Hi there,
I’m looking at the crowd calendar for my dates - Sat 1/29 - Sat 2/5/2022. It’s showing MK as a 3 on Sunday 1/30. The rest of the week is showing 5s/6s/7s. I’m inclined to reserve this as our MK day, but I was always under the impression to avoid MK on weekends (the locals) and Mondays (Day 1 of most people’s trips).
Does anyone have any insight on crowd calendar accuracy in this post-COVID shutdown world?
Is there still any guidance on which parks to avoid on which days?
The following is my planned itinerary, although I have not made park reservations yet:
Sun 1/30 - MK (Crowd Level 3)
Mon 1/31 - AK (Crowd Level 5)
Tues 2/1 - Rest Day
Wed 2/2 - Epcot (Crowd Level 3)
Thurs 2/3 - HS (Crowd Level 4)
Fri 2/4 - Rest Day (possibly buying additional park day if desired - likely for a second MK day)
We will have Genie+ to help maximize rides.
I appreciate any advice from the pros!
Thank you!!
Thanks for your feedback! Festival of the Arts will be going on in Epcot, so that’s a very good point you make about the locals going there instead of MK.
I haven’t really checked out other crowd calendars. Maybe I ought to do that for a broader perspective.
I’m assuming it’ll be busy because of the 50th and because everyone is itching to “take the trip” after cancelling in 2020. Those are 2 of my main motivating factors. Along with getting there before my younger son turns 3. I’m just really hoping it won’t be week-between-Christmas-and-NYE crazy busy. Fingers crossed!!
I could be wrong, but isn’t the Sports value resort closed with no reopening in sight? I thought I saw that somewhere. So that would add to the lack of value rooms during that time.
Are you doing the Memory Maker and would possibly be interested in doing a shared MM?
This is my first time going with the Memory Maker option, so I’ve never done one personally. However, I’ve seen people planning them on here pretty often.
Based on my personal experience (with no evidence other than my observations from my WDW trips):
Saturday is general the worst day crowd wise at MK.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are generally the lowest days crowd wise.
Sundays are in the middle.
Of course, special events, evening hours, etc can impact this. In particular, I don’t know how the new extended evening hours on Wednesdays for deluxe resort guests are impacting day crowds.
All that said, I’m ok with scheduling my MK days for Sundays. I try to avoid Saturdays.
Oh! Thanks for the reminder on the Deluxe Evening Hours. I need to look more into that perk. I remember hearing about it, but didn’t read the fine print. We’ll be able to benefit from that so that may influence our final decision. Hopefully they’ll release the next batch of Park Hours soon.
Different crowd calendars offer different insights. For example, I actually find I trust the UT calendar when planning which days I want to go in general. They have data based on actual ticket sales that informs this better than simply looking at historical data (although they use historical info as well, I believe). As such, I feel UT does a better job of capturing ACTUAL CROWDS versus WAIT TIMES, as TP does. But TP is, in my mine, a better source for figuring out how to best utilize your individual day/hours within the day. Their method of calculating CLs, however, is objectively subjective…meaning, they are judging crowds based on wait times that are chosen based on their own opinion as to what best represents things, and can change over time. So, a CL 1 today may not be the same as a CL 1 from 5 years ago.
I’m not sure what mechanism KtP uses, but I’ve relied least on his.