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Format-wise yes, but data-wise I want to see the historical crowd levels, for multiple dates at once. This allows me to scroll through the historical CL’s for all 4 parks, with notes. See below.
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I’m wondering if an optional walkthrough could help people find all the information out about the page with short bites of info. All the text on the current page is off-putting.
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I feel attacked 
I hate choosing my income in surveys. It may look like our family makes a lot, but, where we live it’s not at all. We literally save for 6 months and use rewards/credit card hacking to go on vacations. Lol.
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I think to me, crowd levels don’t just mean ride waits, it means how crowded it is walking around.
People can easily avoid line times by using g+ but what makes me want to leave are the sheer amount of people walking around me
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I’m an outlier for certain at 1 out of 5. Plus, apparently my subscription has lapsed. 
I’m not superstitious but 'stitious enough to feel that if I want to ensure another Disney visit my chances are better with a lapsed subscription.
That said, I did like historical park openings. Pre- covid also historical EE info.
However, since SWGE opening in 2019 followed by covid, I’m not as hung up on historical. I don’t think it’s as relevant. I think we had a successful week long visit with some 4 generations of family members the first week of September 2019. The biggest fly in the ointment was Hurricane Dorian. Subsequent Dec 2020 and June 2022 trips were happy with little historical input.
After numerous trips using touring plans - first few with the Unofficial Guide (earliest I think is 2005) - I feel we’ve got the framework down pat. Thanks, @len . Since no plan survives first contact, we generally follow our [TouringPlans trained] instincts in the parks.
I will also say the first few hours and last few hours crowd calendars of any day are all I look at. Those hours sometimes are different.
Edited to add: I don’t think I equate crowd level with line waits. Crowd level is how congested does the park feel or, how difficult is it to get a bench? 
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I don’t think there is any possible way to gauge this.
I’m local and don’t do a lot of rides on each visit. We will enter the park and do a couple things, eat and maybe 1-2 more things and leave.
I have walked around a CL3 park and been surrounded by people. But I’ve also been in a CL8 park that feels empty. Sometimes you just end up in the crowd of people.
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But maybe what I’m hearing from others is that crowd level doesn’t mean what it actually means. People ask this question on chat all of the time.
Perhaps changing it to “wait time level” instead of “crowd level” would make it clearer? It’s not as pretty but it is an accurate description of what TP is doing here. Especially post-COVID - people might want to avoid crowds, but this is actually avoiding or managing wait times.
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Seems like a good idea.
I’m not sure if this can be added but also maybe some notes on what weekend/weeks big events occur (ie cheerleaders everywhere!!)
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Also, if it is changed to wait time levels, then you could probably explain the minimums for the rides - like the lowest wait time you’ll see for ROTR during peak hours is 75 minutes (total guess), but it could help manage expectations.
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Yes exactly. But wait time level isn’t going to be something people search for on google.
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THIS!!! SO MUCH THIS!!
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I may be answering questions you didn’t ask but…
I love the “heat map” version of the days that shows up on the mobile website version, not sure how accurate it is but it is helpful to see what times of day may lead to a certain crowd level. (E.g. There have been several park days that I picked that looked to be level 6-7-8 but then the heat map shows mostly green except for some high waits in the morning when we wouldn’t be there anyway.) It also is a great way to visually show more info in an intuitive way. Are you planning to add visibility to that heat map feature on the desktop (even as a popup when hovering over a day?).
I also don’t like that you can only expand 1 month at a time to be visible on the mobile website. It makes it hard when planning a trip that spans into another month.
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I think the new design is great and will be much more intuitive for new users, and less likely to lead them astray.
I agree with those who are asking for access to historical data in one format or another. I recognize we probably won’t get it in the ideal format we want, but as long as it’s accessible I will be happy.
My reasoning for using TP crowd calendars over all others is twofold:
- It’s one of the few that breaks down the crowd levels by individual park.
- I can see my entire week at a glance.
#2 is the most important for me.
When I had the new calendar open yesterday initially I liked the brighter colors, but I hated that I had to click on each individual day for my March trip and I gave up. I NEED to be able to see them all at a glance to plan the entire trip, including park hours. It’s not always about choosing the lowest crowd level day, but also considering the park hours for each day and how choosing a lower crowd level day for one park means you end up with a higher crowd level park another day. I also like to alternate between parks that are more about exploring and parks that are more about rides and shows. Helps with my stamina. Seeing all the information in one graphic allows me to plan best.
Typically I take a screenshot, then draw circles for the parks I want and wiggle them around until the balance is good. Then if I’m park hopping I can also draw arrows for that as well.
Again, I absolutely hated not being able to see the information I needed and honestly it would play heavily into a decision to not renew for me if I couldn’t see my week at a glance when planning.
Other feedback I have that I’ve also seen said by others in Disney groups (in addition to the regular crowd level inaccuracy complaints): There aren’t enough standby wait times being reported. Seems like before the shutdown and even after but before Genie+ was introduced there were lots and lots each day, now very few if any. I used that info a lot in the parks. My trip earlier this month I think I looked once and only timed one or 2 waits myself (I don’t ride much via standby admittedly, especially anything over 20 mins)
I’d also love to see the historical data at a glance in the same calendar format instead of having to go click back day by day to see what the previous year on my corresponding days of the week for those dates looked like.
Here’s an example of my plan so far for my trip next month. Can’t do this type of planning and decision making with the new calendar I saw yesterday.
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The ranges are confidence intervals. They say something like “95% of the time the crowd level is a 5, the hightest posted waits you’ll see during the day will be between 110 and 140 minutes.”
There’s a story about how when Steven Hawking was writing “A Brief History of Time”, his editor said that every math equation in the book would reduce by half the number of people who read the book. So let me know if that’s too much math for the average person.
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I like seeing my entire week vs having to go day by day so I can make an educated guess about which park to visit on what day.
I frequently look at the historical data in choosing days as well. The historical data is as helpful if not more helpful than the predicted crowd levels.
I do like the colors of the new look.
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Lol, I do see what you mean. Would it be better to say that on a CL5 your average wait will be 125min and in a CL6 your average wait would be 140min and so on?
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I think that might be the way. 50minutes wait at Seven Dwarf Mine vs 50 minutes wait at People Mover are indicating of two very different days, even though both are 50minutes wait.
This is much more digestible. I think people more intuitively understand “average wait” versus a confidence that the highest wait time will fall within this range.
But, as I have said time and time again, wait times to me are different from crowd levels. Crowd levels are, for me, how busy it feels walking around. I hate crowds. Wait times may have a level of correlation…but I don’t tend to get grumpy from wait times. I do, however, from feeling crowded.
Prime example was from our trip in December…the Wednesday evening we went to MK. I had G+ return times stacked so that our wait times were very very short (shortest of our trip)…yet, it was our least favorite day of the trip because the crowds were incapacitating! We did not enjoy the evening at all, despite riding 6 rides with almost no wait.
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