Hi, I’ve just joined & noted with interest the crowd calendar for May 2027 (when we go) shows different suggested days for parks to other sites I’ve looked on. An example being TP recommends DAK on Wednesday, which would be our first day, but I’ve read previously this is the worst day to go. Do the recommended days change closer to the time? Anyone found them particularly reliable / unreliable. I had put together a 10-day park plan, but now it looks like it might go out of the window. As I have many months to go still, it’s not a big issue, but I would like to put a plan together before we arrive. TIA
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Unless your trip is Memorial day weekend/week, I recommend not building a trip around the crowd calendars. We are down there a lot and on busy weeks, during festival periods or especially holiday parties, they really matter, but in May before school is out you have flexibility to do what you want when you want to do it without a ton of crowd pressuring you into one park or another on that day. They do change between now and then, and hours, and events, etc. so IF you are going Memorial day week, trust what you see here as a crowd calendar and follow along with Len’s blog posts about it. When you get closer post what parks you are thinking for what days and you will get awesome feedback.
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Recommended parks can and do change.
I typically do use crowd levels to choose my days, but this would be too far out for me to make much of a plan. For a May trip, I’d be waiting til Feb/Mar.
My 2 cents
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I use the CLs as a general guide, but unless the CL difference varies by 3 or more, I don’t let that override other factors that make sense for my family’s schedule.
This far out, I would make a general plan for park(s) for each day of my trip, knowing that the plan is subject to change as I got closer (like a few months) to my trip dates.
You absolutely should have a plan before you arrive. Both (1) a plan for which park(s) on each day and (2) a touring plan for each day.
Note: Within a few CL numbers, a good touring plan is much more important than the actual CL number.
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If your trip were in the fall, you’d want to do MK on a day that it closes early for the Halloween party or the Christmas party. Most folks want to get their money’s worth out of their park admissions costs so they avoid an early closing park.
Another recommendation is that many folks travel on the weekend and subscribe to MK and Main Street as first must do things. So Sunday or Monday can be considered to be crowded.
May can be very hot. Especially since many of us have just had spring. September might be as hot but it bothers me less cuz I’ve been acclimatized all summer.
The best thing you can do for crowds is arrive at a park before it opens. As much as 45 to 60 minutes. Sometimes they open early. Disney used to let guests that were staying on property in earlier but I’m not sure what the future of that is. They may expect everyone to arrive at the same time and buy Lightning Lane passes.
My touring plan is get to a park before it opens. Head to lunch about 11 am. Have a lie down midday so I can elevate my feet. Head to a different park late afternoon for supper and often lighter crowds.
One of my favorite things is to book the last supper time in a park, have a leisurely meal, and walk out in nearly empty walk ways. With pretty lighting, often.
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Don’t worry too much about that. 1 point or 2 on the scale isn’t a big deal. You’re not going during party season - threats the biggest to know - avoid MK on non-party days. EP gets busy Friday and Saturday night because people like to drink around the World Showcase but that doesn’t mean rise times are longer - but people like to avoid EP then anyway. TP bases their crowds off actual wait times not overall crowds (like a crowded World Showcase) for example. That could account for discrepancies. Don’t stress too much about the days. To me, getting LLs is the most important fav- ir getting Slinky Dog and Big Thunder are tough so I would put those towards the end of my trip to increase my chances of getting those at a decent time.
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This is true.
I have managed a few trips now doing all the things without buying a single LMNOP.
I do not know what your travel group looks like, or your touring style. But you can make a plan that accounts for your specifics.
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Everyone has their view and here’s mine @julieski as others have said TP uses wait time data and your timing of the visit makes a huge difference. Be aware of them but unless the CL is high (7+) don’t fret it. The days of the week are a better guide. Just have a decent plan and if you can use LLMP and you’ll be fine. You’ll find quite lot of contradictory information. Thrill Data says Wednesday is the best day for AK. Sunday for DHS. Wednesday/Thursday for MK and same for EPCOT. Despite all the data, it’s mostly arrival day based with an eye to public holidays. There’s 2 key reasons the parks feel crowded but the wait times don’t reflect that. 1) DAS changes have had a big impact and 2) Ride capacity is less so there’s more people mooching about.
I’m sure you will have a great time. You’ve a great time!
If you intend to go to EPIC just watch that one. Most online places point to weekends being busy. It’s the opposite. Weekends are quieter there by some way. It’s expensive on a weekend and there’s no annual passholders yet. Once EPIC launches those it’ll flip back the other way. The online resources use US/IOA and assume EPIC will be same - hence the disparity.
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Hi Julie - thanks for using our site!
This blog post may be helpful to describe our methodology: The Best Day of the Week to Visit Animal Kingdom.
For that analysis, I looked at:
- Just over 501,000 wait times from the park since July 1, 2024
- The seasonal effects of the Magic Kingdom’s holiday parties on Animal Kingdom visitation patterns
We use July 1, 2024 as the starting point for that analysis because it’s after Disney changed its DAS rules and everyone in the park was following them. That is, it’s very, very difficult to analyze data from before and after those dates. And since it’s over two years ago, it’s far enough away that we have enough recent data with the new DAS rules to do the analysis from July 1, 2024 onward.
The first blog post we did in this series was for the Magic Kingdom. That post includes details on the statistical tests we used at each step in the process, to make sure we were on the right track.
If you have time and can find the information, I’d love to know more about how any of the other sites you’re looking at, do their analytics.
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