We will be at the WDW from 11/2 till 11/6. The crowd calendars are very
Different if you look at TP and UT. I have seen this brought up in past posts. My last several trips have been at very peak seasons, so I didn’t even compare data. iTs a marathon weekend and food and wine festival. Wondering which will be more accurate. UT has predicted a higher crowd level. Any thoughts? I have had lots of success using the customized TP so that won’t change, just wondering what to expect.
It is a difficult question to answer, because it comes down to a matter of perception. See, both calendars might be entirely accurate based on THEIR METHOD of calculation. The question is which calendar better reflects your personal EXPERIENCE of what the parks feel like. For me, that’s where I prefer UT. It “feels” more right based on what I experience. But a 7 for TP doesn’t mean it is the same as a 7 for UT.
Back on my trip to Universal, on the first couple days we were there, both reported a 2. That felt about right. But on our fouth day, UT reported a 4, whereas TP still reported a 2. Thing is, the crowds and lines were roughly twice what they were on the first couple days. UT reflected this change. TP did not.
I think what is more important is looking at the RELATIVE values each reports. During those days, for example, UT reports this:
CLs 5, 7 (Saturday), 6, 5, 5 (Don’t forget that UT also has red/green adjustments for each individual park.)
What would be odd is if TP (which I don’t have access to at the moment for WDW) showed something like:
CLs 4, 5, 6, 7, 7
This would not match up with the relative changes in the parks that UT predicts.
Based on the UT CLs, we would expect Saturday and Sunday to be the busiest days…which makes sense.
I’m going to be there 11/2 - 11/4 and I’ve been doing the same comparisons between TP and UT. I’m torn between “plan conservatively in case it’s busy” and FOMO if I plan conservatively but it’s actually not busy, and we could have packed more stuff in.
Is there any way to construct a TP here and override the expected CL? For instance, could I put together a plan and say “evaluate this as if it was a CL 6 day, and not a CL 3 day as currently predicted”?
It might be nice to have a couple of contingency plans prepared up front so that it’s easier to switch plans once we’re in the park and see how things shake out.
(I understand that the “optimize” tool lets the computer figure out an updated plan, but that’s painful for me because we’re using the DAS on some rides. I can quasi-emulate those using FP+, but not in a way that’s very “optimize friendly” IME)
We are also there at that time (11/2-11/7) and I’m expecting crowds to be much higher. I also compared the same week to last year and the predictions were lower then what was actually seen. Don’t forget to throw Jersey week into the mix.
I survived 8 and 9 days at Disneyland Resort in CA in the middle of July, so I figured it can’t be as bad.
You can pick a different date for your plan to optimize for, one with a different predicted crowd level. Make multiple copies of you plan for different dates. I did this and it helped a lot, although the first one ended up being quite accurate.
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