With the arrival of August, Walt Disney World’s surprisingly soft summer season is winding down–meaning that crowds should fall even further with the unofficial arrival of the “fall” off-season and Halloween 2024 on the horizon. This wait times report covers ride & daily data for last month at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.
To reiterate, Walt Disney World has not been busy for the last few months. It’s been a slow summer at Orlando’s theme parks, as we discuss at length in Summer (Still) Is NOT High Crowds Season at Walt Disney World. That offers our theories as to why summer has been slower, as well as why it’s not really all that surprising and is a trend first observed in 2016-2018.
Nevertheless, the summer slowdown has been more pronounced than even we anticipated. But two things are certain: that summer has not been particularly crowded at Walt Disney World, and that in a normal year, August and September would be even less busy than June and July. So it’s not that the low crowds are ending–it’s that they’re on the precipice of dropping to their lowest levels of the year.
Before delving into the data, we want to offer some background as there always seems to be pushback against claims of lower crowds on a couple of bases. The first is from those who visited Walt Disney World recently and had experiences that they were suggestive of the parks being busy. Perceptions and expectations are what they are, so there’s really no arguing with or refuting that.
What I will simply say is that there’s no universal standard for crowd levels–it’s all relative. Some fans claim Walt Disney World is “always busy” now and “there’s no off-season.” This is not the perspective of crowd calendars. Obviously not, otherwise they’d be useless. “It’s always bad” is not a very helpful way of advising you as to which dates to visit, even if it’s much more concise.
In reality, there is a pronounced difference that anyone could feel between 1/10 days and 10/10 days, or even 3/10 versus 7/10 crowd levels. With that said, the parks are not veritable ghost towns (for the most part) allowing you to do snow angels on the ground at even the lowest levels. You will see rides with hour-plus posted wait times. You will encounter areas of congestion. “Uncrowded” at Walt Disney World means something different than it does at Yellowstone National Park or some random dying mall on the outskirts of town.
Nevertheless, it’s entirely understandable that guests would have firsthand experiences that suggest to them Walt Disney World was anything but “slow.” Perhaps their frame of reference is 2020, 2016, or even 2008–all times when the parks were less busy than this summer. Maybe they’ve never visited at all and were overwhelmed by the expectations vs. reality. Maybe they got unlucky with ride breakdowns. All of this does happen, so this type of skepticism makes sense.
Less sensible are the comments, mostly on social media, with a subtext suggesting we have some sort of agenda in wanting Walt Disney World attendance to be high or low. When we share data that crowds are increasing, some folks who are actively cheering for Disney to fail decry the reports as lies. When crowds are down, others do the same.
Walt Disney World crowds have (sadly) become a component of the culture wars. It’s very stupid. Even aside from culture wars, there’s the sense among many disgruntled Disney fans that the company needs to “learn a lesson,” whether that be courtesy of Epic Universe, lower crowds, or who knows what else. In any case, there’s no agenda here. Walt Disney World attendance is what it is. No amount of us discussing the topic puts our “thumb on the scale” to change that.
We’re obviously not the arbiters of attendance statistics, either. When it’s down, we report that. When it’s up, we also report that. (And that’ll happen in like 2 months!) This has been the case for years, so unless our “agenda” is like Two-Face from Batman, that argument doesn’t really pass muster. (Sorry for venting, the responses to these crowd reports have just gotten so tedious and annoying that I’ve pulled back from doing them as much as a result.)
In this particular case, it’s difficult to argue that we have an agenda in spreading “misinformation” about low crowds unless you also think that Disney CEO Bob Iger and CFO Hugh Johnston have the same agenda. During the last Walt Disney Company quarterly earnings call, both warned of a looming attendance slowdown for theme parks. Not only that, but Walt Disney World has been underperforming for several consecutive quarters as compared to the other parks and Disney Cruise Line.
If all of that sounds familiar, it should. This also isn’t the first, second, or even third time the company has directly addressed it and indicated that pent-up demand has been exhausted at some of the parks. No, the parks are not dead or ghost towns or totally empty, but they’re down as compared to the height of pent-up demand. As we’ve said before, this is hardly a five-alarm fire, and there are levers that Disney has been pulling to buoy bookings.
That last earnings call was back in May, so it’s old news at this point. Disney’s next earnings call is in a week (August 7), and that should provide additional details about the most recent quarter. In the meantime, Comcast just held its quarteryl earnings call last week, where the company revealed that revenue at Universal’s theme parks was down 11%.
Universal blamed the revenue drop on a few factors, including unfavorable comparisons to the pent-up demand period and an increase in other travel options, such as cruises and international tourism, given the strength of the dollar. They also attributed the decrease to a lack of new attractions in Orlando. In fact, two-thirds of the drop was tied to lower attendance at the company’s parks in Florida and California. Executives further indicated that this downtrend was likely to continue until the opening of Epic Universe in 2025.
