Everyone knows that the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Eve are two of the busiest of the entire year at Walt Disney World, with the latter being #1 by far and having 10+/10 crowd levels. However, they’re not #1 and #2, with the first week actually being much “better” than early 2025.
This crowd report takes a look back at wait times for the entire holiday season to see how bad crowds have been at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. We’ll also look at wait times for the last few years to put into context how much worse the week leading up to NYE really is than all other weeks of the year–and how/why early 2025 is likely to be worse than Christmas.
One thing these crowd reports no longer need to do is offer a long and rambling preface to help explain what they do and don’t do, addressing misconceptions about crowds. That’s because I’ve kicked that out to its own list of the “Top” 10 Ways Walt Disney World Fans Are Wrong About Crowds. That’s worth reading if you want a better understanding of WDW attendance patterns, feels like crowds vs. wait times, and a few fairly easy ways to “beat” the crowds.
In terms of crowds thus far this holiday season, Walt Disney World as a whole hasn’t been too busy on a monthly, weekly or daily basis. Jersey Week and Veterans Day saw a slight spike to moderate territory, with crowds plummeting the week after to lows rivaling their August and September lows. That little less than a week before Thanksgiving week is one to target in 2025.
Unsurprisingly, Thanksgiving week was the busiest of the entire holiday season thus far with crowds arriving the Sunday before, peaking on Monday, and continuing until Thursday. By Friday, the sharp downtrend had already begun. That’s also something to keep in mind for 2025, as our favorite week of the year at Walt Disney World seems to be starting earlier and earlier. At this point, you could do a late night flight after your family feast and enjoy a fairly low-crowds long weekend at Walt Disney World.
As always, the week immediately after Thanksgiving was blissfully uncrowded. That along with the first two weeks of December all ended up having low crowd levels, especially as compared to what’s expected next. Average wait times across the entirety of Walt Disney World ranged from 25 to 29 minutes during this 3-week stretch. Those are exceptionally good crowd levels, and lower than last year (which was lower than the previous year, too).
I promised that there wouldn’t be a long preface, but there are a couple of important things to note. A big one is that Walt Disney World made major changes to its queueing policies about 6 months ago, and wait times haven’t been as long since–even on comparably congested days.
We explained this recently in Here’s Why Standby Lines and Lightning Lanes Are Moving Faster at Walt Disney World. That’s also worth reading, as it covers how there’s more of a disconnect between ‘feels like’ crowds and wait times than anytime in the last few years.
During our Christmas-time visits to EPCOT, in particular, we really felt this. Even on random weekdays during one of the quieter weeks of December, congestion was high. Lines for Holiday Kitchens were lengthy. Ditto Candlelight Processional, which had the longest dining package line I had ever seen.
If you were just walking around enjoying the atmosphere, as many guests were clearly doing, you would’ve perceived 10/10 crowd levels. Wait times, on the other hand, were perfectly manageable. Those are the only objective measure of crowds, so they’re how levels are actually assessed. And on that basis, crowd levels were 4/10 to 6/10 on the days we visited.
Similarly, choosing the “right” days to visit Magic Kingdom and avoiding the “wrong” ones makes a world of difference during December. Not just at Magic Kingdom (although definitely there), but also every other park. If you do MK on the right days, you’re likely avoiding the wrong ones…and every other park is much less busy on those.
Beyond that, the holiday season is a roller coaster for crowds. Between the start of November and early January, there are no fewer than a half-dozen holidays and breaks that have huge impacts on crowd levels. Some of these are obvious–the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Others, like Jersey Week, are decidedly less so.
The very good news is that in between those holidays, there are lulls in crowds. The breaks act as crowd magnets, of sorts, for Walt Disney World. People are less likely to take off of work or pull their kids out of school when a built-in break is just around the corner. This makes the downtime even more pronounced, with the exception of locals and diehard Disney fans who know about the better times and are able to visit during them. (That second part is key. A lot of people have the knowledge–far fewer can act upon it!)
That brings us to the next few weeks, which are always busy. Obviously, these have not happened yet, so all we can offer are predictions based on past precedent and historical wait times data.
Last year, the week leading up to Christmas had an average wait time of 45 minutes, making it busier than Thanksgiving or any week of the year since Spring Break. It’s worth noting that Thanksgiving and Easter (always the peak week of Spring Break) are no longer in the same ballpark in terms of crowd levels. Thanksgiving is busy, but not Easter or Christmas busy. It’s just that there are no other truly busy holidays between that long stretch of the year.
For example, Thanksgiving week this year peaked with an average wait time that was 18 minutes lower than the peak of Easter week (that’s a huge spread in averages) and the elevated crowd levels didn’t last as long. Thanksgiving “week” isn’t an actual week of heavy crowds–it’s essentially 4-5 days. By contrast, the Easter spike lasts over a full week.
