Disney World Crowd Report – November 9 to 15, 2014
Our resort level predictions for the days around Veterans Day hit the mark but last week was marred by the largest surprise crowd at Magic Kingdom that we have ever seen. About 4% of the time we expect our crowd calendar park level predictions to miss by more than two index levels, about 1% miss by three or more. Never has our Magic Kingdom prediction missed by five levels as it did on Saturday. Last year’s crowd on the same day was a level ‘3’ at the Magic Kingdom. We are still not entirely sure what caused the influx of guests to Magic Kingdom on Saturday but judging by the crowd levels since then, it appears to be an isolated occurrence.
Let’s look at how the crowd levels stacked up each day last week on the Touringplans Disney World Crowd Report:
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magic Kingdom |
7
|
6
|
Sunday brought level ‘6’s to three parks and one level lower to Animal Kingdom. Estimates performed well across all parks including our prediction of 34 minutes for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (observed 31), 13 at Living with the Land, 18 at Great Movie Ride (observed 16) and 41 at Expedition Everest (observed 34). |
| Epcot |
5
|
6
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
7
|
6
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
7
|
5
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
5
|
6
|
Monday’s predictions were too low at the Studios thanks to a 56-minute average wait at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (predicted 29) and too high at Animal Kingdom thanks to a 19-minute average wait at Primeval Whirl (predicted 27). Predictions at the other two parks did well, only missing by one. |
| Epcot |
6
|
7
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
5
|
8
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
6
|
4
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
5
|
8
|
Veterans Day usually brings no discernible bump in crowds at Walt Disney World but this year seems to be an exception, especially at Magic Kingdom. A crowd level ‘8’ at Magic Kingdom is rare on a Tuesday in November unless it is adjacent to Thanksgiving. Wait times were 5 to 8 minutes higher than expected, on average. |
| Epcot |
6
|
5
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
6
|
7
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
5
|
4
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
5
|
6
|
Crowds settled down nicely on Wednesday with no park reaching a level above ‘6’ on our scale. By comparison with Tuesday’s ‘8’, we saw average wait times like 29 minutes at Haunted Mansion instead of 41 minutes. |
| Epcot |
3
|
4
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
4
|
5
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
3
|
5
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
3
|
Thursday’s crowd levels dipped lower than the earlier part of the week, as predicted. Only Animal Kingdom managed a crowd level above ‘3’ on our scale. Epcot’s wait times were 5 to 10 minutes lower than predicted. Magic Kingdom’s low crowd was aided by Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party which drew guests to the park in late afternoon. |
| Epcot |
5
|
3
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
4
|
3
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
5
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
5
|
Hosting another Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party on Friday, Magic Kingdom saw a crowd level two points higher than the day before but still only at a level ‘5’. Elsewhere, crowds held steady. |
| Epcot |
4
|
5
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
4
|
4
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
3
|
3
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
2
|
7
|
Strangely, the large crowd on Saturday appears to be isolated at Magic Kingdom. All other parks came in as expected. We have no Saturdays on record that include an Extra Magic Hour evening at Magic Kingdom after two consecutive nights of Christmas Parties. That may offer some explanation of the crowd. |
| Epcot |
4
|
4
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
5
|
5
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
3
|
4
|
|
| November 16 to 22, 2014 |
|---|
Although we saw some unpredictable crowd levels last week, mid-November remains a great time to visit the parks. Guests experience moderate crowds, cooler weather and festive additions to the resort. Last week also reminds us that a proper touring plan is your single best asset against any crowd. Use them and the size of the crowd won’t matter.
To see Walt Disney World Crowd predictions for the days of your vacation, check the Crowd Calendar.
To get details about our predictions of future crowds or details about crowds in the past check out the Crowd Calendar and select “Jump to Date” on the left margin.
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Nov 11th at MK was crazy! We fought crowds all day, and our TP fell apart early on. But we still managed to have fun and accomplish a lot. The rest of the week, the crowds seemed manageable in all the parks. We had a great week and I’m sad it will be several years before we can make it back!
We are heading to MK Saturday December 13th which is currently a 2. However disney has since extended their hours for the day which makes me wonder if we will be in for a surprise too. I have already booked BOG and fast passes so I think we will stick with our touring plan and hope for the best.
We were at MK on Saturday, as well. I am glad to see that the crowd level was higher than the anticipated 3 because I thought the crowd was pretty big. We still used our touring plan which saved us even longer waits. It seemed like as soon as we were in line for an attraction the crowd behind us surged. Touring plans saved us a ton of aggravation! I was also thankful for the extra magic hours so we could sneak in a few more attractions with a relatively low wait.
We were there on Saturday as well. I was like, “this isn’t even close to a 2”. I actually couldn’t wait to see this article to see what the crowd actually was. Don’t be too hard on yourself for missing that day forecast. Things like this are bound to happen.
We were there Saturday. It was not fun. Given that Disney had extended regular hours to Midnight, I should have known it would not have been a two. Lesson learned: the crowd calendar is not infallable.
Thanks for this – we were at MK on Tuesday the 11th and it was the busiest I have ever seen. We still used a touring plan and carried on, but nice to see we weren’t crazy and it really was busy!
when I saw your “2” I thought you must be wrong. A Saturday, when the 2 days before and after have short hours, it has the only MSEP (and an added second parade), and EMH evening hours seemed like a recipe for high crowds. Glad I listened to my own logic and wasn’t there! Overall this week though your line wait predictions were within 2 minutes or so. So that worked great!! 🙂