Attendance ranges and wait occasions have dropped to start out December 2022 at Walt Disney World, as predicted. This crowd report shares current information, ideas on what’s prone to occur subsequent with attendance this week, and our expertise with “feels like” crowds at Walt Disney World within the week-plus since Thanksgiving.
We all the time spend numerous time in Walt Disney World the week after Thanksgiving, placing our cash the place our mouths are (I assume? We have APs so it’s not like we’re truly paying for every go to?) throughout our favourite week of your entire 12 months on the parks. (See our Best & Worst Months to Visit Walt Disney World.) This 12 months was no totally different, and it was (spoiler alert) nice, as all the time.
Despite it being our high decide, that’s largely for qualitative causes and not purely wait occasions. The first week of December is the very best week of the month, however it’s throughout a season that sees greater attendance throughout the board. Early to mid-December remains to be considerably busier than the early fall low season. The distinction is that Walt Disney World doesn’t have fun Christmas throughout mid-September (but). With that stated, I’ve been very pleasantly stunned by each wait occasions and congestion within the final week-plus at Walt Disney World.
As I kind this opening, I can already anticipate the offended feedback from Walt Disney World veterans who visited after Thanksgiving for the primary time in a number of years and located the crowds to be far worse than “normal.” I need to begin by addressing that, as this has been a typical criticism each single time there’s a wait occasions report suggesting that crowds had been beneath common. On that notice, just a few factors.
First, what’s coated in these “crowd” studies is definitely posted wait time information. These numbers are pulled from My Disney Experience continuously by Thrill-Data.com and compiled into graphs and all kinds of fascinating charts. In quick, the wait time information is the wait time information. It shouldn’t be incorrect. The numbers don’t lie, however additionally they don’t essentially inform the complete story.
Second and maybe most significantly, Walt Disney World attendance has surged by tens of thousands and thousands of visitors per 12 months within the final decade-plus. Attendance at Magic Kingdom alone climbed from 16 million to almost 21 million visitors. Animal Kingdom did even higher in proportion phrases, leaping from 9.5 million to 14 million–with virtually all of that coming post-Pandora World of Avatar.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios was to have its personal coming-out get together in 2020 with the completion of expansions, however that didn’t materialize for apparent causes. Still, its attendance was up by 2 million from 2007 to 2019. EPCOT was just below that.
At the identical time that attendance is considerably greater, common park hours have been decreased by a number of hours per day–most notably at Magic Kingdom. (The massive exceptions to this are at Animal Kingdom and World Showcase, each of which have longer hours now than their historic norms.)
There’s additionally much less leisure because of the stage exhibits and atmospheric acts which were reduce, in addition to the lack of 3 totally different parades. This means extra individuals are concentrated into fewer working hours, successfully exacerbating ‘feels like’ crowds and wait occasions throughout these hours.
The finish result’s that just about each single day of 2022 has greater wait occasions and is considerably extra crowded than 2012. Similarly, 2022 is way busier than 2020 and 2021. (The second half of 2019 is a little bit of an anomaly resulting from an unprecedented crowd dynamic with the staggered opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.)
Numerical crowd calendar scores are calculated on a rolling foundation, which means a low day on the Walt Disney World crowd calendar is relative to different dates within the final 12 months–not in 2012. (If the latter had been used because the benchmark, crowd calendars can be 300+ days of 9/10 or 10/10 crowds!) In different phrases, a 1/10 as we speak shouldn’t be the identical as a 1/10 in September 2012 or October 2015. Today’s 1/10 is likely to be nearer to a 5/10 from 5 years in the past.
Moreover, crowd ranges are additionally relative to their respective parks–which means as we speak’s 1/10 doesn’t even imply the identical common wait time at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. (This is as a result of Magic Kingdom has a bigger and extra various experience roster.) There isn’t any common commonplace for crowd ranges; it’s all relative.
Finally, wait occasions should not conclusive of in-park congestion. There are a number of different variables that may influence “feels like” crowds, from festivals at EPCOT to climate to visitor demographics to experience breakdowns to operational effectivity to time of day or day of the week. And that’s only a partial record! Beyond that, wait occasions will be manipulated by Walt Disney World. They’re typically inflated, or in any other case inaccurate. (Paradoxically, there’s normally consistency with this inaccuracy.)
Seasonal occasions are one other massive one, and it’s at present the center of the vacations at Walt Disney World. Christmas leisure could make an enormous distinction, particularly when you spend an hour in line for Candlelight Processional or try to get a household Christmas card picture on Main Street on the finish of the evening in Magic Kingdom. (Thankfully, our beloved Merry Menagerie nonetheless flies below the radar!)
