Does anyone understand the lower projections for WDW in December? I know that Touring Plans is not an exact science in terms of projecting crowd levels, however the crowd levels are significantly reduced from when I first booked. I am not complaining, however I was expecting them to increase, not decrease. Our dates are 14 through 22, and honestly if they remain in place, they will be lower than other times of the year that we have visited.
We will be there December 13-20, in the parks the 14th-19th. The last time we were at WDW, my youngest was in Kdg, now he is a freshman in college. His sister is a senior in college and other sister has graduated. This allows us to go a bit earlier than most schools holidays as college finals are finished by mid December.
When I started a rough draft for planning about 5 months ago, TP had numbers from 5-10, now my days are anywhere from 2-7. I do recall reading about TP needing to adjust their formula because large crowds have become the new normal, so TP has to recalculate otherwise all days would be 10s. While HS and EP had my numbers drop by a point or so, it is MK and AK that had account for the big changes, dropping by 3-4 points each day. I’d like these new numbers to be true, but I view them with a bit of skepticism.
While I can’t say we planned each park around those numbers, I do have them in the back of my mind. Because we are all adults, this trip will be very different from the one over a dozen years ago. We typically rope drop DL, but it is so much more convenient since our hotel is a 5 minute walk and both parks are so close. Our trip to WDW this year won’t have us in the parks until late morning most days, FPs for the major rides we want, then depart for TS dinner. We are there for free dining and upgraded one room to DxDP, so we are planning a much more adult focused, leisurely trip. Let’s see how it goes. I understand crowds have increased overall since were there all those years ago, but since we have done DL occasionally during those intervening years, including last December 15, I’m hoping we have a realistic understanding of what to expect. So we will head out there cautiously optimistic, but have a plan well in hand should crowds far exceed expectations.
All of this is a long winded way of sharing your surprise, being somewhat skeptical, but keeping fingers crossed there is some accuracy to these predictions.
visit!
. Just gotta go with the flow and enjoy every minute of it.
