With all the CL conversations, I’m curious, what’s your favorite way to choose park dates?
I will admit I am mostly curious because @PrincipalTinker said elsewhere she does not use CL, so I’m wondering what wisdom is out there that I don’t have?
I personally look at overall CL from here, UT, and KtP to pick trip dates that work with my family’s schedule. To pick park dates I look at half-days. I look at which PPO breakfasts we’d like and set those for non-EMH mornings, try to use am EMH if we’re onsite for all other parks, and avoid afternoon parks with pm EMH since we have littles who can’t hang late. Then use CL if the above doesn’t dictate the full schedule.
I am a public school employee. My son and his mate also work in the public schools. They are my “travel buddies”. We only vacation during school vacation weeks, summer vacations, and at times- a long weekend.
I will admit that I have not paid attention to CL in maybe 10 years? When I first started going to Disney I used to check both TP and UT but I found that I was responding to predictions and I was unprepared when the crowds were much larger than I expected. I then began planning for ALL days to be 8-10 crowds. If the crowds are lower- it is an unexpected gift. If it is a 10- I am prepared.
My planning has changed over the years. I have been to the world multiple times and I have been able to do everything I have ever wanted to do- multiple times. I also always have either PHs or an AP.
I always start with my night time plans. What shows do I want to see? Any special dinners? Dessert Parties? I plan those nights first, then plan out my mornings.
I will be in the world next month- President’s week. I have always expected it to be a 10 all week. I am prepared and I am happy with my plans.
I don’t use CL. I’ve used KtP crowd calendars for some guidance. I do plan my trips to start out with rope drop for several days, one open to close day, and then lunch to closing days to end the trip. So if I want to close a park, it will be the second half of my trip and if I want to rope drop a park, it’s in the first half.
I do use the personalized touring plans from TP to plan my flexible schedule for a park day.
Edited to add: we have done Sept and May with the kids, pulling them out of school for an educational trip. We preferred May. Next trip we are looking at the week before Memorial Day, Saturday-Saturday. We have to avoid state testing, otherwise I would go the end of April.
I don’t generally pick them based on much besides when we can go, and that we prefer to start and end with MK.
ETA: also we prefer a mid-week day off, and sometimes the rest is decided by dining. If not then it’s more or less on a whim or preference. I can’t hardly wait to get to AK so that’s usually day 2
I like to end with MK, no matter what. Usually I start and end with MK, but this year we are starting with AK. AK is part of the 1/2 Marathon that day, but we are wagering that it won’t be as crowded after, because if I ran a marathon I’d choose either MK or Epcot (booze) after. We are likely sacrificing a FOP FPP because of that decision, but c’est la vie. Monday and Tuesday are for Universal this year, my first time there. My husband’s actual birthday falls on the 8th (which is that Monday) and we are Potterheads, so that’s his call. Wednesday we hope to open and close MK but that’s tough with a 7 year old. At the very least, we will open it and stay late, with ample down time in the park. Thursday is MK (because that’s when we leave) and then the flight home.
There’s the method to my seeming madness. If CLs were vastly different, say a 2 in one park and a 7 in another, I might switch things. But based on other site’s crowd calendars, as well as our personal preferences, this is what works for us.
I check when the kids have 4 day wknds, and if any are NOT big holidays across the land, and crowd calendars look decent, and it won’t be 95 degrees with 218% humidity…bingo. 2018 was “Election Day” in early Nov. Their school combined it with a teacher’s admin day of sorts to make it a 4 day wknd. So we leave on wed after school, take the kids out Thu, fri, and have mon, tue off.
Planning park days is easy for us. Always am emh. The rest just falls into place. We stay epcot area, and hop, so Epcot and Hollyweird are easy-peasy to plan.
We pick the weeks of our trips based solely on our schedule with school, work, and lots of kids’ sports. We know to avoid Christmas and Easter for extreme crowds. After that we decide how many park days per park. Then I look at park hours and EMH to figure out which late nights and early EMH RD we want to separate those. We always end in MK and usually start in Epcot on arrival day. Then I look at CL predictions for decisions from there.
This upcoming trip (March) everything fell into place. I had two days available for my HS day so I used the CL to make the decision. The predicted crowd levels are all 6-8 for the week so there wasn’t much difference, if any, between the days. Since I booked, one CL update had our dates increase by 2 and another update decreased most by 1. I will say that if I picked perfect week X based on my schedule and the CL on any site showed 10s, I’d probably head back to the drawing board to pick another week but other than that, the crowds are what they are.
I have to agree with the above. I pay no attention to to Crownd Calendars. Our June dates were picked because my DGD will be out of school and her father can get the vacation time. If it’s just my DH and I, we have more flexibility. If we are there during a busy season so be it, I just adjust my expectations accordingly. I do try to avoid hurricane season even if it is traditionally slower but that’s me. I also don’t care about the heat and humidity in the summer months even though it’s a huge difference from Alaskan weather. Again I just plan for it - a warm rain is no big deal!
