Flat out wrong??

[Herfnerd]

Been using UG/TP plans for years and happy with the results. Others like EasyWDW, TGM, etc. When it comes down to it, its really personal preference.

But....was just curious if anyone has ever used, or attempted to use a plan and it just turned out wrong?

 

[GovieMom]

On our latest trip during the last week of October, we went to AK based on Easy's recommendation of its being a "best park" that day. To our dismay we found it was packed. The next day I saw that Easy had DHS as the worst park to visit, so we decided to try that and see for ourselves. It had the lowest crowds of the week! Imagine that. Kudos to TP for recommending the correct parks to visit that week; wish I'd have heeded their advice instead. Have to add though, that both Easy and TP tend to under-estimate crowd levels, especially during holiday periods (such as the week(s) after New Years.

 

[princesskimberella]

We went December 12-17th and I planned by the easywdw suggestions and it was pretty much spot on ! I was a little nervous about the crowd level going from 4 to 7 on our last day but it was not as bad as I had anticipated.

 

[seadd67]

I think those planners are great, but you can never predict exactly when people are going to be at one park or the other. Personally I go with what i feel and what my family decides to go with.

 

[pepe of ohio]

I think those planners are great, but you can never predict exactly when people are going to be at one park or the other. Personally I go with what i feel and what my family decides to go with.

It's all a crapshoot.... No one can predict the future... Same as crowds.... Just a moneymaker to those who profess insight into the future!

 

[jrtoastyman]

It always cracks me up to see the differences between the two. We'll be there next week, and for Monday (MLK), for instance, TP has MK as the best park, whereas Easy says that MK will be "by far, the worst Park to visit today." Long story short, we're going to MK that day.

I do look at both of them when deciding where to go. Josh's explanations always sound reasonable and make sense, but I don't really know what's backing them from a data standpoint. On the other hand, I know that the TP recommendations are based upon hard data that's been culled by many people over many years. With that in mind, when the two conflict in a serious way, I trust TP more just because I know that there's an absolute avalanche of data behind that projection. Maybe Josh uses a lot of data, too, but, it's not something he trumpets about, if so, so for the time being, TP is still the one I go with.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

It's all a crapshoot.... No one can predict the future... Same as crowds.... Just a moneymaker to those who profess insight into the future!

Except there's no charge for the EasyWDW info. He doesn't even have ads on his site.

Personally, EasyWDW has been spot on for two vacations. Plus, even if he's wrong, it's hard to complain about a service that's given for free.

There was a post here by Josh, who runs EasyWDW.com many months ago that explains the extraordinary amount of data that he uses when making his predictions. However, he doesn't rely solely on modeling...he also inserts a human/common sense element in his predictions.

 

[CarolAnnB]

It's all a crapshoot

Agree with this. I have gone with Easy's recs because his explanantion of why he recommends certain parks on certain days makes sense to me. But if I'm at MK on his most recommended day and it is packed, how do I know that the other parks are less crowded? I don't. So maybe he is right. Who knows? Unless you are going to all the parks in one day, how do you really know which was best?

 

[Herfnerd]

It always cracks me up to see the differences between the two. We'll be there next week, and for Monday (MLK), for instance, TP has MK as the best park, whereas Easy says that MK will be "by far, the worst Park to visit today." Long story short, we're going to MK that day.

I do look at both of them when deciding where to go. Josh's explanations always sound reasonable and make sense, but I don't really know what's backing them from a data standpoint. On the other hand, I know that the TP recommendations are based upon hard data that's been culled by many people over many years. With that in mind, when the two conflict in a serious way, I trust TP more just because I know that there's an absolute avalanche of data behind that projection. Maybe Josh uses a lot of data, too, but, it's not something he trumpets about, if so, so for the time being, TP is still the one I go with.

We're leaving in 5 days and planning on hitting MK on 1/20.

Been a long time user of UG/TP and have never had. Any problems with their plans - always worked great!!

 

[jrtoastyman]

We're leaving in 5 days and planning on hitting MK on 1/20.

Been a long time user of UG/TP and have never had. Any problems with their plans - always worked great!!

That's probably a large part of it as well. I've been using UG since back in the days when we would literally walk around the park with handwritten notes or touring plans torn from the back of the book and it's never steered me wrong, so I'm probably a bit biased towards it for that reason as well.

