how accurate is a crowd calendar?

[Jess G]

For the week that I'll be there crowd calendars say crowds in general will be 4/10 although on the Disney site for my dates there is hardly ANY availability. Only POR garden view, AKL, and cabins. Not sure what to expect?

 

[Weather_Lady]

Resort crowd levels don't necessarily equate to in-park crowd levels. I would trust the crowd calendars to give me a good generalized picture of what to expect. They can be wrong (nobody, for example, predicted how light attendance was going to be this summer, thanks to Zika and other factors), but on our past trips, they've been accurate enough to help us pinpoint great weeks to visit, even if some of the day-by-day or park-by-park estimates were off. (And when they were, I could usually identify the reason why -- a last minute schedule change extending a park's hours and drawing a larger-than-expected crowd, for example, or a rainy day that kept locals away and then caused a little bump in crowds the following day when the sunshine returned).

 

[CaptainAmerica]

For the week that I'll be there crowd calendars say crowds in general will be 4/10 although on the Disney site for my dates there is hardly ANY availability. Only POR garden view, AKL, and cabins. Not sure what to expect?

POR, AKL, and Cabins? Now that's my kind of "limited availability!"

But yeah, as @Weather_Lady said, there's been a decent gap between resort crowds and park crowds lately. Room occupancy has been very strong while attendance has been soft.

 

[ParentsOf4]

There are a few points to consider:

• POR, AKL, and Fort Wilderness Cabins have rooms that sleep 5. Are you a party of 5?
• Rooms may be available for some of the nights you are staying but not all of them. For example, if you are trying to book 14 nights, Disney's search engine will show a room unavailable even if it's available for 13 of those nights.
• Moving your check-in/check-out dates slightly can produce significantly different availability results.
• During less busy times of the year, Disney tends to take certain rooms out-of-service to reduce operating costs, meaning you won't be able to book these rooms even if they are empty.
• Disney also has been known to list certain types of rooms/hotels as unavailable in order to encourage Guests to book other rooms/hotels, changing what's available week-to-week as rooms fill up the way Disney wants them to fill up.

Always keep in mind that Disney uses highly sophisticated algorithms to manage hotel occupancy, so don't equate room availability to theme park crowd levels.

 

[21stamps]

It's the same the first week of December. I think only 2 resorts were available. I had to switch dates to be able to extend our trip.. PRAYING that the dining reservation hoarders will be cancelling soon!!!!

 

[21stamps]

There are a few points to consider:

• POR, AKL, and Fort Wilderness Cabins have rooms that sleep 5. Are you a party of 5?
• Rooms may be available for some of the nights you are staying but not all of them. For example, if you are trying to book 14 nights, Disney's search engine will show a room unavailable even if it's available for 13 of those nights.
• Moving your check-in/check-out dates slightly can produce significantly different availability results.
• During less busy times of the year, Disney tends to take certain rooms out-of-service to reduce operating costs, meaning you won't be able to book these rooms even if they are empty.
• Disney also has been known to list certain types of rooms/hotels as unavailable in order to encourage Guests to book other rooms/hotels, changing what's available week-to-week as rooms fill up the way Disney wants them to fill up.

Always keep in mind that Disney uses highly sophisticated algorithms to manage hotel occupancy, so don't equate room availability to theme park crowd levels.

I think they are actually sold out. Myself and my TA have been on the phone multiple times trying to extend my stay..even willing to switch to club level. It wasn't possible.

Oddly enough the same exact thing happened to me last year at Poly. That time I actually did move to a different resort for the last night. This time I was unwilling to do that.

 

[ParentsOf4]

I think they are actually sold out. Myself and my TA have been on the phone multiple times trying to extend my stay..even willing to switch to club level. It wasn't possible.

Oddly enough the same exact thing happened to me last year at Poly. That time I actually did move to a different resort for the last night. This time I was unwilling to do that.

With the Christmas decorations on display, early December is a popular time to stay onsite.

Roughly a decade or so ago, you could count on lower crowd levels and availability at all non-DVC Resorts. It's changed a lot in recent years as Guests have gotten more bold about avoiding crowds and pulling their children out of school.

 

[21stamps]

With the Christmas decorations on display, early December is a popular time to stay onsite.

