Crowd level changes and touring plan tip (for newbies)

[MouseMum]

By now, many of you have probably heard of all the changes to the crowd levels at Disney for your upcoming trip. When I received my email from Touring Plans this week, informing me of all the park crowd level changes for the month of our trip in August, I was a little put back. After all, I had put a lot of thought and time into deciding which parks we'd visit on which days and did a lot of preliminary planning for each of our 10 park days. Most days of our trip saw an increase of 2 levels on average. Because my planned days now included 9s (yikes!!!) and some days found me at a park on a day not as highly recommended, I decided to switch a few of my touring plan dates. For example, my Day 3 at MK on August 18, which was a now a crowd level of 9, is now my Day 5 at MK, on a day the crowd level is only a 7.

To do this, I re-optimized my original plan to reflect the new crowd level and made note of the wait times and free time. Next, I made a copy of this plan. In the copied plan, I changed the dates and re-optimized. The outcome?...the new plan saved me 20 minutes of waiting in lines, and gave me 40 extra free minutes than if I had stayed with the plan on my original pre-selected park date. Although I couldn't change all of my plans, I did what I could, where I could.

I just wanted to share this for those of you considering keeping your days at your pre-planned parks. When given lemons, if you can, make some cool refreshing lemonade! Just sayin'

 

[mesaboy2]

By now, many of you have probably heard of all the changes to the crowd levels at Disney for your upcoming trip. When I received my email from Touring Plans this week, informing me of all the park crowd level changes for the month of our trip in August, I was a little put back. After all, I had put a lot of thought and time into deciding which parks we'd visit on which days and did a lot of preliminary planning for each of our 10 park days. Most days of our trip saw an increase of 2 levels on average. Because my planned days now included 9s (yikes!!!) and some days found me at a park on a day not as highly recommended, I decided to switch a few of my touring plan dates. For example, my Day 3 at MK on August 18, which was a now a crowd level of 9, is now my Day 5 at MK, on a day the crowd level is only a 7.

To do this, I re-optimized my original plan to reflect the new crowd level and made note of the wait times and free time. Next, I made a copy of this plan. In the copied plan, I changed the dates and re-optimized. The outcome?...the new plan saved me 20 minutes of waiting in lines, and gave me 40 extra free minutes than if I had stayed with the plan on my original pre-selected park date. Although I couldn't change all of my plans, I did what I could, where I could.

I just wanted to share this for those of you considering keeping your days at your pre-planned parks. When given lemons, if you can, make some cool refreshing lemonade! Just sayin'

You put waaaaay more faith in crowd calendar estimates and touring plans (any of them) than I do. It's nice that the new predictions look better for you, but please remember they are just predictions. Personally I think it's impossible to estimate anyone's wait times to this level of detail this far in the future. A single ride going down (even one you aren't riding) or a rogue thunderstorm at the wrong time will put an end to those estimates real quick.

 

[RUSTYGATOR]

In those 9/10 rated days, I find we are on schedule until abot 10:30am when the schedule starts to fall apart. At that point, be prepared to use the phone apps and reevaluate your schedule. We hit the reevaluate after every ride and often stop by rides that appear to have lower waits than the app suggests.

 

[WillAustin]

I'd expect to see several more emails alerting you of changes as your trip approaches.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

We also have MK planned for Aug 18. This is the first time we are traveling to WDW in August (we usually go in October) and this is the first time I've subscribed to Touring Plans. After I got the e-mail about the crowd level changes I didn't change anything. Like mesaboy2 said - these are just predictions. I already have our trip planned out - using information from several sources and I am just going to leave it at that. My family & I are expecting it to be 'surface of the sun' hot and crowded and we'll make the best of it.

 

[JZCubed]

By now, many of you have probably heard of all the changes to the crowd levels at Disney for your upcoming trip. When I received my email from Touring Plans this week, informing me of all the park crowd level changes for the month of our trip in August, I was a little put back. After all, I had put a lot of thought and time into deciding which parks we'd visit on which days and did a lot of preliminary planning for each of our 10 park days. Most days of our trip saw an increase of 2 levels on average. Because my planned days now included 9s (yikes!!!) and some days found me at a park on a day not as highly recommended, I decided to switch a few of my touring plan dates. For example, my Day 3 at MK on August 18, which was a now a crowd level of 9, is now my Day 5 at MK, on a day the crowd level is only a 7.

To do this, I re-optimized my original plan to reflect the new crowd level and made note of the wait times and free time. Next, I made a copy of this plan. In the copied plan, I changed the dates and re-optimized. The outcome?...the new plan saved me 20 minutes of waiting in lines, and gave me 40 extra free minutes than if I had stayed with the plan on my original pre-selected park date. Although I couldn't change all of my plans, I did what I could, where I could.

I just wanted to share this for those of you considering keeping your days at your pre-planned parks. When given lemons, if you can, make some cool refreshing lemonade! Just sayin'

Read through these:

http://www.easywdw.com/category/cheat-sheets/

 

[pktbMouse]

I personally do not believe August 18th will be a 9..no way. Florida kids will be back in school and thats when the parks start to empty out..yes it may be a 6/7 but never a 9. Please take these touring plans with a grain of salt. They have continually known to be wrong and I believe raise crowd numbers to cover their bases.