There’s no reason to believe Disney or Comcast executives are wrong or lying about any of this. It goes without saying that Universal will see a rebound from Epic Universe. The big unknown is whether Disney also will–as a result of more people visiting Orlando and spending time at both–or if the downtrend will continue at Walt Disney World throughout 2025. But that’s beyond the scope of this post.
With that out of the way, let’s dig into the data and look at Walt Disney World wait times. As always, all graphs and stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
We’ll start with the monthly numbers for Walt Disney World as a whole. This covers every single month from January 2019 (far left) to July 2024 (far right), so you can see just current crowds compare to past ones.
It’s difficult to discern, but here are July numbers:
- July 2019: 7/10 crowds; 41 minute average wait time
- July 2020: 0/10 crowds; 14 minute average wait time
- July 2021: 6/10 crowds; 40 minute average wait time
- July 2022: 7/10 crowds; 41 minute average wait time
- July 2023: 4/10 crowds; 36 minute average wait time
- July 2024: 2/10 crowds; 30 minute average wait time
July 2020 was the start of the phased reopening, with attendance capped to such a degree that this data–and pretty much all dates from that month through May 2021–should be thrown out.
It’s also worth pointing out that the drop from 7/10 crowds in July 2022 to 2/10 crowds in July 2024 is “only” a difference of 11 minutes. That may not seem like much, but that’s how sensitive crowd levels are to shifts in wait times. (Also, 11 minutes for every single attraction is a big difference and it really adds up over the course of the day.)
To me, what’s most interesting about this is seeing a decrease every single month since February. In a normal year, there would be a noticeable spike for spring break and Easter, followed by a shoulder season slowdown and then summer spike (or two). Even with summers being less busy in the last decade, this was the dynamic we were seeing.
Instead, this year has shown a slow and steady decrease. It’s especially rare for May to be busier than July, which is something that never happens–but did in 2024! All of this is a big reason why we argued that Walt Disney World Needs ‘Summer Nightastic’ in 2025. Without making a concerted effort to turn the summer slowdown around, it’s only going to get worse with each passing year.
With the week by week view, we can see that crowds have been pretty constant this summer. There was a slight spike at the tail end of June, but even that only got numbers back to May levels.
One thing I do want to note is that Walt Disney World has been laying the ground for the rollout of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass since May 20. It’s my strong belief that this has resulted in a gradual reduction of standby wait times over the course of June and July. I don’t have any way of corroborating this with data–it’s simply a mixture of my anecdotal observations and a bit of background knowledge.
Accordingly, it’s highly likely that the decrease in wait times is proportionally larger than the decrease in attendance (or feels like crowds, for that matter). By how much, I have no clue. But this probably is a decently significant factor and one that the crowd data is “missing,” since it’s only a measure of standby wait times…and not an explanation for them. (Hence our color commentary!)
Looking at the daily data, it’s a bit easier to spot the spike at the end of June, followed by another lull for the Independence Day holiday weekend. I’m not going to rehash the “why” of that–see Low Fourth of July Wait Times at Walt Disney World.
What’s also just barely visible is a slowdown this week after Monday (usually the busiest day of any given week at Walt Disney World). As we’ve said previously, the last week of July is usually the “last hurrah” of summer–with tourists taking vacations that week before getting ready for school in the weeks that follow.
It’s always possible that August sees a brief spike to start the month, but that’s not something we’ve observed in recent years. To the contrary, the first week of August has been slower than the last week of July with a fair amount of consistency. It used to be that mid-August was the end of the summer season–now that’s moved forward to the beginning of the month, or even the last few days of July.
We haven’t done park by park analysis in a while, but are going to return to it for this crowd report since it’s the last update before Party Season really throws a monkey wrench into things.
Let’s start with Magic Kingdom. The highest bars each week are almost always Mondays and Tuesdays, and sometimes Wednesday. Lowest are typically Saturdays and Sundays. As a general rule, though, Magic Kingdom is quieter, crowd-wise, than it was last year.
See Best & Worst 2024 Crowd Days at Magic Kingdom for a fool-proof list of the least and most crowded dates at Magic Kingdom between now and December 2024. This includes a handful of red flag dates to avoid at all costs.
As for this summer at Magic Kingdom, there was a bit of a spike during previews and around the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but not much. The reimagined ride hasn’t really moved the needle much on wait times, which is partially to be expected since it uses a virtual queue.
However, it’s still interesting because the ride has been down a lot, and the guests who could be riding it are (presumably) instead doing other things. It also doesn’t appear to be giving Magic Kingdom much of an attendance boost–there’s not nearly the impact as, say, TRON Lightcycle Run. This is less surprising. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is not brand-new, and its opening date was announced too late for a near-term boost from summer tourists.
I’m more curious about the long tail of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Among casual guests, is the reception positive or negative? How do its guest satisfaction scores compare to Splash Mountain? Are the downtime and reliability woes ‘breaking containment’ from the fan community and reaching the general public? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. Honestly, it’s really difficult to assess anything about this attraction from the perspective of the average guest–rather than the polarized fan community.
