The week after Easter 2014

[Kacie]

I know crowd calendars are discussed quite a bit on here and some fluctuation between various sources can be expected.

Was wondering if we could discuss the week after Easter (Jan. 21-26, 2014).

Easter is WAY late this year, and I thought it would affect when spring breaks are.

The calendar on touringplans suggests this week will be fairly light --only a 5 on Easter. Huh?

6 on the 21st. 4 on the 22nd.

Other sites, I'm seeing them predict it to be a VERY busy week.

We're going the 22nd -29th. I know I shouldn't expect "light" crowds and should still hit RD and tour with a plan...but is it going to be bananas on the early part of our trip? Or what?

Some of the park recommendations are total opposites on TP and EasyWDW. What do I do with this?

 

[Masonmj84]

I have researched this time peroid quite extensively as we plan to arrive on April 24.

From what I've read, the week of April 21-26 will be busy (particularly early in the week) but not as busy as the previous week (April 13-20), which will likely be the busiest spring week of 2014 (and if Mine Train is open by then, hide the women and children).

I would expect the crowds to be at about an 8-9 level at the beginning of the week (i.e., April 21) and then taper off to about a 7 level by Friday, April 25. Then over the weekend of April 26-27, I expect the crowds to taper off significantly (down to a 4-5 level) and stay that way for at least the next 3 weeks (with weekends being somewhat busier than weekdays).

Lately, I've found EasyWDW to be more accurate than TouringPlans (Josh's experience/logic-based analysis seems to be more in touch with reality than TouringPlans data-driven methodology). So I would lean toward following EasyWDW.

 

[DividedSky]

Lately, I've found EasyWDW to be more accurate than TouringPlans (Josh's experience/logic-based analysis seems to be more in touch with reality than TouringPlans data-driven methodology). So I would lean toward following EasyWDW.

Can you elaborate on this for me?

what have you seen lately to make such a statement? By lately, do you mean the last several weeks, or the last several times you visited?

I have been studying this extensively lately.

what I notice is the two sites rarely differ on which park you should go to, and which park to avoid. What has bothered me is EasyWDW doesn't grade the parks numerically, so trying to evaluate them is more difficult.

They often lump one or two in the don't visit or do visit category, which prevents better analysis of their predictions.

 

[AndreaDBfan]

I'm in the same boat. We will arrive on Easter and stay thru 4-26. I was hoping the week after easter would be a little slower than the average post Easter week, too. It will be interesting. I just wish there wasn't such a HUGE difference between Touring Plans and easyWDW.

 

[Kacie]

We have the April 2014 parks to avoid/best bets on TP:

http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-calendar/month/april/2014


So let's look at the 23rd. TP is saying to avoid MK. EasyWDW is saying MK is the most recommended.

Same with Friday -- TP says avoid MK, Easy says do MK.

Sunday TP says avoid AK, Easy says it's the most recommended

Edit: Whoops, I pasted some info available to subscribers only. I'm leaving a few example days, hope that's ok

 

[AndreaDBfan]

What I don't like about easyWDW is the Highly Recommended and Most Recommended parks. They list Highly first, but it my mind, Most should be before Highly. Does that make sense or is it just me?

 

[DividedSky]

So let's look at the 23rd. TP is saying to avoid MK. EasyWDW is saying MK is the most recommended.

actually, I don't think touringPlans says to avoid MK on the 23rd. that isn't how they do it. they assign a numerical grade to each park which corresponds to wait times.

the grade they assign to MK on the 23rd is lower or equal to any they graded in the 11 previous days at that park. So depending on the time you are going to be in the park, it is quite likely the 23rd is the best day to go visit that park

 

[Kacie]

actually, I don't think touringPlans says to avoid MK on the 23rd. that isn't how they do it. they assign a numerical grade to each park which corresponds to wait times.

the grade they assign to MK on the 23rd is lower then it was graded in the 11 previous days. So depending on the time you are going to be in the park, it is quite likely the 23rd is the best day to go visit that park

On that particular subscriber link, it says "best parks" and "parks to avoid." There are other pages that have the numerical score, though.

 

[Kacie]

What I don't like about easyWDW is the Highly Recommended and Most Recommended parks. They list Highly first, but it my mind, Most should be before Highly. Does that make sense or is it just me?

On the calendar on easyWDW that I looked at, the park on the farthest left was most recommended, then next was highly recommended

 

[DividedSky]

On that particular subscriber link, it says "best parks" and "parks to avoid." There are other pages that have the numerical score, though.

that is confusing.

I suspect if they stuck strictly to the numerical value, every day either HS or AK would be the one to go to, which makes such a classification useless.