Attendance ranges and wait occasions have dropped to start out December 2022 at Walt Disney World, as predicted. This crowd report shares latest information, ideas on what’s more likely 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 a variety of 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 really paying for every go to?) throughout our favourite week of the whole yr on the parks. (See our Best & Worst Months to Visit Walt Disney World.) This yr was no completely different, and it was (spoiler alert) nice, as all the time.
Despite it being our prime decide, that’s largely for qualitative causes and not purely wait occasions. The first week of December is one of the best week of the month, however it’s throughout a season that sees larger 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 a good time Christmas throughout mid-September (but). With that mentioned, I’ve been very pleasantly shocked 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 grievance each single time there’s a wait occasions report suggesting that crowds had been under common. On that be aware, a number of factors.
First, what’s coated in these “crowd” studies is definitely posted wait time information. These numbers are pulled from My Disney Experience consistently by Thrill-Data.com and compiled into graphs and all types of attention-grabbing charts. In brief, the wait time information is the wait time information. It isn’t 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 company per yr within the final decade-plus. Attendance at Magic Kingdom alone climbed from 16 million to just about 21 million company. Animal Kingdom did even higher in proportion phrases, leaping from 9.5 million to 14 million–with nearly all of that coming post-Pandora World of Avatar.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios was to have its personal coming-out social gathering 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 larger, common park hours have been diminished by a number of hours per day–most notably at Magic Kingdom. (The huge 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 as a result of stage reveals and atmospheric acts which were reduce, in addition to the lack of 3 completely 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 larger wait occasions and is considerably extra crowded than 2012. Similarly, 2022 is far busier than 2020 and 2021. (The second half of 2019 is a little bit of an anomaly on account of an unprecedented crowd dynamic with the staggered opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.)
Numerical crowd calendar scores are calculated on a rolling foundation, that means a low day on the Walt Disney World crowd calendar is relative to different dates within the final yr–not in 2012. (If the latter had been used because the benchmark, crowd calendars could be 300+ days of 9/10 or 10/10 crowds!) In different phrases, a 1/10 right now isn’t 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–that means right now’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 different trip roster.) There is not any common normal for crowd ranges; it’s all relative.
Finally, wait occasions usually are 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 trip breakdowns to operational effectivity to time of day or day of the week. And that’s only a partial listing! Beyond that, wait occasions will be manipulated by Walt Disney World. They’re typically inflated, or in any other case inaccurate. (Paradoxically, there’s often consistency with this inaccuracy.)
Seasonal occasions are one other huge one, and it’s at the moment the center of the vacations at Walt Disney World. Christmas leisure could make a giant distinction, particularly for those who spend an hour in line for Candlelight Processional or are attempting to get a household Christmas card photograph on Main Street on the finish of the evening in Magic Kingdom. (Thankfully, our beloved Merry Menagerie nonetheless flies beneath 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 yr to five or 10 years in the past. That will be the comparability you need to use and, if that’s the 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 considering 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, the sort of publish is essentially 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 mentioned, on-the-ground reader studies and feedback about “feels like” crowds throughout latest journeys, and the way that differed from posted wait occasions, are precious as supplemental coloration commentary. That’s significantly true when coming from those that go to repeatedly 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 comparable sentiment repeatedly, however felt this was value reiterating for brand new readers, first-timers, or longtime followers who’ve been away for some time. It’s necessary to grasp how these posts work, what’s really being measured, limitations, and many others. 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 an entire. The far proper bar is December 2022, which is at the moment under each October and November.
It’s nonetheless method larger than September, which ended up having the bottom wait occasions of the yr by a large margin. The inexperienced and yellow bars on the far left are August via October final yr, however that’s a complete anomaly– skewed by surging cancellations as a result of Delta variant and reinstated masks guidelines. All issues thought-about, December 2022 is wanting actually good to this point.
Moving to weekly wait occasions, it’s simpler to see the peaks and valleys of the vacation season up to now. Thanksgiving week (the tallest purple line) is the third highest week of the yr to this point, 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 throughout the week of Thanksgiving (10/10 on the group calendar). That 15 minute distinction could appear insignificant, however it’s really large–and actually provides up over the course of a day.
Breaking it down by day, we see an much more attention-grabbing dynamic emerge. Thanksgiving week wait occasions really topped out on Monday (November 21), with day-after-day after that reducing on common. Those are nonetheless within the 9/10 to 10/10 vary, they only look lots decrease as a result of Monday wait occasions had been a lot larger. The scale caps out at 10/10, in any other case these dates could 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 might be down–that may solely be a number of days value of knowledge factors and could be untimely to name it a pattern. In actuality, we’re at almost 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 social gathering 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 under 3/10 on the group calendar. All December 2022 dates have been 1/10 or 2/10.
That curler coaster graph isn’t straightforward to learn, so let’s check out weekly wait occasions, which clean out the MVMCP v. non-party days.
From this, we will see Magic Kingdom drop from 8/10 throughout Thanksgiving week to 2/10 up to now week. I’m really shocked the most well-liked park was solely 8/10 throughout 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 positively occurred to some extent). Second, the dearth of social gathering dates that week helped Magic Kingdom higher take in crowds. Those are simply my working theories–I’m open to various explanations, so be at liberty to share your concepts within the feedback!
