on things, people are pulling out of school more, or there's the year round schools and other stuff contributing to more people with kids traveling year round.
• Disney cuts staffing (which in turn can reduce ride throughput) to match crowd levels meaning wait times can be roughly similar on a busy day or a less busy day simply because of the staffing difference (examples of this would be running only one side of dumbo or speedway until later in the morning OR having less trucks on the safari or boats on jungle cruise
• Based on these factors - how many people are in the park don't directly tie to wait times...which is primarily what people care about.
• Additionally Disney used to provide guidance very far out on expected crowd levels and no longer does that. They also tweak hours far later than they used to

I say all this to say that anybody doing a crowd calendar is certainly doing their best with whatever limited information they have. BUT the fact that Josh (who was the best at it) stopped doing it tells me all I need to know about their chances at being accurate...

 

[mamamelody2]

Toilet paper's not worthless. I had a dream there was a zombie apocalypse and I was raiding all the neighbor's houses for toilet paper. LOL.

 

[mamamelody2]

Why have crowd calendars when they are extremely unreliable? For example they say January and May and September are "slow months" but I guess a "slow month" is just simply a super busy day as opposed to a day with a very high risk that they have to turn people away due to reached capacity.

I don't think many crowd calendars actually say those months are "slow months". They may say they are the slowest months, but that doesn't mean actually slow. I know a lot of people read crowd calendars wrong. They see a crowd level "1" and think, "awesome! The place will be empty!" NO. If it actually turns out to be a crowd level "1" day that means it is the least busy it gets. Which is still busy.

 

[SaintsManiac]

You should only be using them to look at historical hours and events. It's completely pointless to ask about when the best time to go is if you only care about avoiding crowds. It's Disney World. It's crowded. Go when you want to go!

 

[dlavender]

You should only be using them to look at historical hours and events. It's completely pointless to ask about when the best time to go is if you only care about avoiding crowds. It's Disney World. It's crowded. Go when you want to go!

I mostly agree with this....
Unless you want to go during Christmas week, or Columbus day weekend......

 

[yulilin3]

I think that crowd calendars should be looked at and treated the same way as weather predictions for Orlando 15 days out. It's a guideline but when the weather says that 15 days out there's an 80% chance of rain, take it as it will rain, it might rain or it might be a clear sunny day
Seriously though, they are to be used as a guideline and not a certain thing. There is no way of knowing for sure and tp should be only one tool to use while planning your trip. There are crazy busy times of year we all know, 2 weeks between Christmas/New Years, Easter week, 4th of July, other than that it can easily fluctuate

 

[ajwolfe]

I've never held much stock in the calendars - as they are purely a guess based on past data. We find a time that works for us and we know won't be crazy due to holiday weekends, etc and just have a good plan in place for what we want to get done.

 

[ELLH]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who visits multiple times a year, it seems to me the crowd levels have gone from having peak seasons to everything kind of averaging out more and more over the last 10 years. I know this isn't a revelation; many others have said as much as well. But to expand on that notion a bit...

Someone mentioned Summer previously; I remember trips during Summer were a nightmare because of crowds (not to mention weather). However, Disney has offered pretty significant rack-room discounts for the last few years - and possibly further back - for the Summer months, starting as early as late May. One would think because they weren't filling them like they wanted to. I haven't been in the Summer (other than the last 3 Memorial Day Weekends) in about 10 years but I do recall chatter last Summer regarding how relatively low the crowds were at the time on the DIS Podcast. As for the "off season", my DW and I have noticed the trend from it being fairly "open" at the parks to now being quite congested during those seasons over the last 10 years. So, instead of the peak seasons staying peak, it seems like people are working to avoid those time periods and instead schedule their trips to the periods previously considered "off season".

I'm sure the crowd calendars have in some way caused this trend but as someone mentioned above, there are quite a few contributing factors to these crowd levels as well.

Since about 2012 or so I've been saying to friends who ask "when is the best time to go for low crowds/waits" that there really isn't a "best" time anymore and to just plan to what works for their schedule the best.

 

[Fldisneyfamily4321]

As a Floridian I typically don’t go off crowds but weather , holidays and school breaks .. I live in Florida so we NEVER go during the summer .. no way it’s just to dang hot , obviously holidays will be crowded and school breaks can be very crowded ( and in hot months ) . I normally choose to go nov - may only with no holidays , it has always worked well for us .

 

[whiporee]

The other thing about crowd calendars is that they aren' based on any specific number, but on how the crowd compares to other crowds. A 5 these days might have been an 7 ten years ago, and that might have been a 9 in 2001. The crowd calendars aren't giving a crowd size number as much as they are giving how that crowd compares to crowds on other days.

