About Us

We have been following the theme parks - especially Disney - for years. We've watched the ebb and flow of expansions in the parks, maintenance and upkeep, and park performance. We love learning the stories that lead to the impressive themed entertainment that the parks offer. With former membership in the Themed Entertainment Association, we see the parks as a complex and interesting art form, from the perspective of a rider and of an admirer of the craft.

RideRouter and Crowd Calendar

At the Sorcerers Guide, we track wait times and what's happening in theme parks to predict wait times and crowds in the future. We use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics to make these predictions, based on nearly a decade of observed crowds in the parks.

Blog

Our blog covers some of our favorite parts of the parks - the stories that led to our favorite attractions, what's upcoming, and how Disney's Imagineers create their masterpieces.

Prediction Error

While we do our best to provide you with accurate data, not all aspects of crowds can be predicted completely. Ride break downs, adding an additional train to a roller coaster, or having staff call in sick can all affect what the wait times will be. As such, we expect there will be some reasonable error in our data.



We are not affiliated with Disney or any other theme park operator.

Popular Posts

Height Restrictions Translated to Age Ranges

Image
Height restrictions keep kids safe, but they can be frustrating. If you have ever taken kids to the parks, you know what I mean. Every cast member measures a little differently, so sometimes you make it all the way to the loading zone and then get turned away. Other times your kids are just slightly too short, and you wish they would have worn taller shoes. One of the most difficult things, in my mind, is planning trips and figuring out how long it will be ’till your kids can meet height restrictions. Especially when some can ride and some can’t, the younger ones want to know how much longer ’till they’ll be big enough. I don’t know any parents that have memorized a growth chart and can say, “My child will grow 1 inch in the next 9 months, so we should plan a trip then.” When we plan trips with our kids, we just keep measuring them and telling them to eat a bunch in hopes they’ll be tall enough for more rides. Fortunately, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has released  data ...
Read more

5 Fun Facts About Disneyland’s Opening

Image
It’s been 65 years since the Happiest Place on Earth opened to the world. To celebrate, here are 5 facts you may not know about Disneyland’s opening. If it failed, it would have become movie sets Disneyland was expensive to build, and Walt needed more money for it. Roy Disney was the company’s financial leader and was responsible for finding all the funding they needed.. To convince lenders to hand over more cash, Roy told them that the project was low risk. His story was that even if the park proved unpopular, the park could close to the public and turn into movie sets. Frontierland could be used for westerns, Adventureland for adventures, and Main Street for turn-of-the-century stories. I’m not sure what they could have used the Fantasyland circus tents for, though. July 17th was supposed to be a smaller party Disney sent invitations to a selected number of people for the grand opening festivities. The park was meant to open to the public on the next day, July 18th. However, some ind...
Read more

Monte Cristo Sandwich Recipe

Image
If you haven’t tried a Monte Cristo at Disneyland you definitely need to try one. They are by far our favorite meal at the park. And since we celebrated a birthday last week I thought I’d try my hand at making one homemade. After some searching I found this official Disney recipe: It only took a few minutes to make the batter. The batter is much thicker than I thought it would be, almost as thick as pudding, but it coated the bread easily and fried well. We used “Texas toast” instead of regular bread so the sandwiches were a little thicker. We don’t have a fryer so we just heated oil in a pan and that worked well. I realized I didn’t have any powdered sugar so I couldn’t put the finishing touch on. They don’t look nearly as pretty as Blue Bayou or Cafe Orleans, but surprisingly they tasted pretty good.
Read more