We do not have a Hong Kong Disneyland crowd calendar because one isn’t necessary. It would miss the point and be counterproductive many weeks & months, as higher attendance and wait times aren’t even the biggest factors to take into account when choosing the best & worst times to do HKDL.
Accordingly, this guide explaining when to visit and avoid Hong Kong Disneyland is more holistic in nature. While it takes crowd levels into account, it’s much bigger picture in nature to help you choose the excellent times to go to HKDL and avoid the awful ones, which are not always the same as the busiest and least busy dates.
The reason crowd levels matter less is because Hong Kong Disneyland is Disney’s least-visited castle park in the world, with attendance at about one-third the numbers of Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, or Tokyo Disneyland. It has lower attendance than every single Walt Disney World or Disneyland Resort park. It was second to last in overall attendance among Disney Parks, ranking ahead of only Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris–not really a fair comparison since that was a veritable construction zone (and is absolutely atrocious).
This alone makes Hong Kong Disneyland a “lower stakes” theme park. To be sure, there are busy days, and we’ve attended a few that have had heavy crowds. On top of that, attendance is starting to increase following World of Frozen’s opening.
This is likely to continue in the years to come as HKDL develops more of a fan following and word gets out about its greatness. Still, it’s the easiest park to visit and doesn’t require nearly as much strategy as its counterparts. So long as you follow a few simple rules for choosing your travel dates, you should be fine.
Even though Hong Kong is a densely populated metropolis and viewed as a world city, the local population is smaller than the Tokyo, Los Angeles, or Shanghai metro areas. It is more populous than Paris or Orlando, but both of those benefit from being bona fide tourist destinations. They have local fans, but the park is not reliant on them.
Hong Kong is in this odd spot where it’s primarily aimed at tourists, but not a destination resort. It’s also not in the most convenient location, and it faces fierce competition for tourist time and dollars. From the city itself, nearby Ocean Park, Macau, and even Shanghai Disneyland. The opening of that newer park about a decade after HKDL gave mainland Chinese fans their own, more convenient Disney theme park, and sapped Hong Kong Disneyland of some momentum.
All of this is why we’ve frequently described Hong Kong Disneyland as charming–like Disneyland in California from a bygone era. For years, Hong Kong Disneyland was a sleepy little theme park most of the year, and one that had 300+ “best” days per year to visit from the perspective of crowds and wait times.
That’s starting to change (maybe now there are “only” 280 best days to visit if only taking crowds into account), but there are still a few simple rules you need to know for visiting HKDL to maximize your enjoyment and minimize crowds.
Avoid Weekends
Saturday has become the busiest day of the week at Hong Kong Disneyland, with Friday and Sunday becoming increasingly busy. This is an emerging trend that didn’t used to be as pronounced. Wednesday is the least busy day at HKDL, which is not a new trend. It’s most removed from long weekends and tourists taking weeklong trips are least likely to visit during the middle of the week.
We visited Hong Kong Disneyland on the second-busiest day of last year, which was the Saturday at the start of the Christmas season. Not exactly a huge surprise, as the first Saturday of the holiday season is usually very busy at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, etc. (Wait times data shows a similar spike at the start of Halloween and Saturdays throughout that season.)
One of our biggest observations was the colossal queue to enter the park via the Annual Passholder entrance. Throughout that entire weekend, we saw a surprising number of Annual Passholders, including Japanese APs (easy to clock based on merchandise they’re wearing and plush they’re sporting). This isn’t a huge surprise since Annual Passes are suspended at Tokyo Disney Resort, but the degree to which HKDL has made inroads in building a fanbase was nevertheless interesting to observe.
Suffice to say, we’d highly recommend avoiding Saturdays if at all possible, as well as Fridays and Sundays, to a lesser extent. These days won’t always be truly busy, but the trend is for them to be busier than weekdays. This is especially true for Halloween and Christmas, so if you’re visiting from mid-September through New Year’s, it’s even more important to follow this advice.
Avoid Summer Vacation
In the summer, Hong Kong is hot, humid and typhoon-prone. The weather doesn’t dissuade tourists and depress hotel rates like it once did. So if you are looking for a deal (or dry weather), look elsewhere.
To be perfectly transparent, we do not have any recent insight to share when it comes to summer at Hong Kong Disneyland. We last made the mistake of visiting Hong Kong Disneyland in the summer when Shanghai Disneyland opened. The humidity was killer–worse than anything we’ve ever experienced at Walt Disney World.
We will never go back to Hong Kong Disneyland between June and August again because the weather is too brutal to have a pleasant time. On top of that, summer crowd levels grow progressively from their lows in May to peaking in early August.
Avoid Holidays
Avoiding public holidays and the weekends around them is fairly important. These tend to be the busiest days of the entire year at HKDL, with Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year/Spring Festival and the days around it often being the single busiest stretch.
There are 17 public holidays in Hong Kong each year. These are a mix of traditional Chinese and Western holidays, such as Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Dragon Boat Festival, along with Christmas and Easter. Other public holidays include National Day and Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day. The Hong Kong Government website has a list of dates.
Mainland China has seven legal holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year (Spring Festival), Qingming Festival (Tomb-sweeping Day), May Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Day and National Day. The Chinese enjoy 13 days off in total for these official holidays, and many of them take trips to Hong Kong as a result.
Japanese national holidays and to a lesser extent holidays and school breaks in Taiwan, Philippines, United States, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore can impact crowds on certain dates. Aside from maybe Golden Week in Japan, it’s unnecessary to plan around public holidays in those countries, though. China and Hong Kong holidays are the biggies.
