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.
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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
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Well done. And with us leaving in 6 days, very reassuring.
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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.
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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.
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We were at EP yesterday and oof, World Showcase was busy. The CL only ended up being an 8, which I think makes sense given that Future World seemed like what I would think would be a just 6 or 7. We got in just about everything we wanted (except Spaceship Earth, which was closed most of the day), including a very successful walk on to Frozen at rope drop. We even got on somethings we didn’t want (oh, Figment, they’ve really let you down). But I honestly can’t imagine that the World Showcase if analyzed separately would be anything less than a 10. It was intense, and seriously had us questioning if we want to go back.
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It’s hard to measure World Showcase, but I think what you may have run into was opening weekend of Festival of the Arts… What times of day was it really crowded?
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MK was busy today. BTMRR was at 130 min standby at one point and the Fastpass line was way out. I was surprised. I’m hoping it calms down this week. It was tough getting through all the people.
We were in WS from about 1:30 til 5:30 or 6 and again from 7:45-after Illuminations. We went counterclockwise (so, starting at Canada). The UK was pretty crazy, but France was genuinely bonkers. And it only got worse. It was unpleasantly wall-to-wall. I can’t imagine it having any space for many more people. Someone said that locals come during the Arts Fest to “drink around the world” and that seemed descriptive.
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Definitely a busy weekend. As some have said, likely due to both the MLKJr Public holiday and opening of the Festival of the Arts. On that basis I’d expect today to be busy again but drop tomorrow, we shall see…
Thanks for all the posts giving actual experience of the parks, it’s really helpful to add context.
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I am honestly wondering if we should skip Epcot today. It should be thinner crowds in the morning, right? If we don’t do epcot today, what do we do instead? Then I’ll lose our test track fast passes which is all my kids have been talking about. Maybe we’ll just try to do future world and come back to the hotel.
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I’d say stick to your TP and you’ll be okay. WS was super crowded, but we still saw what we we wanted, and Tomorrow World was only moderately busy. If you want to watch illuminations from a particular spot, just get there a lot earlier than you think you need to. We didn’t, but we still got a good place to stand for it.
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We’re not planning on staying late tonight. Just through early afternoon. So hopefully the local crowds won’t be out until later. Though maybe because it’s a school night, the morning might be busier. So hard to know.
The locals are usually out for the festivals and that only starts later… So the mornings should be busy but fine if you have a Touring Plan.
We were at MK in the morning and AK in the afternoon yesterday. The rope drop crowd for 7DMT was huge. We were only about 7-10 people back from the rope, but were nearly trampled in the mad dash. We were off it and walking over to BTM at 9:30, which is okay but the TP kind of fell apart from there due to larger than predicted crowds. Our wait for BTM was more than expected, which pushed a couple of things off the plan, and wait times kept creeping up.
AK was hugely busy and I see this morning was a 10 (predicted 6). We got to most of the things we wanted to yesterday, but only because I had scheduled us to leave earlier than we did.
I was very discouraged between AK and EP’s craziness. I just don’t like the parks at CL10 . At that level people are frustrated and rude, including many of the CMs. I was very discouraged between AK and EP’s craziness and am hoping we get some relief since the holiday weekend has ended.
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