Future Walt Disney World Crowds

WALT DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR

The thumbnail (click on it to open it) presents predictions for crowds at Walt Disney World over the year.

(Last updated August 2010.)

The thumbnail shows colored bars by Saturday arrival date.

The higher the bar, the more crowded the parks at Walt Disney World will be that week.

These crowd predictions were used, along with ride closures, seasonal pricing changes and weather information, to develop this site’s

• 2010 Weeks to Visit, Ranked in Order,
• 2011 Weeks to Visit, Ranked in Order,
• and the 2010 Week Picker App

There are two colors to the bars, green and red.

• Green bars are crowd forecasts based on analysis of current Walt Disney World data (which is usually available for the next 6 months).
• Red bars are crowd projections based on similar months from recent years, revised to reflect actual holiday dates in 2010 and 2011.

But regardless of color, the higher the bar, the more crowded the parks will be!

(To see the same Disney crowd forecasts in tabular form–where the higher the number, the bigger the crowds–click the thumbnail to the right.)

A NOTE ON DISNEY WORLD CROWD FORECAST ACCURACY DURING THE RECESSION

The combined effects of the recession and Disney’s various deals to draw people to the parks have thrown many crowd forecasting models off. So far, the model presented on this site has stood up.

That said, nobody’s perfect, and it can’t hurt you to look at other Disney World crowd calendars—such as TouringPlans.com—far and away the best daily crowd calendar on the web.

MORE DISNEY WORLD CROWD DETAIL

The data you see in the thumbnail was the basis of the crowds component of this site’s recommended weeks to visit Walt Disney World. You can see more on weeks to visit

• On this page for 2010
• and on this for 2011

Why crowds matter can be found on this page: When to Go.

The basics of crowd prediction at Walt Disney World are straightforward.

Periods when most families find it most convenient to go are very crowded, and periods when they don’t aren’t!

This means that the most crowded periods are June, July, and the first half of August; Thanksgiving week; Christmas and New Years weeks, and the weeks before and after Easter. Crowd levels during the rest of the year are more subtle. Holidays have an impact–but not all of them (Labor Day has little impact on the full week, for example.)

GETTING MORE SPECIFICALLY AT FUTURE DISNEY WORLD CROWD LEVELS

To get at these subtle differences, you can predict future crowds at Walt Disney World simply by looking at how much capacity Disney offers in a given week (that is, how many hours it keeps the theme parks open) compared to how much it offers in low and high seasons and the weeks around it.

Disney offers more capacity when it expects higher crowds, and less when it expects lower ones.

The data you need is in the chart, which is based on “excess” hours offered, in total, at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom parks*.

“Excess hours” are defined as how many more hours of capacity are offered in a week compared to the lowest number of hours offered in a week during the analyzed period. To keep the chart simple, this excess is converted into a number between 0 and 1 by dividing the given week’s excess by the smallest excess during the analyzed period.

All you really need to know though is that the higher the bar, the bigger the expected crowds!

*I exclude Epcot in this analysis because its hours are (almost) always the same, and exclude the Magic Kingdom because demand outstrips supply in the peak seasons, and in the off-peak seasons, special paid events (MVMCP, Mickey’s Not so Scary Halloween Party) obscure the true capacity offered.

MORE ON WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2010 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2010 Week Picker, see this
  • For 2011 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2011 Week Picker, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2010 price seasons, see this
  • For 2011 price seasons, see this
  • For projected 2012 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

Home   Donate   Sitemap   FAQ   Travel Agents