Our Park days crowd calendar jumped from 4 to 9!

[wassily]

Sunday Rope Drop and Evenings, great way to go.

 

[ady2glude707]

That's what I thought too. We did July last year and it was really nice with relatively low crowds, but that was still coming out of the shutdowns. In years past we would see youtube videos of summer crowds and it looked like the entire state of California was in the park with barely a spot to wedge through anywhere. We would usually visit in November or Jan/Feb and it would be dead/empty compared to the videos of summer.

Yea I wonder how this summer will be. All my past trips have been in the summer and have experienced the summer crowds. I'm surprised some of you are posting prior experiences with crowds of 4 or 5 during the summer. I've never seen a summer month that low on Touring Plans when it was free.

 

[MillauFr]

I always thought it was the busiest since school is out.

Nope. Fall and Spring are far busier than Summer.

 

[MonocularVision]

We were just there on the Friday the 17th and Sunday the 19th and we’re very pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels. Felt slower than what we are used to in mid December.

I am 100% with the other folks that encourage folks to not worry about crowd levels are what any voodoo website might claim. When the parks are busier, there is typically more entertainment and rides running at higher capacity (both sides at Matterhorn, BTTR, etc) that it can even be more pleasant if you are prepared. We have long stopped trying to plan around “busy” days (although we still avoid Mondays!) and just go when it is best for us. With Genie+ and the right strategies we will get on and do everything we want and then some.

 

[mouschievous]

We were just there on the Friday the 17th and Sunday the 19th and we’re very pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels. Felt slower than what we are used to in mid December.

I am 100% with the other folks that encourage folks to not worry about crowd levels are what any voodoo website might claim. When the parks are busier, there is typically more entertainment and rides running at higher capacity (both sides at Matterhorn, BTTR, etc) that it can even be more pleasant if you are prepared. We have long stopped trying to plan around “busy” days (although we still avoid Mondays!) and just go when it is best for us. With Genie+ and the right strategies we will get on and do everything we want and then some.

That's right where we are. We're going in the summer for the first time (usually go in fall/ winter) and in the words of Molly at AllEsrs, we're just going to have to pack our patient pants. We have plans to help with crowds and heat and we'll just take it one day/hour/ride at a time.

As a side note, I looked up the dates we were there in Nov 2018 and they are listed as 9s as well. I don't know if a Nov 2018 9 is the same a a July 2022 9, but those days were crowded but not unbearable.

 

[DLgal]

Crowds at DLR are largely driven by annual pass blackout calendars. Most of Summer is blacked out to the 2 lower level passes.

But then this year, Disney released a summer CA resident promotional ticket. This is only the second year they have EVER done this over summer time. They did it last year due to shockingly low attendance numbers, and it still didn't generate the attendance they were looking for, so they rolled out the Magic Key program months ahead of schedule. THAT is what finally brought the crowds.

 

[hroberts518]

Love the water bottle idea! I’ll do that if our hotel has a freezer.

Same, anyone know if Beach club has freezer in rooms?

 

[DLgal]

Same, anyone know if Beach club has freezer in rooms?

Not unless it's a DVC villa with a full kitchen.

 

[V.I.N.CENT.]

Touring Plans increased predictions across the board. Scrolling through the months, nothing lower than a rare 4. They nearly doubled everything from previous predictions. Could have been prior COVID numbers were entered and just now updated. maybe they expect an influx of international travelers now? Who knows? it's always best to prepare for the worst and make the most out of it.

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

Touring Plans increased predictions across the board. Scrolling through the months, nothing lower than a rare 4. They nearly doubled everything from previous predictions. Could have been prior COVID numbers were entered and just now updated. maybe they expect an influx of international travelers now? Who knows? it's always best to prepare for the worst and make the most out of it.

I think you are correct. Since COVID, crowd changes, passholder changes, hotel occupancy changes, staff changes, park reservation systems, attraction changes, show changes, elimination of Fastpass, and the introduction to Genie+, the prediction business using algorithms would need to change too. It takes time I would guess.

Your motto is spot on. Prepare for the worst and love every minute that you are at DLR.

 

[RobertaMomof2]

We were there two days before the CA tickets opened up (one of which was a Grad Night) and those two days were the best and least crowded of our trip. Our other 3 days (M-Wed) were the first three days of the CA Ticket offer and those days were really, really busy. So much more busy than the other two (Friday and Sunday). I bet, while the ticket offers are available those days will be the busiest.

