Phased Re-Opening Questions: Are All the Crowd Calendars Busted?
In short: Yeah, we think so.
Crowd Calendars are a prevalent and often extremely useful planning tool. Their purpose is to use past crowd data and predictive analysis to predict how crowded the parks will be on a given upcoming day. Some really good ones can be found at touringplans.com (with a paid subscription which is worth it), and Dad's Guide to WDW (simplified into four categories, but still helpful and humorous).
Sites like Touringplans classify the crowds into 10 levels. A level 1 would be the lowest crowds you can expect. A level 10 would be wall-to-wall people such as Christmas Day at Magic Kingdom.
The awesome thing about crowd calendars is that they use past data to make these predictions. They analyze ride wait times and anecdotal reports over past years. Some also take real-time reports and make adjustments. They also factor in weather (if the weather is super nice in Florida, more people may want to go), and school calendars (when the kids are off of school, more families visit), and holidays and events (holidays are always really busy).
In short, the nicer the weather, the closer the holiday, and the more kids off school, usually the more crowded the parks are. Parks are less crowded on weekdays far from a holiday when kids are in school and the weather in Florida is more chaotic (like Fall hurricanes and Spring thunderstorms).
The downside to predictive analysis is that it struggles to predict the unprecedented, like a global pandemic. Because a similar situation has not been seen before, there is no past data to help make an informed prediction. And unless the data from during this time period is thrown out as an anomaly in future crowd prediction models, it could skew future results (We think it will almost certainly be thrown out).
Then, you have the newly coined concept of "revenge tourism". You know that feeling like when this is all over, you are going to hit the road and get out from wherever you've been hunkering down? That's revenge tourism. It's based on the concept of "revenge shopping".
Revenge shopping is an effect that has been seen after an economic depression or recession. When a more normal economy returns, often the consumption of goods and services increases beyond what they should be in a normal economy. Basically, people have been depriving themselves of shopping for so long and now that they have some cash to spend again, they are playing a game of "catch up" and going wild with the shopping.
Trust me... revenge shopping will be a thing when the pandemic is over as well. I'm so going to spend an afternoon at Target and Home Goods buying literally everything I see.
So, "revenge tourism" is like that, except that it's the twist. We've been stuck at or near home for so long that when the pandemic is over, the urge to travel is going to be overwhelming. Economists expect more people to travel than ever before. I personally feel the effect of this as well as I have my list of places I'm going to hop in a car or plane to get to ASAP too. There's something about this ordeal that makes me feel like I deserve a super splurge-worthy vacation when this is over. I'll take my revenge on all of this restriction, hence the name.
For Walt Disney World, this means that when the pandemic is over and the park is able to fully operate and guests are able to feel safe again, we expect that crowds will be very large. I fear that weekdays, school, weather, and all of that won't matter one bit. People will have a pent up need to go to Walt Disney World.
This is our somewhat tongue-in-cheek crowd calendar prediction for 2020-2021 (or maybe even 2022):
Note that there are no dates attached because we simply can't say when this pandemic will be over, so rather than marking crowds by the calendar, we're marking them by what phase this country is at in the coronavirus pandemic.
Pre-Pandemic crowd levels reflect roughly what was happening in January-February-March at Walt Disney World. Crowds at this time of year, except president's day and spring break, are usually on the lighter side in the 3-5 out of 10 range. However, the opening of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge followed by the December opening of Rise of the Resistance led to some pretty consistent crowds at Walt Disney World. You can see Disney Hollywood Studios was the most crowded park by far.
Mid-March, Walt Disney World closed and remained closed into the middle of July. Crowd levels for FOUR MONTHS out of the year were basically 0.
In the middle of July, Disney World began a phased re-opening. Even today, parks are operating at 30% capacity. This is where we had to really think about what our ticks on this chart mean. Does our access represent a qualitative view of the crowd levels or a quantitative view? We went for quantitative as a representation of a percentage of capacity the parks would be at. Some crowd calendars go for a qualitative view, meaning reflecting how crowded the park feels and what your wait times feel like. If that's the case, I would think these dates might be reflected in the range of 1-3.
