Our information to January 2023 at Walt Disney World gives a free crowd calendar, days to go to & keep away from, climate, seasonal occasions, planning suggestions, and when Christmas decorations are taken down. We cowl all the pieces at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Updated December 31, 2022.)
Typically, January is the month of the vacation hangover at Walt Disney World. Some Christmas leisure continues for just a few days in early January, and there are nonetheless decorations up for the primary half of the month. January’s large attracts are the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts and the Walt Disney World Marathon.
Aside from these occasions, January tends to be comparatively quiet. Most company who need to go to in the course of the winter achieve this in November or December of the earlier yr. Those who start planning a go to for the brand new yr usually don’t go to till Easter or Spring Break. As such, there are a number of upsides to visiting in January, from gentle crowds to favorable climate. Of course, there are some downsides, too…
I’ll be trustworthy: I’m not an enormous fan of Walt Disney World earlier than mid-January. To me, it actually does really feel like a hangover. There are straggler decorations that really feel misplaced or forgotten, and the climate might be frigid. This is fully a matter of private desire, as I do know some individuals get pleasure from having the ability to see Christmas decorations with out coping with the crowds. Personally, as soon as Christmas is over, I’m achieved with the vacation.
Here’s what else you’ll be able to anticipate from January at Walt Disney World…
January Weather at Disney World
If you go by historic averages, January is the coldest month of the yr at Walt Disney World. In my expertise, November by means of February can have climate starting from chilly to downright balmy, however January tends to have extra of the previous class than the opposite winter months. Expect climate on common from the upper-40s to low-70s.
Packing for January climate requires making ready for a variety of climate circumstances, and also you’ll need to ensure you consideration to the prolonged forecast earlier than your journey so that you don’t get stunned with a streak of 30-degree climate or 90-degree climate and never have the correct apparel for both excessive.
Read our Winter Packing Tips for Disney publish for extra perception on what to take in your January Walt Disney World trip.
January Special Events at Disney World
Between the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts and the Walt Disney World Marathon, January isn’t fairly the “sleepy” month it as soon as was. We completely love the annual Festival of the Arts, which runs from January 13 till February 20, 2023 at Walt Disney World. Read our Guide to the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts for more information and tips on this particular occasion.
The 2023 Walt Disney World Marathon will happen January 4-8, 2023 and can be held dwell and in individual. If you’re doing the 2023 Walt Disney World Marathon and want last-minute “training” recommendation, see our Idiot’s Guide to runDisney.
Normally, there’s a “holiday hangover” for a few weeks at Walt Disney World. During that point, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and (to a lesser diploma) Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom parks nonetheless embellished for Christmas. There’s no different Christmas leisure (there’s extra data about all of this in our Ultimate Walt Disney World Christmas Guide), and not likely the rest.
However, that is largely because of the Walt Disney World Marathon. Many runners postpone their November or December journeys so as to run the occasion in early January, and revel in seeing the illuminated Christmas decorations on the course within the early morning hours. Consequently, most decorations left up till that weekend and brought down shortly thereafter. It’s unknown when the vacation decor can be uninstalled in January 2023, however our guess is the center of the month.
January Refurbishments & New Attractions
In phrases of different points of interest that can be closed throughout January 2023, examine the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. Just a heads up: that is likely to be a bit misleading by way of precise building work. There’s going to be a number of ongoing building all through Walt Disney World, and can be for the following a number of years.
The building mission that can have essentially the most noticeable affect on the visitor expertise is the large reimagining on the entrance of Epcot. This is beginning to look higher, however the entrance of the park continues to be a sea of building partitions with a large grime pit within the center. On the plus aspect, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Space 220 Restaurant, Creations Shop, Club Cool, and Connections Cafe are all open.
Speaking of which, Walt Disney World’s largest addition to Epcot in many years is Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Experiencing the brand new journey is a bit sophisticated, so be sure you try our How to Ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind & Virtual Queue Speed Strategy to enhance your probabilities of success for becoming a member of the free digital queue. (Note: this digital queue may be retired sooner or later after January 9, 2023.)
Another various is shopping for line-skipping entry through the Individual Lightning Lanes. Those posts clarify every possibility, their professionals & cons, and all the pieces else it’s essential know. Suffice to say, don’t simply present as much as EPCOT anticipating to affix the standby line–as there isn’t one.
