May crowd increase

Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar
1

Do they normally put out a reason for crowd increases we will be there May 8-18 and I’m worried about the increase. Went the same time last year and had a wonderful trip

Thanks

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Nope, almost never. I got a crowd increase around 5 days ago and we leave Sunday. I am basically ignoring it.

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In my (rather limited) experience, there are usually some shifts in crowd levels as the trip dates approach. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Having a good plan in place will help even if crowds go up a bit. I would just recommend re-evaluating (or reoptimizing if you don’t mind your plan getting shifted around) your touring plan after the crowd changes to make sure everything looks like it still fits in well.

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Thank you. I’m often looking at ournplan and re optimizing. Silly question but I see them changing a lot when I optimize when optimized it’s based on the date we put in and not what’s going on at the park recently correct? And when I’m at the park it will optimize based on real time? Thanks for the response and help apprecite it

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I’m no expert, but from what I understand, the predicted waits are models based on past wait data, and those models will vary based on season, day of the week, holidays/vacation weeks, expected crowd levels, etc. When a piece of those data change, the model can change and therefore the predicted wait times change. The thing that changes most often (as far as I can tell) is the crowd level. If something else happens at the park (ex. a new ride is introduced, the way the rides are run changes in such a way that it affects capacity, half of a ride breaks down and needs maintenance) then the models can change too. For example, when WDW started running rides at reduced capacity during the times of day that there were lower crowds, it messed with the models and they needed to be adjusted. In that way, what is going on at the parks can affect the optimization process.

So the answer is yes and no. The wait times and thus the optimization is based on the date you put in. If you change the date, it’s likely that the plan will change at least a bit. It’s also based on what is predicted to go on in the park at that time, which is sometimes related to what’s going on at the park recently.

As long as TP folks are giving real-time data to the touringplans folks, I do think the optimization process will take that real-time data into account.