Any Major Difference Between 1-3 Crowd Levels and 3 to 5 Type Crowd Levels?

Moving my trip from 9/7 - 9/13 to 9/14 - 9/20 in order to save a little bit of money. But our crowd levels are going to change slightly with this change and most of my 1 and 2 types days are going to become 3 to 5s. When it comes to the crowd feel and wait times, is there going to be a major difference between crowds that are 1s to 3s as opposed to 3s to 5s?

Thanks!

In the good old days I would have said yes. However, lately WDW has been monkeying around with things during times of supposedly lower CLs (understaffing, reducing the number of ride vehicles in action, inflating posted wait times, etc.). This appears to have made lower CL days “feel like” higher CLs days in terms of wait times and general crowding.

As always, a well-made TP will negate much of effect of a higher CL.

2 Likes

That will depend on whose crowd calendar you are using. If you are using the TP calendar, then the CL should automatically adjust itself to match actual wait times, even if Disney is monkeying with them.

If you are using something like UT, etc., then I would tend to agree that a CL 1 might feel like a CL 3, etc.

I’m pretty much going off of Touring Plans at this point.

I believe that the models are trying to take this into account, but WDW seems to be especially creative lately in how they eff things up. A day that was predicted as a 2 (and should have been a 2), can end up actually being a 5 is what I’m trying to say, and this seems to be happening more to what should be lower CL days. As a result, I don’t think that going from predicted CL 1-3 days to CL 3-5 days will make much of a difference on the actual day.

1 Like

Well, judging from the UT CLs (which I have used for years, and found them quite reliable), they don’t list any real differences in the CLs for the weeks you list. Almost entirely 5s no matter which week you pick.

This has been my problem with the TP CLs. They are constantly trying to play around with things, making their predictions in constant flux. I’m not really convinced they are any more accurate for it, overall. But, as I’ve said in the past, I feel TPs strength is NOT in the Crowd Calendar, but in their help in planning an individual day in any given park. I still rely on UT for overall crowd calendar predictions. They haven’t failed me yet.