Touring plans -what does 1/10 look like?

[Inga]

Hi

We are using yet again the helpful Touring Plans to help determine which park to go to on which day for our 2 week Nov25-Dec 7 2018 trip to WDW. We have noticed there have been many crowd level updates happening for those dates and several of the dates have an overall crowd level of 2/10 and there’s are several 1/10 days at MK, much to our excitement.

When we first started going to Disney in the 90s we could find very slow times at WDW where the crowd levels were so low that we felt like we were the only ones in the park...usually weeks in January. These days, I suspect those conditions don’t occur and there is never those empty park days. I know the dates are definitely not peak, but DVC is almost sold out so there will be a DVC presence for sure. I am uncertain what impact sold out DVC rooms has on crowd levels or is DVC just a small drop in the WDW capacity bucket.

So, saying all that, what does a 1/10 crowd rating look like in present day WDW 2018? What might be the experience we have with MK at that level of crowds? AK is also supposed to be 2/10. Has anyone experienced these crowd levels, and what might we expect? I don’t want to anticipate incorrectly (ie the park feeling like it is all to ourselves) and be disappointed (ie the place feels full mid morning)

Thank you for your thoughts in advance!

Inga

 

[Robo]

First, I'd not get too excited just yet.

It looks like TP has been issuing some mistaken "low-ball" attendance figures this week.

Time will tell.
Stay tuned.

(BTW, a "1" is virtually "walk-on" for attractions.)

 

[KittyKitty]

It looks like TP has been issuing some mistaken "low-ball" attendance figures this week.

I am looking at TP crowd for this last week, Aug 1-4, and the actual crowds were lower/same than predicted, except for AK. The next few weeks are predicted AK 3-Aug 5, Epcot 7-Aug 7, rest of the time are 4-6.

I do see a bunch of 1's starting Sept. 5 for a couple of weeks. Will watch how that goes.

(I feel like I am questioning the Master!)

 

[Robo]

I am looking at TP crowd for this last week, Aug 1-4, and the actual crowds were lower/same than predicted, except for AK. The next few weeks are predicted AK 3-Aug 5, Epcot 7-Aug 7, rest of the time are 4-6.

What I was describing is an odd and unusual situation that saw many guests (just this week) getting a TP eMail notification of upcoming dates with
super-low crowd predictions.
These low numbers that are uncharacteristic to what we have seen to be the "normal" for WDW on these dates.
Has WDW suddenly lost 50-75% (or so) of expected guest attendance on upcoming dates?
And, if so, how would TP know about it?

As I said, time will tell.

 

[coasternut22]

I've experienced a 1/10 at WDW about 10 years ago, but haven't recently. However I did experience what I consider a 1/10 day recently at Disneyland. This was July 1 (Sunday) when almost all passes were blocked and it was hot. It was the most surprising 1/10 day I could imagine. Even though it was Disneyland, I will relate it to WDW.

First, certain rides like mine train, peter pan, BTMRR, Space, etc. will always have lines. But the lines for rides like space and BTMRR will be 20-30 mins instead of 60-80.

Surprisingly, rides like Haunted and Pirates will have 5-10 minute wait if any. Rides like Tomorrowland speedway and dumbo, again, maybe 10 minute waits. This is exactly how it was in Disneyland. We were also able to get Fantasmic fastpasses still at 6pm. And we were able to walk in to the hub and not have to fight our way to get a good spot for fireworks.

The big difference is crowds. Anyone who has gone to Disneyland will know the bottleneck in Adventureland. There is a similar one in Magic Kingdom's Fantasyland near Peter Pan. Our 1/10 day in Disneyland, you could see the entire pavement in that section at 4pm which is unheard of. I joked about it with my wife. I would assume Fantasyland near Peter Pan would look similar.

Quick service lines will also be minimal. You should be able to walk up to a cashier pretty quickly.

But the single biggest indicator I use to determine the crowd level, and I do this at the parks, and even at home on the app, is fastpass availability throughout the day. You can immediately tell how crowded it will be by looking at when the first available fastpasses for certain attractions are. For busy days like yesterday, in the morning, the first available fastpass for Barnstormer was like 2-3pm. For a 1/10 day you will have fastpass availability for most rides within the hour. This is how it was for Maxpass in Disneyland on my 1/10 day. Rides like Indiana Jones, splash, and BTMRR had return times within the halfhour/hour. I play around with my WDW app all of the time at home, and on slow days, I like to play around with how soon I can get a space or Everest or test track fastpass. On slow days, I can get those within the hour surprisingly.

We did experience a touring plans 2/10 to 10/10 year over year increase from our January 2017 trip and February 2018 trip (about a week apart year over year). Of course this was due to Pandora, but about half way through our February day this year, I said to my wife that today was waaayyyy more crowded than the previous year. You could just feel it in the lines, in the crowds on the path, and the fastpass availability.

