Hi mikejs78, I responded to SpykeYs question on another thread but I thought I would also respond here.
This an an example that highlights how “not all CL10s are the same”. There is also some confusion about the difference between Posted time and Actual time.
Space Mountain is defined as a CL10 if the average Posted time exceeds 111 mins. This happens on roughly 10% of days throughout the year. Some days, like those near Thanksgiving and Christmas far exceed the 111 min threshold needed to be classified as a CL10. Other days, like those in March just barely clear it.
With an average Posted time greater than 111 mins it is still possible to have an Actual time around 60 mins. Our data shows that the busier the attraction, the more Disney inflates the Posted time.
Not necessarily. This is a problem I have with touringplans.com and touring plans in general, and by that I mean MY problem applying TP’s tools and data to MY specific needs. TP uses wait times for rides and attractions to estimate crowds, which is fine for most people since it seems that many, if not most, people are primarily concerned with wait times. I’m not. I’m primarily concerned with crowds. Pure population. Bodies per square meter. Even if I could afford a VIP tour guide to walk me onto every ride without a wait I wouldn’t intentionally get anywhere near WDW during peak crowds. So I completely understand getting worked up over sudden dramatic upticks in predicted crowd levels.
Attempting to derive crowd level estimates from wait time metrics becomes problematic when a) Disney artificially increases wait times by manipulating ride capacity and manpower, or b) when rides are not the main source of a park’s attraction. I’ve been at Epcot when the TP crowd levels were low and ride waits were negligible. Future World was a ghost town, yet it was shoulder-to-shoulder in World Showcase due to one festival or another. I’m the first to admit that I don’t have any better ideas, but as someone who has relied on TP’s information to choose the least crowded days to visit I have found the TP crowd calendar to be less and less useful over the last few years. I don’t blame TP. Their model has proven reliable in the past. But it is clearly vulnerable to ongoing changes in Disney’s service and operating philosophies.
TP would probably catch a lot less grief if they removed the phrase “crowd level” from their vocabulary and replaced it with the more accurate “wait times.” It still wouldn’t solve my problem, though.
I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. I’m more crowd averse than wait time averse. I know that GENERALLY speaking, they impact one another…but even if Disney adjusted all ride capacities to make it so you had to wait just as long as when there are twice as many people, I STILL want the CL to reflect that there are half as many people. There is no way to control what Disney does with their staff and ride capacity. But crowd levels still matter and are widely variable depending on when you go.
I think that TP’s problem (customer expectation-wise) is that wait times are influenced by more than crowds, and crowd level doesn’t seem to be the most influential factor at times. Trying to tie the two together to predict both seems to be more challenging every year.
The big issue here is the use of the term “Crowd Level”. Crowd Level for TP has always meant “overall wait times”, not “bodies in park”. Unfortunately the actual words imply that it is a measure of bodies in park, and people often read it as such. Although there is a rough correlation between wait times and bodies, there are many situations where there is not (like your EP example).
I supposed that calling the measure “Wait Level” would reduce this confusion, but TP has been using this term for years and would probably not want to change it. @len, thoughts?
Happy New Year to you as well! We returned from our holiday visit to WDW last month, and with no Disney plans on the immediate horizon I decided to just lurk and observe for a few weeks. Plus, they still expect a modicum of accomplishment at my day job so I had to rack up some stats to close out the year. I’m still very annoyed with 2018, and so far 2019 doesn’t act like it wants to behave any better.
Same here. We have been planning a Disney trip for over a year and we are going the first week of March. Everything looked great until the crowd levels changed from 4/5 to 10! Now we are so worried!
It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out. The predicted crowd levels today are:
MK: 7
EP: 6
HS: 9
AK: 9
Looking at the crowds throughout the day, it doesn’t seem to be nearly those levels. It’s new territory - I wonder if the increased crowds in the fall were due to all the parties they held compared to past years, and the winter will revert to norm… Will be interesting to see the actuals tomorrow and how this shakes out over the next couple of months…
That won’t happen. We won’t get paid, so we can’t afford it. And there are those of us who will be working without pay. But a trip to WDW sure sounds fun!
Here’s hoping that this is a new trend (although one day of course doesn’t make a trend), and that the model overcompensated and Disney doesn’t do staffing cutbacks this year and that the Fall was an anomoly in crowd levels.
I agree with some of the above Crowd levels to me says, how many people are expected to be in the parks not how long wait times are.
If a new ride opens IE FoP OR Disney reduce staff that is not a reflection on crowd levels that reflects wait times.
I am a little disappointed with these so-called crowd levels because they are not Crows levels they are waiting times Which is why I do not use TP to predict what day I go on
Thanks so much for those figures Mike.
I know n=1 but still, I’ll take any good news I can right now.
I have to begrudgingly say that I’ve been booking FPs for dates since 27th Feb when we arrive and getting them last week, for the infamous first week of March, they were MUCH harder to get than then first four days. I’m keenly looking to see if it gets easier this week and so bears out the theory CLs drop later in March.
A biggie will be if I can get 60 day FPP from tomorrow for AK. There were some 59 days ones available this weekend, but none today for Monday 11th March.
Agreed. I’m also going the first full week in March and initially was concerned. But then I reminded myself that at least we will be at Disney and whatever the crowd level/wait time, we will make the best of it. It was a bit shocking though.
My advice is that you should stick to your plan regardless of the weather and crowd levels. I learned this the hard way last year. It rains pretty much every afternoon in the summer, so don’t rearrange things if rain is forecasted or crowd levels are higher than expected.
We check into Pop Century in 2 days and I am pretty worried about CL estimates for 3/11 and 3/12 being at 10’s. I’ve never been to Disney on a 10 day and I hope it doesn’t ruin my experience