Crowd level calendar increase

[Wunderkind]

actually not the week after Easter- that is the week before , but lots of the Northeast do have spring break still and I think the word is out about the 4/3 deal and many taking advantage -

^^^ It is the Northeast school break week, but the 4/3 is not available that week. I tried to get that offer and couldn't for that week. The best you can do is the discounted room rates offer which does apply that week. Other than that, no discounts are available for the Northeast crowds. As a result we are doing a much shorter stay than I had hoped for.

Don't let the crowds scare you. Worse comes to worse, you can always head back to your resort and enjoy the pool.

 

[brentalex]

I am new to these boards. What is this calendar you speak of and where can I find it?

The web site is touringplans.com. It has a crowd calendar for the predicted crowd levels for the next 30 days. You can purchase access to the site and get the calendar for more than 30 days as well as actual touring plans

 

[Colleen27]

They have May 11-18 on par with July's crowds. Interesting.

Maybe this has no bearing on crowd level but I made all of our ADR's 2 days after the 90 day window (and have made several changes since) and have gotten every time and restaurant I have asked for. I also made a Wishes reservation a couple of weeks ago for May 16. In addition, I looked at availability rates (for someone else who is thinking about going with us) and our hotel (CR) had almost every room level available under the 4/3 deal from May 12-19 just a few days ago.

Granted, this is our first WDW trip but I am not making sense of 8-9 crowds with no problems getting reservations for anything. What am I missing?

Well, from the news I've read about park attendance/spending, that sort of fits. Park attendance isn't down, but in-park spending is. I think a lot of people are taking advantage of the great deals Disney is offering, but not shopping or spending money on sitdown meals to keep the trip budget down. Makes me glad our plan is just the opposite for this trip - lots of sitdown meals, lots of shopping, lots of time to enjoy our resort/pool, not a lot of ride expectations since we're traveling with a baby for the first time.

 

[rjthkids]

They have May 11-18 on par with July's crowds. Interesting.

Maybe this has no bearing on crowd level but I made all of our ADR's 2 days after the 90 day window (and have made several changes since) and have gotten every time and restaurant I have asked for. I also made a Wishes reservation a couple of weeks ago for May 16. In addition, I looked at availability rates (for someone else who is thinking about going with us) and our hotel (CR) had almost every room level available under the 4/3 deal from May 12-19 just a few days ago.

Granted, this is our first WDW trip but I am not making sense of 8-9 crowds with no problems getting reservations for anything. What am I missing?

I posted the same thing. We're going from May 4th through 13th and I started booking ADRs in the 50-40 day range and I got every single ADR I wanted, at the times I wanted, except Ohanas. I got Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace among 8 other places. Not one problem.

So, I find I have same issue as you....I can't reconcile getting every reservation I want at such short notice the way they are predicting crowds.

 

[brentalex]

^^^ It is the Northeast school break week, but the 4/3 is not available that week. I tried to get that offer and couldn't for that week. The best you can do is the discounted room rates offer which does apply that week. Other than that, no discounts are available for the Northeast crowds. As a result we are doing a much shorter stay than I had hoped for.

Don't let the crowds scare you. Worse comes to worse, you can always head back to your resort and enjoy the pool.

Not sure what you mean by the 4/3 deal not available to the northeast crowds. We will be on our kids spring break the week of April 19 and we got our room at the Poly with the 4/3 deal. This is the week that many of the schools in New England will be on break and the deal was available. Maybe you don't mean nee england when you say northeast.
I never really trusted the UG crowd numbers when they were first out for our week. It is my experience with our vacations there, that it is always packed. It seems like all of new england has moved to orlando for the week. I was not at all surprised when the numbers changed.

 

[doconeill]

Not sure what you mean by the 4/3 deal not available to the northeast crowds. We will be on our kids spring break the week of April 19 and we got our room at the Poly with the 4/3 deal. This is the week that many of the schools in New England will be on break and the deal was available. Maybe you don't mean nee england when you say northeast.
I never really trusted the UG crowd numbers when they were first out for our week. It is my experience with our vacations there, that it is always packed. It seems like all of new england has moved to orlando for the week. I was not at all surprised when the numbers changed.