Point being, wait occasions are an imperfect measure of Walt Disney World’s uncooked attendance or crowds. They’re additionally one that’s generally “contradicted” by Walt Disney World followers who’ve been visiting for many years and distinction the present 12 months to five or 10 years in the past. That could be the comparability you need to use and, in that case, crowd studies are of precisely 0 worth to you. Your private headline would all the time be “Crowds Increase for X Week or Month as Compared to 2012.”
For those that are concerned about wait time studies or crowd calendars for present reference or figuring out when to plan future journeys, they’re nonetheless extremely helpful. This is particularly true with park reservations being more and more irrelevant and issues beginning to normalize at Walt Disney World. If something, this kind of put up is probably the most helpful they’ve been within the final ~3 years. (And I write this as somebody who had included a preface on crowd calendars that they aren’t dependable ‘right now’ for the final a number of years.)
With that stated, on-the-ground reader studies and feedback about “feels like” crowds throughout current journeys, and the way that differed from posted wait occasions, are invaluable as supplemental shade commentary. That’s notably true when coming from those that go to often or throughout the identical week yearly. It helps handle others’ expectations and contextualize what issues are like past the numbers. Of course, that’s not the identical as saying the wait time information is incorrect.
Anyway, sufficient with the rambling preface. I’ve shared related sentiment repeatedly, however felt this was price reiterating for brand spanking new readers, first-timers, or longtime followers who’ve been away for some time. It’s vital to know how these posts work, what’s truly being measured, limitations, and so forth. With that out of the way in which, let’s dig into the info and take a look at Walt Disney World wait occasions. As all the time, all graphs and stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
We’ll begin with the month-to-month numbers for Walt Disney World as a complete. The far proper bar is December 2022, which is at present beneath each October and November.
It’s nonetheless manner greater than September, which ended up having the bottom wait occasions of the 12 months by a large margin. The inexperienced and yellow bars on the far left are August via October final 12 months, however that’s a complete anomaly– skewed by surging cancellations because of the Delta variant and reinstated masks guidelines. All issues thought of, December 2022 is wanting actually good to date.
Moving to weekly wait occasions, it’s simpler to see the peaks and valleys of the vacation season thus far. Thanksgiving week (the tallest purple line) is the third highest week of the 12 months so far, behind solely Presidents’ Day and the height of spring break season.
The week-to-week drop is fairly pronounced. The week following Thanksgiving averaged a 34 minute wait time (3/10 on the group calendar), as in comparison with 49 minutes in the course of the week of Thanksgiving (10/10 on the group calendar). That 15 minute distinction could appear insignificant, however it’s truly enormous–and actually provides up over the course of a day.
Breaking it down by day, we see an much more fascinating dynamic emerge. Thanksgiving week wait occasions truly topped out on Monday (November 21), with day by day after that reducing on common. Those are nonetheless within the 9/10 to 10/10 vary, they simply look loads decrease as a result of Monday wait occasions had been a lot greater. The scale caps out at 10/10, in any other case these dates can be nicely above the higher restrict.
By the Saturday after Thanksgiving, crowd ranges had been again to six/10. On that Sunday (November 27), wait time ranges plummeted to 2/10. Since then, they’ve bounced again a bit, however have nonetheless but to exceed 5/10 on the group calendar. Even by historic requirements for the week after Thanksgiving, that’s actually good.
So actually, it’s not “just” early December wait occasions which can be down–that may solely be just a few days price of information factors and can be untimely to name it a pattern. In actuality, we’re at practically two weeks of crowd ranges trending downward–and a full week of downright low crowd ranges per wait time information.
Breaking this down by park, the place we’ll begin with Magic Kingdom.
Magic Kingdom continues its porcupine impression, which has been the case ever since get together season began in August. As all the time, this is because of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, which actually disrupts attendance patterns at Magic Kingdom. This is one thing we’ve coated at size, repeatedly. Thus far, most days of MVMCP at Magic Kingdom have been beneath 3/10 on the group calendar. All December 2022 dates have been 1/10 or 2/10.
That curler coaster graph isn’t simple to learn, so let’s check out weekly wait occasions, which easy out the MVMCP v. non-party days.
From this, we will see Magic Kingdom drop from 8/10 throughout Thanksgiving week to 2/10 previously week. I’m truly stunned the most well-liked park was solely 8/10 in the course of the peak vacation window. A few the opposite parks being off the charts is what lifted the general common.
I can’t actually clarify Magic Kingdom solely being 8/10 the week of Thanksgiving. I’ve a few guesses, although. First, Walt Disney World restricted Park Pass reservation availability to push attendance to different parks and normalize numbers (this undoubtedly occurred to some extent). Second, the dearth of get together dates that week helped Magic Kingdom higher soak up crowds. Those are simply my working theories–I’m open to different explanations, so be at liberty to share your concepts within the feedback!
