I want to reiterate the importance of researching the vacation days you plan to spend at specific parks with a real life example. Our favorite park is Magic Kingdom so it made sense to want to visit MK on our first full day in Orlando. I'm glad I did my research because Magic Kingdom is scheduled to close at 6:00 pm that evening, presumably for a private event or Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. We would have been extremely disappointed if we hadn't realized that until we were in the park on that day.
Does stuff like that happen? I'm sure it does. And this isn't to snark on anyone because I realize that my level of planning is very detailed (although not nearly as detailed as others) but we've witnessed other guests' planning errors. There was the mom who thought Crystal Palace restaurant was in Cinderella's castle and the family looking around Magic Kingdom for a restaurant located at Disney Springs. If mistakes such as these are happening, I think it's safe to assume not every guest is checking park hours in advance.
Planning Resources
disneyworld.disney.go.com
Your first stop should be to the main source. The WDW website publishes park hours, parade times, special events and attractions closed for refurbishment. This calendar extends for six months. So today, March 12, I can only see information through September 8.
Crowd Calendars
Kenny the Pirate
While the park hours on the Disney website only extend out six months, the crowd calendars on this website go beyond that. I'm linking this website as a resource because the hours for my vacation dates were not yet up on Disney's website when I needed to plan and so this is where I discovered that Magic Kingdom was closing at 6:00 on our first full vacation day. I double checked the Disney website later when it had updated and the times match.
A few thoughts on crowd calendars. . . Disney itself does not publish attendance records. I think the best you can find is a combined total of attendance at all the parks for the entire year. There are many websites offering their predictions on what crowds will be like on specific days. I have mixed feelings on using crowd calendars for a few different reasons. Disney does make public wait times for rides and attractions. Unofficial crowd calendars are created using historical wait times, knowledge of events and Disney special offers. I think it's more important to take into account the time of year your trip is taking place versus obsessing over whether to visit Epcot on a day with an 8/10 rating or Magic Kingdom with a 7/10 rating. Also keep in mind that often parks will be rated more crowded for the very reason you want to visit that day. Extra Magic Hours and night parades/fireworks bring in more crowds.
Interestingly enough, many Disney bloggers believe "slow" times of the year at Disney are disappearing because of 1. the special offers made by Disney to draw in guests during known slower times and 2. all the planning information available on the internet. I disagree. The beginning of September may not be as slow as it used to be but it certainly can't compare to summer crowds.
If crowd calendars are telling you Magic Kingdom is the worst park to visit on a certain day, wouldn't that be the best park to visit because everyone else will be avoiding it? In theory. But we all know not everyone follows crowd calendars and they do vary, depending on the source. Just run a google search for "Disney crowd calendars" and you'll see what I mean.
I've reached the point in planning where I look at our vacation as a whole. What park is most important to us? Right now, it's Magic Kingdom so I look for the days where Magic Kingdom works best. For us, the park closing at 6:00 is not a positive. Some of the crowd calendars show Magic Kingdom as the best park to visit on that day where it's closing at 6:00. Their justification is that crowds will be lower because guests won't want to visit on a day when the park closes at 6:00. Will lower crowds reduce wait times enough to make the park worth visiting that day? No one can say for sure. Is every guest aware of the park's closing time before they reach the park that day? I'm guessing no. Other "negatives" for crowd calendars are Extra Magic Hours and night parades and fireworks. Those are positive for us though. How would we ever see a parade if we always avoid the park on parade days?
Once I figure out the most important dates/parks for us, then I fill in the other days. For our upcoming trip, I have Epcot booked for a day when some of the crowd calendars say Epcot is the worst pick of the day. But other crowd calendars disagree. We'll see what happens!
To see an outline of how I plan out our Disney vacations, please check out my post Plan Your Walt Disney World Vacation in 8 Steps.
You can find links to trip reports from our previous 5 Disney vacations and other planning tips HERE.
3 comments:
Interesting post..have always thought about this. The very logic of a crowd calendar is a little backwards..if everyone used the advice offered by them, they would be useless. Plus, like you said, if you avoid ALL popular things (shows, parades, EMH) what are you going for, exactly?
I plan the same way you do. Plan your must- dos, and then figure out how you can achieve that in the most painless way possible, without pushing yourself of your kids to the brink of insanity - rope dropping, fast passes, etc.
Love your blog!
I also never go by crowd calendars, just what fits into our plans. I think the most important thing is to arrive at rope drop and plan FP+ appropriately. We leave during the hottest part of the day and will come back at night for dinner. (Not huge on parades and will only watch fireworks if they fit into our plans.)
It's interesting what you say about summer though--the summer crowds are definitely decreasing. The past two Octobers have been way busier than July.
I reference the crowd calendars, but largely as a reference point for park hours and special events. We got caught unaware at Universal Studios with an early closure and I won't ever make that mistake again. :)
If I have the wiggle room in my own schedule to account for when it's expected to be less crowded, I will try to make it happen.
That said, for a family trip this past October, we went to Disneyland and California Adventure (park hoppers make sense in California) on an early closure day (also the Halloween party) because it made the most sense in our vacation and we crossed our fingers that the short hours would keep other people away. They did!! Well, it was either that or that in combination with the crazy heat, but we practically walked on to every ride. Even with catching a couple shows to cool off, we still ended up leaving early because it was so quiet and we'd done everything we wanted to do.
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