WaniKani vacation calculator
How bad will your review queue look after a week off? The math is more brutal than people expect. Apprentice items waiting on 4h / 8h / 23h / 47h intervals all bunch up; items at later stages drop on the first review back because they overshot their window. This calculator gives a realistic estimate so you can plan ahead - either pace down lessons before the trip, or toggle vacation mode without shame.
Past 500 reviews the queue stops feeling like a session. Strongly consider vacation mode.
When to use vacation mode
WaniKani has a built-in vacation toggle that freezes every SRS timer until you turn it off. While it's on, no new reviews come due. When you toggle it off, the queue you had on the way out is what greets you on the way back.
Use vacation mode for:
- Any trip 3+ days away from your normal study setup.
- Illness that takes you off the rails for a week or more.
- Crunch periods at work where you genuinely cannot fit reviews in.
- Mental-health breaks. Use without shame.
Skip vacation mode for:
- A single missed evening session. The 4h queue clears in one morning.
- Weekends. WaniKani's intervals are designed for daily review; a weekend skip is normal noise.
Why the queue grows faster than expected
The naive expectation: "I do 100 reviews/day, so 7 days off should mean 700 reviews queued". Reality is roughly that, but with two compounding factors:
- Demotions on return. Items that missed their Master or Enlightened windows often drop back when you finally review them, because the 4-month gap was too long. Each demotion creates 1-2 extra future reviews.
- Accuracy hit. A week off drops recall rates by 10-20% on the first session back. The extra wrong answers compound into a longer recovery curve.
The calculator above outputs a steady-state estimate; real-world recovery often runs a few days longer because of the demotion cascade.
See your own daily review rate
The numbers above need your actual daily review count to be accurate. The Wanilog dashboard graphs your 7-day rolling average so you can plug in a number that matches your real pace. Sign in with your API key to see it. Your key stays in your browser.