Except there's no charge for the EasyWDW info. He doesn't even have ads on his site.

Personally, EasyWDW has been spot on for two vacations. Plus, even if he's wrong, it's hard to complain about a service that's given for free.

There was a post here by Josh, who runs EasyWDW.com many months ago that explains the extraordinary amount of data that he uses when making his predictions. However, he doesn't rely solely on modeling...he also inserts a human/common sense element in his predictions.

That doesn't surprise me and I know many people swear by Josh's site, so I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm casting dispersions about the guy. It's ultimately a question of which one you're more familiar with, I guess, but I do find it funny when they come down on completely different conclusions about a day. Guess I'll find out in a week!

 

[Q-man]

The planning sites may have more influence than they think. Their declaring it the best park could send enough folks that way to make it a poor choice. The biggest planning sites have enough effect that TGM does his touring plans around them.

TP had a gaffe in the last year completely missing some local school breaks and their effect on the parks. People thought they had booked during 4-5 crowd levels and ended up in 7-8 crowd levels.

 

[ReluctantDisaholic]

We've never had easywdw be wrong for us yet - we know 2 groups of people who were there last time at the same time as us who went to different parks. Based on talking to them about what they did each day and seeing their pictures, I would definitely say Josh had the right parks.

 

[tndisneyfan]

On one of our last trips, I can't remember now if it was October or May, we used easywdw to get the best park days. I really feel that it didn't work for us that trip. Seems like we were in the busiest park every day.

 

[pfalcioni]

EasyWDW and TouringPlans aren't really competition for each other, since one is set up as a money-making venture and the other is a guy who enjoys crunching the numbers, doing on the ground studies, then creating crowd calendars and disseminating the information for free.

In regards to determining crowd levels, it's really not just a crapshoot since employers for nearly any business that deals with the public needs to do this every day to determine how many workers they will need. Disney definitely does crowd level estimations, they use this data to make up their CM work schedules. Sure, there will be times when those numbers will be off (I think everyone was surprised by the crowd levels between Christmas and New Year this year), but generally they are correct.

If businesses don't have or use this data they're out of business pretty quickly -- either because they are paying too many people to work when the crowds didn't warrant it, or because customers are complaining due to excessive wait times.

 

[quietgirll]

Lol- we were just there last week, and easywdw worked PERFECTLY for us! I can't tell you how it compared to touring plans, because why in the world would I PAY for something when I way more than satisfied with something I'm getting absolutely free??

 

[Colleen27]

For the most part I've found the major planning sites to be pretty accurate and of the bunch I prefer EasyWDW over the paid services (though I still find my Touring Plans subscription worthwhile for the Lines app), but there are some factors that just can't be predicted. When we were there last January we had absolutely fabulous weather over the weekend part of the trip and the crowd levels skyrocketed. Can't fault the planning sites for not catching that one; it was just really warm weather that brought out a lot of locals and last-minute weekenders. If it had been 60 and cloudy instead of 80 and sunny the predictions probably would have been right on.

 

[beachta1]

Right on! <3 Josh

 

[iamfishie]

Last November, we went to MK on the Friday before Thanksgiving. Another passenger on the bus was ranting about how the crowds were going to be horrible. That the crowd calendar (not sure which one she was using) said to avoid MK that day. Crowds were super low that day. The most we waited was maybe 20 minutes for the Winnie the Pooh ride. But, I guess to some people 20 minutes is too long. I don't think they are going to be super accurate down to the day. There are generally busier times and slower times.

 

[siskaren]

Last November, we went to MK on the Friday before Thanksgiving. Another passenger on the bus was ranting about how the crowds were going to be horrible. That the crowd calendar (not sure which one she was using) said to avoid MK that day. Crowds were super low that day. The most we waited was maybe 20 minutes for the Winnie the Pooh ride. But, I guess to some people 20 minutes is too long. I don't think they are going to be super accurate down to the day. There are generally busier times and slower times.

It's strange that a crowd calendar would have said to avoid MK the Friday before Thanksgiving because that was an MVMCP day. Josh at easywdw.com always recommends MK on party days because the shorter hours don't appeal to a lot of people, especially since it means no nighttime entertainment.