Touring Plans may want to try a new formula

[doog71]

They had a crowd level for DL predicted as a "1" today.

Not even close. I don't know official numbers but I was here over Thanksgiving weekend as well and today wasn't that far off from then.

Of course CL was crazy packed as usual, but I was expecting that. FP were gone within 50 minutes of park opening. I got there right at opening and FP line was already to Hyperion Theater.

Not complaining, just giving some info in case anyone is planning a trip and expecting light crowds. Next week should be insane with CP being added on top of the crowds this week...

It's still Disney and still fun!

 

[Blue32]

They had a crowd level for DL predicted as a "1" today.

Not even close. I don't know official numbers but I was here over Thanksgiving weekend as well and today wasn't that far off from then.

Of course CL was crazy packed as usual, but I was expecting that. FP were gone within 50 minutes of park opening. I got there right at opening and FP line was already to Hyperion Theater.

Not complaining, just giving some info in case anyone is planning a trip and expecting light crowds. Next week should be insane with CP being added on top of the crowds this week...

It's still Disney and still fun!

Good... so I'm not crazt then.

Today(Tues) was our first day of four in the parks and it felt quite busy today.

I really don't have much to compare it to because the last time I was here it was 1985!

I've read so much on these boards and other places about the week after Thanksgiving and I still was not sure what to expect, being that I have also heard so many people comment about going this week here recently.

If today was a 1.1 in DL .....

We did not enter DCA today so I can't comment on that but DL felt busy.
I understand now about it feeling busy because everything is so close but I guess I was not quite expecting this.

My family had a great time today and we made the most of it but I thought we might have gotten to do more than we did today.

Our MM was not so magical today. We got to security super early and we were second in line at our turnstile. Then about ten minutes before MM was to begin, they let us in! BUT.... they held us at the end of mainstreet for a rope drop!! I didn't think they did this on a MM but they did today. We had a stoller, and even though we were quite close to the front, ALOT of people got ahead of us as we were headed to PP. All we fit in at our MM was PP, Dumbo, and Alice.

This is all I've got for now. We loved so many things that we saw today, and I'll give a full TR when we return.

Maybe the threat of rain will scare some of these crowds off...

 

[HydroGuy]

They had a crowd level for DL predicted as a "1" today.

Not even close. I don't know official numbers but I was here over Thanksgiving weekend as well and today wasn't that far off from then.

Of course CL was crazy packed as usual, but I was expecting that. FP were gone within 50 minutes of park opening. I got there right at opening and FP line was already to Hyperion Theater.

Not complaining, just giving some info in case anyone is planning a trip and expecting light crowds. Next week should be insane with CP being added on top of the crowds this week...

It's still Disney and still fun!

TP has very poor reputation around here for predicting DLR crowds in any meaningful way. Your experience is further evidence of that.

 

[sheetz]

The problem with TP is that they base all their predictions on previous years' data, even if common sense says otherwise. Crowd patterns at DLR are always going to be more fluid than at WDW but that is particularly true now with the resort in full expansion mode, yet TP's algorithms are too inflexible to take that into account.

 

[jkattk]

The problem with TP is that they base all their predictions on previous years' data, even if common sense says otherwise. Crowd patterns at DLR are always going to be more fluid than at WDW but that is particularly true now with the resort in full expansion mode, yet TP's algorithms are too inflexible to take that into account.

As someone who works in software (used to write it, now manage the people who do), I can tell you that common sense is pretty much always going to prevail over algorithms That's because the amount of common sense in the algorithm maxes out at the amount of common sense the engineer has to write into it (usually some of the engineer's level of common sense is lost even between software bugs and the the difficulty of keeping algorithms up to date with new world knowledge). That said TP was spot on with the 3 days we spent at WDW in Aug/Sept - you could have set your clock by when we would arrive at each ride. I've read enough about TP being inaccurate at DL though to be applying my own common sense for my upcoming DL trip. Since TP rates each day between 8-10 that we'll be there, I'm hoping they can't be too far off though (unless those days are actually 11's ).

 

[Priory]

I found touring plans to be a wonderful help during my first trip to WDW. However, with DLR it's just off most of the time.

I had a "10" day in July be one of the least busy days I've ever spent in DL, and I've had "2" days be total crowd nightmares.

If I understand it correctly, their formula improves with more data over time which is why they work so well at WDW where they've collected data for a decade but not at DLR which is a relatively new endeavor for them.