Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar

Crowd Calendar 2.0: Smarter, More Accurate Crowd Predictions

The NEW Crowd Calendar has arrived!

Check out this blog post for more details, and read over the Crowd Levels and Park Recommendations pages for more information. We've also updated our Crowd Calendar FAQ, and if you have any questions whatsoever, let us know.

What is the Crowd Calendar?

The Crowd Calendar gives you crowd predictions at Walt Disney World for the next twelve months. It is updated continuously by a professional statistician and uses actual wait times collected from the parks by our researchers and TouringPlans.com users (via Lines!).

Find Out How Crowded It Will Be

The crowd level is based on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the least crowded conditions and 10 being most crowded. The scale represents the combined wait times at all the standby lines and FASTPASS booths in Walt Disney World. It is a relative scale--an '8' is more crowded than '7' which is more crowded than '6'. The crowd level tells you how each day compares to all other days. Read more on Crowd Levels.

The Crowd Calendar now predicts crowd levels for each Park! See the Park Crowd Levels page for more info.

Choose The Best Parks & Avoid The Worst

Which park should you visit each day? Which parks should you steer clear of? We've listed our "Best Park" and "Park To Avoid" recommendations for each day of the year, above. Parks that are not listed in either column are somewhere in between. Read more on Park Recommendations.

Trust Our Data

The Crowd Calendar is not based on our "gut instinct." We collect a massive amount of data from the parks and have our very own statistician, Fred Hazelton, to analyze the data. We've been collecting standby wait times and FASTPASS distribution times from Disney's parks since 2000 on a regular basis throughout the year. On a normal research day, we'll collect wait times for nearly every attraction for 10 to 12 hours.

Since we introduced our mobile wait times website, Lines, in late 2009, we've received a mountain of data directly from TouringPlans.com users. This has let us create improved models, and allowed us to stay on the bleeding edge of crowd conditions within the parks.

Other Factors influencing the Crowd Calendar include:

• Historical Park Hours & Schedules

  We've archived park hours dating back to 2004, Extra Magic Hour schedules and special events dates, both official (Grad Nights, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, etc) and unofficial (Gay Days). These can have a significant effect on the Crowd Calendar.

• Attraction Closure Schedules

  When headliner attractions close for refurbishment the crowd disperses to other attractions and we track the affects. This allows us to predict what might happen to wait times during future closures.

• Central Florida Tourism Demographics

  We analyze everything from which cities Orlando visitors come from and how long they stay, to how many people they bring and which theme parks they visit.

• Central Florida Weather

  The biggest reason for attraction wait times to be abnormal is the weather so we track that too. If it is unseasonably cold or unseasonably hot that can affect crowds.

• Economic Factors

  Boom times and recessions can change the way people travel. We track data from national and local visitor bureaus to see how the economy is influencing trips to Walt Disney World.

Learn More!

You can read more about what the Crowd Levels will mean to you, how we create our Park Recommendations, and find answers to commonly asked questions. Have more questions? Contact us!