Please tell me Crowd Tracker is sometimes wrong!

[PenguinPrincess]

Ok, please talk me down off the ledge! I used Touring Plans Crowd Calendar to determine the week in January 2022 we would go to Disney World. What was a week of 2’s, 3’s, and some 4’s has all of a sudden shot up to 10’s ALL WEEK. I don’t know what happened (Covid precautions being lifted?), but I’m so upset! We have been waiting years (plus a pandemic!) to take our youngest, and now I’m so worried we just won’t have a great time. I think I could handle it, but my husband isn’t great with huge crowds, and we have always gone at much less busy times. To add to the dilemma, we are renting DVC points for the first time, so I can’t change the reservation (right?) even though we could go the following week. Literally the day we leave, the crowds drop! I’m so mad at myself because there isn’t even a real reason I picked 1/2-9 over 1/9-16…I know Christmas is crazy through New Year’s, but I was thinking it would slow down after that (and Touring Plans originally showed that it did). Any tips for these extreme crowds? Any hope the crowd calendar might be wrong or change? Any known way I could switch my DVC points rental by a week? Needing some help and reassurance, please!

 

[PenguinPrincess]

Sorry, I meant to post this on Trip Planning, and I can’t figure out how to move it! I’m a mess over here!

 

[CastAStone]

Ok, please talk me down off the ledge! I used Touring Plans Crowd Calendar to determine the week in January 2022 we would go to Disney World. What was a week of 2’s, 3’s, and some 4’s has all of a sudden shot up to 10’s ALL WEEK. I don’t know what happened (Covid precautions being lifted?), but I’m so upset! We have been waiting years (plus a pandemic!) to take our youngest, and now I’m so worried we just won’t have a great time. I think I could handle it, but my husband isn’t great with huge crowds, and we have always gone at much less busy times. To add to the dilemma, we are renting DVC points for the first time, so I can’t change the reservation (right?) even though we could go the following week. Literally the day we leave, the crowds drop! I’m so mad at myself because there isn’t even a real reason I picked 1/2-9 over 1/9-16…I know Christmas is crazy through New Year’s, but I was thinking it would slow down after that (and Touring Plans originally showed that it did). Any tips for these extreme crowds? Any hope the crowd calendar might be wrong or change? Any known way I could switch my DVC points rental by a week? Needing some help and reassurance, please!

I think Disney World is going to be all 10s from the day they increase back to regular capacity through April 2022, save for the first 2 weeks of September (assuming capacity is up by then), when it might be a 7 or an 8.

Overall TP has changed the way they do their crowd calendar in a pretty infuriating manner the last 2 or 3 years, where they tinker with it constantly, but only look 6-8 months out, so half their calendar is wrong all the time, and with the monthly tinkers, it bounces all over the place. I assume this update is because they started plugging in the 2021-22 school calendars.

But with the travel backlog out there, it’s just gonna be busy all the time. No crowd calendar will be able to predict it, and no crowd calendar will be right for some time now.

Personally I’d keep my reservation. The next week is bookended by marathon weekend on the 9th-10th and MLK weekend the 15-17th and will definitely be busier.

 

[PenguinPrincess]

I think Disney World is going to be all 10s from the day they increase back to regular capacity through April 2022, save for the first 2 weeks of September (assuming capacity is up by then), when it might be a 7 or an 8.

Overall TP has changed the way they do their crowd calendar in a pretty infuriating manner the last 2 or 3 years, where they tinker with it constantly, but only look 6-8 months out, so half their calendar is wrong all the time, and with the monthly tinkers, it bounces all over the place. I assume this update is because they started plugging in the 2021-22 school calendars.

But with the travel backlog out there, it’s just gonna be busy all the time. No crowd calendar will be able to predict it, and no crowd calendar will be right for some time now.

Personally I’d keep my reservation. The next week is bookended by marathon weekend on the 9th-10th and MLK weekend the 15-17th and will definitely be busier.

Thanks for the insight about the crowd calendar. I couldn’t believe it changed so drastically! We’ll make the best of it…it’s just a bummer!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I've never liked or relied on crowd calendars.
They don't know any better than the average person when it will be busy vs not as busy.
I think we all could predict that the first few days of the year will still be extremely crowded.
Just like we all know that the week before and after Easter Sunday are crowded.
I do think that January will be more crowded than average because people are really getting tired of not traveling and they probably think (likely rightly so) that most everything will be normal by then.
My suggestion is to jet let it go and roll with the punches vs completely freaking out.
You're booked, you're all set, just go have some well deserved fun!

