CLWatch - Keeping an eye on the new estimated Crowd Levels

My guess is it’s their final prediction.

This is a great thread. Awesome idea by @SimonUK to keep an eye on revised predictions since everyone was really freaking out. Data is power!

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Okay, first Sunday in now and we have two new items. Our first correct prediction, AK at CL5, but to counter that we have an amazing CL1 on MK when the prediction was CL5. That’s a LOW crowd, wow! I hope those there enjoyed it.

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I certainly like the looks of this and hope the trend continues for a few weeks.

Those are some super low Sunday numbers!!! Thanks so much for posting these!

Your trip is looking promising!!! Do let us know how it feels in the parks.

Yes, I definitely will! I won’t have a good comparison though, because it’s our first trip!

Perhaps there is a Navi Shaman prayer we should all be reciting…

Monday is posted. MK & EP better than predicted. HS same. AK more crowded.

My new theory (only half serious) is that a couple years ago, most of the WDW websites said Jan/Feb has low crowd levels … so many, many folks books Jan/Feb 2018 trips … and Jan/Feb 2018 was packed. The same websites reported how Jan/Feb was so much busier than usual so less folks book Jan/Feb in 2019.

With more and more people relying on websites for WDW crowd info each year, it may now be enough to sway the overall numbers for certain months.

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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.

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Okay, as noted by the early risers, or late to bed @mgrayar :slight_smile: , 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.

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Len posted it, I don’t remember when. Probably in answer to someone’s question here.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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