Above are attraction wait occasions for December 2022 to date at Magic Kingdom, which clearly exclude the week of Thanksgiving and days thereafter in November.
Nothing actually comes as a shock right here–possibly Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin being so excessive, however that’s hardly unprecedented. Splash Mountain is additional down the record, however that’s a byproduct of climate. I ponder if we’ll see that climb up the rankings now that there’s a concrete closure date.
Continuing to Epcot, the place crowd ranges at the moment are again right down to their pre-Thanksgiving ranges as soon as once more. After spiking to a ten/10 for the vacation, ranges are again to reasonable ranges for the final (virtually) two weeks.
As all the time, “feels like” crowds at Epcot–particularly in World Showcase–are all the time worse on weekends and evenings. I spent numerous time at EPCOT final week and it undoubtedly felt busy. However, the return of Fantasmic has undoubtedly relieved among the strain on Harmonious, with many Park Hopping visitors clearly preferring to see the superior nighttime spectacular. Candlelight Processional crowds additionally weren’t as dangerous as anticipated.
When taking a look at attraction wait occasions, there are not any surprises at EPCOT, both.
The high trio of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and Test Track are all above an hour, however the whole lot else is completely manageable. The precise wait occasions for the whole lot within the entrance of the park (together with Test Track and Soarin’ Around the World) plummet within the night, because the ghost of Future World turns into a ghost city and ~95% of the visitors in EPCOT all cram into World Showcase.
Animal Kingdom had its busiest day of the 12 months Thanksgiving week, and by a large margin. The common wait time was 74 minutes, which might be a 15/10 or so if the group calendar went above 10. This is the busiest day we’ve seen at Animal Kingdom since we started monitoring wait occasions in 2019. I can’t see the way it compares to the Pandora opening summer season, however it wouldn’t shock me if that is on par–and even worse–than then.
Crowd ranges have plummeted since. November 30 was the bottom low, with a 1/10 crowd stage and 21 minute common wait. That makes it rank because the #496 most crowded day within the final 500 days. (Or acknowledged extra positively, because the 4th least-crowded day throughout that point.) By dumb luck, I occurred to be in Animal Kingdom on that day, and it was unbelievable.
As with the opposite parks, particular person experience wait occasions are virtually precisely what we’d count on to date in December 2022.
Avatar Flight of Passage has by far the best common wait time, adopted by Na’vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safaris. I do need to draw your consideration to the Adventurers Outpost meet & greet, which continues to climb the charts. We’ve pointed this out beforehand, and elevated its precedence for each commonplace itineraries and Genie+ customers.
It’s price reiterating, as meet & greets are one thing that standard Walt Disney World visitors overlook till later within the day. However, you possibly can nonetheless hit it with a brief wait at about 10 am. (I used to be actually the one particular person within the standby line for this at round midday on 11/30, however once more, that was an absolute anomaly. Do NOT count on the identical outcomes!)
This can also be true with meet & greets on the different 3 parks. One of the “underrated” methods of beating crowds and better wait occasions is prioritizing fashionable meet & greets or doing them strategically (e.g. throughout or instantly as Festival of Fantasy concludes at Magic Kingdom, round 10 am at DHS, and so forth.).
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After a number of days of 10/10 crowd ranges and 70+ minute common wait occasions in the course of the week of Thanksgiving, numbers sharply declined in the course of the week after. Wait occasions have been within the 40 minute vary since, which is a big lower.
As all the time, DHS continues to be the busiest park at Walt Disney World. Anything above 7/10 right here is arguably in disagreeable territory. I doubt many individuals within the park on solely the “less busy” days within the final couple of weeks would describe their go to as such. Disney’s Hollywood Studios merely can not soak up crowds very nicely. Thankfully, the return of Fantasmic has already began to assist redistribute crowds over the course of the day, however it could actually solely accomplish that a lot–even with two showtimes.
This is nothing new–see our pre-closure put up: Disney’s Hollywood Studios: WDW’s Best Rides & Most Frustrating Park.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the place the person attraction wait occasions get fascinating. That’s not an error–Tower of Terror is #1. This is because of one of many elevator shafts being out of service (once more). I nonetheless haven’t been in a position to decide whether or not that is deliberate or unplanned downtime. Earlier this 12 months, one aspect was refurbished and the very same factor occurred. I’d hope that Disney didn’t intentionally take the opposite aspect down in the course of the vacation season, however who is aware of. Either manner, its wait occasions have been dangerous.