Then there’s the following large addition to Walt Disney World: TRON Lightcycle Run. Walt Disney World has already revealed that this can debut in Spring 2023, however has not introduced an official date. While it’s prone to open comparatively early within the yr, it won’t debut in January. Unless Disney is utilizing the Mayan calendar or one thing I’m not acquainted with that considers January a part of spring. (Highly uncertain.)
Beyond that, there are a number of points of interest that haven’t but opened and sure received’t till later in 2023. This contains Moana’s Journey of Water at Epcot, which is prone to open within the second half of the yr in line with Disney. (Judging by the present tempo of labor and the truth that it’s a water walk-through, it debuting in late summer time is feasible.) Other smaller scale additions are seemingly later in 2023. Nothing will open in January 2023–it’s unprecedented for Walt Disney World to debut new issues in the course of the winter low season.
For an summary of what’s on the horizon, see What’s New & Next at Walt Disney World in 2023 & Beyond.
January 2023 Disney World Crowd Calendar
When it involves January 2023 crowd calendars for Walt Disney World, it’s an actual curler coaster of a month. In true “holiday hangover” style, the start of the month tends to be fairly busy. As we’ll focus on on this part, crowd calendars additionally spike at different factors in January, which is in any other case a reasonably quiet month.
If your Walt Disney World trip begins earlier than the vacation season ends, we now have a publish discussing Visiting Walt Disney World at New Year’s that you just may need to try. Every day of your journey earlier than New Year’s Day, you’ll be able to anticipate a few of the worst crowds of the yr at Walt Disney World. There’s a drop New Year’s Day, however not as precipitous of a drop as there was once.
There’s not a color-coded crowd calendar right here as a result of we have gotten more and more averse to these. If we simply had a visible crowd calendar graphic right here, a lot of you’d solely have a look at that and never learn the accompanying clarification that covers what you may really anticipate.
We suppose such an method would do readers a disservice, and we’d warning towards over-reliance on any Walt Disney World crowd calendars. While they are often helpful instruments, crowd calendars are one piece of a bigger puzzle. Choosing your journey dates solely on a crowd calendar is dangerous, as they’re much less dependable than prior to now. Walt Disney World can manipulate park reservations, staffing, closures, and capability–the results of which is “feels like” crowds that don’t mirror precise attendance or natural demand.
As a basic matter, we need to warn you that winter isn’t the “sleepy off-season” at Walt Disney World. In Winter Is Not Off-Season at Walt Disney World, we clarify how January and February crowds have grown since ~2017, and what to anticipate going ahead.
There are quite a lot of instances crowds spike in the course of the first two months of the yr. Everything from runDisney occasions to beneath the radar vacation weekends to high school breaks push attendance and wait instances even larger. With all of that in thoughts, listed here are our crowd calendar predictions for the most effective and worst weeks at Walt Disney World in January 2023…
If we had to decide on one week to go to Walt Disney World this month, it could be the week starting January 9, 2023. Not solely is that this the bottom week for crowds, nevertheless it’s largely earlier than Festival of the Arts begins, so EPCOT shouldn’t be as filled with locals for the beginning of that occasion.
During these weekdays from January 9-13, our expectation is that crowd ranges can be beneath 5/10 throughout the board. Offering extra exact predictions is exceedingly tough given inconsistencies with winter wait instances the previous a number of years. Suffice to say, that needs to be an excellent week to go to–top-of-the-line within the first quarter of 2023, if not the greatest. Crowd ranges may find yourself being 1/10 to three/10 for some parks and days. As of December 31, all of those dates are inexperienced on the Park Pass reservations calendar:
Another good time to go to needs to be the final partial week of January 2023, main into early February 2023.
There aren’t any holidays this week, and it has traditionally been a lull in attendance and wait instances as in comparison with most weeks earlier in January and later in February. Nevertheless, we anticipate it to be barely busier than the ‘sweet spot’ of January 9-13, 2023. Crowd ranges are nonetheless prone to be beneath 5/10.
If in any respect potential, we advocate avoiding by means of January 1-4, 2023 as a result of many native colleges are nonetheless on vacation break for these dates. It’ll get dangerous after the vacation weekend, as blockouts for many Floridian Annual Passholders are lifted on January 3 and that can end in a surge of company on that date. Fortunately, Osceola County and Orange County colleges return into session by January 5, 2023, providing one thing of a reprieve for a pair days.
