How do I figure out low attendance days??

[PineapplePrincessCA]

We live in San Diego and can go up to Disneyland at any time. Having low crowds is HUGE for us. That is by far our biggest priority when timing our trips to DL.

We just came back after being there three days this week. Crowds were WAY heavier than we expected. Not horrible by any means, but I thought the first week of May would be slow.

Now I'm reading about somebody who went on the SUNDAY before we did (we went Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and they had much lower crowds than we did. I just don't get it.

How is it more crowded on a mid-week trip than on the weekend?


Pixie Hallow was almost an hour. We didn't even wait for that. Fantasyland was PACKED. Couldn't even move in there. Indiana Jones was only 20 minutes a couple of times, but once we waited over an hour.

When we went in September, we hardly waited more than 10 minutes for anything.

Besides major holidays, summer, and school breaks, I just can't figure out any kind of rhyme or reason when it comes crowd levels.

 

[skiingfast]

How crowded it is, is mostly based on personal perception. One person's point of view can be very different than the next. To truly compare, you would to need to go to the hub and take pictures of the ride wait board incrementally through the day and then the next. Thus having actually measurements sampled in a scientific manner. Not something people often do.

Some attractions can adjust capacity, so when it's lowered the wait stays the same.

Usually one things that randomly effects crowds is weather. A rainy day or cold day followed by a sunny day will cause a low crowd and then high crowd. Doesn't matter if that cold day was supposed to be a capacity crowd and the sunny day was supposed to be dead. This anomaly happens often at DLR.


Also a lot of attractions closed for the POTC premiere, causing crowds to shift to other attractions. This may of scared off some casual day trippers who come on the weekend.

 

[DisneyMomof2inSLC]

that was not something I wanted to hear!! We are leaving on monday for 4 full days in thr parks. I was hoping for low crowds, as we were just there the 2nd week in August and it was a nightmare! Hopefully the crowd levels next week will be lower.

 

[grumpy's fan]

link not working..sorry

 

[PineapplePrincessCA]

that was not something I wanted to hear!! We are leaving on monday for 4 full days in thr parks. I was hoping for low crowds, as we were just there the 2nd week in August and it was a nightmare! Hopefully the crowd levels next week will be lower.

Oh, it was by no means packed. I'm sure it'll be much less crowded than it was in August. I was just really surprised at how long we had to wait for some rides.

How crowded it is, is mostly based on personal perception. One person's point of view can be very different than the next.

Specifically, I mean the wait times for rides. Yes, one person's opinion may be different an anothers by what is considered "long", but if the wait for the more popular rides is less than 10 minutes throughout the day, I would think it would be pretty difficult to argue that is wasn't very crowded that day.

I've gone there on days where we never had to wait more than 15 minutes for any ride. I know nobody has a crystal ball and can predict exactly what crowds will be like on any given day, I'm just trying to figure out how to better my chances of days like that.

 

[perlster]

Disneyland was quite crowded earlier this week, even if crowds weren't "high" because so many people were visiting relatively few attractions.

No parade
No Fantasmic!
No fireworks

Scheduled closures included TSI, Columbia, Mark Twain, canoes, Star Tours, Splash Mountain, and Gadget's Go Coaster.

IJA and POTC were both down for some time on Wednesday. To add insult to injury, no BTMRR Fastpasses were available.

I feel sorry for those who paid full price for admission to Disneyland in this state. The powers that be really need to consider how much of the Disneyland magic was lost for visitors because of the POTC 4 premiere.

 

[CMG1]

Not sure if I can say this or not on these boards but Touringplans.com is a great resource! They have a crowd calendar that is so helpful when planning.

 

[ParkHopper1]

Pull up the room rates of the on property Disney resorts...lower the rate, lower the historically crowds!

 

[skiingfast]

Specifically, I mean the wait times for rides. Yes, one person's opinion may be different an anothers by what is considered "long", but if the wait for the more popular rides is less than 10 minutes throughout the day, I would think it would be pretty difficult to argue that is wasn't very crowded that day.

This is part of the problem with people's perception of the crowds. Not many people know that a ride is a 10 minutes wait all day. Who is going on a trip where they will stop at Space or Peter Pan every quarter hour to track wait times? Not me on my visits and probably not anyone unless they are bored.

