TouringPlans emailed me to update crowd calendar

[OtherScott]

Touring Plans crowd calendar isn't based on how crowded the park feels, its based on predicted wait times.

They factor both, at least on my account

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

We were there during that time in 2013, and the first week of December is traditionally a very slow time, actually. Seeing 1s on the calendar wouldn't be all that unusual. They do a party for Pop Warner during that week in the evening at DHS, and my understanding is that the park was absolutely dead that day because it closed so early. Might have something to do with it.

Interesting, thanks for the info. I am hoping to plan HS on one of those days, regardless if it remains 1.

 

[Lefty33]

I've used TP the last three times that we've been to WDW I think I got maybe one email from them correcting a day that I was tracking via their site but for our most recent stay at the beginning of last month I got either three or maybe four emails at first changing the numbers from a bunch of '1s, 2's and 3's to 5's and 6's just to have it get changed back to mostly 2's and 3's right before we left.

In the end TP was way off (unfortunately they should have stuck with the 5’s and 6’s instead of the 2’s and 3’s) most of our seven days as it seems like they didn’t take into account the large amount of visitors from South America who come in February plus the larger than expected wait times due to the FP+ rollout.

But for the sake of full disclosure Josh over at easywdw didn’t exactly come any closer either with his guesses as for how much he likes to take cheap shots at TP, he too was wildly off for most of that week. I think for the foreseeable future you have to take these crowd calendar sights with a grain of salt more than ever as it’s was only ever a “best guess” to begin with and now they both are dealing with factors that clearly they have yet to wrap their heads around.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

They factor both, at least on my account

It's my understanding that they factor many things into their calculations, but they are ultimately predicting an average wait time, which corresponds to a crowd level number

According their own website:

What is a 'Crowd'?

We at Touring Plans define a 'crowd' as the average posted wait time for the key attractions between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm. We selected this definition for many reasons.


What are the key attractions that make up the crowd calendar?

These are the attractions that relate best to how the crowds feel in the parks. The wait time at Magic Carpets of Aladdin for example, relates poorly to the crowds in the rest of the park. It is less popular than Dumbo, rarely has a wait time above 30 minutes and has very little little variability throughout the year. Soarin' however relates very strongly to how the rest of Epcot feels. If Soarin' hits 200 minutes, you know it is a busy day.

For your reference, here is the list:

Key Attractions Used In The Crowd Calendar


Magic Kingdom

The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan's Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain



Epcot
Living with the Land, Mission Space, Soarin', Spaceship Earth, Test Track



Disney Hollywood Studios

Great Movie Ride, Rock 'n Roller Coaster, Star Tours, Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror



Animal Kingdom
Dinosaur, Expedition Everest, Kali River Rapids, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Primeval Whirl

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

They've been doing crowd tracker email updates for at least 2 years. They are always tweaking the data. Don't be surprised if you get another email that something changed again.

 

[blackthidot]

The biggest thing to realize here is that it is a PREDICTION.

The information that is given is based off of that days historical pattern. After my last trip in October TP was WAY off then they went back in and changed their "What we saw" and "What we predicted". I left and everything on my sheet up until leaving the airplane showed everything at a 2-3-4 and sometimes 5 of 10. When we got back I went back to check on how they matched up because it was so far off and all the numbers had changed to basically fall right in line with what actually happened.

For something you have to pay for, that is insane and wrong. Even IF that changed the day of or the day before...it's too late then. You have made your plans for the day already, ADR's and whatnot.

Most people who are not FLA residents are planning well beyond 30 days out. At least those who know what we are doing or those with good travel agents. Changing your predictors 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days out really does not do anyone any good. I mean if you are paying to use TP you should be labeled as a planner right? No real planner plans a vacation to Disney World 2 weeks out unless its some crazy spur of the moment trip and if you do that you can expect things to be crazy and hectic the whole time.

I do not really mind if they get it wrong, or REALLY wrong...but don't change what you predicted.

Right now they have Epcot at 1 of 10 on the day Food and Wine starts.

 

[jvattes]

The biggest thing to realize here is that it is a PREDICTION.

The information that is given is based off of that days historical pattern. After my last trip in October TP was WAY off then they went back in and changed their "What we saw" and "What we predicted". I left and everything on my sheet up until leaving the airplane showed everything at a 2-3-4 and sometimes 5 of 10. When we got back I went back to check on how they matched up because it was so far off and all the numbers had changed to basically fall right in line with what actually happened.