Roughly a decade or so ago, you could count on lower crowd levels and availability at all non-DVC Resorts. It's changed a lot in recent years as Guests have gotten more bold about avoiding crowds and pulling their children out of school.

I'm very surprised by it! There is tons of availability on the week of Thanksgiving, but almost none for the following 2 weeks.

What's even crazier- there are not any available discounts for the MK resorts..and they're still full!

 

[ParentsOf4]

I'm very surprised by it! There is tons of availability on the week of Thanksgiving, but almost none for the following 2 weeks.

What's even crazier- there are not any available discounts for the MK resorts..and they're still full!

Even with discounts, hotel rates and crowds are much lower immediately after Thanksgiving.

I've been to WDW for Thanksgiving several times, and stayed into the week after a few times. The change in crowd levels is incredible to watch. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is packed. By Monday, WDW feels empty by comparison.

I did something similar at Universal once. I was there on Monday after Thanksgiving and (for example) Men in Black was a walk-on. The Cast Member told me it was a 3-hour wait just a few days before.

 

[21stamps]

Even without discounts, hotel rates and crowds are much lower immediately after Thanksgiving.

I've been to WDW for Thanksgiving several times, and stayed into the week after a few times. The change in crowd levels is incredible to watch. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is packed. By Monday, WDW feels empty by comparison.

I did something similar at Universal once. I was there on Monday after Christmas and (for example) Men in Black was a walk-on. The Cast Member told me it was a 3-hour wait just a few days before.

That's what I am anticipating will happen to us. We check in the day after Thanksgiving, staying until Thursday the next week. I'm hoping there will be a huge change in crowds during that time. On checkout day we switch to Universal until Monday...Their Christmas stuff starts on 12/3, so I'm hoping to have at least that Friday of low crowds at Universal and IoA.

 

[dreamfinder]

How accurate is the weather forecast? Much like weather, beyond taking known past data, and applying observable current data, it's all guess work. @lentesta and his crew over at Touring Plans have tons of historical data they can use for a baseline. Way more than the other calendars I believe. But since WDW doesn't release any official numbers, it's kind of like standing outside and going "It feels like it's 60 degrees" without actually having a thermometer and being able to say it's actually 64 out. Which is why knowing it should be 4/10 is really more a guide that it should be around 60 degrees out, and that it's not going to be 90 rather than knowing it will be exactly 63.5 degrees. So you dress knowing it could be anywhere from 50-70 today. FP+ and other recent changes are screwing with these predictions, but over time the models should get better.

But these are crowd levels, not resort levels. So if WDW knows it will be a slow season, they may choose to take rooms out of service for deep cleaning or refurbs, so a resort may still appear to be almost fully booked, but only 70% of the rooms were available to begin with. Or there could be a function being held on property (lots of conventions get held at WDW) that would drive up resort occupancy, but the participants might not be expected to go to the parks, or not in any significant numbers. So like Marathon weekend, the resorts get jam packed, but the parks still stay relatively light. A good crowd calendar will know about these types of events, and adjust their predictions accordingly.

 

[21stamps]

How accurate is the weather forecast? Much like weather, beyond taking known past data, and applying observable current data, it's all guess work. @lentesta and his crew over at Touring Plans have tons of historical data they can use for a baseline. Way more than the other calendars I believe. But since WDW doesn't release any official numbers, it's kind of like standing outside and going "It feels like it's 60 degrees" without actually having a thermometer and being able to say it's actually 64 out. Which is why knowing it should be 4/10 is really more a guide that it should be around 60 degrees out, and that it's not going to be 90 rather than knowing it will be exactly 63.5 degrees. So you dress knowing it could be anywhere from 50-70 today. FP+ and other recent changes are screwing with these predictions, but over time the models should get better.

But these are crowd levels, not resort levels. So if WDW knows it will be a slow season, they may choose to take rooms out of service for deep cleaning or refurbs, so a resort may still appear to be almost fully booked, but only 70% of the rooms were available to begin with. Or there could be a function being held on property (lots of conventions get held at WDW) that would drive up resort occupancy, but the participants might not be expected to go to the parks, or not in any significant numbers. So like Marathon weekend, the resorts get jam packed, but the parks still stay relatively light. A good crowd calendar will know about these types of events, and adjust their predictions accordingly.