I don't know about the 4/3 deal, but I know that pin codes were excluded from the end of that week. We are doing a split stay DVC/AKV and POR, and a CM tried to apply the PIN code several times before he realized that weekend was blacked out. It may have applied to the whole week, or just the weekend because of the grad night/cheerleading.

I've only heard of a few school districts outside of Massachusetts with their break that week though...I still don't understand the crowd levels...not doubting them, I just don't know where they are coming from...

 

[Dr. J.]

We were going to go May 30-June 3 for a short trip just DH and I for a belated 40th bday but am quite turned off by the new crowd calendar Doesn't look decent until September.

 

[maciemouse]

We went the first week in May last year. I believe it was May 4-9. It was perfect. I would of put the levels at 3 and 4. I can remember being in MK one night and Splash and Thunder Mountains were walk ons. Magic Carpets were also a walk on. The park was empty. We never waited more the 20 minutes for anything and that is including the race cars. I can't imagine that the levels can jump that high over a years time, especially in this economy. May is usually a perfect time to go.

 

[Wunderkind]

Not sure what you mean by the 4/3 deal not available to the northeast crowds. We will be on our kids spring break the week of April 19 and we got our room at the Poly with the 4/3 deal. This is the week that many of the schools in New England will be on break and the deal was available..

^^^ I did mean New England when I said Northeast. Most of our school districts are off the week of April 13 - April 17. That is the week before you dates. If you look at the www.disneyworld.com site and click on the details for the 4/3 deal, you'll see it is not available from 4/13 through 4/17. No can do. Even when they had room availability for earlier during the month of April that one particular week was blocked for the offer. Believe me, I checked daily! You got lucky your kids are off the week of April 19.

 

[mmmears]

^^^ I did mean New England when I said Northeast. Most of our school districts are off the week of April 13 - April 17. That is the week before you dates. If you look at the www.disneyworld.com site and click on the details for the 4/3 deal, you'll see it is not available from 4/13 through 4/17. No can do. Even when they had room availability for earlier during the month of April that one particular week was blocked for the offer. Believe me, I checked daily! You got lucky your kids are off the week of April 19.

Even though it says those dates are blacked-out (and stated that since the day they were released), it actually not true. I have a 4/3 deal booked for that week. If you called them or tried to book the deal online, it worked. Dont know why they kept that info like that -- maybe to encourage people to pay full price? But many of us have booked that week with the deal (which is a great deal for Easter week!).

 

[familyatdisney]

I can understand the the week before and after Easter being really crowded, but I would think the crowds should decrease the 2 weeks after Easter and decrease even more moving into May. I would think almost all school breaks would be done by May. Does not make sense to me. I think they are over estimating the crowds in May to be safe because they underestimated the crowds the last 2-3 weeks.

 

[Ariel Wanna-be]

We've been taking DS since 2002, and we've always gone in May. The first time we went was the first week of May, and it was perfect - low crowds and gorgeous weather. I wish I had pictures to share, but I didn't have a digital camera at the time.

After DS started school, we started going the last week of May (the week before Memorial Day) so he wouldn't miss any school (well, technically he misses the last week, but because it's just a bunch of half days and the grades are already in, I don't really count it ).

Every year the crowds get heavier. The last time we went was in 2007, and we were amazed at the crowds. I know that Spring Break travellers would scoff at my interpretation of "crowded" - but to us, with nothing to compare the crowds to except late May crowds from previous years, it was packed. I don't remember what the UG predicted the levels would be - I *think* it was mostly 6's and 7's, with 8's on the Friday and Saturday before Memorial Day (our departure day). We also made sure to go to the Least Crowded Park each day (according to TGM).

I went back and looked through my gazillion trip pictures and found a couple that show the crowds.

Even though it was more crowded than usual, it really was very manageable, and we had a great time. And once you got out of the "main" areas of the parks, the crowds really thinned out and it wasn't bad. But if these were 6 and 7 level crowds, I'm pretty nervous about 9's and 10's.

This was in AK, two Sundays before Mem Day, at 11:30.

Magic Kingdom at rope drop, the Wednesday before Memorial Day.

MK, 1:30


.

 

[Luvamouse]

^^^ I did mean New England when I said Northeast. Most of our school districts are off the week of April 13 - April 17. That is the week before you dates. If you look at the www.disneyworld.com site and click on the details for the 4/3 deal, you'll see it is not available from 4/13 through 4/17. No can do. Even when they had room availability for earlier during the month of April that one particular week was blocked for the offer. Believe me, I checked daily! You got lucky your kids are off the week of April 19.