Wait times right now for most rides are still minimal. So while the park is at 30% capacity, most wait times are 10 minutes. A few popular rides are at 20 minutes. And then there are a few outliers with wait times up to 60 minutes. Big Thunder Mountain railroad, for example, recently posted a wait time of 60 minutes while all other rides in the park were at 5-10 minutes. Avatar: Flight of Passage, formerly known for its 3-hour-long wait times, is posting just 20-25 minutes lately. Navi River Journey, on the same day Flight of Passage posted 20 minutes, posted 45 minutes. But altogether, none of these wait times represent what I would call a qualitative crowd since MOST rides appear to basically be walk-on right now, meaning those 10-20 minutes are really the time it takes you from entering the queue to walk through the queue.
This all brings us to post-pandemic. Say one of the several vaccines currently in phase 3 trials is widely released for the public. Say it turns out to be safe and effective and enough people get it that the World Health Organization declares the pandemic over. We imagine a ramping up of crowd levels as more and more people get vaccinated and feel safe traveling. Ultimately, when the WHO declares the pandemic over, revenge tourism is going to have kicked in full force. Crowd levels at Walt Disney World are likely to be much higher than average. Unless Disney hikes pricing to account for this temporary high demand, I think we're going to see the highest crowd levels possible, especially at the Magic Kingdom (always a fan favorite) and Disney Hollywood Studios.
What we won't predict is exactly how long this will last. I imagine after the initial spike that will likely last several months, we'll see a slow burn of above average crowds as people like yours truly wait out the initial crowds and go a little later than others to avoid the worst of it. But this also depends on how long the pandemic lasts, how available and affordable the vaccine is, and how much people trust the vaccine.
If the pandemic lasts a long while, it's possible our own habits and minds will change about what brings us comfort. Even now, crowds scare me a little bit though I know at some point in the future they will be safe again. The longer we become used to social distancing, the more our own psychology may change about our tolerance for crowds and the kinds of activities we choose to do with our families.
If the vaccine is not both widely available and affordable, then not enough people will get the vaccine. A vaccine being available only in China, for example, is not going to help me here in the United States. So while Chinese tourists may feel safe enough to visit Walt Disney World, many others will not.
And if people do not trust the vaccine, then not enough people will get it in order to achieve herd immunity. Some numbers predict that upwards of 60% of a population must be immune to a disease, either by having had it before, or being vaccinated, in order to achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity is the ultimate goal here because it means that enough people in a population are immune to the disease that it no longer spreads within that population. It also means that the unprotected, like babies too young to get a vaccine, or those too sick with other illness to get the vaccine, are protected. This is what must be achieved for the pandemic to end. But it won't be achieved if not enough people go out and actually get the vaccine and with a growing anti-vaccine movement in the United States, that is a real concern.
Further, a vaccine pushed hastily by a government that skips critical phases of testing will likely be less trusted than a vaccine that takes its time to be thoroughly tested and is pushed when scientists deem it ready, not politicians. People of the United States, keep on eye on this leading up to the November election.
But we digress. The bottom line is, we think this pandemic and the post-pandemic "revenge" period is absolutely going to affect crowds at Walt Disney World in unprecedented ways. If you are planning a post-pandemic trip, be ready for crowds and long wait times. You will still likely enjoy your trip, but it always helps to know what to expect and accept from your vacation.
And read those crowd calendars with a forgiving eye for the coming two years. It's going to be harder for even those who are excellent at predictive analysis to predict the unprecedented.
We hope you enjoyed our post today, even if it was a little more analytical than usual. What do you think crowds will be like in the coming months and years at Walt Disney World? Tell us over on our Facebook page by commenting on this blog's post. You can also follow our page there to see when new posts are published. Until then...