And this brings us to the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve last year. Last year, that week had an average wait time of 61 minutes. Remember, Christmas week was 45 minutes, which was very busy–way worse than Thanksgiving or any week since Easter. So NYE week was 16 minutes busier than Christmas (on average), which was already much busier than Thanksgiving.
In the end, last year’s week leading up to New Year’s Eve was the busiest single week at Walt Disney World since the same week in late 2019 into early 2020. This is particularly notable because 2023 was otherwise a slower year than 2022. We’ve been talking about the exhaustion of pent-up demand for a while, but it actually started last year with most weeks being slower than 2022. The week of New Year’s Eve was the rare–and significant–exception to that.
Here’s a look at weekly wait time trends courtesy of thrill-data.com just to put this all into perspective:
Drilling down from weeks to individual days, December 28-30, 2023 all set new records for the worst day of the post-reopening period…that were broken by subsequent days. The averages on those days were 68 to 70 minutes, beating the 67 minute average of December 27, 2023 that was tied at the time for the busiest day of the post-reopening period (with December 29, 2022).
Not to point out the obvious, but these days were all 10+/10 crowd levels. I know it’s trendy to add plusses to everything these days for no discernible reason, but there’s good reason for this one. Currently, a 53 minute wait time is a 9/10 crowd level, whereas 54 minutes is enough to hit the 10/10 crowd level threshold. However, that 70 minute average is still a 10/10 crowd level, technically.
That’s a 16 minute spread–which is absolutely massive–but the exact same crowd level. Nowhere else on the scale (except, I guess, 1/10 since it could theoretically start at 0 minutes–but that never happens in practice) has that range. Usually a crowd level has a range of a few minutes before it moves up or down. Not 10/10. It can be 54 minutes, 67 minutes, 80 minutes, 330 minutes, etc. Hence the 10+/10 crowd level.
The salient point is that there are varying degrees of ‘bad’ crowds and that 10/10 isn’t a static level of awfulness. This is also why fans saying it’s “obvious” that crowd levels will be 10/10 between Christmas and New Year’s Eve are missing the point.
Yes, it is obvious that crowds will hit 54 minutes. But how much higher will they go? That is what is not obvious, and those extra minutes can make a very big difference. It’s something you can’t fully appreciate unless you’re there and experiencing those wait times.
Point being, that stretch leading up to New Year’s Eve last year saw the worst average wait times since at least December 2019. That’s right–there wasn’t a single day in 2020, 2021, or 2022 that surpassed December 27-30, 2023. That’s the 4 busiest days in 4 years! Not just the worst 4-day stretch, either. Each of those individual dates were the busiest single days since 2019. It was not “obvious” that this would happen–to the contrary, trend lines suggested it wouldn’t, even amidst sure-thing 10/10 crowd levels.
Here’s how daily December 2023 crowds looked to add a bit more context:
Notably, many of the dates in the first half of the month have average wait times of less than half the 68-70 minute averages of the days leading up to New Year’s Eve. Christmas week was no slouch, but those wait times are downright moderate relative to the week that followed.
This is a pattern that plays out pretty consistently from year to year, and will almost certainly repeat itself in 2024, 2025, 2026, etc. The exact numbers will change; the trends will not. You can always expect Christmas week to be busier than the few weeks before it, and the week after that–and leading up to New Year’s Eve–to be even busier than Christmas.
However, as suggested by the title, the crazy crowds don’t end once the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve. Here’s a look at year-to-date wait times for 2024:
Look at the far left side. The busiest 5-day stretch of 2024 remains, to this date, the first 5 days of the year. The days that followed dropped off a bit, but that entire week remains tied with Easter as the #1 worst week of the year-to-date. Fall Break, Veterans Day, Jersey Week, Thanksgiving, etc. didn’t even come close to beating it.
The first week of 2024 will likely end up tied for the second-worst week of the year. Christmas probably will not surpass it–it hasn’t for years. New Year’s Eve undoubtedly will, since that’s also the long-running trend.
If we’re talking about things that are “obvious” to Walt Disney World fans and misconceptions, here’s another. There’s still a fairly widespread belief that crowd levels plummet on New Year’s Day, which is believed to be “dead” as everyone is hungover or heading home. Many fans also believe the days that follow are likewise slow. Some fans also think there’s then a spike caused by the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.
This is almost entirely wrong.
I guess it is true that New Year’s Day starts out slow…for like an hour or two, and only relative to the previous few days that are absolutely off the charts. This is a trend we’ve definitely spotted in watching real-time posted waits. I’ve also done several early morning New Year’s Days for the sake of photography, as I used to be able to run on like zero sleep. The slow start is a thing, but it’s a short-lived one. By midday, January 1 is busy.