Above are attraction wait occasions for December 2022 to this point at Magic Kingdom, which clearly exclude the week of Thanksgiving and days thereafter in November.
Nothing actually comes as a shock right here–perhaps Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin being so excessive, however that’s hardly unprecedented. Splash Mountain is additional down the listing, however that’s a byproduct of climate. I’m wondering if we’ll see that climb up the rankings now that there’s a concrete closure date.
Continuing to Epcot, the place crowd ranges are actually again all the way 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 (nearly) 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 a variety of time at EPCOT final week and it positively felt busy. However, the return of Fantasmic has positively relieved among the stress on Harmonious, with many Park Hopping company clearly preferring to see the superior nighttime spectacular. Candlelight Processional crowds additionally weren’t as dangerous as anticipated.
When attraction wait occasions, there are not any surprises at EPCOT, both.
The prime trio of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and Test Track are all above an hour, however every little thing else is completely manageable. The precise wait occasions for every little thing 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 company in EPCOT all cram into World Showcase.
Animal Kingdom had its busiest day of the yr 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 unimaginable.
As with the opposite parks, particular person trip wait occasions are nearly precisely what we’d count on to this point in December 2022.
Avatar Flight of Passage has by far the very 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 normal itineraries and Genie+ customers.
It’s value reiterating, as meet & greets are one thing that ordinary Walt Disney World company 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 be true with meet & greets on the different 3 parks. One of the “underrated” methods of beating crowds and better wait occasions is prioritizing widespread 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 many others.).
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After a number of days of 10/10 crowd ranges and 70+ minute common wait occasions throughout the week of Thanksgiving, numbers sharply declined throughout the week after. Wait occasions have been within the 40 minute vary since, which is a large 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’t take in crowds very nicely. Thankfully, the return of Fantasmic has already began to assist redistribute crowds over the course of the day, however it might probably solely achieve this a lot–even with two showtimes.
This is nothing new–see our pre-closure publish: Disney’s Hollywood Studios: WDW’s Best Rides & Most Frustrating Park.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the place the person attraction wait occasions get attention-grabbing. 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 yr, one aspect was refurbished and the very same factor occurred. I might hope that Disney didn’t intentionally take the opposite aspect down throughout the vacation season, however who is aware of. Either method, its wait occasions have been dangerous.
Also attention-grabbing is Slinky Dog Dash edging out Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. After that, 4 different sights are all above 60 minutes. These are the longest averages for headliners in any park at Walt Disney World, and the one purpose the typical wait time is introduced down is as a result of it contains issues that don’t actually have wait occasions.
On a optimistic be aware, I noticed considerably decrease wait occasions throughout Fantasmic, as that soaks up a big portion of crowds in DHS. Literally each attraction was beneath 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 beneath 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 fairly good concept of how dangerous they had been primarily based on final yr. (Not disenchanted that I missed any of that!)
I additionally spent day-after-day within the parks final week, from opening to closing (or later!) on most days. As talked about above, we’ve got lots of expertise with this specific week, because it’s our favourite week of the yr at Walt Disney World. That’s been true for ages. Back once we lived within the Midwest, our annual Christmas journey often began the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I don’t maintain observe, but when I needed to guess at which week of the yr we’ve got spent essentially the most minutes in Walt Disney World since 2007, it will be this one. Probably by a fairly extensive 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 comfortable and pleasantly shocked by the “feels like” crowds and wait occasions I encountered this previous week.
To ensure, 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 throughout the lunch lull sooner or later, which I haven’t seen shortly.)
I do know some longtime Walt Disney World followers are sure to disagree, therefore the lengthy and rambling publish preface, however this was one of the best vacation week for crowds that I’ve skilled in a very long time. As in comparison with final yr, the return of Fantasmic–and it having 2 showtimes regardless of not needing each–positively helped. As did extra leisure and stage reveals being again. Ditto earlier opening occasions for all 4 parks, together with Magic Kingdom on social gathering 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 for those who went on one of many 5/10 days as an alternative and have a distinct notion of crowds consequently…that’s form of on you.
Looking ahead, it’s fairly secure to foretell that this week will probably be busier than final week. Another not-so-bold prediction is that the following week will probably be busier than that. Guess what, the week earlier than Christmas will probably be even busier. The stretch between then and New Year’s Eve will probably be even busier nonetheless, particularly with each Christmas and NYE bookending that week.
None of those predictions are significantly daring. Historically, crowd ranges incrementally enhance all through the month of December, with the largest wildcards being the final couple of weeks (primarily based upon the times of week of Christmas and NYE). Barring wild climate or different unexpected circumstances, crowd ranges are most likely 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 an area or in any other case have the possibility 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 likelihood to go to earlier than the Christmas and New Year’s Eve blockouts take impact.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about motels 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 kind to purchase, learn our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets publish. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips publish takes a singular take a look at intelligent gadgets to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, one of the best place to start out is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for every little thing that you must know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Predictions on crowds for the remainder of December 2022? If you visited throughout 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 one of the best time of the whole yr to go to Walt Disney World? If you’ve visited in prior months over the past yr, how did crowds examine 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 also help you reply? Hearing your suggestions–even whenever you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!