Touring Plans Crowd Calendar... not a big difference between dates in July and August?? how?

[firsttimerteachers]

Hi all,
Still trying to decide on timeline for this summer's trip. it's our first time. it was suggested we wait until second half of august to go, although as teachers it's a tough one... but when i look at the crowd calendar on touring plans.com -- the differences between dates in july and dates in later august aren't that big -- to see a major difference, according to the crowd calendar, i'd have to wait until august 26 - august 31 to really see low crowds around 2-3 where in july there are dates with 3,4,5's... wondering if you all think this is true? august - say any dates before august 26th, they are all up in the 3, 4, 5 s up to 7's. thank you

 

[Weather_Lady]

A 2 or even 3-point difference in the Crowd Calendar isn't going to have a significant difference on your vacation at all. First off, Disney "compensates" for lower crowds by reducing ride capacity and staffing, which means you don't save much time in line: for this reason, we've sometimes experienced shorter lines on days with [actual, not estimated] crowd levels of 6 and 7, than days where the actual crowd was 3 or 4. Also, regardless of how a day's crowd is estimated, factors like ride downtime, special events, changes to park hours and EMH schedules, and even the weather (that day, or the previous day) can have an unexpected impact on the crowds.

The thing that is going to make the biggest difference in your wait times will always be your touring itinerary: arriving early and doing headliners first, and making good use of FP+, will save you huge amounts of wait time regardless of the crowd level. I say, pick whatever week is going to work best for your schedule, and then play around with touringplans' personalized touring plan features to design an itinerary that works for you.

 

[firsttimerteachers]

oooh - i like that answer! if i could just wait it out and do last tail end of that last week of august i would - but being i'm a teacher and sis my husband, it'll be a real pain... so perhaps it isn't worth the 'pain' for the lower estimated crowd... thank you!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

3s 4s and 5s aren't high. I'm going August 16-24 and I'm not too concerned.

Avoid Animal Kingdom on the 15th, Hollywood Studios on the 16th, Magic Kingdom on the 17th, and Epcot on the 18th. Those are the Gay Days and they draw large crowds, especially the Saturday at the Magic Kingdom. Attendance might also be unusually "lumpy" (i.e. irregular patterns within a given week) now the they're doing the Halloween Party in August.

Second half of August, your concern is heat, not crowds. You'll want to be in the parks before 9:00 through lunch, then get back to the hotel for naps and/or pool for a few hours, then back to the parks for dinner and more attractions as the sun goes down.

 

[JIMINYCR]

It's when you start seeing consistent 8s, 9s + 10s across the board in all the parks that you start getting verrry concerned. Then you start thinking.... OMG I'm going to be spending a lot of standing in line time.

 

[Andrew Appleby]

We always go second 2 weeks in August. First week is busy but not terrible but that second week really slows and is lovely. It is HOT but as long as you plan for that it wouldn't be a problem.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Late August is extremely quiet. As I said in your first thread asking this exact same question.