As far as picking park days, we also like to start and end at MK. We always have PH and everything else depends on ADRs and special events. We never RD, a pool break in the middle of the day is required by our little mermaid and we often close the park.
I think that the real problem here is that it’s a case of FOMO. You feel that someone who is going at a “slow time” is somehow going to have more fun than you are because they (possibly) will ride more rides than you. No one can have more fun on your vacation than you can. Think about it.
I looked at the daily CL, but my first step was blocking off EMH days since we’re staying off property. I’d heard the day after PM EMH is a good park day. I wanted to start our trip meeting Mickey in either Epcot or MK. From there, I played with the variations of 2 MK, 2 AK, 1 Epcot, and 1 HS day order until I made a final decision. We were both starting and ending with partial days, so that was a big factor as well.
When I go with my kids, we are restricted to school breaks (2 high schoolers). We go the first week of April. I am weird in that I do not want to revisit any park before we have been to all 4 during our trip. We rarely park hop. So if I have 8 day tickets which is our normal, I will plan the first four full days at each of the park and then the next 4 more random. We usually do 2 days at each park, but I generally don’t want to do back to back days at the same park. We used to do a lot of morning EMHs, but those become more and more difficult as kids get older (plus we live in the West so the time change is a killer). Now I pick a park without morning EMH most of the time. We also now sleep in every 3rd day and tend to stay late most nights. I stopped looking at the daily crowd levels years ago, I think it gives people false hope that those levels are set in stone.
Generally we can go any time since we homeschool. As a result, we pick lowest CL weeks as much as possible. I use UT crowd calendar as a general guide in picking weeks to go. As a result, we see light crowds. This has included first week in September, third week in October, first week in February.
Our May 2020 dates are lowerish, but since our DS16 will be taking classes at the community college his senior year, we couldn’t go during our usual times. But the week in May we picked is still quite low according to CLs.
My trips are just my husband and I, as we don’t have kiddos yet. Therefore, we have the liberty of traveling whenever we want (granted that i can get the PTO ). That said, we do use the UT, KtP & TP crowd calendars to compare/contrast weeks to at least AIM for lower crowd weeks. So far, it has paid off every time. We generally aim for the month of September or early November. We have had great luck with crowds at those times. This year we are going Valentines Day week. I’m expecting higher crowds then we usually experience.
We are about to do our first family trip but this is how we picked our dates. Our oldest started school this year and DH also is an adjunct at two colleges so school schedules came into play. So that left breaks and summer. Breaks do not always line up. DD3 and I have birthdays a day apart in the summer so it felt like the perfect time. From there I loosely have planned the order of parks and visits on interests (I want to go to Epcot on my birthday and I figured MK for DD birthday). I will rearrange park days once ADR day comes along and I can see what we can get.
It’s good to read that others don’t obsess too much about the crowd levels. The latest changes to TP kind of threw me but I’ve decided not to worry about it. This year, our trip is constrained by the kids’ schedules, which range from college to grad school to work. So it is what it is. I’ve already planned quite a few extra perks to make it more fun and easier, I think we’re prepared no matter what.
I do look at TP & KtP to figure out which day to go to each park, but we almost always start each day with EPCOT or DHS since that’s where we’re staying, then take a break and hop elsewhere in the pm. Usually we go for whichever one has the latest hours since the kids are night owls, and we don’t do a.m. EMH, to say the least!
I think the way Disney is handling their CMs & scheduling events is going to make it feel moderately crowded most of the time- the difference between a 4 and a 7 probably isn’t going to be as big as it might have been in the past.
I like your attitude of always planning for a CL 8-10. Anything else besides ADR’s, FFP and a good touring plan that you recommend? Plus reading these forums of course! We do not visit very often so skipping a ride that we really want, could mean we need to wait for several years till we are back at WDW again.
I would plan any “must do” attraction for first thing in the morning. What you can get done between 8-9 or 9-10 when you are there, at the gate when it opens, makes all the difference. I always use fast passes for the attractions that would break my heart if I missed, but I make sure everything else of importance is completed as the day begins.
It has also been mentioned here- exhaustion is not fun! I always plan these early mornings after an early evening!
Totally agree. We seem to rarely stay in the parks late. Doing so makes waking the next morning harder, and missing out on prime ride time! Amazes me how many people are NOT in the parks first thing!
I send a Telex™ to Len™’s Magic Bag to get a count of the available doughnuts, then cross-reference that with the known whereabouts of the reverse vampires.
). That said, we do use the UT, KtP & TP crowd calendars to compare/contrast weeks to at least AIM for lower crowd weeks. So far, it has paid off every time. We generally aim for the month of September or early November. We have had great luck with crowds at those times. This year we are going Valentines Day week. I’m expecting higher crowds then we usually experience.