Which site is more accurate, Kenny the Pirate or Touring Plans?

[adelew]

What do you mean by you kean top his opinion?

I think it's just a typo for "I lean toward his opinion"

 

[kennythepirate]

I take it back. It's only the 29th that conflicts.

I wouldn't know what any conflicts are but Monday at MK isn't a good choice as reflected in my earlier numbers.

 

[Dumbo777]

Everyone loves stats, right? I have a scale that I created that basically runs from 600 to 1800 in determining crowd levels for Magic Kingdom. Here's the actual totals from this past week:
Sunday 10-1 627 Moderate Overall / Green Park
Monday 10-2 1146 Moderate Overall / Red Park
Tuesday 10-3 620 Light Overall / Green Park
Wednesday 10-4 1291 Light Overall / Red Park
Thursday 10-5 624 Light Overall / Green Park
Friday 10-6 920 Moderate Overall / Median Park
Saturday 10-7 1536 Moderate Overall / Red Park

If you picked Wed, you picked the 2nd worst day to attend the Magic Kingdom. I think I predicted this past week pretty well, don't you?

I'm looking at Wednesday April 18 2018. I'm wondering are the crowds really going to be insane for MK?

 

[mamamelody2]

They have different approaches. TP may have MK 4, EP 2, HS 3, AK 2. That is low crowds for MK, but it is still the "worst park".
I use both sites.

 

[PatMcDuck]

I try to avoid EMH parks, because more and more people are trying to get by without park hoppers.

Sometimes I cannot avoid a EMH park because of other conflicts, like MNSSHP being most nights in October. I just don't worry about it, and ride my 3 FP+ rides and enjoy the day.

 

[kennythepirate]

I'm looking at Wednesday April 18 2018. I'm wondering are the crowds really going to be insane for MK?

It says "Moderate Crowds" and "Worst Park"

 

[Dumbo777]

It says "Moderate Crowds" and "Worst Park"

So why is it the worst park?

 

[OB1]

Will be interesting to try. I leave tomorrow for a biz trip in Orlando, and of course, will get a chance to play at WDW. I have TUES all day, and then SUN for the first half (got my FOP FP for that morning). Kenny lists as INSANE CROWDS. That is not good knowing that this is normally not as busy, but of course, it is the week than many school systems up north are out. No matter, will have a good time. Looks extra hot for the week, so that should make crowds even more fun.

FYI - I have never checked Kenny before. Normally a TP or EasyWDW, but after reading so many people referring to Kenny, I thought I better give it a look.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

So why is it the worst park?

Probably because of EMH at MK that day

 

[leahlefler]

I'm using KTP for our February (President's Day) trip. We know the crowds will be heavy in general and insane on President's Day - we're doing EPCOT (recommended park) on the insane day and I booked Hoop De Doo for dinner that night. Even if the park is nuts, at least we have a guaranteed dinner show.

 

[Dumbo777]

Will be interesting to try. I leave tomorrow for a biz trip in Orlando, and of course, will get a chance to play at WDW. I have TUES all day, and then SUN for the first half (got my FOP FP for that morning). Kenny lists as INSANE CROWDS. That is not good knowing that this is normally not as busy, but of course, it is the week than many school systems up north are out. No matter, will have a good time. Looks extra hot for the week, so that should make crowds even more fun.

FYI - I have never checked Kenny before. Normally a TP or EasyWDW, but after reading so many people referring to Kenny, I thought I better give it a look.

I would be interested to here how it goes.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I'm sticking with KtP and managing my expectations. Crowds don't bother us as much as they do others, but we have a good plan. Character Locator is worth the money.