 

[nickys]

I suspect it may have jumped as a result of increased hopes of the marathon weekend happening.

That first week of January will still be school holidays for some so that also might affect it. New Year falls awkwardly this year. And park hours reduce meaning there is less time to spread the waits. The TP crowd levels reflect the expected wait times between 11 & 4.

But it will be fine. Crowds will drop compared to the previous week for sure. And if you’re using their crowd calendars then you can use their touring plans too. A good touring plan works in any crowd level, so consider subscribing and customise your own touring plans for maximum benefit.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Crowd calendars are useless now. Disney manipulates crowding due to park reservations so the absolute crowd is meaningless. If crowds are lower, they cut staffing so wait times don’t really change.

 

[nickys]

Crowd calendars are useless now. Disney manipulates crowding due to park reservations so the absolute crowd is meaningless. If crowds are lower, they cut staffing so wait times don’t really change.

Which is why the Touring Plans crowd calendar isn’t about how crowded the parks will be, it’s all about projected average wait times. Which they’re pretty good at doing within a few weeks of the date.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Which is why the Touring Plans crowd calendar isn’t about how crowded the parks will be, it’s all about projected average wait times. Which they’re pretty good at doing within a few weeks of the date.

I don’t think they are even remotely good at doing that now. They are good at preying on vacationers and taking their money, though.

 

[nickys]

I don’t think they are even remotely good at doing that now. They are good at preying on vacationers and taking their money, though.

Honestly curious why you say that. Their COVID plans are holding up well.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Honestly curious why you say that. Their COVID plans are holding up well.

Because I’ve made plans for specific parks based upon their numbers only to get to a packed park and see lower waits elsewhere. Then I had to suffer through it until I could park hop in the afternoon.

 

[aliceismad]

I don’t think they are even remotely good at doing that now. They are good at preying on vacationers and taking their money, though.

Interesting. I've used Touring Plans twice for vacation planning and I thought the amount of information on their site was extremely helpful. I used their trip planning capabilities to make a flexible schedule, and we didn't wait longer than 30-40 minutes for any ride on those trips. I also got the rooms I requested using their site - the database of floorplans and views from rooms is great.

I do think crowd calendars in general are up in the air because of covid and post-ish-covid, but I appreciate the transparency of Touring Plans and how they post how close their predictions were to actual. I understand that the guy who runs TP is on the board and has posted a few times about the methodology.

I do agree that Disney manipulates staffing, which makes lines longer/reduces dining availability, etc.. But I'm one of the people who only gets to go every few years, so spending the $20 or whatever on TP is no big deal to me. I could probably get all the info elsewhere, but it's convenient. I'm sure people who go all the time see different value in things.

 

[CastAStone]

Because I’ve made plans for specific parks based upon their numbers only to get to a packed park and see lower waits elsewhere. Then I had to suffer through it until I could park hop in the afternoon.

I would agree that the crowd calendar function isn’t working particularly well right now, they also always have unreliable projected wait times for most attractions for a few weeks after any operational change, of which there’s been dozens in the past six months.

Overall, I feel like misses on their projected wait times got me caught in two long lines this past trip, but their measurement and data on expected crowd flows throughout the day for each attraction saved me a ton more time that I lost with those two errors. Knowing, for example, that Hollywood Studios would clear out late, but Tower of Terror’s lines would stay the same even when every other ride in the park’s wait time goes down helps me make better and smarter planning decisions for what order to do the rides at Hollywood Studios in.

Someone who goes extremely regularly may have those details memorized, but for me I still find $13 or whatever of value in them per trip.

 

[nickys]

Because I’ve made plans for specific parks based upon their numbers only to get to a packed park and see lower waits elsewhere. Then I had to suffer through it until I could park hop in the afternoon.

A good touring plan will always trump the crowd levels.

If your gripe is that another park looked better wrt wait times on rides for that particular day, fair enough but presumably at some point you would have wanted to do the park you’d reserved. That park might have had a higher crowd level for your whole trip. You benefitted from having a touring plan, customised to what you wanted to do and with up to date and far more accurate wait times than MDE will ever have.

Saying they prey on vacationers is a bit much. Most of their info and features are available for free - their full range of touring plans, the ADR Finder, the blogs.

Pretty much the only things you need to subscribe for is to customise your touring plan, room request feature and the lines app. I may have forgotten something.

 

[correcaminos]

You do pay TP for getting the crowd calendar further out than free. Honestly I never bother with crowd calendars. They seem to be wrong more often than right. I just don't sweat it especially since they change they way too often to be really useful IMO.