Crowds right now: the Canadian Factor

For those currently in the parks: curious as to what the crowds feel like? How many Ontario license plates are you seeing in the parking lots?

As a Canadian, I know that a large number of Canadians have their spring break this week. As with years past, touring plans predicted 7 or 8 crowds during the Ontario Spring Break and the actual crowds have been a '10.' Similar with other crowd calendars.

My theory is that crowd calendars are not properly weighting the 'international affect' when they make predictions. In January, it sounds like the unexpected bump was in some part due to South American tour groups on their break. And every year there is an 'unexplained' surge to level 10 crowds during the week that most Canadians have Spring Break. I understand that most crowd calendar's take into account the Spring Breaks by different U.S. states. However, Ontario's population alone is 13.5 million - larger than all but 46 of your states. And several provinces, not just Ontario, have their break this week.

Curious, @lentesta . . . how much is the Canadian factor considered? I noticed that last year during Ontario's March break touring plans also predicted 8 crowds but actuals were 10.

We don't track Canadian spring break (CSB), but it's worth investigating. I've asked our Ottawa-based statistician, Fred, to look at this. Thanks for the heads-up.

Once we run these numbers I'll post here how big of a factor we think it is. It'll take a couple of weeks to get the historical CSB dates and re-run the models.
 
Lol, I was born in TO and grew up in Ottawa, I totally get how Ontario centric we can get!

I knew we were kindred spirits. I was born in TO and grew up in Ottawa too. Now I just need to make the move to the Island. Fabulous place to live, used to visit grandparents out there.
 
We don't track Canadian spring break (CSB), but it's worth investigating. I've asked our Ottawa-based statistician, Fred, to look at this. Thanks for the heads-up.

Once we run these numbers I'll post here how big of a factor we think it is. It'll take a couple of weeks to get the historical CSB dates and re-run the models.

Interesting! Good to hear it's being investigated. Thanks, @lentesta - knew I could count on you guys to figure it out :)
 
I knew we were kindred spirits. I was born in TO and grew up in Ottawa too. Now I just need to make the move to the Island. Fabulous place to live, used to visit grandparents out there.

What a coincidence! If you ever make it here please let me know and we can have a meet up!
 


I think that Disney probably sold "a lot" of the discounted Canadian tickets with their promotion. It was well advertised and they must have achieved their goals as they chose not to immediately extend as they have done before.

The big difference is that, unlike previously, these tickets expire at the end of 2018.

I'm going to make an educated guess that you will see more than the average number of Canadians at WDW this year in any given week.

Is it enough by itself to bump up the crowds noticeably? Probably not IMHO.
 
I think you are on to something. I don't know if Josh at EasyWDW is back in the predicting game but I do know that last time I was looking for his crowd calendars he had stopped making them and said it was getting way too hard to accurately predict.
I miss his calendars :sad1: But in general I’ve found that the park the night before with evening EMH will be the least crowded the next morning.

BC spring break starts this Monday.
 


What’s the matter with you, don’t you realize ON is the centre of the universe? :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I lived at Bay and Bloor in Toronto for 3 years - so this is not news to me. Do you know how many people from the Maritimes look at you like you are crazy when you tell them you now live in Toronto?!? It's funny cause it's true. But it's also a huge population base - numbers don't lie. The attitude though is exaggerated.
 
Just back and didn't find the crowds too bad at all last week. Actually lower than many past years. However Florida spring break is THIS week for many districts. Often it overlaps with Ontario and when you get all of us together with the locals, crowds can really surge. Also didn't notice nearly as many Ontario cars down there or on the Interstates compared to past years. Looks like many of us decided to stay at home. We sailed through the border at Ogdensburg NY/Prescott ON at 3:00pm yesterday - there were NO CARS at the border in front of us.
 
Just back and didn't find the crowds too bad at all last week. Actually lower than many past years. However Florida spring break is THIS week for many districts. Often it overlaps with Ontario and when you get all of us together with the locals, crowds can really surge. Also didn't notice nearly as many Ontario cars down there or on the Interstates compared to past years. Looks like many of us decided to stay at home. We sailed through the border at Ogdensburg NY/Prescott ON at 3:00pm yesterday - there were NO CARS at the border in front of us.

Interesting that this was your experience. The data touring plans has posted: Crowds levels were at 9's or 10's in almost every park on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. As soon as Saturday hit (when everyone from Ontario would have been traveling back home) the crowds suddenly plummeted back down to 5's and 6's. And that's with weekend crowds.

