Crowd Calendars and Wait Times

Correct. However, they usually get several readings a day for popular rides, so it’s enough for their sampling to be predictive.

For example, here is the data for yesterday at BTMRR (FYI: I believe you have to have a subscription to click the link):

As you can see, there were quite a few submitted wait times throughout the day (green dots), and pretty much all of them are well below the posted wait time (pink line). The article says BTMRR averages 27% of posted. I definitely hope that continues to be the case when I’m there! Not that I care necessarily if the posted waits are high, just that I hope the actual waits are low.

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Thanks! This is helpful intel. I use MDE over TP app but now I’m thinking I need to use the later more. And do some more reporting of times myself. I did on the previous app but haven’t figured it out w/ the new app yet.

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I totally rely on the TP line data but I don’t submit many times bc I use DAS so much and those are not actual waits.

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It’s quite easy in the new app… there’s a little clock on the upper left corner of the attraction box in the list. It shows up both in the main park list and if you have the attraction in a plan.

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Sweeeet. Then what after this? What should I pick?

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Pick “Time Your Wait” and it will change the save button to “start timer” and make it blue so you can hit it. If you want to just submit a posted time then you’d select the time from the drop down where the arrow is, the save with turn blue so you can hit it.

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One thing I’ve wondered. If I’m really consistent about entering wait times will that improve the estimates for later in my trip? I’ll be at Universal and it seems that there are less submitted times there. I believe Ryan will be there at vaguely the same time as me. So, with two liners submitting results? Or, will it just help later in the same day? I’ll do it regardless but I was just wondering.

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I haven’t been paying too much attention to the crowd updates because I’m locked into my dates and it is what it is. I’m fully expecting it to be busier than I’d like.

On a side note, this table is really fascinating to me and illustrates a point that @ryan1 always makes about how FPP increases wait times across the board. Look at how short those lines are for everything to the right of RnRC! I would love if that was the average wait for these attractions throughout the year in normal times.

What this illustrates to me is that you really only need FPP for 3 of these rides - FoP, SDD, and RnRC. For the rest of them it’s a gimmick to make guests feel like they’re “getting something.” Even with FPP I have often waited 15-20 minutes (2x if using Rider Swap).

And in fact, that is one of the reasons Disneyland FP / MaxPass is so much better than WDW. Cause they only use it for the super headliner attractions. I think if WDW brings FPP back, they should only include it for super headliners. The standby lines for those rides may increase, but it wasn’t going to be “short” anyway, so might as well give people a chance to skip ~3 really long lines per day.

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Agree 100%! I see a more limited availability paid option instead of giving out a million FP+ for use at every stinking ride. Lol

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Do they sorta’ do this w/ having the tiers for fp? you can get one of these ____ rides.

Yes, but they should just eliminate the lower tiers and make them standby only. You don’t need a fastpass for those rides anyway, and having it as an option just inflates the standby wait time unnecessarily.

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Glad they updated this! I’ve been wondering.

  1. Most variation is accounted for by overall crowd levels. If you want the very best prediction of which park to visit which day, you’ll still need to use the crowd calendar.
  2. Outside of that, if you visit the parks on a weekend, stick to Hollywood Studios (or maybe Magic Kingdom on a Sunday). There are no major spikes in wait times on the weekend at Studios.
  3. If your vacation includes a Wednesday and Thursday, you should generally pick one of those days to visit Magic Kingdom and the other to visit Animal Kingdom
  4. Stick to EPCOT on a Tuesday or a Friday to free up the other weekdays for the other parks.

To summarize the best day:

HS: Friday (but not much difference)
Epcot: Tues-Fri
AK: Wed/Thurs
MK: Wed/Thurs (NOT Sat)

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I have to laugh cause 2 of my 3 MK days are on Saturdays! Ha ha. Oh well. Too late to move that around now. I’m happy with the days I have at the other parks though and having 3 days at MK should allow me to space things out.

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I was surprised to hear that. I thought Sunday/Monday were the worst days to visit MK. :man_shrugging:

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It sounds like that was true historically because people usually arrive on a weekend and usually their first park is MK. But I guess with a larger proportion of guests being local, Saturday is now the big day.

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Sure they’re lower but not that much lower and the parks are capped at 35% capacity. I would just be interested to see what they’ll be if they increase capacity. And by “see” I don’t mean actually see in person during my own trip in less than two months…

I just looked at this again and Monday isn’t listed here at all and the only mention of Sat is to avoid MK on Sat. :thinking:

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Yeah one of my takeaways was there is really no good park for weekends. But the least worst is HS for Saturday and MK for Sunday. And they said HS doesn’t have a lot of variation since it’s nearly always at capacity, so if you have a spare day and don’t know what to put there, HS is always a good option.

Epcot might be another good Monday option. (I just saw that for my dates in May/June, Epcot hours were extended to 10pm pretty much every night!)

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