I had tried to make the best of the fact that when I purchased my tickets the days I was looking at were CL 2-4 and now they are mostly 4-6. But with the way DWR is run, we are now locked into these dates.
So, I had picked the best days with lowest CL predictions…and now last night the parks I am planning to visit jumped up 1-2 CL points while others moved down 1-3 CL points. Do I change my plans (tossing out the FPP reservations that I have already made for 3 of the days) in order to have a CL 2 at HS instead of 6 or do I ride it out as we already have some FPP for those parks?
Signed,
Missing the old days when everyone had the same change at grabbing a FP paper ticket day in the parks
Thank you for your kind words…I know that makes sense, but it is so hard to trust the plan when the CL change so much…just overthinking things here late at night.
I think you’ll be ok!!! A good plan trumps CL every time. I wouldn’t toss everything. I would probably re-evaluate my TPs and note how wait times change. Or maybe make a copy of your plans and re-optimize to see if the TP changed the order of anything.
I was looking back on my last trip the other day and both of our MK days were an 8 and we had a blast and got tons done. I think going in expecting it to be crowded (which - honestly - it always FEELS pretty crowded to me. I’ve been on CL 3 days where I thought the park seemed full or lines seemed long.) is a good way to go. That way, if it’s not bad - bonus!! But if it’s crowded you’re brain is already in that space - not disappointed because you expected it to be less crowded.
This exactly. I bet if you evaluate wait times don’t change that much. Remember too that CLs reflect wait times only not actual crowds. There was a lot of panic this time last year too. Don’t stress out - with a good plan you’ll be fine.
You will be fine! So many things change in wdw on a regular basis that it makes it difficult at times but it is always great! I always plan for larger than expected crowds. A good plan will always be the most important factor in your day.
A 1 to 2 CL change will probably have little effect on the total wait time of your TPs if you re-optimize - that is the beauty of the system, in that it finds new ‘sweet spots’ that allow you to make the most of the day. It is the people who go without a plan that are most affected by CL changes.
I am staying the course…however the reason I was questioning was not a 1 to a 2 CL…it was a 1 to a 4 CL. On my first day, the park I had scheduled to visit has moved to a 6 where another park had moved down to a 2. And that 2 CL was the best I am seeing for my entire trip now. A move of 1 CL point would not have been so bad.
I’d use UT instead for crowd levels. I’m seeing too many oddities with the TP CLs to take a lot of stock in the changes this far out.
For example, the email yesterday I received indicated that one of the days the CL for all of WDW would INCREASE from a 5 to a 6…but the only actual park CL that changed was for AK, which went DOWN. And this isn’t an outlier. I just don’t trust their algorithm for this kind of thing.
Thus far, my results from UT have been trustworthy.
What I DO trust from TP, however, are the wait time calculations for the rides in any given day. So, rather than plan based on the CLs specifically, you could take a plan you make for, say, EPCOT, on one day, copy it to another day and then reevaluate it to see how it compares.
Oh, one more note: A couple months back, I had received an email about an increase in the CL for one of the park days I had. So, I went into my plan and reevaluated it for the same day. My overall waits for the day actually went DOWN, not up, because the TP itself already had a good arrangement of rides, having me avoid the rides when the lines were the longest.
But you have to remember that the TP CL’s are for wait times for rides. The difference between a 1 and a 4 CL is, according to TP, between 10 and 30 minutes wait time difference. The parks are going to feel crowded regardless, so I think you’re far better off with a good plan and good fastpasses than switching things up at the last minute.
I do t think UT and TP are predicting the same things with their crowd calendars?
Personally, I was a big UT fan. I actually used them before TPs. Then, I discovered they were reporting wait times for closed attractions. I know they shut down their app after that but I am hesitant to trust them again.
Yes…the same things, but I’ve found the UT crowd calendar quite helpful in deciding which days to go to which parks. The numbers I’m getting from TP seem to be very unintuitive.
I’ve never used UT for any feet-on-the-ground purposes, just as input in choosing park days. I’ve also looked at KtP’s crowd calendar. Sometimes all three (UT, KtP, and TP) will give opposing recommendations. Trouble is with KtP is he is applying some “common sense” choices that turn out to be invalid when you look at the data, so I’m not as keen on using his numbers.
Actually, at one point, I made an elaborate chart where I mapped all of the park days and plugged in all three site CLs to see if I could find enough consensus. It really was all over the place.
Then, I read a very long article about looking at days of the week, and which parks most likely have higher versus lower crowds, and used that information. It did seem fairly well in line with the UT recommendations.
In the end, though, after making a preliminary choice, I ended up making plans and copying them across different days to see which ones evaluated best in the TP itself. In the end, there was generally not a significant difference if you have a good TP in place anyhow.
I personally have stopped using any crowd calendar and just go with what park we want to do. KTP and UT have differing recommendations. For example, KtP usually has Sundays for MK as green (best park) and UT does not. I personally have done a Sunday at MK and the crowds were not bad at all. We did everything we wanted (and more) with minimal waits. But KtP has been wrong as well.
Crowd calendars are a matter of perspective. I wouldn’t switch around plans for them.
I love TP but any CL # that is more than 60 days out I no longer trust. Wait and see… it’ll fluctuate. TP only updates about 60 days in advance and copies & pastes the previous years historical info into the farther away future dates.
Each crowd calendar has their own way of getting their number. I like to look at multiples to get a better idea of when it is a “slower” time to go. CLs for a specific date aren’t reliable .
As stated a good TP will put you ahead of 85%+ of the people wandering around asking, “Well… what do you want to do next?”
Sorry, but I’ve seen too many injuries and actual fights break out with people racing and arguing over paper passes. Let’s just eliminate FastPass all together and give everyone an opportunity to ride if they want to wait. The overall standby queues would drop by 25% - 30% by getting rid of FastPass.
Just for comparison, the only times I’ve been able to go were mostly CL 10 days. So to me a 4 - 6 sounds amazing. If it were me I’d keep the plans intact unless there were a really good reason to change (like, a day that was supposed to be a 1 is now a 6 and the goal was to ride all the rides).