This week, which you say is Spring Break for many Florida districts, has been 5's and 6's as well.

Do you usually find Prescott, Ontario to be a busy crossing? My understanding is the the crossings at Niagara and Sarnia are far more busy at March Break, as most of the crowds are traveling from Toronto and South/Western Ontario, where the majority of Ontario's population lives. We are usually waiting at least an hour to cross at either of those spots. Perhaps it would be worth is for us to try Prescott next time!

Anyway, glad you had a great experience with crowds!
 
Interesting that this was your experience. The data touring plans has posted: Crowds levels were at 9's or 10's in almost every park on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. As soon as Saturday hit (when everyone from Ontario would have been traveling back home) the crowds suddenly plummeted back down to 5's and 6's. And that's with weekend crowds.

This week, which you say is Spring Break for many Florida districts, has been 5's and 6's as well.

Do you usually find Prescott, Ontario to be a busy crossing? My understanding is the the crossings at Niagara and Sarnia are far more busy at March Break, as most of the crowds are traveling from Toronto and South/Western Ontario, where the majority of Ontario's population lives. We are usually waiting at least an hour to cross at either of those spots. Perhaps it would be worth is for us to try Prescott next time!

Anyway, glad you had a great experience with crowds!
Probably just the standard YMMV stuff. I use the WDW Lines app (Unofficial Guide) and they were predicting 7's and 8's in the lead up. That is pretty normal (we've done March Break 6 times now). Once I've made my FP+ at 30 days, I generally stop looking at the predictions as it fails to matter; I'm not changing my park itinerary once we are locked on FP+.

Yes, my impression is subjective, but we were able to ride everything we wanted with reasonable waits. Monday we got on FOP at AK with a 90 minute wait (posted 180). Tuesday we did MK evening only; watched Fireworks from the bridge near SM; not the best spot as the display gets divided, but there was no congestion on the bridge and we were able to hop on SM (FP+) and then ride BTM with minimal wait right after. We mosey'd over to Futureland for Buzz around 11:30 just as SM was opening up (it was down for extended periods 3 times that day) - it was a walkon standby (but that was dumb luck) followed by our longest wait of the day at Buzz for 35 minutes (posted 30). Wednesday at Epcot didn't seem too busy, but we only rode TT; there isn't much else there in the ride dept that interests us. I had FP+ for a couple of others but we decided to skip as we enjoyed walking around World Showcase trying out some of the regional food offerings. Thursday we hit MK again, 9:00 FP+ for 7DMT after which we rode BTM twice in a row with 10 and 15 minute waits respectively. We rode lots of other things too, but never waited too long, mostly by using FP+ and watching line times on WDW Lines.

The most direct route to Eastern Ontario is generally via the 1000 Islands Bridge at Ivy Lea; and it often has a wait on any weekend; I would expect about 45-60 minutes for March Break. The route to Ogdensburg adds about 5-10 minutes drive time, but it is generally much quieter. I have never seen it that quiet though, with being able to drive right through; I would have expected about 15-20 minute wait. There were only 2 lanes open and no one there. Now the low $$ probably helps as I am sure there aren't as many shoppers popping over to Ogdensburg for shopping excursions. But with 22 hours on the interstates I am used to seeing a lot more Ontario plates than we did (we've done the drive south 5 times now for break - 3 to Orlando, 2 to South Carolina beaches).

I am surprised about the low crowd levels this week. The radio was announcing the upcoming spring break several times through the week preceding. It is very difficult to tell by plates about their break though as most plates in Disney parking will be from FL (all the rentals).
 
We don't track Canadian spring break (CSB), but it's worth investigating. I've asked our Ottawa-based statistician, Fred, to look at this. Thanks for the heads-up.

Once we run these numbers I'll post here how big of a factor we think it is. It'll take a couple of weeks to get the historical CSB dates and re-run the models.

It looks like "Canadian Spring Break" has about the same influence on crowds as Memorial Day or Mardi Gras. We've added it to our models. Thanks @mamaofsix. Let me know if there's ever anything I can help y'all with.
 
It looks like "Canadian Spring Break" has about the same influence on crowds as Memorial Day or Mardi Gras. We've added it to our models. Thanks @mamaofsix. Let me know if there's ever anything I can help y'all with.

Wow, thanks @lentesta. Good to know that it wasn't just my imagination that us Canadians were affecting the crowds. Really appreciate all of the work touringplans puts into their statistical analysis!
 

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