Just back!

[RadioFanatic]

The crowds from the 24-28 were AWFUL. We used touring plans for the first time, and they were so far off base that I'm a bit annoyed that I spent money on it. Sunday, for example, was "best park of the day" and I think it was a 1.2 day or something.... and the day was so much more packed and crowded than every summer trip we've ever taken!

We've gone 5 times in the past year, and this was by far the worst crowd levels we've had. I'm not sure I'll be doing a late February trip again in the future! So much for trying to avoid the March crowds early

The week you went was NYS's winter break. I know a lot of people just from our area going.

 

[LaurenT]

This is what Frontierland looked the morning you referred to.

Tell me that you are one of the people on the picture walking towards Splash Mountain and I'm outta here!

Mx

lol..nope, that's not me..would be too funny if it were! I was just to the right, walking along that wooden plank trail that leads to Splash...

 

[NatashaDisneyCM]

my boss just got back last night, he said that the past three weeks had cheerleaders everywhere!!!! I am leaving in 11 days and I hope it calms down!!

 

[declansdad]

The crowds from the 24-28 were AWFUL. We used touring plans for the first time, and they were so far off base that I'm a bit annoyed that I spent money on it. Sunday, for example, was "best park of the day" and I think it was a 1.2 day or something.... and the day was so much more packed and crowded than every summer trip we've ever taken!

We've gone 5 times in the past year, and this was by far the worst crowd levels we've had. I'm not sure I'll be doing a late February trip again in the future! So much for trying to avoid the March crowds early

Curious, with te amount of trips you have, why would you pay for something like Touring Plans?

 

[LilyWDW]

To put it simply, all "best days" models are forecasting models. They use information from the past to predict the future. Variables are put into the model and it spits out the forecast. A forecasting model is rarely 100% right because you can not take into account every single variable out there. If you go into the use of touring plans with the right mindset, they can be extremely helpful. However, sometimes they will be wrong.

 

[Mainebound]

Sorry you hit all the crowds. We were there too. We were going to use touring plans too but quickly noticed that so many people were using them, it wasn't working well. We did better when we did the opposite of the touring plans suggestions.

I'm wondering how you could tell whether people were using plans and which ones they were using?

Thank you for the details about your trip.

 

[Lisha428]

I agree that the crowd predictions seemed to be off 2/27-3/2. We were in the MK on 2/27 (the supposed 1.2 day) and it was PACKED by lunch. We got some stuff done early in the AM but I was glad to leave after lunch. Wishes on Monday night was shoulder to shoulder. On Tuesday 3/1 FP for Soarin' were gone by early afternoon and 70 min standby (not unusual, I know, but when paired with low crowd predictions it seemed off). We were able to enjoy most of what we wanted to do, but only because we were there very close to rope drop every day. Skipped both Dumbo and almost all character interactions because of long waits. Thankfully Tuesday we went to MK during the rain in the morning and just as it was clearing my DD7 was able to meet Tiana and Naveen with no wait, that was her only "must do" character since she's seen the others several times already. We had a great trip, but I was a little disappointed at the larger than expected crowds. I had purposefully avoided the week after Pres.Day in hopes of skipping the crowds. Oh well, we were still at Disney and a day at Disney is WAY better than a day at home!

 

[Brian_WDW74]

I've moved this thread to the Trip Reports board.

 

[SOnotLayuh]

Curious, with te amount of trips you have, why would you pay for something like Touring Plans?

It was our first time giving it a shot. I figured that so many people talked about how awesome it was, so we'd give it a shot. It would have been nice to have accurate information as well as accurate wait times, but that was apparently too much to ask for. There is no way that my last few days were a 1.2 or so - they were worse than the first few days that were around 7s or 8s.

Definitely worse than any summer trip, any quick Christmas trip, and up until now our absolute worst day was the final day of F+W last year (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's last performance).... but now this entire trip beats all of that.

We toured smartly, and did everything we wanted to, but I won't be going this time of year again... and I definitely won't be paying for TP again - they were 100% off with best parks, wait times, and crowd levels.