See Videos of Different Magic Kingdom Crowd Levels
Our Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar uses a 1 to 10 scale to describe how crowded each theme park will be, every day for the next year. But if you’re a first-time visitor trying to pick a week for your vacation, it can be difficult to visualize the difference between a “4”-level crowd and an “8.”
To help with this, we’ve created a set of video walk-throughs of the Magic Kingdom for crowd levels 4 through 10, shown below. Each video was taken at the same time of day, goes through each land in the park, and lasts around 45 seconds.
Here’s the Magic Kingdom on a crowd level 4 day:
Crowd level 5:
Crowd level 6:
Crowd level 7:
Crowd level 8:
Crowd level 9:
Crowd level 10:
We’re working on crowd levels 1 through 3 too, as well as videos for other parks.
We’re thinking of adding these videos to our crowd calendar, to help give an idea of what to expect during your visit. If you think this would be helpful, or have other ideas, let us know in the comments below.
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I’d like to see still photos of same locations, side by side, comparing crowd density. It would be great to have photos of line rides, as visible from outside popular attractions, so I can put a visual to “45 minute wait” etc.
Very interesting, thanx! Was expecting to be shocked by the “10”… notsomuch. I’m sure the post fireworks crawl that day would be alarming. Makes sense you started at “4”, since anything lower is ultra-rare (possibly only found in memory).
Along with adding the above mentioned music, how about a ticker tape on the bottom with Ride Time averages for that time & crowd level?
Great idea. I too didn’t notice much difference between a “4” and a “10”. I’ve never been there during a “10” day, but would expect things to be much harder to navigate. Maybe something like this showing lines, and/or posted standby wait times at some popular attractions would be helpful too.
I love these! I have to agree with those who’ve commented that they couldn’t see much difference between the “4” and the “10.” After having read some of the horror stories and “profound disappointments” that people describe on chat, I was expecting to see that you couldn’t move freely on a “10” day.
Anyone else notice how many times traffic stopped because groups of people with strollers congregate in the middle of walkways? I saw that exact scenario in the Adventureland portion of the screen in 3 different videos. 🙂
I think the reason there isn’t much of a difference between 4 and 10, is that with a 10 everyone is stuck standing on long ride lines and not walking around. On a slow day, lines go faster, and there is more opportunity for down time.
One of your best works, but after being there on a 10 day in August, I thought there were a lot more people around. It must have been the heat. Glad our next trips in early December!
Great idea! While I hate to criticize (I know everyone can’t be pleased 100% of time), I’m thinking that the time of these videos (1:30) is still around lunch time. Maybe next time shoot around 11:00 when late-comers are just now getting to park. But, like I said, this is a great idea 🙂
Our Magic Kingdom day this coming Saturday (11/21) was recently upgraded to a 7 and I was pretty worried, but after seeing that video I feel a lot better. Thanks!
These videos are a good idea, but after carefully watching the 4 and 10 videos I…. don’t see a huge amount of difference. Perhaps this is the perspective of the camera, the fact the vids are sped up, or some other factor.
However, I suspect the reason is that the videos don’t depict the actual number of humans in the park. Since you really can’t see people in line on the vids, you just see those walking around. And that number, at least to me in these two videos, isn’t that different.
As I’ve mentioned before, the inverse can also be true with the current crowd calendar algorithm. When things like Food&Wine happen, Epcot can be slammed to the point that it is hard to walk around the world showcase, but there are very few people actually on rides. Thus the crowd calendar as currently instituted implies that the park is close to empty when it is in fact full to overflowing.
This is fantastic for showing friends/family members who are not uber planners what the differences actually are. For our trip in January, the day we are doing MK is a 7, and another day is a 4. Being able to show something more precise like this, rather than just a number is very helpful in showing the others in our group that there is a difference, but it is not as dramatic as just a number would make it appear. Thank you Fred for taking the time to make this, and Len for posting!!!
What time of day approximately is this happening? Is this at Rope Drop or at let’s say 1:30 PM in the afternoon?
It’s around lunchtime. I believe noon. I’ll check with Fred.
It was 1:30 PM.
Your 10 looks light compared to what I saw when I’ve been there but I guess it depends on the time of day. It would be hard to do the same at night but to show the difference of the hub and Main Street during Wishes would be helpful. To me that is the most stressful time in the park.
Having been there for “low” crowd days during Wishes I can’t imagine that what the camera shows would actually be that different on a crowded day. Either way you see a wall of people on all sides of you, the difference would be that on a 10 that wall crawls to the exit after the show and on a 1 it shuffles.
We were in MK Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week and your 10 looks light compared to what we saw. Only the Tomorrowland video looks accurate. It was way busier than what the crowd calendar predicted for those days, in my opinion.
I love these videos, but I did have a hard time picturing how that translated into ride/food line lengths. The only thing I would add is something like wait time: No line/straight onto the ride, Brisk moving lines/Brief wait, less than 10 minutes, etc. Annotated onto the video to give you an idea. If there’s one ride like Pirates of the Caribbean that has universal appeal and most people can tolerate. That’s the gauge I’d use.
These videos are outstanding. Very helpful. Please do videos of the other parks. And as someone else suggested, maybe one video with all crowd levels shown at same time. Thanks very much! 🙂
These are great!! Would also love to see a parade or fireworks crowd view if possible.
I could sorta tell the levels of crowds with these videos. What would be helpful with these would be approximate standby wait times for each ride based on crowd levels.
This post shows the wait times for each ride on each crowd level: http://blog.touringplans.com/2015/09/28/evaluate-crowd-calendar/
I would love to see a video with several different crowd levels on the screen in one of the areas. I think it’s easier to compare that way. Very cool idea though!
Let me see what we can do there. Is there a particular area of the park you’re most interested in?
I know I’m interested in Fantasyland and Main Street. These are awesome videos for illustrating the “feel” of a crowd on each level–thanks for putting them together.
I came down to the comment section to say this very thing. One video with a similar layout to the others but instead of showing different areas showing different levels, maybe a few seconds of each area.
The areas that I seem to notice crowds the most are Fantasyland and Frontierland.
What time of day were these taken?
Around noon. I’ll check with Fred for the exact time. Same time every day, though.
Ah, Fred says 1:30 PM sharp, starting from the flagpole.
This is fantastic! These are really helpful, especially when trying to feel out the difference between say a 4 and a 7. Wait times are obviously important but sometimes the space in between and the crowds getting around are harder to get a feel for. Thanks for doing these!
I would have loved musical cues to go along with these. Like, 4/10 is “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”, while 10/10 is either “Yakety Sax” or the Imperial March. 😛
I’m going to do this. 🙂
That is the single awesomest exchange I’ve ever seen on here.