Parts of our model rely heavily on Disney’s anouncements of park schedules and hours of operation. When Disney changes its schedules on the fly as they have done this spring it means that we have to anticipate that as well. In simple terms, a ten-hour day at the Magic Kingdom doesn’t mean the same as it did in years past because Disney is ignoring their own crowd predicitons in favor of cutting back.

Our crowd calendar represents a range for the maximum wait time observed in the Magic Kingdom. On average, the actual maximum posted wait times are within the range more than 80% of the time and are within 5 minutes of the range 90% of the time. Any statistical model will be wrong a certain percentage of the time, our goal is to minimize the errors and in that respect we do better than most.

Allen, please do let us know the wait times you observe in the Magic Kingdom (and other parks) during your trip. Of particular interest to our statistical team is your use of Fastpass. If you use Fastpass at any time, take note of the time you obtained the pass and the time of the Fastpass return window. This tells us a lot about the size of the crowd.

Thanks and happy touring!

I’m a bit skeptical of these predictions, especially since the middle of may is still the last couple weeks of school for most systems that let out early for summer. Also, all School Spring breaks are finished, so one could assume that most children and families are focused on finishing off the school year’s final weeks, rather than traveling.

When I visit, I will be keeping note of the attractions top wait times and congestion levels, as well as any changes to the park operating hours, which I thought were a bit short to begin with. Granted I cannot be in all four parks at the same time, but we’ll see what happens.

Also, I have to say that your 2nd week of January levels were a bit off, as it seemed they did not account for the massive numbers of Brazilian tour groups, as well as college cheer competitions that were going on. On a positive note, I thank you for the heads up with regards to the Disney Marathon weekend, but, crowd levels aside, it was a bit of a mess trying to navigate around the parks in the mornings while the marathon was going on.

When planning our holiday I noticed that Disney changed their park hours more than once in the time leading up to our stay, and then they even adjusted the hours & parades/fireworks for the MK merely a few days in advance. Clearly even Disney was not expecting as many guests.

So I agree that continual adjustments based on all available known factors is the best approach. Perhaps it would be good to have the ability to show changes to the calendar if/when they are made. Had I known that the parks would be more crowded, I would have prepared slightly differently. And yet, despite higher crowds, we never waited longer than 20 minutes for anything, by following good touring plan principles.

Just because the park is going to be more crowded than you might have first thought doesn’t mean you can’t beat those crowds.