However, everyone going home and crowds letting up for multiple days is definitely not a thing. At least, not anymore. Longtime Walt Disney World fans no doubt remember crowd levels plummeting overnight from New Year’s Eve to Day, and the parks being ‘sleepy’ from then until the lead-up to Marathon Weekend (which was sometimes over a full week away). It was downright blissful, especially if your trip started before NYE and you were subjected to those crowds on the front end, and refreshingly empty parks during the second half.
Fans remember this phenomenon because many of them still attribute crowds in early January to the runDisney race. To be sure, that is certainly a contributing factor, but it is not the main driver of crowds. In the last few years, runDisney races–across the board–have had a much more noticeable impact on hotel occupancy than attendance or crowd levels.
More significantly, this trend has occurred without much regard for Marathon Weekend. The real drivers for heavy crowds during the first week of January are ongoing winter breaks, lifting of Annual Pass blockouts, and significantly lower prices than the previous weeks. Even as the week leading up to NYE is off-the-charts busy, we’re hearing anecdotal reports of budget-conscious tourists shifting their visits to the following week.
Our strong suspicion is that the biggest drivers are Central Florida’s growing population and more locals with Annual Passes that are subject to blockout dates around the peak weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Although there’s still a big gap, Walt Disney World’s guest demographics are resembling Disneyland more with each passing year.
Floridians now have an outsized impact on crowds, which wasn’t always the case. When we first started doing this, it was better to watch school calendars from major districts in the Midwest and Northeast. Now, the timing of the biggest and closest districts in Florida is a better predictor of crowds than other states. (That’s not as visible here, as most districts around the country all have this time off–but it’s obvious once you’re looking at Spring Breaks, which can be very different.)
Looking forward to early 2025, most local school districts–including Orange County–do not go back into session until January 7, 2025. This means that Monday could still be busy as a bit of a last hurrah, but that also requires parents having that day off work, and most will not.
As such, our expectation is that January 1-5, 2025 is very busy, January 6 sees elevated crowds, and there’s a drop-off starting January 7, 2025. We’d further predict that this 7-day stretch will be the busiest at Walt Disney World until Easter (surpassing the popular Presidents Day/Winter Break), and likely until next New Year’s Eve.
Speaking of Presidents Day and Winter Break, there’s a reasonable probability that week in Winter 2025 is busier than this year’s Christmas week. That was the case this year (compared to the prior Christmas), albeit only by 1 minute. It’ll be a close call again, especially since it doesn’t coincide with Mardi Gras. The difference is that “everyone” expects Christmas week to be busy, whereas Winter Break catches people by surprise.
The Walt Disney World Marathon occuring January 8-12, 2025 should make the prediction about the first week of January and its causes fairly easy to ascertain. (Since marathon crowds will largely occur the second week of January 2025.)
We still expect marathon week to be above-average, but we’re extremely confident in the prediction that it won’t be as bad as the first 7 days of 2025. Or, for that matter, much worse than an average week in Winter 2025. Whatever crowd levels those two weeks actually end up being should fairly well settle the “cause” of them.
(For whatever it’s worth, my theories as to why runDisney isn’t as impactful to crowd levels are that fewer out-of-state runDisney participants are still Annual Passholders due to rising costs, runners are cutting trips short due to rising travel costs, and fewer are purchasing multi-day tickets (also due to rising costs). Anecdotal reader feedback seemed to suggest some or all of this was true, but obviously, it’s still just a theory.)
Beyond this, it’s also safe to predict that Winter 2025 will be busy at Walt Disney World thanks to mild weather causing more deferred visits, a fan-favorite seasonal event, and multi-year trends in this direction. See Winter (Still) Is Not Off-Season at Walt Disney World for more.
I wouldn’t expect wait times or crowd levels in January through early March 2025 to be up year-over-year, given the lower waits that we’ve generally seen in the last 6 months plus postponed visits as theme park fans await Epic Universe. But that doesn’t really matter unless you’re a statistician.
Perception is reality, and Walt Disney World guests are still surprised by winter crowds, period, despite this pattern emerging in 2017. It takes conventional WDW wisdom a while to catch up to reality, which is why so many continued declaring October the off-season long after that ceased being true or why some fans still believe the parks are dead post-NYE. Crowds this winter will be more sufficient that people perceive them as being worse than their own expectations.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you visited Walt Disney World for Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or during the first week in January in the last few years? What was your experience? Thoughts on our analysis for these weeks? Do you agree or disagree with the crowd predictions or rationales? Any questions we can help you answer? 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!