Also fascinating is Slinky Dog Dash edging out Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. After that, 4 different points of interest are all above 60 minutes. These are the longest averages for headliners in any park at Walt Disney World, and the one motive the common wait time is introduced down is as a result of it consists of issues that don’t actually have wait occasions.
On a optimistic notice, I noticed considerably decrease wait occasions throughout Fantasmic, as that soaks up a big portion of crowds in DHS. Literally each attraction was below an hour between the primary and second showings of Fantasmic final week. Judging by what I noticed, I’m guessing precise wait occasions had been all below half-hour. Here’s hoping this continues, because it’ll imply that staying late remains to be an effective way to beat the crowds at DHS!
Due to an prolonged journey to Japan, this final week was the primary time I’ve been within the parks at Walt Disney World this vacation season. Consequently, I missed the Veterans Day and Thanksgiving week crowds–however have a reasonably good thought of how dangerous they had been based mostly on final 12 months. (Not disillusioned that I missed any of that!)
I additionally spent day by day within the parks final week, from opening to closing (or later!) on most days. As talked about above, we have now loads of expertise with this specific week, because it’s our favourite week of the 12 months at Walt Disney World. That’s been true for ages. Back after we lived within the Midwest, our annual Christmas journey normally began the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I don’t preserve observe, but when I needed to guess at which week of the 12 months we have now spent probably the most minutes in Walt Disney World since 2007, it will be this one. Probably by a reasonably broad margin. We completely love the week after Thanksgiving.
Given these years of historic expertise–plus how issues have modified since round 2018–I’ve to say I’m fairly joyful and pleasantly stunned by the “feels like” crowds and wait occasions I encountered this previous week.
To be certain, there have been occasions when headliner rides had triple-digit waits and walkways had been congested. However, that’s par for the course. I additionally say completely empty walkways and the headliners in each park with 40 minute or decrease posted wait occasions. (Avatar Flight of Passage was 40 minutes in the course of the lunch lull sooner or later, which I haven’t seen shortly.)
I do know some longtime Walt Disney World followers are certain to disagree, therefore the lengthy and rambling put up preface, however this was the very best vacation week for crowds that I’ve skilled in a very long time. As in comparison with final 12 months, the return of Fantasmic–and it having 2 showtimes regardless of not needing each–undoubtedly helped. As did extra leisure and stage exhibits being again. Ditto earlier opening occasions for all 4 parks, together with Magic Kingdom on get together days.
Speaking of which, I didn’t go to Magic Kingdom on 11/30 or 12/3. Those had been its non-party days, wedged amongst a sea of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party dates. Consequently, crowds “spiked” to five/10 each days. Every day I did Magic Kingdom within the final week, it was a 1/10. These decrease crowd days had been simply predictable and we’ve been shouting since July that they wouldn’t be busy, so when you went on one of many 5/10 days as an alternative and have a unique notion of crowds because of this…that’s form of on you.
Looking ahead, it’s fairly protected to foretell that this week shall be busier than final week. Another not-so-bold prediction is that the following week shall be busier than that. Guess what, the week earlier than Christmas shall be even busier. The stretch between then and New Year’s Eve shall be even busier nonetheless, particularly with each Christmas and NYE bookending that week.
None of those predictions are notably daring. Historically, crowd ranges incrementally enhance all through the month of December, with the largest wildcards being the final couple of weeks (based mostly upon the times of week of Christmas and NYE). Barring wild climate or different unexpected circumstances, crowd ranges are in all probability going to leap from 3/10 final week to five/10 (or so) this week to 7/10 after which to 9/10 or 10/10.
If you’re a neighborhood or in any other case have the prospect for a last-minute weekend getaway, we’d extremely advocate visiting Walt Disney World this week via the center of subsequent week. This is a good window of good climate, seasonal occasions, and low-to-moderate wait time and crowd ranges. That window will begin to shut as locals begin realizing it’s their final probability to go to earlier than the Christmas and New Year’s Eve blockouts take impact.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about inns on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To lower your expenses on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets put up. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips put up takes a novel take a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the very best place to start out is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for the whole lot it is advisable know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Predictions on crowds for the remainder of December 2022? If you visited in the course of the week of Thanksgiving or thereafter, what was your notion of “feels like” crowds? If your journey overlapped the 2 weeks, did you are feeling a noticeable drop the weekend after Thanksgiving? Thoughts on our predictions or anecdotal observations? Agree or disagree with our opinion that final week was the very best time of your entire 12 months to go to Walt Disney World? If you’ve visited in prior months over the past 12 months, how did crowds evaluate between then and now? What did you consider the wait occasions? Any parks or occasions of day noticeably worse than the others? Do you agree or disagree with something in our report? Any questions we may help you reply? Hearing your suggestions–even while you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!