Hi we have our trip planned for first week of Feb 2018. I have seen a couple different closing times for Magic Kingdom from different sites. At this time, they are all “forecasts” but Touring plans is showing Sunday and Friday that MK is open til 10pm, while the other weekdays are 8pm close.
However, I’ve seen some other predicted sites that show ALL days that week (Feb4-9) as closing at 8pm. Can anyone verify one way or another why Touring plans is predicting 10pm close on the weekends? What is real? And what can I plan on?
The issue is that I have to make dining and other reservations but don’t yet have park hours nailed down, and am getting conflicting info out there. Help!!! Thanks
My guess is that is probably what TouringPlans is doing in their forecast calculations. Just looking at some historical info for now. But it really stinks that we don’t get firm numbers from WDW early enough to make all the 180 day reservation plans properly. We will see what happens when we get a couple days closer. Right now they just show to end of Jan, but not releasing any info to Feb unfortunately. Thanks!
When they do post their hours, how possible is it that they move or change that close time? Is it very typical? I understand it might be based on crowd expectations, and such around that time. But if they set it now 5-6 months out, do they ever change? Just curious.
We went to WDW in February 2016, the week before President’s Day. I do remember that they changed MK hour on a friday to 10pm about 2 months out. Otherwise, Touring Plans was very accurate in there predictions! It’s frustrating when Disney wants you to plan 180, 60 days out but they don’t give out the info that early. I’ll try to find my post on crowds during my visit just for your info.
Also if you are on Facebook please look at my post and join if you’re interested!
It’s very odd - WDW did not post a TA calendar beyond December 2017, and they usually do this before the 180 day for the first day of the month in question. Either that, or they have yet again changed where it is posted. Any Liner TA’s have any info on this?
Yes we are using the Touring plan crowd calendar to zero in on options for the lowest crowd/non peak time of the year. So we grabbed that week in Feb as an option and booked. The “predictions” look ok at this point, but your 2016 historical info is scaring me…you experienced significantly high crowds in a non peak season! The touring plan predicts 3s and 4s so we are betting on that! (up to 5 on weekend). Hope this holds out for sure!
We’ve hit various seasons throughout the years, and as WDW gets busier, we are starting to try to plan around crowds. The last two trips we went in October, but the last time was seriously busy, seemed like summer–which we swore off summers 8 years ago! So that put us on track to start watching crowd calendars and seek off peak options. I am tired of lines!
I did a little quick review and research of your dates again, and it might explain the crowds. (I hope). When you went Feb-7 thru 13, Presidents day was on Monday 15th. So you basically preceded and butted up against the holiday and would see that holiday crowd.
In 2018 we are going Feb 4-9, and Presidents day is on Mon the 19th! So that is 10 days away, and means we should preceded that holiday, (as well as the Valentines day holiday), so we get a pretty good buffer week built in. So it makes me feel we can expect the lower crowd being predicted on TP. I was getting a bit nervous there…
So glad I read this post! This is my families first trip to Walt Disney World. We are going Feb 15-Feb 22, I totally picked those days because the kids are on vacation from school. I had NO IDEA wdw was so busy those times, and I had no clue Disney required so much advanced planning. Good thing I didnt wait last minute to book vacations like I usually do. Frontier Airlines was running a promotion so I booked immediately flights to Orlando… Disney was an after thought - but good thing I started learning about the ins and outs early! Phew…
I joined the group and I look forward to learning and sharing iteneraries and what not! Thank you.
Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you! I do think you are going at a great time. Also, even though we had some days with larger crowds our Touring Plans worked perfectly!! Enjoy your trip.