Crowd Calendars

A crowd calendar is an estimate of what wait times might be at a theme park for each day of the year. They can help guide decisions on when to plan trips or vacations. Their best use is to find weeks or periods within the year when wait times are lower than other points. Finding the exact best day to go out of 365 days isn't your best use of the data. Keep in mind that lower wait times does not mean the parks will be ghost towns without other people around, especially at the major theme park resorts.

Predicting the future is hard! There are many factors that can impact wait times on a given day, and some of those factors cannot be precisely known ahead of time. We use past wait time data, weather data, pricing data, & other factors to try to make the best predictions we can.

Accuracy does vary park to park, and is noted on the park's calendar for Predictive calendars. We also keep track of how the predictions are performing against what actually occurs over time too. Some parks report better data than others, which can impact accuracy too.

For some theme parks, we have two types of calendars: Predictive and Average.

The Predictive calendars use machine learning algorithms that make future predictions based on past data and other factors. They can find trends in the data that help to identify is a day is going to have higher or lower wait times.

The Average Calendars set the wait time for a given day based on what the wait time has been on that day in the past. There is some intelligence built in, such as adjusting for holidays that are not the same day each year. \ They are good indicators of what weeks and/or months have the lowest/highest wait times, but they will be slow to react to significant changes in year to year behavior.

When both options are available, comparing results is recommended.

A "low" day does not mean that every attraction at a park is a walk-on. It means that you will wait less time in line, on average, than other days within the year. Theme parks like Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort have a large number of visitors. Rarely are the parks ever empty (a pandemic not withstanding), so keep expectations in check.

Some of the biggest impacts to a crowd calendar's accuracy are the weather, which is only more accurate a few days in advance, and ride closures/breakdowns. Extended refurbishments can be factored in once known, but day of ride breakdowns can cause major issues with park wait times that cannot be predicted.

Yes, the Predictive calendars are updated periodically to add in updated weather data, park hours, and other calendar events. Differences between calendars can be tracked on a specific park's calendar page.