I have to agree with mmears. We switched our AAA room only at the Poly the first day of the 4/3 deal way back-- we are booked from April 11- April 17-- right over Easter Sunday. It SAID it was blacked out, but I got the deal to work online right away. My TA said "no can do" until I told her, she tried it and booked it. We saved $1800. Many of us here are staying the week after Easter with the 4/3. My TA said Disney probably decided it was in their best interest to offer it then too and never changed the site blackout dates. When my trip was 40 days out, I checked the WDW site for room availability. Nearly every hotel had every kind of room available- all had standards for our exact dates. Looks like once the final payment was due, even the 4/3 wasn't enough for some people to manage right now. I am very happy we got the deal, even though we'd be going anyway. Maybe it'll make the crazy crowds a little easier to handle.

 

[granmaz]

I believe that there now is not one day in May when the crowd number goes below an 8. That is pretty amazing really and quite worrying. It must be good for Disney, but they really must extend hours and put more extras on to help things.

 

[jewelmicky]

the buy 4/3 ends march 29......unless they extend it. i looked on line and there still seems to be alot of availability still for 1st week in may (when we are going).....i think/hope the numbers will come down after that.

 

[ntsammy5]

I believe that there now is not one day in May when the crowd number goes below an 8.

Doesn't go below 8 until early August, which makes me doubt the accuracy of these predictions. I think they may be overreacting to the success of the discount programs which has no impact on offsite visitors - they don't get any kind of a break. JMO

 

[paudette]

We went the first week in May last year. I believe it was May 4-9. It was perfect. I would of put the levels at 3 and 4. I can remember being in MK one night and Splash and Thunder Mountains were walk ons. Magic Carpets were also a walk on. The park was empty. We never waited more the 20 minutes for anything and that is including the race cars. I can't imagine that the levels can jump that high over a years time, especially in this economy. May is usually a perfect time to go.

I completely agree with you. We were there May 6th thru the 13th. We experienced one busy day but other than that it was perfect. I just switched dining reservations again yesterday and had no problem. We are going April 30th thru May 7th this year and really hope that the park levels are not like July's levels.

 

[granmaz]

Doesn't go below 8 until early August, which makes me doubt the accuracy of these predictions. I think they may be overreacting to the success of the discount programs which has no impact on offsite visitors - they don't get any kind of a break. JMO

Well I am very puzzled. We went to WDW in early December, and it was much busier than expected(we had been the previous two years at that time and the crowds had been low). When we returned we found out that the UG had upped the crowd numbers whilst we had been away. Since then all I have read about has been how crowded the parks have been, yet Disney staff are being laid off, Fantasmic shows cut dramatically, some park opening hours cut, Pirates and Princess Parties cut etc etc. All very odd.

 

[MScott1851]

I'm not worried at all. We're going May 11-16, and I absolutely cannot imagine that time being an 8 or a 9. I chose that time so we could avoid Grad Nights, Spring Break, any holiday, any cheer/dance competitions, and most schools are either having exams that week, or it's the week before exams.

I got the hotel and room category I wanted, plus there is availability at all the other resorts, both with and without the 4/3 deal. I booked ADR's at about 45 days out and got everything I wanted except Le Cellier, and have changed some of them several times.


We're pretty spoiled because we usually go in September (when it's usually a 4 or 5). I figure even a crowded day in Disney is better than any day at home!

 

[tj4disney]

As I read the description of the crowd level indicators on the UG site, they are based on wait times at Space/Splash Mountains and BTTMR, not necessarily crowd levels (although there is obviously a strong correlation between crowd level and wait time).

My question...with Space Mountain closed for refurb, could that have a measurable impact on wait times at Splash and BTMRR?? I don't know...maybe. It would make sense with the timing too...shortly after Easter, crowd level indicators jump a point or two, even with no greater numbers of people compared to other years.

If there's any credibility to this theory, it's probably bad news for any 10's in the summer, as those wait times would theoretical get pushed up ten or twenty minutes from the 10 level (ala "Spinal Tap"...I suppose they could use "11" as a crowd level measure).