 

[Littlebitofsunshine]

We were there two days before the CA tickets opened up (one of which was a Grad Night) and those two days were the best and least crowded of our trip. Our other 3 days (M-Wed) were the first three days of the CA Ticket offer and those days were really, really busy. So much more busy than the other two (Friday and Sunday). I bet, while the ticket offers are available those days will be the busiest.

Oh interesting! I see those CA tickets are thru Sept 15. When do the magic keys go on sale again (or whatever the equivalent is or will be)? I wonder if there might be somewhat lower crowds after Sept. 15 before October …

 

[DLgal]

We were there two days before the CA tickets opened up (one of which was a Grad Night) and those two days were the best and least crowded of our trip. Our other 3 days (M-Wed) were the first three days of the CA Ticket offer and those days were really, really busy. So much more busy than the other two (Friday and Sunday). I bet, while the ticket offers are available those days will be the busiest.

There are 2 different promo tickets: Sunday through Thursday, and 7 days a week. The Sun-Thurs are about $100 cheaper over 3 days. Saturdays have been slower than weekdays for the last month.

 

[ady2glude707]

Crowds at DLR are largely driven by annual pass blackout calendars. Most of Summer is blacked out to the 2 lower level passes.

But then this year, Disney released a summer CA resident promotional ticket. This is only the second year they have EVER done this over summer time. They did it last year due to shockingly low attendance numbers, and it still didn't generate the attendance they were looking for, so they rolled out the Magic Key program months ahead of schedule. THAT is what finally brought the crowds.

The Cali resident passes are whats bumping up the crowds. We got ****ed this year because of those passes and in 2018 we got ****ed over when Disney opened up the summer dates we were going to annual pass holders when the dates originally had them blocked. That was the worst Ive ever experienced.

 

[DLgal]

The Cali resident passes are whats bumping up the crowds. We got ****ed this year because of those passes and in 2018 we got ****ed over when Disney opened up the summer dates we were going to annual pass holders. That was the worst Ive ever experienced.

100%

I kinda hate those promo tickets, not gonna lie.

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

I know Disney is trying to get crowds back to Before Times levels, but I am still surprised that with crowds as bad as people are reporting here, reservations are almost 100% open all summer. I think they set the cap at NYE levels at this point!

As others are saying, I will pack my patience for our trip in 10 days. We only visit about once a year so that puts a little more pressure on each visit to make it “worth it”.

 

[sanibel11]

We will focus on mornings. We do have a couple of night time reservations that should be fun. WOC dessert party and River Belle Terrace premium Fantasmic viewing. Out of curiosity, is DCA just as crowded as Disneyland right now?

Just got back from 3 days trip DCA and DL both same amount of people and crowded but first Couple hours weren’t bad and after sun went down wasn’t bad as most people were so exhausted from heat or waiting for parades.

 

[lalasmama]

Remember that many crowd calendars go by prior years' data. Why does that matter?

We can look back at 2021. The parks were closed for the first 4 months. Covid was still rampant, many people were afraid to travel, and the allowed guest count in the parks was substantially lower. There were also mask mandates that many people didn't want to deal with. Also, for 70-ish percent of the year, there were no annual passes.

Things that are different in 2022: People are more willing to travel, capacity has increased, APs/MKs have returned and no more masks if you so choose.

So 2021 is kind of an "anomaly."

Obviously, parks were closed 78-ish% of 2020, so it's hard to use that data.

So, now we're back at 2019. At that point, there were no reservations. No knowledge of a future pandemic. Capacity was fluid; if a park reached capacity, it often opened up again in an hour or two. But that's not applicable in 2022.

Also, many crowd calendars don't account for the variation that happens: local spring breaks, spring breaks of bordering statesm events at Anaheim Convention Center, D23, etc.

Another point: Some calendars go by guest reporting on times to assess busyness. However, without additional entries from other people, the times can be easily skewed by a "stinker" that's putting in an inflated/decreased wait time if they are in the mood to be a rascal....

 

[Pluto468]

The crowds ended up not being an issue at all. The heat was way worse! We were able to go on everything we wanted, some things twice. It would probably have been different without Genie+. But we only even bought that for 3 of our 5 days.

 

[asumom]

Doesn't matter, seems always crowded. We went on a 4 day and it was packed. We always leave the hotel one hour before park open and get a good position for rope drop. We did space mountain, Indiana Jones, splash mountain with no wait and then hit thunder and haunted mansion with about 15-20 minutes waits. After that everything was 30 to 60+ waits all day. (mostly on the 60+ side, single rider for matterhorn was at a standstill and super long, rise was about the same wait time as matterhorn so we hopped over to it instead)