However, crowds received’t let up after that as a result of the 2023 Walt Disney World Marathon will happen from January 4-8, 2023. The principal occasion for that’s on January 8, however runners usually arrive early and benefit from the parks earlier than the races somewhat than extending their keep into the next week. That’s why January 9, 2023 is when issues will really begin to relent.
The drop can be sharp and sudden–don’t be stunned if crowd ranges go from 8/10 on January 7, 2023 to three/10 solely a few days later.
Another time to keep away from is January 13-16, 2023. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. Day lengthy weekend, and normally spikes crowds. However, it usually doesn’t disproportionately affect the next Tuesday by means of Friday. Being so near Christmas and New Year’s, most individuals don’t get or take a full week off.
Then there’s Lunar New Year, which can happen January 22, 2023. This is one other vacation with a negligible affect on Walt Disney World–that leads to a far better spike at Disneyland. While it’s preferrred to keep away from these weekends, they’ll seemingly solely be slight spikes, and shouldn’t see crowd ranges larger than 6/10.
On stability, our expectation is that crowd ranges for January 2023 as an entire will as soon as once more be extra much like a traditional yr. The Walt Disney World Marathon will seemingly spike crowds early within the month. Then the Dance Team National Championship, a colossal youth cheer occasion held at Walt Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports, will end in an inflow of occasion attendees later in January 2023.
Another complicating issue could be that January can be the beginning of ‘summer’ trip season for South America, specifically Brazil. In a traditional yr, you’d encounter massive South American tour teams in Walt Disney World. These tour teams usually don’t have a major affect on crowd calendars, however may affect on the “feels like” crowds should you encounter them often.
It’s seemingly that worldwide visitation numbers will rebound to a point all through 2023. The extent to which that happens actually depends upon whether or not the greenback weakens, and when that occurs (up to now, it has not occurred). At current, worldwide guests are going through larger prices as a consequence of conversion charges–and that’s on high of all Walt Disney World’s value will increase during the last year-plus.
January Pricing & Discounts
The silver lining to a January trip is costs. Disney usually releases some room-only reductions for most of the people, Annual Passholders, and Florida residents. While a few of these offers are supplied year-round, the distinction in January is that rack charges are at their offseason ranges for many nights in January, making these reductions in late January cheaper than the identical gives in November or December.
We favor the room-only reductions to the Free Disney Dining Plan promotion, which isn’t being supplied for January 2023, anyway. Our Walt Disney World Discount Comparisons publish covers why the room-only low cost will get our vote over “free” eating. In this case, free isn’t all the time higher, despite the fact that it’s for a lot of company. If you’re reserving a room-only low cost, you’ll be able to resolve for your self which lodge is likely to be greatest by studying our Walt Disney World Hotel Reviews.
Overall, January is a combined bag at Walt Disney World. Once January 1 hits, I’m not excited by something Christmas, and by the second week in January, the background music and decorations simply really feel awkward. If you go to Walt Disney World to flee the chilly climate, this month may also not be for you. Florida in January might be surprisingly brutal, particularly should you’re dressed for a tropical getaway. Plus, park hours are sometimes brief and crowd calendars spike at varied factors by means of mid-January.
The upside to a January go to is decrease attendance later within the month, which additionally means decrease costs. The cooler climate can be very useful, and we’ll take January climate over summer time warmth and humidity any day. You may really favor the shorter hours, because it means getting all the pieces achieved in a shorter timeframe. Festival of the Arts can be the most effective seasonal occasion of the yr at EPCOT. In different phrases, there’s lots to like about January–particularly later within the month main into early to mid-February, when the crowds are simply as low, the climate is beginning to enhance, and there aren’t any remnants of Christmas left lingering about.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about accommodations 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 publish. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips publish takes a novel have 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, the most effective place to begin is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for all the pieces it’s essential know!
Your Thoughts
Do you want Walt Disney World in January? Are you a fan of the vacation choices after Christmas at Walt Disney World? Looking ahead to Epcot’s Festival of the Arts or doing TRON Lightcycle Run? Do you agree or disagree with our recommendation or crowd calendar suggestions for January 2023? Any questions we will help you reply? Hearing your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!