But as suggested above some people have for commercial reasons. Touring Plans and Ridemax. As they compiled data to formulate plans to avoid crowds. Though I would take Touring Plans with a grain of salt. They are not close to perfectly reliable. Ridemax is much better. But anytime something special happens in the park neither is going to be perfect. When Star Tours and Little Mermaid open in June thier ability to give good plans is going to drop until they can recompile data. Which one could expect Ridemax to do within the week and Touringplans to do when they get around to it(if they even visit DLR this summeror year).

 

[Sherry E]

This is part of the problem with people's perception of the crowds. Not many people know that a ride is a 10 minutes wait all day. Who is going on a trip where they will stop at Space or Peter Pan every quarter hour to track wait times? Not me on my visits and probably not anyone unless they are bored.

But as suggested above some people have for commercial reasons. Touring Plans and Ridemax. As they compiled data to formulate plans to avoid crowds. Though I would take Touring Plans with a grain of salt. They are not close to perfectly reliable. Ridemax is much better. But anytime something special happens in the park neither is going to be perfect. When Star Tours and Little Mermaid open in June thier ability to give good plans is going to drop until they can recompile data. Which one could expect Ridemax to do within the week and Touringplans to do when they get around to it(if they even visit DLR this summeror year).

I agree with this. I think that Toy Story Midway Mania increased crowds a bit in 2008 and beyond. I think World of Color increased the crowds a bit more overall, in both parks, last year. There were probably days and weeks when the crowds were a bit lighter than others, but still bigger than they would have been 2 years before. And this year, with the Little Mermaid, Star Tours 2.0, Goofy's Sky School and all of that, I am thinking the crowds will be pretty substantial all year. Next year, with the opening of CarsLand, I think it will be more of the same. So, you're right - places like Touringplans.com and Ridemax will have to go back to the drawing board and reconfigure their info.

Also, lots of people are now trying to plan their trips for the periods when SoCal AP holders are blocked, and that is most likely increasing crowds somewhat during those previously less crowded times.

 

[wdwfan22]

I was just there Fri the 29th - Tues the 3rd. If those are the dates you were there, Sunday the 1st was WAAAAAYYYY more crowded than Mon and Tues were. For Fri, Sat and Sun, wait times were huge, like Alice-60min, Matterhorn-60mins, Peter Pan and Toad 45-60mins, Space 60 mins, Indy 45-60mins, etc. Mon and Tues were dead in comparison, Alice-20, Peter-30, Indy 10-20, Matterhorn, 10-20.

The walking around part, like always, was worse than the actual wait times. With the humungous stands they built for the Pirate Premiere, foot traffic was horrible. Worse on the weekend, but still horrible.

The reason BTMRR did not have a FP during the week was that none was needed. Who needs a FP with a 10 min wait??

Skiingfast, I think people are starting to know wait times by using their phone apps. I love Mousewait and used it a ton in the park. You can tell what time it was updated, so you know if it is pretty reliable or not. We found it very reliable.

 

[Raindown]

I was just at Disneyland all day yesterday and it was by no mistake not a busy day. At about noon space and indy were both 10 minutes. We didn't even bother pulling fasspasses for tower of terror and soaring had a really short wait.

 

[Faithful Raider]

Wonder if crowd size was due to AP's coming off blockout dates. In april SoCal AP passes were blocked for a good portion of the month due to Spring Break. In fact, Monday May 2nd was the first date open for any of the SoCal AP passes since April 14th/15th.

I'm going to DLR in 8 days for the week, but will probably be returning June 5-8 for a smaller 2nd trip (just how my schedule for work is turning out). I'm expecting light crowds for the May trip, but June 6-7 are the first open dates for SoCal AP's after the official launch of Star Tours 2 and the Little Mermaid rides. I expect those days to be packed beyond belief. In fact, the cheaper SoCal AP pass only has June 6, 7, 13, and 14 open all the way until late august. Those 4 days I expect will be madness at DLR.

 

[DebbieB]

I just got home last night, I was there Sunday-Thursday. We were at DL on Sunday, it was crowded, very hard to walk, especially with the PoC movie bleacher setup. I didn't think the other days were crowded. On Thursday I got a fastpass for Space Mt for around 1:00pm and didn't even need it, there was no line outside. The only line I would call "long" was Toy Story, it was about 30 min on Tuesday morning.

 

[nana50]

Pull up the room rates of the on property Disney resorts...lower the rate, lower the historically crowds!

That is exactly what I do. Which is why I'm going Monday as the rates were the lowest I've seen in a while.