What were actual crowd levels like for this past week?

Artygal90

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 1, 2017
Is there a page on Touring Plans where they post the actual crowd levels for each day at the different parks? We just got back from 5 days in Orlando and spent 3 of them at Disneyworld. We went to every park and did most of the headliners either with FastPass+ or at rope-drop. But by midday everything seemed packed and it was difficult and stressful to move around. We waited something like 20 minutes in line for coffee and cinnamon rolls at Gaston's Tavern on Wednesday at 9:30 am (not by my choice!)

Despite all that, the longest line we waited in was 40 minutes at 7DMT during the last hour of evening EMH, followed by 30-ish minutes at Haunted Mansion around 10 am. So I'm wondering - were those crowds 8 out of 10? 4 out of 10? 10 out of 10? Just wondering, because I REALLY want to go back ASAP and am wondering where on the spectrum of "crowded - not crowded" that our trip fell. I'm love with rope-drop because there were so few people around.

FWIW, our itinerary looked like this:

Tuesday 3/13 - Rope dropped Hollywood Studios and hopped to Epcot after 12 pm. Lines for Flower and Garden booths were looooooong. Only got a couple rides done during evening EMH this night too. Zero FP availability for anything except Nemo after about 4 pm.

Wednesday 3/14 - Magic Kingdom all day, 8 am - 1 am (can't believe we did this! with only a short resort break too!). Rope-drop was fine over in Frontierland/Adventureland, but crowds started building by about 10 am. EMH was all walk-ons except for 7DMT.

Thursday 3/15 - Rope dropped Animal Kingdom. The FOP line was out of control, but Navi River Journey, Festival of the Lion King, and Dinosaur were walk-ons. By 11:00 am it was getting uncomfortably crowded and was still that way even after our FOP FP around 4 pm.
 
Not on touringplans, but last week was very crowded. I couldn't believe the wait times posted and the pictures of the lines. Glad I was there the week before.

if you survived that with a good attitude, you can pretty much go whenever.
 
Is there a page on Touring Plans where they post the actual crowd levels for each day at the different parks? We just got back from 5 days in Orlando and spent 3 of them at Disneyworld. We went to every park and did most of the headliners either with FastPass+ or at rope-drop. But by midday everything seemed packed and it was difficult and stressful to move around. We waited something like 20 minutes in line for coffee and cinnamon rolls at Gaston's Tavern on Wednesday at 9:30 am (not by my choice!)

Despite all that, the longest line we waited in was 40 minutes at 7DMT during the last hour of evening EMH, followed by 30-ish minutes at Haunted Mansion around 10 am. So I'm wondering - were those crowds 8 out of 10? 4 out of 10? 10 out of 10? Just wondering, because I REALLY want to go back ASAP and am wondering where on the spectrum of "crowded - not crowded" that our trip fell. I'm love with rope-drop because there were so few people around.

FWIW, our itinerary looked like this:

Tuesday 3/13 - Rope dropped Hollywood Studios and hopped to Epcot after 12 pm. Lines for Flower and Garden booths were looooooong. Only got a couple rides done during evening EMH this night too. Zero FP availability for anything except Nemo after about 4 pm.

Wednesday 3/14 - Magic Kingdom all day, 8 am - 1 am (can't believe we did this! with only a short resort break too!). Rope-drop was fine over in Frontierland/Adventureland, but crowds started building by about 10 am. EMH was all walk-ons except for 7DMT.

Thursday 3/15 - Rope dropped Animal Kingdom. The FOP line was out of control, but Navi River Journey, Festival of the Lion King, and Dinosaur were walk-ons. By 11:00 am it was getting uncomfortably crowded and was still that way even after our FOP FP around 4 pm.
Yes. Go to the crowd tracker page and charge the date to the day you are curious about. It will tell you the projection and what they saw
 


Whew, that's a relief. OP, would you have died if TP had one of your days observed as 4/10?:scared:
 
Whew, that's a relief. OP, would you have died if TP had one of your days observed as 4/10?:scared:

Absolutely! I feel soooo much better about booking future trips. If I manage to go for my 30th birthday in early May in a few years, maybe it'll feel positively empty!
 


We were there last week as my husband had a work conference. I would not have chosen that week otherwise. My daughter and I were in the exact parks that tbre 1982,referenced above. At least I know I wasn’t just imagining it was that crowded! Thank goodness for FPs and a more relaxed touring style. We got our must dos accomplished thanks to FPs and rope drop but not much else. No complaints though, loved the sunshine and any day at Disney beats a day at work.
 
We were in the parks 3 days last week and the FP lines were the longest I've ever seen so I'm not surprised they were max crowds. FP line for Dinosaur was back to Restaurantosaurus and I've never seen that before (and we go a lot!).
 
