Following the height winter week final month, Walt Disney World guests have loved some good occasions to this point in March 2023. This crowd report shares latest information, ideas on what’s prone to occur subsequent with attendance ranges throughout and after Spring Break, and simply how sluggish the final couple weeks have been within the parks.
Historically, March has been a ‘tale of two seasons’ at Walt Disney World, with peaks and valleys–excessive highs and low lows. That’s why we’ve recognized early March as one in all our favourite occasions to go to (it’s routinely one of many prime 4 weeks of the 12 months) in our Best & Worst Months to Visit Walt Disney World. In the final two years, this dynamic hasn’t been fairly as pronounced, however a whole lot of regular tendencies haven’t performed out throughout that point.
There have been the standard curler coaster crowd ranges as not too long ago as March 2020, and I don’t imply earlier than and after the parks closed. Although, clearly, there have been fewer folks in them beginning March 16 of that 12 months. Maybe 2019 is a greater instance, when the month began out sluggish (like 2020) however then spiked for spring break. So, how have crowds been in March 2023 up to now? Let’s have a look…
As at all times, what’s coated in these “crowd” experiences is definitely posted wait time information that’s pulled from My Disney Experience and compiled into graphs for monitoring and evaluating varied days, weeks, months, and years. Rather a lot will be gleaned from posted wait occasions, however it’s not essentially conclusive of in-park congestion or crowds.
There are a number of different variables that affect “feels like” crowds, from the beginning of the 2023 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival 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 listing! Beyond that, wait occasions are sometimes inflated–however no less than there’s often consistency within the inaccuracy, if that is smart.
In brief, wait occasions are an imperfect measure of Walt Disney World’s uncooked attendance or crowds–which have elevated by a number of million folks over the course of the final decade-plus. With that out of the best way, let’s dig into the information and take a look at Walt Disney World wait occasions. As at all times, 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.
While I like to overanalyze wait occasions information, this gorgeous a lot tells the entire story. I gained’t bury the lede: 90% of this publish boils right down to this one chart. Through the primary 11 days of the month, March 2023 is just one minute busier than September 2021, which was far and away the slowest month of final 12 months. Early fall low season crowds however with early spring climate?! Sign me up.
If we break it down by week, it reveals just about the identical factor. For essentially the most half, the primary two weeks of March have been considerably slower than the final 3 weeks of February.
The starting of this month has additionally been higher than the sluggish weeks of January, which is fascinating. With that mentioned, this chart really doesn’t inform the complete story, as a lot of these weeks embody busy and sluggish dates. So let’s take a look at the dailies…
This is a little more helpful, and it reveals that wait occasions really began falling within the second half of Mardi Gras week and into the Princess Half Marathon Weekend. By that Sunday, wait occasions had bottomed out at 28 minutes on common, for a 1/10 crowd degree.
Average wait occasions have been round that since, solely growing in the previous few days. Still, most days have had averages at or beneath half-hour, and the best crowd degree has been 5/10. It has been a remarkably good stretch for visiting Walt Disney World!
These graphs look similar to these from 2019 or 2020. I do know I joked above concerning the second half of March 2020 falling additional than this, however clearly, that’s not how issues would’ve performed out within the absence of the closure. That winter had been busier than ever earlier than the early March reprieve, and spring break would’ve possible been even worse. Suffice to say, you may wish to file these charts away for whenever you begin enthusiastic about the timing of your 2024 Walt Disney World trip. The final two weeks are in all probability not an anomaly, however moderately, a return to regular.
When crowd ranges are this persistently low, the person parks don’t actually add something, so I gained’t waste your time with unnecessary commentary. Nevertheless, listed here are these numbers for many who need them:
For essentially the most half, what you see is what you get with the per park crowd ranges. Wait occasions spiked main into and out of Presidents’ Day, however fizzled out towards the tip of that week, falling from reasonably excessive on Thursday and Friday to flat-out mild ranges on Sunday. They’ve stayed in that vary ever since, solely growing in the previous few days.
As at all times, EPCOT is the one park the place what you see might be not what you get. If you visited on February 21, you’d’ve encountered wait time ranges that amounted to a 9/10 crowd degree, however you additionally would’ve missed the tip of Festival of the Arts by someday. If you visited on March 1, you’d’ve been there for two/10 crowd ranges based on wait occasions, but additionally the beginning of the 2023 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival.
I might be prepared to guess that in case you requested 100 folks to stroll round EPCOT on each of these two days, and by no means had them do sights or take a look at wait occasions, the bulk would say March 1 was busier. More than every other park, EPCOT is the locals’ park, and that’s evident in situations like this.
If you’re a vacationer specializing in sights, you continue to would’ve loved low wait occasions, to make certain, however you’d’ve felt way more congestion than the gang degree suggests. There’s no good answer to this discrepancy, apart from pointing it out. This does occurs on the different parks to some extent, however to not almost the identical diploma as EPCOT.
Now let’s flip to the common attraction wait occasions for the month of March 2023 to this point:
A number of issues price calling to your consideration right here. First, we now have extra wait occasions information for each Enchanted Tales with Belle and the Ariel’s Grotto meet & greet. The latter has been a Lightning Lane that books up quickest most days, and which may lead you to conclude that it’s excessive precedence. The common wait occasions say in any other case. That’s mirrored in our up to date Magic Kingdom Genie+ Rankings.
Similarly, the Adventurers Outpost Minnie & Mickey Mouse meet & greet at Animal Kingdom (#3 on the listing above) continues to be common, and now ranks above every little thing exterior Pandora. Remember, these are averages over the course of the whole day. Do this earlier than 11 am and there’s an excellent probability your wait time is beneath quarter-hour. (I’ve seen it as a completely empty queue on a number of events.)
