Which Crowd Calendar is More Accurate?

[MusicMouse]

I have never gone to WDW in an extremely busy season, but this year if we want to go we have to go at Spring Break. My ADR window is coming up fast, so I am trying to plan using the projected crowd calendars. Unfortunately, I find that they are in direct opposition with each other on certain days! Which have you found to be more accurate - Touringplans or EasyWDW?

 

[ftballfan7]

Where can one find these crowd calenders?

 

[MusicMouse]

Where can one find these crowd calenders?

Easywdw dot com is free, but Touringplans dot com has a fee that grants you access for one year (there's a discount through MouseSavers this month).

 

[rusty4]

We are going in Feb. and I have found that the 2 sites do not match up at all this trip. I think that I am going to go by easywdw's suggestions. Touring Plans has Epcot as the park to avoid for the entire week we are going.

 

[MHSweb79]

You need to know how the recommended parks are chosen and factor that into your plan.

For example, at Mr. easywdw always avoids parks with EMH. So if you're staying off-site and don't have access to EMH anyway, then these are the recommendations to follow. On the other hand, if you're staying onsite so you can take advantage of EMH (say do morning EMH and then hop to a different park when the big crowds arrive) then easywdw won't be your best bet.

 

[MusicMouse]

You need to know how the recommended parks are chosen and factor that into your plan.

For example, at Mr. easywdw always avoids parks with EMH. So if you're staying off-site and don't have access to EMH anyway, then these are the recommendations to follow. On the other hand, if you're staying onsite so you can take advantage of EMH (say do morning EMH and then hop to a different park when the big crowds arrive) then easywdw won't be your best bet.

Touringplans doesn't recomend parks with EMH either. I'm just trying to find out which ones folks have used and whether they found it to be accurate when they took their trip.

 

[sunburnin]

If you're looking for crowd levels both tools are great. They use different scales but both work well for estimating crowds relative to other days.

If you're looking for park recommendations both are also great, but as mentioned in previous posts, each as different reasons for recommending parks each day. Both have very sound reasoning for doing so. Read each, understand why, factor in how you and your family want to spend your vacation, and accommodate. For example, if you are morning people with park hoppers, touring is a LOT different than evening folks that can visit one park per day. Both work, but differently.

 

[sunburnin]

Touringplans doesn't recomend parks with EMH either. I'm just trying to find out which ones folks have used and whether they found it to be accurate when they took their trip.

I've used touring plans and TGM on our last trip. Used recommended days from both and ended up just fine.

All the sites agree on one thing: a touring plan is a lot more valuable than a recommended park.

 

[rsimon]

I have never gone to WDW in an extremely busy season, but this year if we want to go we have to go at Spring Break. My ADR window is coming up fast, so I am trying to plan using the projected crowd calendars. Unfortunately, I find that they are in direct opposition with each other on certain days! Which have you found to be more accurate - Touringplans or EasyWDW?

You do realize these "crowd calandars" are just wild guesses don't you? It amazes me how much people try and use these vs just looking at the hours of the parks the day before and the day of as well as showtimes like for fantasmic.

 

[MusicMouse]

You do realize these "crowd calandars" are just wild guesses don't you? It amazes me how much people try and use these vs just looking at the hours of the parks the day before and the day of as well as showtimes like for fantasmic.

Well, that's the problem with having to schedule your ADR's 6 months in advance. You have to have at least a skeletal plan in place in order to know which park you will be in on a given day and reserve a table accordingly. When the trip gets much closer, I may have to adjust my schedule the way that you suggest. But for those of us who only get to go to WDW once every 3 or 4 years, a good crowd prediction can be very helpful in order to get the maximum "Disney Experience" during our time there.

 

[kaligal]

Oh, please.

Touringplans.com

 

[MHSweb79]

We did use easywdw.com's recommendations for our off-site trip this past May and it was spot-on in terms of crowds.

Then again, we always show up early, use FP's wisely and know which headliners to hit first thing. We never use a ride-specific touring plan.

If you search long enough, you can find conflicting information on just about anything. Just choose one and stick with that - there's no one, single, "magic" perfect plan. You are already way ahead of the vast majority of Disney visitors and I think you'll be fine!

Have fun

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

We have 'tested' touring plans recommendations in the past and found them to be pretty accurate on overall best/worst parks, but find the per park levels to be off alot. This year we are leaning toward recommendations from easywdw.com b/c Josh explains why he picks each park as recommended or avoid each day and his thought process lines up more closely to the way we tour and what we have experienced in our trips. We also have hoppers so we can leave a park that has AM EMH mid morning to avoid the crowds so we take those into account with our plans and then follow the advice offered for the rest of the day. I also like that easywdw makes updates more quickly when hours change where as anymore tp seems to take a while to get on board with changes if they change them at all.

While neither are perfect and I can come up with my own best/worst parks based on our experience over the years, looking at crowd hours, EMH"s and checking local FL school schedules it sure is alot easier to just pull it up and have that leg work done for me already.