For something you have to pay for, that is insane and wrong. Even IF that changed the day of or the day before...it's too late then. You have made your plans for the day already, ADR's and whatnot.

Most people who are not FLA residents are planning well beyond 30 days out. At least those who know what we are doing or those with good travel agents. Changing your predictors 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days out really does not do anyone any good. I mean if you are paying to use TP you should be labeled as a planner right? No real planner plans a vacation to Disney World 2 weeks out unless its some crazy spur of the moment trip and if you do that you can expect things to be crazy and hectic the whole time.

I do not really mind if they get it wrong, or REALLY wrong...but don't change what you predicted.

Right now they have Epcot at 1 of 10 on the day Food and Wine starts.

I guess I could see your point if I used the crowd calendar to select my vacation dates. In that case I guess I would feel robbed.

I use the site for the plans more than anything else. We are, for several reasons, limited as to when we can travel and that happens to coincide with high season at WDW. So I would be surprised if any of our days were less than an 8 on any calendar.

 

[blackthidot]

I guess I could see your point if I used the crowd calendar to select my vacation dates. In that case I guess I would feel robbed.

I use the site for the plans more than anything else. We are, for several reasons, limited as to when we can travel and that happens to coincide with high season at WDW. So I would be surprised if any of our days were less than an 8 on any calendar.

Yeah when you're a "Disney Planning Expert" like all of our friends and we like to think we are you know the time of year that is going to be dead or busy.

When we arrived the first week of October this year it was complete madness from what was predicted and what we were used to. I used TP just to see how it would match it with what I thought myself and what actually happened.

In terms of what I thought it would be like...they were spot on. In terms of what actually happened...we both could not have been more wrong. Thing is, I did not come back home talking about "Yeah I predicted that would happen." I maintained that "I never expected anything like that."

 

[jvattes]

Yeah when you're a "Disney Planning Expert" like all of our friends and we like to think we are you know the time of year that is going to be dead or busy.

When we arrived the first week of October this year it was complete madness from what was predicted and what we were used to. I used TP just to see how it would match it with what I thought myself and what actually happened.

In terms of what I thought it would be like...they were spot on. In terms of what actually happened...we both could not have been more wrong. Thing is, I did not come back home talking about "Yeah I predicted that would happen." I maintained that "I never expected anything like that."

That would stink

For our part, re: the plans, we LOVED them and never felt like it was an 8 of a day because of them. The only day that wasn't stellar was the one day we didn't - for a number of reasons - follow the plan. We hope this trip will be the same

 

[blackthidot]

That would stink

For our part, re: the plans, we LOVED them and never felt like it was an 8 of a day because of them. The only day that wasn't stellar was the one day we didn't - for a number of reasons - follow the plan. We hope this trip will be the same

Yeah their detailed plans will help.

If you have a plan and stick to it you will be "okay".

We ALWAYS go Aug/Sept/Oct and we plan our days in terms of what water park we are going to, what park is open latest and where our ADRs are. We NEVER EVER planned to arrive anywhere at a certain time, ride this first, then get a FP for that, then ride this, use the FP, then get another FP for something, ride two other things, eat, use the FP etc...

We always got to the parks and just roamed around because it's usually dead in those months.

If I/we had ANY indication that crowd levels wold be 6's and 7's I could have planned for that better. We arrived there, we were shocked/stunned and never really recovered expect the nights MK stayed open till 3am. THAT is when we did all of our damage and got everything back to "normal" so to speak.

 

[Hoodie]

I monitored TP for about a month before we went and their "how did we do?" each day was pretty bad. Predictions of level 3, actually level 8 bad. That's not even in the same neighborhood.

Josh at easywdw just posted that they are getting the historical data on waits post FP+ and he will be looking at it and revising predictions as necessary. I'm sure TP has access to the same data tables and are doing the same thing. Unfortunately all of them based their crowd predictions on historical trends and with FP+, all that has gone out the window. I'd say any crowd calendars right now probably won't be accurate.

 

[donnajherren]

How are crowd levels rising when Disney has disenfranchised so many loyal guests?

From the Touring Plans website:

"We at Touring Plans define a 'crowd' as the average posted wait time for the key attractions between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm."

 

[FutureMayor]

The crowds are larger and on a more consistent basis. Disney has made a concerted effort to maximize the revenue it can get out of each guest at each price point.

Think about how carefully special events are placed... RunDisney events in Jan and Feb, Flower and Garden in March and April, and Star Wars weekends in May (of which there are now 5).

The summer needs no special events.

