Do you follow crowd calendars & suggested parks?

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

I'm trying to plan a week long trip in August with 2 families (9 people total).

I'm wondering what kind of strategy I should use as far as which park when.

There are lots of suggestions on touring plan type sites... but I have to wonder -- if most people at least google before their vacations (not put 8+ months of planning into it) will we all show up at the reccomened parks on the same days?

We'll be in WDW 8/22-29, so it will be low/moderate crowds (hopefully).

 

[rainboots]

I would follow easywdw.com

I don't think many people (relatively speaking) check or have the luxury of following a crowd calendar. With work & school schedules, many people go when they can. Many others don't put the time and planning into it that we DISboarders do!

 

[Mikie]

As much as theDIS gives us a different impression, I think that level of planning is not the majority. Touring Plans' site mentions this question as well and says as nice as would be to believe that they had that kind of influence, it's just not the case.

I do follow the crowd calendars, and so far my trips have gone smoothly. I don't have another friend going to the "bad" parks while I'm in the "good" ones, so it's sure not scientific, but ill stick with it for now!

One thing I may change as my kids are getting older & may be able to do later nights: EMH parks are often not the recommended park because the extra hours draw more crowds. But it sounds like some folks say that as long as you fully utilize the extra hours (I.e. Don't go to that park with extra crowds but leave before EMH, or else you're missing the point!) it's still a good choice, even though not listed as "recommended".

People also say that it may be MORE important to follow a crowd predictor in moderate times because the swing between a busy park and not busy is greater. I.e. In busy times, all the parks are a crowd level 8-9 and there's not a huge difference; moderate times you may find a slower park at level 4 and the busier park at a 7, which is a significant difference.

 

[rwdavis2]

The vast majority of people have no idea how to efficiently tour the parks. Why else does anyone wait in a 90 minute line for a 3 minute ride? Heck, I'm sure there were significant numbers of people that still though you had to pay for Fastpasses before the switch to FP+.

I used easywdw. The explanations on which parks makes sense and explains why.

 

[IBLarsen]

I do follow the recommended parks listed on Easywdw as well. It's a good question by OP as to if everyone follows it, we will all end up in the same park on the same day for those that are in parks same time frame!
However, I do agree that it seems like most people don't plan like the people on the dis boards. The majority of the public likely don't realize there are such things as crowd calendars. I'm sure the crowd calendars are based on statistics in each park, meaning certain parks tend to be busier on certain days, and the recommended parks go against those statistics. Glad someone takes time to analyze that data for us

 

[JennyDrake]

I go 3-4x/year and I tend to check calendars AFTER the trip. In August the MOST important thing is Rope Drop is your best friend! Any park is fine until 11 am-1 pm, when the crowds thicken. Take a midday break (everyone will like each other a whole lot better too), then come back sometime after 4 pm.

 

[holden]

I go 3-4x/year and I tend to check calendars AFTER the trip. In August the MOST important thing is Rope Drop is your best friend! Any park is fine until 11 am-1 pm, when the crowds thicken. Take a midday break (everyone will like each other a whole lot better too), then come back sometime after 4 pm.

This is absoulutely correct! We always go at the end of August and this is what we do. Hit rope drop (early EMH sometimes too), leave in the afternoon (around parade time - 3pm), and go back after dinner when it's cooler.

I am a firm believer in rope drops. Many people like to sleep in on vacation. Plus with FP+ people aren't showing up until their first FP of the morning.

 

[msmama]

I used easywdw. The explanations on which parks makes sense and explains why.

Second this.

I don't necessarily always following the recommended parks, but I like to know WHY what arks are recommended and then make my decisions.

Often they'll not recommend an EMH park, but if I want to take advantage of that, that's where I'll be.

So I don't just look at the numbers, I look at the WHY!!

 

[stinkpickle]

When more people start learning about recommended parks, they will no longer be the recommended parks.

 

[GatorMama]

The biggest difference makers to us are arriving at RD knowing what rides to hit first and why, but I do also usually follow easywdw'a crowd calendar too. My husband hated waking up for RD and following my plan so we didn't one day and the effects were not good. He complained of long lines and not knowing what to do next. Guess who doesn't complain about my plans anymore? ;-)

 

[minnie mum]

Second this.

I don't necessarily always following the recommended parks, but I like to know WHY what arks are recommended and then make my decisions.

Often they'll not recommend an EMH park, but if I want to take advantage of that, that's where I'll be.

So I don't just look at the numbers, I look at the WHY!!