 

[KyleAfterAWhile]

Doesn’t help that easywdw isn’t doing them anymore. His were the best imo.

Why did he stop?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Why did he stop?

Not sure if you kept reading (so you may have already saw this) but I listed all the reasons right here: https://www.disboards.com/threads/c...ake-dollar-bills.3662464/page-2#post-58776385 later in this thread. Thanks!

 

[friedela]

Why have crowd calendars when they are extremely unreliable? For example they say January and May and September are "slow months" but I guess a "slow month" is just simply a super busy day as opposed to a day with a very high risk that they have to turn people away due to reached capacity.

Ok then! I am seriously going to need to adjust my crowd expectations I see! We totally planned our trip around crowds, I HATE crowds! So they are totally worthless and not accurate whatsoever?

 

[Klayfish]

Ok then! I am seriously going to need to adjust my crowd expectations I see! We totally planned our trip around crowds, I HATE crowds! So they are totally worthless and not accurate whatsoever?

IMO, yes. But if you hate crowds that much and completely planned your entire trip to try to avoid them, I'm worried how you're going to enjoy the trip. It's WDW...it's busy.

 

[siskaren]

I know a lot of people read crowd calendars wrong. They see a crowd level "1" and think, "awesome! The place will be empty!" NO. If it actually turns out to be a crowd level "1" day that means it is the least busy it gets.

Exactly! When Josh was still doing crowd calendars he said that a level of 1 didn't mean everything would be walk-on, it just meant that it was the least crowded you would see. (Conversely, he also said that you wouldn't find crowd levels of 10 on a random day in October (which someone once claimed a few years ago) because 10 is the most crowded you'll ever see, which only happens the week between Christmas and New Years, and maybe July 4.)

 

[bladiator]

The other thing about crowd calendars is that they aren' based on any specific number, but on how the crowd compares to other crowds. A 5 these days might have been an 7 ten years ago, and that might have been a 9 in 2001. The crowd calendars aren't giving a crowd size number as much as they are giving how that crowd compares to crowds on other days.

TP doesn't do it quite this way. If I recall correctly, they base the numbers on the feel of the crowd, i.e., a level 8 at MK is way more people than a level 8 at HS because HS is way smaller and feels more crowded with less people. Essentially, the 1-10 rating is based on how crowded it feels in the park the way they do the ratings. So the numbers shouldn't have changed at all because 10 has always been shoulder to shoulder people in the park (which is something that my wife remembers dealing with back in the 90s when they went for a trip during the summer one time).

 

[GillianP1301]

I don't think many crowd calendars actually say those months are "slow months". They may say they are the slowest months, but that doesn't mean actually slow. I know a lot of people read crowd calendars wrong. They see a crowd level "1" and think, "awesome! The place will be empty!" NO. If it actually turns out to be a crowd level "1" day that means it is the least busy it gets. Which is still busy.

Yes, this!

It's all relative so a 1 will be less busy than a 5 which is less busy than a 10, but the 1 is still busy. There is still some value to the calendars if you keep that in mind. It's also the reason a 5 now is not the same as a 5 a few years ago because attendance overall just keeps going up.

 

[MermaidMommy]

TP doesn't do it quite this way. If I recall correctly, they base the numbers on the feel of the crowd, i.e., a level 8 at MK is way more people than a level 8 at HS because HS is way smaller and feels more crowded with less people. Essentially, the 1-10 rating is based on how crowded it feels in the park the way they do the ratings. So the numbers shouldn't have changed at all because 10 has always been shoulder to shoulder people in the park (which is something that my wife remembers dealing with back in the 90s when they went for a trip during the summer one time).

No, Touring Plans doesn’t go off of crowd feel to get their numbers. They base their crowd levels on wait times at selected rides during set times of the day.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

TP doesn't do it quite this way. If I recall correctly, they base the numbers on the feel of the crowd, i.e., a level 8 at MK is way more people than a level 8 at HS because HS is way smaller and feels more crowded with less people. Essentially, the 1-10 rating is based on how crowded it feels in the park the way they do the ratings. So the numbers shouldn't have changed at all because 10 has always been shoulder to shoulder people in the park (which is something that my wife remembers dealing with back in the 90s when they went for a trip during the summer one time).

No, I’m pretty sure that was Josh at EasyWDW. TP is based off wait times, not crowd feel. Wait times are measurable data and they have algorithms and statistical analysis. The popular science article linked earlier in the thread about their approach is very interesting.