park predictors

[friendoffigment]

does anyone still use crowd calendars to choose which park to do on any given day. years ago it was tour guide mike, then josh at easywdw. are there any others worth looking at that give specific info on each day. i know TP has crowd ratings but doesn't give explanations like mike and josh use to do

 

[disneyvoice]

Kind of. Typically when I make our preliminary schedule I use the crowd calendar but we often change our park day schedule before we actually get there and sometimes we even decide to go to a totally different park than we had planned when we get up in the morning.

 

[agavegirl1]

You can still access Josh's prior year month by month analysis via his website. Go to crowd calendars, select a month from 2015 or 2016 and click. There will be a link to the month by month overview including month, cost, weather, crowds and events. While the info will be specific to that year, the general logic is still there.

Example from Josh's October 2016 information..

"October Crowds: Crowds are heavier in October than past years with domestic school schedules moving away from the typical long summer vacation, in favor of a larger number of shorter breaks throughout the year. That includes a week off in October for schools in the south, which feed Disney World attendance. South American attendance is also higher in the first two weeks, culminating in the largest crowds of the month over Columbus Day Weekend, from the 7th – 9th. Still, they won’t be anywhere near as bad as summer or other holiday weekends. If you are flexible with your dates, hold off until after October 15th. Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival is scheduled throughout October, which makes Epcot busier on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays."

Just look at the days of the week these dates apply to and interpolate them for your visit, keeping in mind that Disney has added more days to parties and festivals since then.

 

[Tigger's ally]

We really don't. But, we have been so many times that we have a pretty good idea what to do and what not to do as far as when the EM hours are and stuff. We never, ever go to MK on Monday. We never go to Epcot on Friday, Saturday or Sunday during food and wine (might pop in for a quick lunch, but vamoose early afternoon), etc. I usually do look at the crowd calendars after all our plans are done to see if it lines up. Rarely do I change anything though (with the exception of when there is a party that I didn't know about, like this Friday! )

 

[Haley R]

We use the crowd calendar, but we also go off of EMH. We actually like using both morning and night EMH so even if the crowd is higher that day we still go to that park usually.

 

[mcd2745]

Is Touring Plans pretty much the only one left at this point? I think the calendars have lost some of their usefulness as opposed to say 5 years ago. There are some basic strategies you can follow though- such as with the EMH days. If you want to go to EMH, then you plan accordingly. Many people will avoid EMH, and therefore going to a park the day after that park had its EMH can work out for lower crowds. That was one of the staples of Josh's methodology, I believe.

 

[bladiator]

I still purchase the touring plans crowd calendar, but also I really like it for the live app that people are adding info to throughout the day. I feel like that's the real value.