Touring Plans/EasyWDW crowd calendars

[Mom2J&J]

So I'm rolling merrily along with my Disney plans (using EasyWDW), but I popped over to Touring Plans and *whoa* the suggested parks and crowd calendars are completely different!

I don't want to open a debate, but I would love to know different preferences and why. I'm just surprised that they are so different.

Thanks!

MCB

 

[figmentfan423]

for what dates?

 

[Mom2J&J]

Arriving Monday, May 30 - Departing Saturday, June 4th

 

[figmentfan423]

I'd go with easywdw

 

[mindeola]

I went the same dates last year and touring plans was spot on with the exception of one day.

There are a few sites and they seem to be pretty different . easywdw and touring plans have similar outlooks for my next trip though.

 

[bluezy]

I'd go with easywdw. Josh visits the parks frequently each week. He knows what he's talking about and explains why he recommends or doesn't recommend for specific pars each day. Use that information to determine what days work best for you at each park. I always use his crowd calendars and cheat sheets to create our touring plans. In the end, I do what works best for our family and our schedule, but by using Josh's information, at least I know what we're getting into if we go to a "least recommended" park.

ETA: I find that hitting the parks at rope drop and using FP+ efficiently are more important than being in the right park on the right day. Though I still prefer to be at the least crowded/most recommended park each day -- but sometimes that just doesn't work out.

 

[Accident]

touring plans has had blogs a lot last year about trying to sort out why their numbers are wrong lately. easywdw on the other hand has been pretty close. for the moment, easywdw is the one to use but it's a guess and WDW is crowded so plan for crowds no matter what anything says.

I find watching the discounts to be helpful, when you start to see 25% and 30% ones that you can book and arrive the same day they are trying to fill up the place and have been successful. Even more if it's a small subset of resorts because the rest are already full or close to it. If they release another discount that can be combined like they did last summer and there's no avoiding crowds.

 

[Moonwolf]

Most crowd calendar sites base their recommendations on different criteria (past data, EMH, reacent crowds, ect). They each also have a different scale where a 5 on on site may not be the same as a 5 on another. The best thing to do is try to understand why a site is or is not recommending something and what that rating means in their terms. Then make smart plans on what they are expecting for that day, while being aware that everything is an estimation. A big rain storm either the day before or the day off may draw higher crowds or drive them away. Don't get so locked in your plans so that if you have to change 1 thing everything falls apart.

One of the reasons I like using EasyWDW is that they explain why they are giving the recommendations that they are and so I can decide for myself if their reasoning would effect me. They also have cheat sheets for each park that shows estimated ride times for different crowd levels. That really helped me understand what would be different between a low level crowd and a moderate/heavy crowd my first time planning a trip.

 

[Alesia]

Touring plans changed something a few years ago and I haven't found them to be accurate since.

 

[SeanTomorrow]

I just checked, and here are the overall crowd predictions for May 30 - June 4th
TP: 9 9 7 7 7 8
EasyWDW: 9 8 7 7 7 8

They're nearly identical. Am I missing something? It'd be odd for one to be be more accurate than the other when they're predicting nearly the same thing!

Once you get to specific parks recommendation, I don't think you can really compare accuracy. EasyWDW makes a go/no-go recommendation, TP makes a wait time prediction. I don't really know how to say "Epcot not recommended" is more or less accurate then "Epcot is a 7". At that point, it's more a matter of style & philosophy than comparing accuracy.

As a number guy I always go with touringplans Works for me and my planning style.

 

[mcraige]

I've always had good luck following Josh's advice on EasyWDW, and will be following it again in May. I like that he explains his logic, and follows his own touring plans, and reports honestly when his touring plans are spot-on, and when they were off, and why.