I’m not sure that this is the case - the crowd patterns you mention have existed for many years, not just a couple, so I don’t think that this would account for the sudden jump in crowds in 2018. I think that the biggest factor was the more aggressive attraction throttling that WDW put into place last year which really affected wait times (and therefore TP CLs). Although WDW has said that this was a mistake and would not be repeated, TP has still accounted for the risk that at least some degree of throttling will occur.
3 Likes
Okay, as noted by the early risers, or late to bed @mgrayar 
, Sunday had a couple of overestimates, one spot on, and our first underestimate of a 4 at AK which turned out to be a 7.
(See figures updated each day in the OP.)
This coming week has some very high estimates from Thursday, especially at HS and slightly less so, AK, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how those work out. I can’t see why on earth HS would have CL10s the third week of January but they did a couple of days this time last year but the rest of the time were lower, and had the Disney throttling to contend with.
Do you have sources for that? I’d love to see what was said as none of this was on my radar this time last year.
2 Likes
Len posted it, I don’t remember when. Probably in answer to someone’s question here.
3 Likes
I think that crowd levels are MOSTLY predicated by school schedules. When school is out (whether summer vacations, spring break, mid-winter break, etc) crowd levels go up. Times when it is LEAST convenient for parents to take kids out of school is when crowds are lowest. For example, first week of September is typically when nearly ALL schools have started back across the country. Few parents will be willing to have their kids miss their first or second week of school. So, crowds are low. Similarly, first week of December, first weeks of February, etc.
Now, other factors can play a role, and Disney does have events to try to sway people during the lower periods (marathons, festivals, etc), but I think school plays the most significant role.
2 Likes
AK has amEMH on Mondays, so it looks like my avoid EMH (off-site) strategy is going to pay off.
It was mentioned in this thread:
I’m following along with interest.
Another couple of days numbers up now and besides one correct prediction, all were overestimates, including a 6 prediction with a 1 actual for HS yesterday!
5 Likes
Thank you for taking the time to do this and reporting back!
It’s starting to look like there’s no such thing as a low crowd (line) day at AK anymore. Even the slowest days seem to be in the moderate range. Just not enough attractions to disperse the crowd enough. FP and TP to the rescue.
1 Like
This has been the trouble with both parks built after EPCOT Center since forever.
The only reason that Modern Epcot isn’t suffering it is because the park is so massively huge.
So interesting that AK has been busier than MK nearly every day. I wouldn’t have guessed that, but there are significantly fewer attractions there, so everybody ends up in the same lines.
AK has been pretty busy on a daily basis since they opened up Pandora.
2 Likes
Makes sense. Crazy that it still hasn’t died down.
Thanks, @SimonUK, I’m eagerly following, too. Today will be our first day in, ill-advisedly going to MK for sentimental reasons. This info has been much reassuring!
trend continued yesterday. Epcot and HS significant overestimate, MK & AK minor.
More data in and just about enough to have some fun with, and what does fun with figures look like? That’s right, some graphs! (Yes I studied economics, it’s not my fault).
Plus I just finished booking all my FPPs so now I have to fill the void.
So that doesn’t really tell you much although it made me wonder if each park had a colour associated with it. And it looked pretty.
More interesting is actually the average CL levels so far:
Magic Kingdom - Actual 4.5 (Predicted - 6)
Epcot Actual - 2.9 (Predicted = 5.2)
Hollywood Studios Actual - 4.4 (Predicted - 8.0)
Animal Kingdom Actual - 5.6 (Predicted - 6.9)
Overall average CL - Actual 4.4 (Predicted 6.5)
(These are just the mean average, not how CL states it’s overall CL figures)
So that’s an average over prediction of just over 2, with MK and AK being closest, while EP and especially HS have been way out with the new figures so far.
Okay, I know you want them, and these are actually more useful, the individual graphs look like this:
I’ll update these again when we have another big chunk of data, maybe the end of the month. But overall we see a pattern of overestimation of crowds so far with the new predictions, which ultimately is great news for all those who were worried by them, and importantly signals that it’s unlikely Disney has throttled ride capacity the way it did last year. ,
Thanks for all the encouraging feedback and likes. I’ll keep updating the original post with the new figures, but remember TP are brilliant in being open about all this and you can look them up yourselves, but just on a day to day basis by just going to the crowd calendar date you’re interested in, e.g. https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-calendar/date/2019-01-18
Thoughts and analysis all very welcome everyone!
Simon
18 Likes
Well done. And with us leaving in 6 days, very reassuring.
2 Likes
Okay, yesterday hurt. A couple of actual CL10s at MK and AK, with the first day so far with three CLs above predicted.
However, I guess this is mostly down to it being a public holiday on Monday, and what TP theorised about the super high levels at Thanksgiving perhaps being an indicator that any other similar breaks may suffer. Certainly true for yesterday. Last year they stayed higher but much of that may have been due to the capacity games Disney were playing, which appear not to be happening this year.
It’s going to be a very interesting week to watch.
3 Likes
We purposely planned our trip to be right after MLK weekend, and I see that I was not wrong about the weekend crowd levels. Fingers crossed that next weekend isn’t so bad! But we have mostly FP and shows planned for Saturday and Sunday, so I’ll be happy if that’s all we get done.
1 Like