TouringPlans.com updated.

[Tarheel girl 1975]

Touring Plans bases it's crowd levels on projected wait times. Love it or hate it, FP+ has changed wait times, usually decreasing waits at headliners while increasing waits at secondary rides. I think that touring plans is trying to adjust it's crowd levels based on these changes. There is a blog entry from Fred Hazelton explaining the changes on their website.

 

[AngiTN]

Gotcha. Man vs. Machine. In this case I am hoping humanity prevails

The AP blackout dates end on 08/14 this year.

Ah, that probably explains why the peak in numbers for the last part of Aug. I was thinking they were blacked out in to Sept for some reason.

In that case I think the levels for the tail end of the Frozen dates, and especially if it's a weekend, will be pushed up. There could well be enough AP holders heading there on those limited dates to make a difference.

 

[Mikie]

Yuck, yuck, yuck. . . My Oct dates don't all change, but most are predicted up a level and my Epcot day is changed from a 3 to a 6 if TP is right, it certainly jibes with the fact that I'm in the FD discount blackout period - if crowds are really higher, no need to incentivize!

THIS is why I so wish ADRs didn't open at 180 days!! They've changed the EMH schedule and now crowd level predictions have changed. . . I realize I don't *have to* plan so far out, but if ADRs open at 180 and I don't participate, how on earth could I expect my party of 12 to ever eat aTS together, or get any character meals at a time when the toddlers are actually awake and ready to eat? Our whole touring & dining plan is centered around crowd calendars first , then the ADRs as we could get them. . . Frustrating.

 

[boltfan]

I hope these numbers don't continue to go up. It used to be that in November, a 2 was considered high on the crowd calendar. I don't think I've ever been to a park on a 5 day. Hope it's not too bad, as one of our days moved up from a 3 to a 5. Can anyone tell me if this will make a huge difference in wait times for the rides?

 

[Aurora0427]

Gotcha. Man vs. Machine. In this case I am hoping humanity prevails The AP blackout dates end on 08/14 this year.

Wait- do you mean that if you have an AP, there are certain days you can't use it?!!!?

 

[DisneyWisher]

Wait- do you mean that if you have an AP, there are certain days you can't use it?!!!?

They are referring to a Florida Seasonal Pass and Weekday Annual Pass both are for Florida residents only and they have blackout dates Christmas, Easter, and Summer.

 

[TennesseeGirl]

Changed pretty significantly for my dates at the beginning of November. But now it's more in line with Easy as far as overall crowd level for my week.

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

Yep, my week changed too. A few of our days impacted. Thank goodness I changed our AK day a few days ago after the EMH changes. Sunday Nov 30 was a 5 at AK, now an 8!

 

[Missyrose]

Gotcha. Man vs. Machine. In this case I am hoping humanity prevails

The AP blackout dates end on 08/14 this year.

The day of the Villains Unleashed event would probably be a good day to visit DHS if you have no interest in any of the Frozen stuff. Most people who want to do the Frozen activities will likely pick another day that week since there won't be the Frozen fireworks that night (and also no premium packages for that day, either).

 

[FlipHipster]

Touring Plans bases it's crowd levels on projected wait times. Love it or hate it, FP+ has changed wait times, usually decreasing waits at headliners while increasing waits at secondary rides. I think that touring plans is trying to adjust it's crowd levels based on these changes. There is a blog entry from Fred Hazelton explaining the changes on their website.

Also been noticing that their predictions for June were high most every day and some days considerably higher than actual. Especially for DHS. Doesn't mean less people are showing up just that wait times were lower than expected.

Wonder if more people are spending less time in the parks now that they can book their rides in adv? Show up ride and leave? Or is it just as crowded or even more crowded but they have been successfully spreading the crowds around.

FWIW, I love TP data just because I love data, but we have used Josh's calendars to plan our park days and never had an issue. I used his calendars and wait time page almost exclusively last year and we strolled around WDW like we owned the place. I love the TP changes btw, predictions for our trip dropped considerably from what I can tell.

 

[kathy884]

I just checked my Magic Kingdom crowd level prediction for my mid December date. It started off as a 5 when I checked in May. Then last month it went to a 4. Now it's a 2. // Note: I am thrilled with any of those. The lowest crowd level I have ever had visiting a Disney park is a 7 (And that was a party ticket day when we had to leave the park early). Most of my life I have visited on crowd level 8 and 9 days, with a few 10s in there (10s are too much for me to handle now -- five different ones in the past). I've been going to the WDW parks since 1971 when the MK opened.

Two other WDW parks for my MK day went up instead of down. On this budget trip though I'm only visiting one WDW park (Just three park days in total on this trip: one park day at Universal / IOA, one at the MK, and one at SeaWorld) I haven't checked easy WDW but when I checked this the month touring plans had a four for the MK, Josh had a four too (predictions at that time were identical).

My Universal / IOA crowd level predictions for my mid December have been consistent for these three months, staying at a 3 and a 4. (This will be my first time over there since 1989. Didn't care for the Universal park then (IOA was not built). Now I'm curious to see the HP stuff that looks pretty cool, but I didn't want to deal with the crowds or stay onsite on high season trips since HP stuff has opened, but this for my next vacation week crowds looks quite low and I'm loving the predicted wait times for attractions I'm seeing in my plans.)

