Hi All… does anyone have any idea why Monday May 2nd and Wednesday May 4th shows a sudden 10 for Crowd Size expectations for Magic Kingdom? All days leading up and from that one day shows a 5-6 range… but those two days spike up.
I just don’t understand what is driving the prediction.
I think the crowd levels updated for these dates towards the end of February. On May 3rd MK is closing at 4:30 for a cast appreciation event which pushed people to update their park days to 5/2 and 5/4 to get in a full day. Historically the days the parks close early are very low crowd levels but there are no additional park reservations available on 5/3 since late last week.
I’m trying to stay positive regarding the correlation between crowd level 10’s and no available park reservations. Example, yesterday all 4 parks had no available reservations but on the Touring Plans “how we did yesterday “ the actual’s at all 4 parks was a 7.
Ahhh… that makes complete sense on the early closure on Tuesday.
I am also trying to stay positive as well. We are there from April 27 to May 8. Even a month ago the crowds looked like they were predicted to ebb after Easter… but now… with day after day of sold out Park Reservations! Yikes.
Being sold out of park reservations doesn’t give much of an indication as to how busy the parks will be. Some, but not much. Disney doesn’t reveal why they set their park reservation limits to what they do, but staffing is certainly a strong part of that.
With a CM appreciation day on May 3, it is very likely that they have reduced staffing for the day, which also means reducing park reservations.
Keep in mind that even with capacity full, with early closure, few guests will be hopping TO MK at 2:00. This means the crowds will not increase with hoppers later on.
It’s been said in these forums a lot lately but best to expect the parks to be quite full nearly all the time. Helps to set expectations and be pleasantly surprised if it’s not. Post Covid travel has been quite high.
Focus on what priorities you want to have at each park, decide if you’ll rope drop or not, and if you’ll use ILL’s and Genie + or not.
If super busy, consider breaks between 11-3 and utilizing the mornings and evenings. It’ll be great no matter what!
May the ‘fourth’ be w/ you is a popular HS day 
100% but does not explain spike at MK.
I think it’s the shifting of attendance from 5/3 due to early closure on that day
Looking at the historical, it’s really interesting that Disney seems to be capping attendance at around a CL7 or CL8. Hollywood studios being the exception with some CL9s, But that may be more to do with ride closures as there are a number of attractions at DHS that break down a lot.
I wonder if Disney has figured that they can make out better by capping attendance at those levels and have those levels persist for much more of the year than having huge CL10 spikes… As the labor shortage goes away, I wonder what we’ll start to see as far as park reservation caps.
Hi! This is my first time on this site.I was directed here from The Unofficial Guide to Disney to try to find a second family to split the cost for Memory Maker photo plan. We go to WDW from May 20-28. Would that make us a match? Are you interested in doing the Memory Maker plan split? Am I even in the right place? Sorry, but I’m new to this.