Animal Kingdom has higher wait times on average, but it also has far fewer rides than Magic Kingdom.
Except on the very worst days of the year, Animal Kingdom is far and away the park at Walt Disney World where the crowds are the most “beatable.” So long as you arrive early or late, you absolutely do not need to buy Lightning Lane Multi Pass here.
If you’re going all out and have an unlimited budget, you may disagree. To each their own, I suppose. On the plus side, most guests do agree with us, which is why there aren’t tiers at Animal Kingdom and why it’s the cheapest park for LLMP and why it has the best inventory. You might want to think about all of that–and the why of that–before buying.
EPCOT wait times are the most interesting.
We always point out that EPCOT is the locals’ park, and Floridians are more likely to visit for festivals and atmosphere than rides. (If they don’t do rides, they don’t impact crowd levels–even if they do increase congestion or lines for food booths!) Locals are also more likely than tourists to cancel park plans at the last minute if the weather is bad–and it has been a hot and rainy month.
As a result of all this, wait times often don’t tell the full story at EPCOT. This summer, they do. At least, in our experience. EPCOT has been dead since June. There have been a few exceptions to that (per the wait times), but we weren’t there on any of those days, so I cannot speak to that.
This really makes me wonder whether Walt Disney World regrets the decision to shorten Flower & Garden and Food & Wine–or to not introduce a new summer festival. The internal thinking was that there were diminishing returns on the longer festivals, with locals getting “festival fatigue” the last couple years.
Well, I think this is one of those lessons that things can always get worse. It absolutely was true that locals lost interest in the overly long festivals. It’s also true that no festival at all is even worse for EPCOT attendance and wait times. (Again, weather is also a factor–but it’s not like last summer was nice!) I really wonder how Walt Disney World will adapt next year. Clearly, “Diet EPCOT” for nearly 3 consecutive months is not the answer. Ouch.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
As always, this is the park with the highest average wait times in all of Walt Disney World, owing to its disproportionate number of headliners coupled with stage shows that post no wait times at all (and thus do not drag down averages). Summer has been fairly unremarkable at DHS. Slower than last August or this winter, but not significantly so.
I’m actually somewhat surprised that Disney’s Hollywood Studios didn’t see more of a decrease in the lead-up to the launch of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. Or maybe it did, and this data is what that looks like. The summer wait time average at DHS was almost 10 minutes lower than last year. It’ll be interesting to see whether this trend reverses. As we’ve noted, DHS has emerged early-on as the best park for LLMP. (See What’s Up with Lightning Lane Multi Pass Availability at Disney World?)
Looking forward, weather is likely to play an outsized role (even more so than normal for summer) in dictating crowd levels for the next couple of weeks. Meteorologists are forecasting highs in the mid-90s and rain every single day for as far out as the extended forecast goes. In other words, an average August for Central Florida! But wait, there’s more.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), there’s a disturbance tracking through the northern Caribbean islands could form into Tropical Storm Debby as it crawls near the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Florida this weekend into early next week. Obviously, a lot could change between now and then with the storm system’s tracking, but regardless of where it goes, Florida will likely see a significant increase in rainfall this weekend into early next week.
I don’t know about you, but for me, the perfect way to usher in the start of Halloween season is…checks notes…a 93° high and triple-digit “feels like” temperature plus a tropical storm scare. That’s pretty much the forecast for the first Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party of the year. On a totally unrelated programming note, I’ve made the “difficult” decision to attend the D23 Expo in Anaheim, where highs will be in the mid-80s with lows in the mid-60s and zero chance of rain. I’ll catch MNSSHP later in the season.
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks with crowds at Walt Disney World. Southern school districts will start going back into session within the next week; several major ones including Atlanta and the Gulf Coast had their first days today–August 1! In Central Florida, both Osceola and Orange County schools go back into session on August 12, 2024.
It’s possible that this week sees a bit of a last-minute surge of Southerners, but it’s also possible that the weather keeps a lot of locals sitting on the sidelines. Regardless of how this week plays out, there should be a more pronounced drop-off around the middle of the month (unless the weather gets really bad, in which case, it’ll arrive earlier) and next week. The following week should see an even sharper drop, heralding the unofficial start of the fall off-season at Walt Disney World.
As a general matter, it’s safe to expect off-season crowd levels even lower than the low points of June and July by next week. Average wait times should be at or below the 30 minute mark as of next week. That’s good enough for around 1/10 to 2/10 on the crowd calendar, which is not too shabby!
We’ll see whether the degree to which those predictions end up being accurate, or if Walt Disney World crowds and wait times throw us another curveball. We’ll continue monitoring crowds and report back in late August or early September after the start of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
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
Thoughts on late summer crowds at Walt Disney World? Predictions for August 2024 or fall off-season? If you’ve visited within the last month or so, what did you think of crowds? What about posted vs. actual wait times? Any parks, days of the week, or times of day noticeably worse than others? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our report? 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!