 

[qman6975]

After six trips I've learned a few rules we live by:

- Arrive early, regardless of EMH, the first hour or two at any park is relatively quiet.
- Avoid EMH days as the draw bigger crowds or arrive early and be prepared to hop to another park.
- Go the day after the park has had a EMH.
- Use FastPass starting late morning into early afternoon, that allows you access rides when the parks are at their busiest and finish your FastPasses early enough to pick up the 4th FastPass for sometime later in the day.
- Understand what rides are most popular and what rides you can access all day. If you are on the Carousel of Progress or Small World at 10:00 am you have a bad plan.
- Do not accept a wait time of more than an hour, as much as you might want to experience a certain attraction few things are worth waiting over an hour to do.
- RELAX, you are on vacation in the most fun place in the world.

 

[Dumbo777]

After six trips I've learned a few rules we live by:

- Arrive early, regardless of EMH, the first hour or two at any park is relatively quiet.
- Avoid EMH days as the draw bigger crowds or arrive early and be prepared to hop to another park.
- Go the day after the park has had a EMH.
- Use FastPass starting late morning into early afternoon, that allows you access rides when the parks are at their busiest and finish your FastPasses early enough to pick up the 4th FastPass for sometime later in the day.
- Understand what rides are most popular and what rides you can access all day. If you are on the Carousel of Progress or Small World at 10:00 am you have a bad plan.
- Do not accept a wait time of more than an hour, as much as you might want to experience a certain attraction few things are worth waiting over an hour to do.
- RELAX, you are on vacation in the most fun place in the world.

Thank you. This helps alot especially since my ADR dates are the seventeenth and Im starting to feel more stressed. Not to mention in charge of a major fundraiser on Friday. So my blood pressure is going up a bit.

 

[mountdew1]

Can't speak to KTP's numbers, but TPs has years of data they use to make their predictions. And they usually have people in the parks each day collecting additional data points to further refine the model, as well as compare their predictions to observed crowds/waits. @lentesta even gives presentations at conferences/colleges about their algorithm and how it beats pretty much every major statistical model that they throw their data at.

Having any plan is better than no plan at all. There will be a bit of slosh in any numbers/rating given and that could be enough to shift one park high and another park low, while in reality that slosh may be minimal at best. Until WDW releases their own numbers/predictions, there will be flaws in any model. But pick one, and stick with it. Otherwise you will never be happy as models almost never align.

 

[Dumbo777]

Can't speak to KTP's numbers, but TPs has years of data they use to make their predictions. And they usually have people in the parks each day collecting additional data points to further refine the model, as well as compare their predictions to observed crowds/waits. @lentesta even gives presentations at conferences/colleges about their algorithm and how it beats pretty much every major statistical model that they throw their data at.

Having any plan is better than no plan at all. There will be a bit of slosh in any numbers/rating given and that could be enough to shift one park high and another park low, while in reality that slosh may be minimal at best. Until WDW releases their own numbers/predictions, there will be flaws in any model. But pick one, and stick with it. Otherwise you will never be happy as models almost never align.

I'm just curious as to why emh make it the worst park.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

I'm just curious as to why emh make it the worst park.

because more people go to the extra time in the park and not everyone has hopper tickets to go to another park if too crowded

 

[kennythepirate]

So why is it the worst park?

Because more people will attend the park which means you'll wait longer for every attraction.

 

[Ava]

Touring Plans only uses attraction wait times to determine their crowd levels. Which is probably the most important thing to most people, not waiting in long lines for the rides. But it doesn’t take into account things like Food & Wine at Epcot that make the park more crowded without necessarily affecting measurable attraction wait times.

I look at both TP and KtP’s crowd calendars to help me choose which park to visit each day. Then I use josh’s cheat sheets for my actual touring plan, with some help from KtP’s when I want to add more character meets into the day. It worked pretty well for our last week of August trip this year (although crowds were pretty low that week in general). Between our touring plans & FP+ we really didn’t wait longer than 20 minutes for anything. And we only made it to rope drop one day out of six.

 

[lovethesun12]

So why is it the worst park?

Evening and morning EMH. Went that day over Easter one time and it was complete insanity.