 

[loutoo]

Although crowd levels are down slightly this year over all, you should also be aware that TP has recalibrated their definitions somewhat to reflect the new normal. 1s 2s and 3s had become virtually nonexistent so they recalibrated to give a better reflection of the nuances of today's touring.

Do not expect the empty parks of the 90s that world no longer exists no matter when you travel. 1s and 2s will mean many walk on or short waits, but the headliners will still be significant lines and the midrange (HM POTC JC etc) rides will have waits between 10-30 at least for miday.

 

[disneyfanforlife68]

For Our trip in september I have been able to move almost all of our fast passes around due to a change in plans. The only ones I haven’t been able to more are Slinky dog, SDMT and FOP. Everything else had a ton of time most anything after noon each day. I’m hoping that stays true.

 

[Inga]

For Our trip in september I have been able to move almost all of our fast passes around due to a change in plans. The only ones I haven’t been able to more are Slinky dog, SDMT and FOP. Everything else had a ton of time most anything after noon each day. I’m hoping that stays true.

Do you use touring plans and does the FP availability jive with the TP crowd level predictions?

 

[Robo]

Nothing beats short lines!

 

[Inga]

Although crowd levels are down slightly this year over all, you should also be aware that TP has recalibrated their definitions somewhat to reflect the new normal. 1s 2s and 3s had become virtually nonexistent so they recalibrated to give a better reflection of the nuances of today's touring.

Thank you...this is one of the things I was wondering about, because if 0 is absolute 0....then 1 seems very low, as low as it could ever be with the park open (there are no 0.5 crowd levels)....is 0 empty (no one) and 10 full/max occupancy (like Christmas Day where they close it down -probably a rare number too). Are the 10 increments equal?

Is there a place on TP where they define the levels? Haven’t found it yet, but there is a lot of info on TP so I might have missed it.

Inga

 

[Ladyandthepuppies]

We were at MNSSHP last year the day the parks reopened after Irma. The levels were a 1 and it was awesome. My daughter and I walked on to The Barnstormer and then we were able to ride it 7 times in a row (no lie, 7 times!) before anyone else got in line. Since there was no one else in line they didn't make us get off and on again, we just stayed on. Same thing for Winnie the Pooh, we rode it twice without getting off. Peter Pan had a posted wait time of 5 mins. But 7DMT had a 45 min wait and Haunted Mansion got up to 60 mins- it was the Halloween party, after all.

 

[Ladyandthepuppies]

Thank you...this is one of the things I was wondering about, because if 0 is absolute 0....then 1 seems very low, as low as it could ever be with the park open (there are no 0.5 crowd levels)....is 0 empty (no one) and 10 full/max occupancy (like Christmas Day where they close it down -probably a rare number too). Are the 10 increments equal?

Is there a place on TP where they define the levels? Haven’t found it yet, but there is a lot of info on TP so I might have missed it.

Inga

https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/crowd-levels

Here you go!

 

[Inga]

https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/crowd-levels

Here you go!

Ok now we are getting somewhere, thank you! The increments are definitely not equal!

 

[loutoo]

TP uses wait times to determine crowd levels. They have nothing to do with bodies in the park or people on main street. They do offer definitions.

The basic info is at this link:
https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-levels

And MK specific is here:
https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/crowd-levels

TP also gives you charts of predicted wait time for any attraction at anytime on any day. for instance, here is the info for HM on Nov 28:

https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/haunted-mansion/wait-times/date/2018-11-28

 

[Inga]

TP uses wait times to determine crowd levels. They have nothing to do with bodies in the park or people on main street. They do offer definitions.

The basic info is at this link:
https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-levels

And MK specific is here:
https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/crowd-levels

TP also gives you charts of predicted wait time for any attraction at anytime on any day. for instance, here is the info for HM on Nov 28:

https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions/haunted-mansion/wait-times/date/2018-11-28

They do use the term crowd level in TP....so you are saying it isn’t measuring people in the park, or the crowd? I would imagine the amount of people in the park would influence wait times. I do understand that queuing theory, ride load times and ride capacity play into wait times too.

I am glad I now understand that 2/10 isn’t 2x busier than 1/10, instead it really is an arbitrary number and increment up is different depending upon where you are in the 1-10 levels. 10/10 wait times are not 10x longer than 1/10, and that as the levels increase, wait times increase inverse parabolically. 0 is not absolute 0 if 1/10 has the considerable wait times as described on TP.

Clarity is power!

Inga

 

[JillianS1128]

I'm still learning, but an example is Epcot during F&W: they specifically say that their crowd level number does NOT take into account F&W. To me that means it really is about wait times- Epcot would be a lot busier in certain places (WS) from people there just for F&W, but those people might not/likely won't be doing rides all day/evening.