September and October have Food & Wine to pull adults into the parks. The first MNSSHP is in August this year while the last is in November... Halloween will be celebrated over 4 months. November gives us another RunDisney event just as Food & Wine is ending. Then the Christmas season kicks in.

The investment made by Disney into MyDisneyExperience is designed to maximize the number of guests in the parks on EACH operating day. If this system works the way it is intended, it will provide Disney with the information necessary to smooth out the peaks and valleys in crowd levels.

Their goal does not appear to be to give 'power-users' a better over-all experience. Their goal is to continue to maximize revenues from the theme parks while maintaining high satisfaction for all users.

Unfortunately for all of us, we're going to see crowd levels rise at both the resorts and the parks. While I like the idea of more people experiencing the parks, I don't really like it in practice. I'm sure most of you guys would agree with me there.

 

[blackthidot]

The crowds are larger and on a more consistent basis. Disney has made a concerted effort to maximize the revenue it can get out of each guest at each price point.

Think about how carefully special events are placed... RunDisney events in Jan and Feb, Flower and Garden in March and April, and Star Wars weekends in May (of which there are now 5).

The summer needs no special events.

September and October have Food & Wine to pull adults into the parks. The first MNSSHP is in August this year while the last is in November... Halloween will be celebrated over 4 months. November gives us another RunDisney event just as Food & Wine is ending. Then the Christmas season kicks in.

The investment made by Disney into MyDisneyExperience is designed to maximize the number of guests in the parks on EACH operating day. If this system works the way it is intended, it will provide Disney with the information necessary to smooth out the peaks and valleys in crowd levels.

Their goal does not appear to be to give 'power-users' a better over-all experience. Their goal is to continue to maximize revenues from the theme parks while maintaining high satisfaction for all users.

Unfortunately for all of us, we're going to see crowd levels rise at both the resorts and the parks. While I like the idea of more people experiencing the parks, I don't really like it in practice. I'm sure most of you guys would agree with me there.

Yeah for sure. You're 100% right and more.

My issue with them guessing predictions is when it's way off they change it to say that they predicted it as it happened in real life. That was not the case.

Below is an excel sheet of our plans. You can clearly see what they predicted. I updated this sheet on the airplane TO Disney.

Below is what they changed everything to once I got back to work on the 24th.

The second half of the vaca REALLY is amazing to see the changes they went back and made. The first half was not so bad.

 

[Belle5]

When you are logged in you can click on a date and select "Track this day". When anything changes they will send you an email.

Thanks! I am now tracking all 10 days of our December vacation!

 

[jbeyes]

I also got an email update from Touring Plans yesterday for dates in May 2015 that aren't even posted on the website yet and probably won't be for a couple more months. Not sure what that's all about

 

[Disneyhabs]

Ok I have to ask why would people pay to get the same info you can find easily all over the place online?

 

[2Tiggies]

I also got an email update from Touring Plans yesterday for dates in May 2015 that aren't even posted on the website yet and probably won't be for a couple more months. Not sure what that's all about

Touringplans use software to generate their predictions and I am guessing that as the system changes or changes are programmed into it - and that will be happening a lot with the current changes as they have to continue to adapt - that it systematically generates an email update. So most probably the email you got was because they tweaked the system and it automatically made changes to the tracked days for next year, rather than it being based on new information they hold for that period, as clearly they don't have that right now.

 

[cigar95]

The second half of the vaca REALLY is amazing to see the changes they went back and made. The first half was not so bad.

I think I can see part of the cause for your observations. Your spreadsheet shows numbers with decimal points, which means it would have been data from Crowd Calendar 2.0. It was just about this time that the guys updated the system to Crowd Calendar 4.0, which does not have decimals.

This change automatically changed data almost every day. The numbers between the two calendars are not directly comparable. With the new calendar, there will be very few 1s, not many 2s, and a lot fewer 9s and 10s. Another aspect of the new calendar is that there are expected to be fewer significant updates as dates get closer.

Looking at the second set of numbers, the predictions were pretty darn close.

 

[Redmic]

Ok I have to ask why would people pay to get the same info you can find easily all over the place online?

I subscribe because I can make my own touring plans based on the hours I want to spend in each park on a particular day, and the program will evaluate and optimize my plan for me. I put in only the particular attractions I'm interested in, my 3 fast pass selections, and voila: a workable personalized plan that I can print out and take with me. We like to take a mid day break, so we probably end up touring about 8 hours total, so our plans look different than the standardized plans.