^^ Me too. Because we are fortunate in being able to be flexible with our dates, I look for weeks with lower crowds when picking our dates. And I always look at the park recommendations when planning our days. I even use the cheat sheets and FP priority suggestions as a guide. Its just a sensible tool in our vacation planning.

But I definitely don't think that the majority of guests do. I was talking with my TA last week (I was there booking a different trip) and he told me that most of his clients booking WDW trips know next to nothing about WDW, and few want to know more. All they want is their resorts, tickets and flights sorted. He is more than happy to give them advice, but few take him up on it.

 

[Frozen2014]

Nope. I read the park day suggestions but didn't follow them. Reason being, we wanted to see the Electrical Parade and it was only offerred the Monday and Wednesday of our trip (because of the MNSSHP parties). Also, we wanted to spread out our MK days and so Monday it was...which is a No No in crowd calendars. Some rides were busy...not crazy...but was still a great day. And most of the time we booked FP for late morning or early afternoon.

If you are going last week in August, it's a pretty quite week, no? You should be fine.

 

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

Thanks for the replies.

The family we are going with has been once before -- Dec 2013 -- and did little to no planning for that trip. The husband complained all they did was wait in line for autographs and the wife said it's because the kids were too short for the rides (not true, but they didn't know better). I'm trying to make this a great trip for them, and us of course.

They know about my Disney obsession and said they want me to plan EVERYTHING... I'm feeling a little pressure, to say the least.

 

[angierae]

If I were going at a busy time of year I would, but since my last trip was in October and my next one is going to be in November, it's less of an issue.

Honestly, even Easter Week wasn't that bad because we did a lot of night EMH and stayed out late, and the parks emptied out.

 

[JRawkSteady]

I like to work between Touring Plans and easywdw in tandem. Touring Plans' optimizer has never lead me astray, but easywdw's calendar is more detailed. However, Touring Plans' dashboard is definitely the most helpful thing I've come across. The design of the site, plus the plethora of knowledge, menus, attraction info, etc. makes it the better site, which is why I use it as my main touring website. But the easywdw calendars win it out for me for crowd levels.

 

[TheRustyScupper]

Do you follow crowd calendars & suggested parks?

1) Absolutely.
2) Not !
3) The only rules I follow are
. . . go to the park the day AFTER its EMH
. . . no Magic Kingdom on Sun & Mon (usually first day for tourist vacations)

 

[whitney37354]

We've been to WDW twice. I've printed out the crowd calendars both times, but never used them. The first trip: I made ADR's first, in order of importance to us, them worked our park days around them. The second trip: We were with another family & we just did a tag-along with them. We're going again June 2015. Because we're not doing park hoppers & because we wanted to see F! on a certain day, the crowd calenders are not working for us this time either. On just one trip I'd like to actually use a crowd calender for at least a couple of days to see if I could tell a difference!

 

[livingthedream]

I can remember thinking the same thing, OP, when I first started to research my Disney trips. As others have said, though, planners have typically been in the minority, so it doesn't seem to create that kind of consequence right now.

On a related note but sort of off-topic , I still have often wondered at the power of the Crowd Calendars to influence crowds. Its sort of a chicken/egg thing - is the Crowd Calendar simply reporting a natural crowd movement, or is the Crowd Calendar actually influencing the crowd movement? I have even wondered (but just a little bit) about whether they had any influence on the introduction of FP+.

If one of the goals of FP+ was indeed to even out the stand-by lines across ALL attractions, then the influence of the Crowd Calendar may become less relevant in the future. FP+ by its nature encourages greater planning, so on first thought one might think Crowd Calendars would be utilized more. However, my experiences at the park recently suggest that more people will use FP+ rather than the legacy versions of FP (only because it is promoted WAY more than the other was), and so if the distribution of crowds becomes more even across the attractions and the parks, will Crowd Calendars still hold their value?

In other words, will the Crowd Calendar's relevance be diminished significantly in the future? Don't know, but thought it might be worth musing about.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Moonwolf]

I like to use crowd calenders more as guildlines rather than set rules. I plan park days as I see fit then look to the crowd calenders to know what to expect on those days. If I happen to be visiting a recommended park, great. If not I know what to expect and then can plan my day around that.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I go 3-4x/year and I tend to check calendars AFTER the trip. In August the MOST important thing is Rope Drop is your best friend! Any park is fine until 11 am-1 pm, when the crowds thicken. Take a midday break (everyone will like each other a whole lot better too), then come back sometime after 4 pm.

We go at the end of August and this is us. We take our midday break to go to the pool and then feel refreshed to hit a park in the evening.