Winter & Spring Are Mostly Fine
January through April are largely moderate months for crowds, with the aforementioned (major) exceptions for public holidays in Hong Kong and mainland China. More importantly, these months–especially January and February–feature cooler temperatures.
May is the month when weather warms up, but crowds cool down to their lowest level of the entire year. Just keep in mind that moderate crowds at HKDL are low by the standards of every other Disney park in the world. We would take average January crowds and weather over May crowds and weather at Hong Kong Disneyland. No question.
The biggest reason we’re neutral on these times of year is the lack of seasonal events. Hong Kong Disneyland does do a Chinese New Year Celebration, but that coincides with the busy holiday itself, so we wouldn’t visit then. As HKDL increases in popularity and grows a local fanbase, we’d expect more seasonal events throughout the year.
Go When Weather is Nice!
Aside from the steps above, we would recommend choosing travel dates based on weather over anticipated crowd levels. Here’s a simple overview of monthly low and high temperatures in Hong Kong:
Month: High / Low (°F)
- January: 65° / 57°
- February: 65° / 58°
- March: 70° / 62°
- April: 77° / 69°
- May: 83° / 75°
- June: 87° / 79°
- July: 88° / 80°
- August: 88° / 80°
- September: 86° / 78°
- October: 82° / 73°
- November: 74° / 66°
- December: 68° / 59°
Just keep in mind that it’s humid in Hong Kong in addition to being hot. Meaning that the “feels like” temperatures can be a lot worse than the temperature suggests. That’s why June through August (as well as portions of May through September) are completely off the table for us. A high of “only” 88 degrees may feel like triple-digit temperatures.
Go for Halloween
In a normal year, Halloween Time at Hong Kong Disneyland runs from mid-September to October 31. The start date varies by year, but is typically around the second Friday in September. Regardless, we’d recommend visiting in October as opposed to September for the likelihood of better weather.
Halloween at Hong Kong Disneyland usually features a not-so-haunted house highlighted by villians, as well as a stage show, unique costumes for character meet & greets, and a street party cavalcade. There’s also trick or treating, special menus, merchandise, and more.
This used to be the flagship season at Hong Kong Disneyland, and the park offered a darker twist on Halloween than all other parks. During the first few years we visited HKDL for Halloween, there were truly haunted houses (on par with Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, for reference), a stage show with an original storyline, and characters that were non-Disney monsters. It was awesome and unexpected for a Disney park. Halloween is still very good, just totally different–and arguably overshadowed by ever-improving Christmas festivities.
Go for Christmas
With World of Frozen’s opening, Christmas is now the marquee holiday at Hong Kong Disneyland. It usually starts in mid-November and runs through early January, typically beginning on a Friday and officially ending on New Year’s Day.
During the holiday season, guests are invited to join a snowy celebration in the kingdom of Arendelle in World of Frozen. Another highlight is Ye Olde Christmas Market, a European-style wonderland, in Fantasyland with seasonal character meet & greets and gorgeous decorations. Likewise, Duffy and Friends Play House is adorned with decorations, and those popular characters are in Christmas-themed costumes.
The highlight of the holiday season is the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, which features performances by Santa Goofy and Christmas Carolers and culminates in a drone show and sparkling snowfall on Main Street. Another fan-favorite entertainment offering is the stage show, “Mickey and Friends Christmastime Ball,” which is another excellent entertainment offering. There’s also special merchandise, menus, and more.
Christmas has become our favorite time of year at Hong Kong Disneyland. Part of this is the superior weather, but the decorations and entertainment–including atmospheric performers–have improved by leaps and bounds in the last several years. We’d highly recommend a visit in late November or early December as a result.
Go When You Visit Japan
Frankly, we would not make the trek all the way to Hong Kong Disneyland without also visiting Japan.
Given that HKDL is likely to be an add-on for a trip to Japan, as opposed to the other way around, we’d be more inclined to plan our trip around the best times to visit Tokyo Disney Resort or Japan.
This is doubly true since crowds fluctuate more at Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea more than any other parks in the world, making crowd calendars actually essential for those parks. (See Crowd Calendars for Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea.) Those are great resources for choosing which days to visit the parks once you’ve narrowed down your rough travel dates based upon the season or special events you want to experience.
Our 3 favorite times to visit Tokyo Disney Resort are May (post-Golden Week), mid-September, and mid-November. If expanded to Japan as a whole, we’d adjust those timeframes slightly, as cherry blossom and fall colors seasons are our favorite times of the year to visit Japan.
The good news is that all of these timeframes also overlap with great times to do Hong Kong Disneyland. Plan accordingly with your side trip to HKDL tacked on before or after Japan based on what works best for you, and when weather and crowds will be better!
For the rest of your planning needs, consult our Hong Kong Disneyland Trip Planning Guide. It covers everything you need to know for a visit to HKDL, including reviews, strategy, packing, and more. If you’re visiting the city as well, please consult our Hong Kong City Guide on TravelCaffeine, our non-Disney planning site.
Your Thoughts
What is your favorite time to visit Hong Kong Disneyland? If you’ve been to any of the Disney Parks in Asia, do you have favorite times to visit, or time-frames you avoid? Even if you’ve only been to Walt Disney World, are there certain months you’d avoid HKDL given the somewhat comparable climates? Do you agree or disagree with our times to visit and avoid Hong Kong Disneyland? Any questions? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