FYI, though, I like touring plans for the optimization program for attraction order and ride descriptions. I love starting with some of their plans and doing my own customization. I've never really made decisions based on crowd calendar, expect on a very global basis -- like -- how cool is it that DS's finals end pretty early in December and OMG crowds look quite low the week before Christmas week, let's fit in a mini budget trip to Orlando. And as an offsite visitor I do follow one piece of advice, which is to avoid parks with morning extra magic hours. Sometimes, though, we have gone on the worst day of the week -- e.g. limited Fantasmic showings for the week // DS wants to see it // no park hopper // we go the busy day to do what we want to do.

 

[jiminykrikkit]

I didn't get the email, so thanks for the heads up.

The changes were pretty good to us for the most part. We had some days in some parks only go up by 1. Where all our MK days got better! Of course we go when the crowds are pretty light anyways, but this is even better.

9/6: MK changed from 3 to 1 (woot!)
9/7: AK changed from 2 to 3, Epcot remained at 1
9/8: MK changed from 4 to 3 (yay!)
9/9: Epcot changed from 1 to 2, MK changed from 3 to 1 (MNSSHP)
9/10: DHS remained at 1

I guess this is updated with the Frozen changes? We are arriving the week after the Frozen stuff ends...

 

[wdw4rfam]

August 29th at DHS has gone from a 1 to a 4. Allow me to say with all sincerity F*** Frozen!

Like I said earlier, my Epcot day toward the end of September went from 1 to 6... What the heck could have happen to change that much? That's huge.....luckily we only had Biergarten booked so I just changed it to another day and switched plans, but I have a hard time believing that it went from 1 to 6. Although, in the past couple of years, I have a hard time believing that a "1" exists anymore

 

[Wdwvacationdad]

For the most part, the updates were kind to us....but still trying to figure out why/how Epcot went from a 1 to a 5 on Oct 2. Conventional wisdom has always been: AVOID F&W ON THE WEEKENDS.... so now it's a 5 on a Thursday and 4 on Friday and 3 on Saturday. Maybe it's because Air Supply is playing that night? Who knows? Not really sure how the computer calculated this one-- especially when Josh (easywdw) is saying Epcot is the best park to be in on that day. It's either the worst or best place to be on 10/2....

 

[sethschroeder]

Easy WDW uses different logic for "most" and "least" recommended parks, and we have followed it and found it pretty spot on. I'd leave it.

That being said, anyone know how often Josh at Easy WDW updates his crowd calendars? Curious to see what he would change, if anything, for these same time frames.

If you CLICK on the image on EasyWDW so all you see is the picture of days you will notice in the web address a V1....V2.....V3.....V4 and so on, not sure when it changes but you can see how many times it has changed.

 

[sethschroeder]

Gotcha. Man vs. Machine. In this case I am hoping humanity prevails

The AP blackout dates end on 08/14 this year.

We know machine always win... we cant even beat a computer in chess anymore

 

[jaysmom4285]

For the most part, the updates were kind to us....but still trying to figure out why/how Epcot went from a 1 to a 5 on Oct 2. Conventional wisdom has always been: AVOID F&W ON THE WEEKENDS.... so now it's a 5 on a Thursday and 4 on Friday and 3 on Saturday. Maybe it's because Air Supply is playing that night? Who knows? Not really sure how the computer calculated this one-- especially when Josh (easywdw) is saying Epcot is the best park to be in on that day. It's either the worst or best place to be on 10/2....

TP bases their ratings solely on wait times for the attractions, not on how many people are in the park at any given moment or how crowded it may "feel" to anyone. In Epcot, the major attractions are in Future World, not the World Showcase. TP has often said that, while the World Showcase may be jammed with people for F&W, that has little or no effect on the attractions in the World Showcase. Hence, while F&W is attracting many people to the World Showcase, that can actually decrease crowds, and therefore wait times, in Future World.

 

[DisneyJade]

I have been tracking dates for January, which is usually considered one of the least crowded months, but now the crowd levels look more like mid-July! Many DHS dates show a crowd level of 10! Even AFTER New Years week. Can that be right?

By the way, this thread drew me out of my lurker mode. First post in a few years!

 

[Cando86]

I have been tracking dates for January, which is usually considered one of the least crowded months, but now the crowd levels look more like mid-July! Many DHS dates show a crowd level of 10! Even AFTER New Years week. Can that be right?

By the way, this thread drew me out of my lurker mode. First post in a few years!

I'm going the same time and this had me worried as well. Are you familiar with easywdw.com? I like his site a lot better; he gives explanations for why he recommends certain days and his crowd levels seem much more like January crowds to me.

 

[AngiTN]

TP bases their ratings solely on wait times for the attractions, not on how many people are in the park at any given moment or how crowded it may "feel" to anyone. In Epcot, the major attractions are in Future World, not the World Showcase. TP has often said that, while the World Showcase may be jammed with people for F&W, that has little or no effect on the attractions in the World Showcase. Hence, while F&W is attracting many people to the World Showcase, that can actually decrease crowds, and therefore wait times, in Future World.

I keep hearing that but how can they base a crowd prediction on wait times in the future? Even a computer isn't good enough to see in to the future