Oh they adjusted. The calander went from 2s to 4s now being predicted at 6, 7,8,and 9s.

I'm hoping the Touring Plans peeps are wrong!!

 

[lentesta]

How accurate is the weather forecast? Much like weather, beyond taking known past data, and applying observable current data, it's all guess work. @lentesta and his crew over at Touring Plans have tons of historical data they can use for a baseline. Way more than the other calendars I believe.

As a rough guide, the 1-to-10 calendar predictions have been exactly right about 25% of the time this year, and +/- 1 just under 60% of the time. Our goal is +/- 1 80% of the time, so there's work to be done.

 

[21stamps]

As a rough guide, the 1-to-10 calendar predictions have been exactly right about 25% of the time this year, and +/- 1 just under 60% of the time. Our goal is +/- 1 80% of the time, so there's work to be done.

Can you share insight into why the crowd predictions jumped so much for the week after thanksgiving/1st week of December? is it mostly due to the resorts being sold?

 

[lentesta]

Can you share insight into why the crowd predictions jumped so much for the week after thanksgiving/1st week of December? is it mostly due to the resorts being sold?

It's difficult to pin it to one thing. Here's why: For each wait time we collect every day, we attach around 180 other pieces of data. Those 180 include the obvious things, like the park hours, day of week, and whether it's an EMH day. They also include things like the U.S. unemployment rate over the last 8 months, the Consumer Price Index for both the US and Southeast US, and various economic indicators for Disney's big international markets.

The models assign each of those things a "weight", essentially saying how much they contribute to the overall answer. In some cases, it's pretty simple - if Disney adds an EMH day, that's usually easy to point to. But usually it's the accumulation of 10 or 20 smaller factors.

I can dig up an output of these weights for one run on one attraction, if anyone thinks it's interesting.

 

[EquestrianWS]

I think they are actually sold out. Myself and my TA have been on the phone multiple times trying to extend my stay..even willing to switch to club level. It wasn't possible.

Oddly enough the same exact thing happened to me last year at Poly. That time I actually did move to a different resort for the last night. This time I was unwilling to do that.

 

[EquestrianWS]

I have booked two Disney stays recently - one in April 2017 and one for October 2016. Both times I needed to alter the dates of the stays. Called and spoke with Cast Member each time to try to add a day and each time was told they were booked full and was encouraged to switch resorts. This seemed highly unlikely as I had booked the April 2017 stay almost a year in advance, how could they be that full? I went online and typed in the dates I wanted as if making a new reservation and what do you know? No problem, room availability was open. Made the new reservation and then went into MDE and canceled the original one. A bit of hassle, but better than having to give up my first choice of resort or move to a different resort for 1 night!!

 

[21stamps]

I have booked two Disney stays recently - one in April 2017 and one for October 2016. Both times I needed to alter the dates of the stays. Called and spoke with Cast Member each time to try to add a day and each time was told they were booked full and was encouraged to switch resorts. This seemed highly unlikely as I had booked the April 2017 stay almost a year in advance, how could they be that full? I went online and typed in the dates I wanted as if making a new reservation and what do you know? No problem, room availability was open. Made the new reservation and then went into MDE and canceled the original one. A bit of hassle, but better than having to give up my first choice of resort or move to a different resort for 1 night!!

I wish this was the case for me!! There is literally nothing available online.

 

[Nj4mwc]

It's difficult to pin it to one thing. Here's why: For each wait time we collect every day, we attach around 180 other pieces of data. Those 180 include the obvious things, like the park hours, day of week, and whether it's an EMH day. They also include things like the U.S. unemployment rate over the last 8 months, the Consumer Price Index for both the US and Southeast US, and various economic indicators for Disney's big international markets.

The models assign each of those things a "weight", essentially saying how much they contribute to the overall answer. In some cases, it's pretty simple - if Disney adds an EMH day, that's usually easy to point to. But usually it's the accumulation of 10 or 20 smaller factors.

I can dig up an output of these weights for one run on one attraction, if anyone thinks it's interesting.

Please dig up the outputs, i find this extremely interesting.

 

[lentesta]

Will do. Give me a week. Heading out on a cruise on Friday and have to wrap up some other stuff first.