 

[MouseMum]

I appreciate all of your responses! Thank you for making me feel a little more "un-absorbed" in the process.

 

[MouseMum]

I personally do not believe August 18th will be a 9..no way. Florida kids will be back in school and thats when the parks start to empty out..yes it may be a 6/7 but never a 9. Please take these touring plans with a grain of salt. They have continually known to be wrong and I believe raise crowd numbers to cover their bases.

We were there last year around that time. I know what the crowds were like. Quite nice. Now this year, a big change. Since looking at the past dates' historical data wow!!! The crowd levels have really changed!! I cannot begin to tell you the forums and discussions I have been involved in that also comment the same.

 

[MouseMum]

But I hope you are right![/QUOTE]

 

[maryj11]

We will be going to MK on August 18th . We have already gotten my dining reservations for that day. I did see on touring plans where it was changed to a 9 . But we are not changing our days around. Easywdw crowd calendar has it as a 6 and a recommended day for MK. So who is right? I dont know but I have always trusted easywdw and have also used touring plans. We are just going to stick with what we already have planned. If it is a 9 we will just deal with it even though I have never been to a park that had a 9 crowd level posted

 

[Nancyg56]

I'd expect to see several more emails alerting you of changes as your trip approaches.

Me too. I already got one alert, and figure on more. The only changes I will make will be to swap AK and DHS , but will nto do that until I am ready to book my FP for the trip. I decided a long time ago that I cannot contri=ol everything while I vacation at Disney, so my family generally adjusts to the increased crowds by hitting each park at RD, making sure we know which direction we are heading in, and packing our patience in our pockets. I refuse to moving things around in response to teh alwerts, too much stress for me!

 

[lauradis]

Op if you have hoppers, and do the normal planning of avoid MK on Monday, Saturday after 11 am, days that have magic hours, visit parks the day after they have had magic hours, etc.

Its a pattern I have been following for years and works really well to avoid a lot of the heavier crowds in parks.

Right now with Disney's crowd levels soaring we should all expect higher levels till it calms down again.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

I personally do not believe August 18th will be a 9..no way. Florida kids will be back in school and thats when the parks start to empty out..yes it may be a 6/7 but never a 9. Please take these touring plans with a grain of salt. They have continually known to be wrong and I believe raise crowd numbers to cover their bases.

I thought 9 was really high for that day too.

Kids go back to school here in central Indiana around August 13; earlier if the school follows a balanced calendar.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

Op if you have hoppers, and do the normal planning of avoid MK on Monday, Saturday after 11 am, days that have magic hours, visit parks the day after they have had magic hours, etc.

Its a pattern I have been following for years and works really well to avoid a lot of the heavier crowds in parks.

Right now with Disney's crowd levels soaring we should all expect higher levels till it calms down again.

We follow this pattern too and find it works well.

 

[MouseMum]

We will be going to MK on August 18th . We have already gotten my dining reservations for that day. I did see on touring plans where it was changed to a 9 . But we are not changing our days around. Easywdw crowd calendar has it as a 6 and a recommended day for MK. So who is right? I dont know but I have always trusted easywdw and have also used touring plans. We are just going to stick with what we already have planned. If it is a 9 we will just deal with it even though I have never been to a park that had a 9 crowd level posted

I didn't know EasyWDW assigned numerical crowd levels. Where can I find that?

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

I didn't know EasyWDW assigned numerical crowd levels. Where can I find that?

On the right side of the main screen of the EasyWDW website you will find crowd level calendars. There is one labeled 08 August 2015 Crowd Calendar.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

I personally do not believe August 18th will be a 9..no way. Florida kids will be back in school and thats when the parks start to empty out..yes it may be a 6/7 but never a 9. Please take these touring plans with a grain of salt. They have continually known to be wrong and I believe raise crowd numbers to cover their bases.

Actually, I just did some research and school doesn't start in Florida until August 24 this year. According to current Florida law, schools cannot open any earlier than 14 days before Labor Day.

2014: Labor Day was September 1 and school started August 18
2015: Labor Day is September 7 so the earliest school can start is August 24
I checked some county school calendars for 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 and these were/are the start dates.

OK, I've officially gone off the deep end with Disney planning....

 

[MouseMum]

You put waaaaay more faith in crowd calendar estimates and touring plans (any of them) than I do. It's nice that the new predictions look better for you, but please remember they are just predictions. Personally I think it's impossible to estimate anyone's wait times to this level of detail this far in the future. A single ride going down (even one you aren't riding) or a rogue thunderstorm at the wrong time will put an end to those estimates real quick.

I was very surprised when I read that crowd levels had changed so drastically. We chose the last 2 weeks of August because summer crowds would begin to decrease then. Last summer was our first time visiting as a family and my first time planning. And having a detailed plan, albeit one that changed as we toured (both thunderstorm and rides going down! lol) still put me a little more at ease. However, in reading the comments from Disney veterans such as yourself, I figure that my limited Disney experience has much to do with my faith in the crowd calendars. I guess I'll just need to return more often to gain that extra Disney experience!

 

[wdwpracticalprincess]

ugh same here. our crowd levels for our Oct AK day have jumped from a 5 to 8! we are keeping things as is because I don't want to switch around all our ADRs. taking things with a grain of salt and seeing if things change from now til Oct.