Let’s be honest even the app is not perfect.
Unless we are there and actually see the crowds we don’t really know.
Sure....When I refer to crowds, I'm talking about attraction line wait times, not actual attendance numbers. But they do co relate 'somewhat'. When TP does their actual wait times based on on-site observers, the general formula is actual time is 'usually' about 70% of the app posted time at the WDW parks and IOA/USF. From what I've followed, Epics actuals are pretty close to the posted times for some reason. The daily crowd numbers are a very useful tool on how much time you'll be spending in line for attractions. That's generally the main focus of guests when they're in the parks.
Since the hotels aren't fully booked like they used to be in the summers before 2018/2019 it's probably safe to say there's less guests in the parks. This summer, the Universal hotels have almost all types of rooms available, whereas in the past room choices were pretty tight, even last summer. And hotel rates have been steeply discounted for the entire summer, not just the end of August like the past, since the gas prices jumped so high. That's always a red flag. I'd guess that's related.
The daily line apps aren't super accurate, but that's really the best that we have to work with. The various internet touring plans, though, seem to have a bit of trouble predicting future crowd line times the last couple years. They used to be much closer to what comes down the pike. Their models probably need tweeked. As an example, TP was slow to react to the very huge line effect of the WDW cleaning up the disability fraud. It took them a year to fix their model and they were heavily over predicting line times. They're closer now at WDW, but are still overpredicting somewhat.
Heck, by looking at the daily numbers, it was easy to breakdown that non Holiday week Sundays were the best day to attend in relation to wait times. I started advising people on that since August 2025. It's stood up well, and I used my own advice for my two Epic days. I did not stand in any of those long crazy lines. Of course, now it will be interesting to see if that holds up since AP's are getting a nice discounted (usually apx. $100) ticket opportunity for Sundays and Sats. this summer. It might not be as good as it was. And still, probably the main line factor ends up being how reliable the attractions are on any given day. A lot of ride breakdowns just messes up everything at Epic.