Finally, the Tower of Terror stealth refurbishment is over, in order that attraction’s common wait time is in freefall. This can be mirrored in our up to date Disney’s Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Rankings. In basic, we’ve seen Genie+ getting a lot simpler to make use of at DHS. It’s tough to inform whether or not this can be a momentary phenomenon as a result of present crowd ranges, or the provision/demand dynamic has modified. We have some testing to do there this week…
For these questioning how Walt Disney World’s wait occasions examine to Universal Orlando, the development is about the identical for late February by way of mid-March 2023.
I wouldn’t be in the least shocked if there’s a divergence throughout this upcoming week. Universal Orlando’s Florida resident ticket deal doesn’t have blockout dates for Central Florida spring break, which means that extra locals might select Universal as a staycation possibility. But in all chance, each theme park complexes will hit excessive crowd ranges.
Looking ahead, I’ve gotta admit that I’m barely shocked by the park reservations scenario. Right now, Magic Kingdom and DHS are unavailable for Monday and Tuesday, however that’s it. The remainder of the week is vast open. Equally as important, the Annual Passes that aren’t blocked out have full availability after at the moment. An identical situation performed out round Presidents’ Day, so it’s not an entire shock.
It’s nonetheless a optimistic that Walt Disney World has not been using Park Pass to redistribute or normalize attendance throughout all 4 parks. This is one thing we noticed even final August and September, when crowd ranges have been at their lowest. I’m actually curious what prompted the change. Could be staffing, visitor satisfaction, or misplaced enterprise because of making an attempt to “force” folks to go to sure parks. Perhaps a mixture of the above.
Regardless, this development ought to put us one step nearer to Walt Disney World retiring reservations for everybody besides APs, or maybe for all dates besides peak vacation weeks. If subsequent week stays inexperienced–and even yellow–the Park Pass system arguably has served its goal and is now not wanted for all friends or dates. If Bob Iger desires to assert one other huge win on the “listening to feedback from our guests” entrance, the door is now open for a giant rollback of Park Pass.
For spring break season crowds, one other variable is the 2023 Florida Resident Ticket Deal for Walt Disney World. That’s solely legitimate Mondays by way of Fridays (so weekends are at all times out), and in addition has blockout dates this coming week, April 3-7, and April 10-14.
This coming week is spring break for Osceola and Orange County, amongst different much less important (from an attendance perspective) faculty districts round Central Florida. Even with the resident ticket deal blocked out, Orlando-area faculty districts out on spring break ought to have a enormous affect on attendance since so many locals are Annual Passholders, and reservation availability is at the moment ample.
Ultimately, it’s been a superb two-week run at Walt Disney World. It’s good to see this “valley” as soon as once more after a pair years throughout which they solely dipped just a little between late February and early March. In all chance, this can be a return to regular moderately than an outlier.
Again, in case you’re planning for a 2024 Walt Disney World trip, we’d extremely suggest conserving these dates in thoughts. This is a prime tier time to go to due to the gentle climate, EPCOT in bloom, and low crowds. It’s the calm earlier than (and after) the storm, and there are solely a handful of weeks that we’d rank larger from each a quantitative and qualitative perspective.
Now comes an fascinating take a look at. Our Spring Break 2023 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World predicted that this coming week could be the worst of spring break. That ought to have began to materialize yesterday, with locals inflicting crowd ranges to rise earlier than the vacationers arrived in full power. It’s beginning to occur at the moment (March 12, 2023) with larger wait occasions already and Genie+ returning to its record-high worth. That means that Walt Disney World’s inner attendance forecast is at its highest degree, and crowds will solely worsen from right here.
Maybe not, although. Wait occasions have gone up, however not almost as a lot as would usually be the case on a ten/10 peak season day. It’s fully attainable that our (and Disney’s personal!) forecast will likely be flawed. Walt Disney World aggressively blocked out resident tickets and hasn’t offered new APs in an extended, very long time. Disney’s costs are excessive and airfare additionally isn’t low cost. Even although there ended up being some 10/10 days and Genie+ offered out for the primary two occasions ever, we overshot our predictions for Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras.
While predicting colossal crowds for spring break, we’ve additionally been saying there are indicators pent-up demand is fizzling and that final Christmas may’ve been the final hurrah for that. That has been evident from Walt Disney World’s elevated discounting alone, however can be prompt by management making optimistic adjustments to enhance visitor satisfaction. It’ll be fascinating to see how the subsequent few weeks find yourself taking part in out, however I’m already beginning to assume that our expectations for spring break have been too excessive.
That’s the excellent news–the dangerous information is that it’ll nonetheless in all probability really feel very busy. Even if our crowd predictions have been incorrect for the approaching week, it’s not going to be something just like the final two. Being “way wrong” right here means 8/10 or 9/10 ranges as a substitute of 10/10+ crowds, with over a dozen sights seeing triple digit averages and extra offered out Genie+ days. It’s nonetheless going to be dangerous–that’s just about a given. Rather, it’s a query of simply how busy it finally ends up being, and the way lengthy the excessive crowds stick round. Regardless, these decrease ranges for late February by way of mid-March bode extraordinarily nicely for late April and May 2023. So there’s that to stay up for!
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about lodges on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To get monetary savings 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 objects 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 start out is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for every little thing you must know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Did you go to Walt Disney World on the finish of February or first half of March 2023? What did you consider the crowds? Any parks, occasions of day, or days of the week noticeably worse than the others? Did you discover the previous few days to be noticeably busier than the primary half of the week or earlier weekend? If you’ve visited in previous weeks earlier than spring break, did you discover a giant distinction in crowd ranges? Do you agree or disagree with something in our crowd report? Any questions we will help you reply? Hearing your suggestions–even whenever you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!