Here now, super crowded but very manageable!

[Winnowill]

I need a little advice! Typically I make our plans based on attending the non-morning EMH park of the day. This trip (6/1-6/6) We are going with my sister and her family and she insists she did morning EMH and it was great. That being said, we've now turned our entire trip on it's head and based a couple park days on morning EMH. After making dinner reservations etc. accordingly, I look at EasyWDW and literally every day we are planning on visiting the most non-recommended park! Not sure how these predictions are with FP plus at this point. Any thoughts? I am worried and just want to call my sister and convince her to do regular rope drop instead...and cross our fingers that we can still get some decent dinner reservations if we switch!

Thanks so much everyone!

The EMHs are the REASON the parks are non-recommended. If you read Josh's explanations of how he determines recommended vs non-recommended, a lot of people look at EMH as Disney telling people "This is where you need to be today." And people obey and go to those parks even if they're staying offsite or not planning to take advantage of the EMH. So that park experiences a higher crowd level that it would on a non-EMH day.

If you're park hopping, morning EMHs are a good opportunity to get some early rides in before the big crowds arrive, then take a break when it gets too busy and switch to another, recommended park for the afternoon and evening (typically scheduling FP+ for the second park since you won't need them at the first in the lighter morning crowds).

If you're not park-hopping, you might want to re-think the EMH plan.

 

[NavyDad]

You obviously have some issues with comprehension regarding the easywdw calendar. Maybe that is why you think the levels are sometimes "waaay off." (We have found just the opposite.)

Josh predicts his park days based on how popular each park will be compared to other days that week (taking EMH, entertainment, hours, trends and special events into consideration). In other words, he recommended MK today because he predicted that MK would be less crowded today than it was Monday or will be Saturday. His day-to-day predictions have nothing to do with overall crowd level across WDW.

His recommending a park does not mean that a park will be empty. If you go during spring break, you are going to face crowds. So the mention of Mardi Gras had nothing to do with MK specifically, despite your apparently reading it that way, but more as a prediction that there wouldn't be a huge spike in crowds overall at WDW because of Mardi Gras this year.

As for whether he is right or wrong, and whether it more crowded or less crowded than he predicted....as with every single other week of the year, that has to do with people's expectations, people's touring style, and what they consider "crowded."

I love the work Josh does and I think he does a fantastic job explaining his methodology. The fact that his info is free is even more amazing.

I also subscribe to Touring Plans and use their App. I think they also do a great job of explaining their methodology in both their book and on the website.

I use both sets of information and compare them long before, right before and during all of our trips. Most of the time they are similar but there are times when the sites disagree.

I know some swear by one site and others swear by the other. I have found in my trips that when they disagree it is about 50/50 to who is right.

Also, as humans there are sometimes we think the data is telling us something it isn't actually telling us either because we don't read carefully, don't understand the methodology or we allow our pre-concieved notions to alter our perception.

All in all it's not an exact science but if you use Josh or TP you will be a lot better off than just winging it

 

[NavyDad]

It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, folks) that EMH mornings can be a good plan if you do the EMH rope drop and then take your break once the parks get crowded. But the parks are almost always going to be non-recommended just b/c tons of people will go there on EMH days (but not necessarily at the EMH time, first thing in the morning if it's a morning EMH)

Is that right?

You can make this work if you get in and get out quickly but really it is just better to avoid the EMH park altogether.

 

[SmallWorld71]

It's been our experience that Josh tends to underestimate crowd levels; many times he's waaay off. And he actually said MK was "highly recommended" today, reason being Mardi Gras wouldn't have an impact on crowd levels because it was before spring break. Yeah, right. That being said, glad the MDE and FP+ are helping out.

He has today(and most of the week) listed as a 9 out of 10. That's very busy. The only things listed higher are usually Christmas and sometimes Easter. Do you disagree with this? I haven't seen anything to indicate that it is Christmas crowd level.

And, I would say today would be a good MK day because tomorrow is early EMH and the park will be even busier. The longest wait time at MK right now is BTMRR at 40 min. Everything else is 35 min. or less - very good wait times for it being this busy overall indicating that it is indeed a good MK day.

He fully admits to being off sometimes, but today he appears to be dead on.