Hello everyone! I have a question. I am going to Disneyworld from July 16th-July19th. We are planning on doing park days the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th. Our plan was to do the parks in this order Epcot, HS, AK, MK. If I do it in this order then our crowd calendar at this point is Epcot 4, HS 5, AK 5, MK 8. If I swap and go to HS on day 1 it looks like this HS 3, Epcot 3, AK 5, MK 8. My question is is it worth it to ditch all my reservations and swap so I can get HS on a day that is predicted to be a 3? There is more context to consider so please keep reading.
We are coming off a Disney cruise and headed straight to the park for rope drop from the cruise. Our plan was to go to Epcot on day 1 and do a half day so we could enjoy the pool at the Poly(our first time staying there) and so we can get groceries and get settled in. If I were to switch and do HS day 1 we would do a full day and then just do a half day the next day at epcot. I still think it is doable but I am just wondering if switching HS to move from a 5 to a 3 is worth all the hurdles. Also I already have a good res for Savi that I would lose, but I could get another.
I’m sure others will have more/better info, but I would keep your current order. Eases you into the World that way. I don’t really trust the crowd calendar exactly either. It’s often off by at least a factor of 2. I use it as a general guideline only.
I think I agree. Also I thought Saturdays in general were supposed to be the busiest days in HS, I am a bit skeptical that it is a 3 but who am I to question these things, I have no clue how they work
I think every day is the busiest day in HS. So many variables.
I think you just go when it’s convenient for you and enjoy being there. Also, remind me of that when I’m hot, tired and things aren’t going to plan?!
I do think it will bring in more people, but theme park pass availability is still there for all of that opening weekend, other than the 27th. For some reason, I expected Epcot to be sold out. Maybe they are expecting massive crowds and planning accordingly in regards to staffing.
CLs and waits are not definite until about 45 - 30 days out. Right now they are just using historical data for 2019, 2020, 2021. *(Sadly, this is an average using all the reported wait times. The waits in 2020 & 2021 were low because of COVID. So the reported waits were from people who went when most people did not.)
TP & CL’s shouldn’t be used to determine your travel dates. They just are helpful to see “trends” in crowds.
Basically, start making your plans, but know that your “real” plan won’t be ready until about 30 days in advance.
I love TP but any CL # that is more than 45 - 30 days out I no longer trust. Wait and see… it’ll fluctuate. TP only updates about 45 - 30 days in advance and copies & pastes the previous year’s historical info into the farther away future dates.
Also, sometimes they are just using the historical data from that calendar date and not adjusted for the day of the week.
For example, if your trip were to start on a Monday, that day was probably a Sat. or Sun. in 2021. So you might see a CL10 because this year that “date” was a weekend. When they update the calendar in 2022 they’ll adjust for that date being on Monday this time. (this is more relevant before COVID, but still applies. There weren’t many CL10 days in 2020/2021!)
Every different website crowd calendar has their own way of getting their CL number. I like to look at multiples to get a better idea of when it is a “slower” time to go. CLs for a specific date aren’t reliable.
As stated a good TP will put you ahead of 85%+ of the people wandering around asking, “Well… what do you want to do next?”
Thanks for the well thought out reply. I think I am just going to leave everything alone and keep my good ADRs and my evening appointment at Savi’s workship (which is now sold out for the evening on both days).
I tend to think that crowd calendars are only guesses (probably used to be more accurate pre covid…) and that you already have things set in a way that works for you.
(It is a two-day park for us.)
