OFFICIAL April 2012 DISers! 2 months and counting!

[Princesca]

I believe that's Easter week this year. Yes it will be crowded but I would NEVER cancel a trip b/c of that. It's manageable if you have a good touring plan. And you can't beat the weather. I love April.
So if it's the only time you can go then do it. If you can do a different week even 2 weeks later it makes a huge difference. That's when we're going this year.
Good Luck!

Yeah, to each their own. I would rather have a root canal than deal with 10/10 crowd days at America's favorite theme park.

However, you're definitely right about touring plans. So, to Skysdad, that might be worth looking into... I'd say it's essential if you do decide to go during that time. They're supposed to save you hours standing in lines.

 

[momtwoboys]

We are going no matter what!!! our school district just took away our April vacation that stupid Halloween snowstorm that caused everyone to lose power for a week now has to be made up OH WELL

 

[ddluvsdisney]

We are going no matter what!!! our school district just took away our April vacation that stupid Halloween snowstorm that caused everyone to lose power for a week now has to be made up OH WELL

OMG that is awful!!!!

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Just booked an Illumination Cruise as a surprise for DW's birthday for our trip in April! I'm thinking about having a cake ready too through Disney. We've never tried the cruise, so am every excited!

 

[lamb616]

Ugh, did you guys see the crowd level updates for April? My week (4/15) which was supposed to be all 5-6s are now all 9s. I think we're going to skip it.

 

[Princesca]

WHAT THE MOUSE?!?! My last week of April crowd levels were all great on TouringPlans.com, but now they've all jumped at least 2 points out of 10 total! From a 6 to an 8, 8 to a 10... what the heck is going on?!

I just got the auto-message from the tracker. Aieeeeee. What could it be? Easter is early and surely spring breaks would be done by then...

Actually, I just looked at the parks I chose for the days in question, and the only one that got way worse was our first day in AK. That jumped to an 8.something when it was a 6 or better. I still would like to know why the adjustments. The week I chose was supposed to be one of the top 10 weeks to go in 2012, and now the most popular parks are in the 8s-9s.

 

[pwdebbie]

WHAT THE MOUSE?!?! My last week of April crowd levels were all great on TouringPlans.com, but now they've all jumped at least 2 points out of 10 total! From a 6 to an 8, 8 to a 10... what the heck is going on?!

I just got the auto-message from the tracker. Aieeeeee. What could it be? Easter is early and surely spring breaks would be done by then...

Actually, I just looked at the parks I chose for the days in question, and the only one that got way worse was our first day in AK. That jumped to an 8.something when it was a 6 or better. I still would like to know why the adjustments. The week I chose was supposed to be one of the top 10 weeks to go in 2012, and now the most popular parks are in the 8s-9s.

Thanks for the heads up on that. I can't imagine why they are predicting near holiday crowds for third week of April, then a 1 on the 25th, then back to 7s.. Doesn't make sense to me at all. EasyWDW still has 5s for 16th -21st and then 4s after that.

 

[Princesca]

From what I can see on TouringPLans, it has something to do with an extension of EMH. Does that really cause overall resort attendance to spike up by two out of 10 every day?!

 

[scott2997]

Here's the article on what happened with the new revised Crowd Calendar ratings...

Crowd Calendar Improvements

 

[Princesca]

Phew maybe there's still hope:

"Okay everyone, don’t go cancelling trips
It is possible that Easter has swayed the crowd calendar results for April 2012. It should not have, but I am going to check it out to make sure.
March and April are notoriously tough becuase of the Spring Break/Easter combo that shifts from year to year. Disney is making it tougher now because they are experiencing higher than average attendance this fall and we don’t know how long that will continue.
Give me a few days to check into it and see if I made a mistake in the model."

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Wow, I just about had a heart attack reading the last few posts and logging into Touringplans myself to see. The optimistic side of me has to believe this can't be an accurate forecast - just looking at past years trends in the historical crowd levels for April weeks following Easter has always shown a significant dip. Ok, I'm just going to keep telling myself that since I can't change our dates at this point.

 

[Princesca]

Yeah.... yourfirstv shows pretty much zero spring break activity the last week or two of april too

 

[Princesca]

yay! He says that he messed up some of the formulas that predict the park hours and that post-Easter April should drop a little bit once the crowd calendar is re-run.

 

[lamb616]

yay! He says that he messed up some of the formulas that predict the park hours and that post-Easter April should drop a little bit once the crowd calendar is re-run.

where does it say that???

ETA: Phew, I saw it on the blog post. Ok.......trip may be back on, so yay!

 

[Princesca]

It's on the blog... um... I think under the link a PP posted.

 

[Princesca]

I know! I couldn't imagine that something could change so drastically that the last week of April, which seems univerally a top-10 pick no matter what site you go to, would suddenly become resort levels 9/10 all week. Aiee. Time to step away from the computer and practice some deep breathing. Methinks I've become a wee mite ****-retentive about the trip planning

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Princesca, thanks for the updates. I'm letting a small sigh of relief here. My family is also thankful since they saw me turning on the "Commando Mode" switch in my head as I started gearing up a touring plan suited for a level 9 crowd

Now I can relax a bit. That was fun.

 

[pigletto]

Thank goodness I read in here!! I complained about this earlier today. I couldn't think of one decent reason that the numbers jumped that drastically and it had me rethinking my trip a little.
Happy to hear that!

 

[Princesca]

Yes, my own reaction was perfectly summed up by a forum emoticon:

 

[204charity]

I don't know if you guys will think I'm crazy or not, but we didn't really consider the crowd levels all that much when we booked our trip. I mean, we definatley picked the weeks that WEREN'T spring break on purpose, but I expect to wait in lines for everything no matter what!!! We are staying at the Poly, and have plans to do a day at each water-park with 8 day park-hopper passes, so we don't really concern ourselves too much with wait times etc. We already anticipate not seeing everything, and that will just have to be ok. We want to try and relax, swim, shop and spend serious bonding time with one-another while there - crowds or not - fun will be had by all!

Last time we did Disney - we were there during Spring Break and only there for 5 nights, so only had 3 days to do Epcot/MGM/MK - it was CRAZY!!! So this already will be like the longest Disney trip ever for us!!! lol