I too noticed long FP lines (longer than I'd ever seen in the past) during our trip (3/9-13) but the lines always moved very fast. We never waited long in the FP lines, despite their length. I did find it curious that I always heard the comment "THIS is the FP line!?" because so many people equate FP to mean no line at all. I always mentioned to them a FP means a shorter wait not no wait. They'd always go "oh, ok, makes sense". I know the stand by lines had to be miserable because they were really moving a lot of folks through the FP lines
 
I too noticed long FP lines (longer than I'd ever seen in the past) during our trip (3/9-13) but the lines always moved very fast. We never waited long in the FP lines, despite their length. I did find it curious that I always heard the comment "THIS is the FP line!?" because so many people equate FP to mean no line at all. I always mentioned to them a FP means a shorter wait not no wait. They'd always go "oh, ok, makes sense". I know the stand by lines had to be miserable because they were really moving a lot of folks through the FP lines
This, exactly! We had to adjust our way of thinking last week as we'd been used to FP lines meaning 5 minutes wait times or 'walk right on'. Now FP means you won't have to wait 2+ hours, but you might have to wait 20+ minutes. Seeing small children and elderly people in those 2+hour stand-by lines for FoP was just sad.
 
https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/crowd-calendar/month/march/2018

On 3/13 HS was 10/10 and Epcot was 9/10

3/14 MK was a 10

3/15 AK was a 9.

This seems consistent with other posts I have seen discussing crowd calendars. We were there exactly one week prior to that (M-F, 3/5-3/9, M/F=EC, T=AK, W/R=MK). Crowds rated as 6-4-6-7-5 for M-F. We don't go to WDW often so it is hard to compare, but we did find there were FP+ available in early afternoon so we could use 4 or 5 per day, even when were only in a park for a partial day. It seems that the spring break crowds really kick in after the first full week of March.
 
Absolutely! I feel soooo much better about booking future trips. If I manage to go for my 30th birthday in early May in a few years, maybe it'll feel positively empty!
I have been in May twice, both times wasn't overly crowded, wait times being less than 30 minutes with the exceptions of 7DMT and SM. Good time to go, if you can stand the heat. :)
 
Yes. Go to the crowd tracker page and charge the date to the day you are curious about. It will tell you the projection and what they saw
do you have to subscribe to see that? I'm curious what it was during my trip last year in May so I know what level that was for a basis of comparison.
 
do you have to subscribe to see that? I'm curious what it was during my trip last year in May so I know what level that was for a basis of comparison.
I think so but honestly not sure. I've subscribed for so long I can't remember what the site offers to non-subscribers
 
We were there this past week. I was prepared for horrible crowds since it was Spring Break. Some days were miserable- especially at MK. We managed to do most everything though. Fast pass lines were longer than I have ever seen them but they moved fairly quickly. I knew they were going to be 9 and 10 crowd levels so I think I was mentally prepared. Ugh. The things we do for our nieces and nephews! LOL
 
do you have to subscribe to see that? I'm curious what it was during my trip last year in May so I know what level that was for a basis of comparison.

I am not a Touring Plans subscriber (saving those pennies for some Mickey ears) so I couldn't see the crowd level information. People here are helpful and nice though. Perhaps I'll spring for it next time!
 
OK, so I like to crunch numbers for fun. I downloaded the crowd data for 2015-2017 into a spreadsheet and plotted it vs each day of the year.
To smooth the data, I averaged the results from three years and plotted the weekly average for the starting day shown. So for example, for the
the average crowd size for week beginning Jan 1 (i.e. Jan 1-Jan7) over the three year period from 2015-2018 was about 6.4 on a scale from 1-10.
I deleted data from days the park was closed for hurricanes. There is a peak for MLK day (but still low crowds) in Jan. There is a bigger
peak for President's day in mid Feb. Spring Break season runs from mid March through early April. There is a curious peak in late April I can't explain.
Summer season seems to run from mid May through mid Aug with a curious dip in late June. Sep is the slow month. There are spikes in mid Oct and early Nov.
There is a short spike for Thanksgiving and and the busiest time is from mid Dec through New Year.

WDWCrowds.JPG
 
OK, so I like to crunch numbers for fun. I downloaded the crowd data for 2015-2017 into a spreadsheet and plotted it vs each day of the year.
To smooth the data, I averaged the results from three years and plotted the weekly average for the starting day shown. So for example, for the
the average crowd size for week beginning Jan 1 (i.e. Jan 1-Jan7) over the three year period from 2015-2018 was about 6.4 on a scale from 1-10.
I deleted data from days the park was closed for hurricanes. There is a peak for MLK day (but still low crowds) in Jan. There is a bigger
peak for President's day in mid Feb. Spring Break season runs from mid March through early April. There is a curious peak in late April I can't explain.
Summer season seems to run from mid May through mid Aug with a curious dip in late June. Sep is the slow month. There are spikes in mid Oct and early Nov.
There is a short spike for Thanksgiving and and the busiest time is from mid Dec through New Year.

View attachment 309985

In 2017, Easter fell on April 16. I wonder if that contributed to your late April bump. Easter is always the busiest Spring Break week at Disney, but it moves around, so it's difficult to track on your chart. Last week is the second busiest Spring Break week. I was really surprised when touring plans decreased their crowd predictions from 9's to 7's. I was there last week, and I'm not surprised to see them revised to 10's.
 

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