TP / KtP contradicting crowd calendars

[Kristin0713]

I'm looking at the week of November 11-16 and their calendars completely contradict on several days, and not just by a little. For example, Monday 11/12 KtP has Epcot and MK a "best" and AK a "worst", TP has Epcot at 9, MK at 7, and AK at 5. It's like that all week, very inconsistent. One will have a certain park rated a "best" and the other has that same park a "worst". I'm not sure how to plan our days now?? If it matters, we are mainly concerned with wait times on rides as opposed to parades, special events, and the general "crowded" feel. I know that TP rates days on wait times, but they are just soooo different than KtP this year that I don't know what to think.

 

[Capang]

I think that park attendance has been different than expected during the last year (slower summer, crowded fall, etc) that this far out it is really tough to predict. Plan what you want and know it will probably be crowded across the board. Crowd calendars at this point are not as useful as they once were. Too many variables they cant account for.

 

[Klayfish]

This is discussed often here. There's a good reason the crowd calendars conflict...I'll be polite and just leave it at that.

Plan your days based on what you want to do.

 

[SaintsManiac]

They're just guessing. That's why they are so different.

 

[Animal]

The phrase, "garbage in, garbage out", comes to mind.

 

[Mrs. Pirate]

It is really just a guessing game anymore. If I understand correctly, Ktp always picks worst for parks that have early or late hours for resort guests. Everyone would have their own opinion on this depending on their touring styles. I love early morning hours and always plan my parks around them. But we rope drop and stay until it gets crowded after lunch and go back for a pool break and siesta before coming back at or after supper. I think the one rule of thumb everyone agrees on though is don't do Magic Kingdom on a Monday.

 

[lynzi2004]

My understanding is that with Disney’s new system of controlling crowds/flow, they try to keep the wait times consistent across the board. So for example, a day that doesn’t “feel” crowded can have just as long of waits as a 10 level crowd. The only reason I would avoid EMH days is if I was an off-site guest and guaranteed to be behind the rope drop crowd on a AM EMH. Otherwise, I would do whatever I wanted on whatever day!

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I think the one rule of thumb everyone agrees on though is don't do Magic Kingdom on a Monday.

And Josh at easyWDW just showed (with data analysis) how everyone is wrong about Mons.

Data is your friend. While it's hard to predict the future, I would put more stock in TP because they are actually looking at the data and using algorithms to analyze it. But it is still a prediction. Make your plans based on the best data you have at the time and what works with your plans. if different calendars conflict, go with the one you trust more or as pp said, just do what you want to do that day and don't worry too much about it.

 

[BMAEC]

I think the actual numbers of the crowd calendars are less important than what info you can get from them about events that are going on during your visit. That doesn’t explain why they conflict though!

With your dates, you’ll be dealing with Christmas parties at MK on certain nights. I consistently read that party days at MK, which close at 6pm to non-party guests, are lower crowds the whole day, but it funnels people into the few non-party days of the given week. If you don’t need to see Happily Ever After Fireworks Show, you can plan your MK days for party days and then try to fill in the other days. If you have park hoppers and want to see HEA, the suggestion is to spend your day at a different park and hop to MK in the evening to watch HEA (consider the HEA Garden View dessert party if you’d like to avoid the scary fireworks crowds on non-party nights). I believe Epcot Food & Wine ends on Nov 12 so that may be why TP has it as a 9 (although that’s Veterans Day so all parks may be a bit more crowded).

I wish I had consulted crowd calendars before choosing our dates simply because I had no idea that the Christmas parties existed! Also the week we are going MK closes early an additional night for a cast member party so there are only two HEA shows that week. I’m a bit nervous of the crowds but we don’t have hoppers and want to see HEA once. It’s also the end of Food & Wine and Jersey week- none of which I knew about when we booked or was making ADRs. I now realize that my strategy (or lack thereof) was completely flawed!