Our May 2024 Walt Disney World crowd calendar offers a guide to the month, weeks to visit & avoid, weather, new attraction openings & closures, and the kickoff of summer. Plus, other info & tips for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Updated April 28, 2024.)
We like the month of May at Walt Disney World. For most people, earlier in the month is going to be better. However, even right around Memorial Day, crowds at Walt Disney World aren’t nearly as bad as you might expect for a holiday weekend at Walt Disney World. We’ve had wonderful visits during May in terms of weather, crowds, and entertainment.
The other good news is that May sees a reduced slate of refurbishments, longer park hours, and only moderate crowds. Most schools are still in session during May, so crowds are typically fairly uniform for most of the month. While some things are still up in the air for May 2024 at Walt Disney World, we do have a pretty good idea of what to expect…
There’s actually a lot more upside to May, especially as compared to other summer months…
May Weather at WDW
Our experience has taught us that the biggest make or break for May is the weather. I think that’s true when traveling to Walt Disney World during this time of year, in general. Low temperatures for May range from 64 to 70 degrees, with highs averaging 85 to 89 degrees. Those are just averages–temperatures in the 90s and high humidity aren’t unheard of.
As demonstrated by the “comfortable” band on this page for May, weather is generally on the upper end of nice (like you cold weather climate folks expect from a Florida vacation). It can creep into “unpleasant” territory with some regularity, with it being warm and above 64% of the time in May.
The potential for unseasonably hot weather in May is demonstrated with weather forecasts from last year that regularly topped out above 95 degrees and 75% humidity. Days like like make May a little questionable in terms of weather, but if you’re looking at a summer vacation and it comes down to May versus June, July, or August, May is by far the safest option. So there’s that upside.
While not technically weather, May is the first month of the year that you can get your money’s worth if you’re staying at Yacht or Beach Club. Technically, you have to spend 22.7 hours per day in Stormalong Bay (sorry, we don’t make the rules) to get appropriate bang for your buck, so at least the hotter weather helps with that!
May Special Events at Disney World
Throughout May, you can enjoy the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival; this annual event will run until May 27, 2024. Flower & Garden Festival features marketplace food booths, gardening entertainment, and beautiful ambiance to Epcot. While it’s not for everyone, it’s one of my favorite events of the year at Walt Disney World…and I don’t even enjoy gardening.
There are no runDisney races in May, as the running ‘season’ is over until October. It’s also the tail end of the youth events season at Walt Disney World. As you can see from the ESPN Wide World of Sports calendar, the Cheerleading Worlds and Dance Worlds occur at the end of April, with the Cheerleading and Dance Summits being the first two weekends in May.
These are major dance and cheerleading competitions that boost attendance at the parks and occupancy at the hotels, usually the All Stars and Coronado Springs. However, the impact on crowd levels in the parks isn’t significant as a whole–and tends to be overblown based on anecdotal experiences, which can be quite bad.
On the flip side, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is getting relatively unprecedented 10pm closings on those weekends in May 2024. I don’t think that has anything to do with the cheer and dance events–but it should be great for late nights at DHS!
That’s not all. As you can read in 9 Big Things Happening in May 2024 at Walt Disney World, there are a variety of things happening, changing, or coming to Walt Disney World in the month of May. The highlights, from our perspective are the “Disney Dreams That Soar” drone show, Disney’s Hollywood Studios 35th Anniversary, VIPASSHOLDER Days, and May the Fourth.
Normally, Memorial Day weekend is the official kick-off of summer for Walt Disney World. It’s possible that will be the case for the first time in a long time in May 2024, but nothing has been announced and it’s a bit late for that, so we doubt it. More likely, the summer season kickoff will happen in two phases. First on June 10, 2024 with the debut of CommuniCore Hall and more; then whenever Tiana’s Bayou Adventure debuts.
May REFURBISHMENTS & NEW ATTRACTIONS
In terms of other attractions that will be closed during May, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. Just a heads up: that might be a bit deceptive in terms of actual construction work. There’s going to be a lot of ongoing construction throughout Walt Disney World, and will be for the next several years.
The biggest construction project in Walt Disney World right now is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which is the reimagining of Splash Mountain. It’ll open in Summer 2024–probably late June or very early July.The construction project that has had the most noticeable impact on the guest experience is the massive reimagining at the front of EPCOT, but even that is mostly finished at this point–only CommuniCore Hall remains behind walls.
EPCOT is also home to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which is now a couple years old but still incredibly popular. Other even more recent additions to EPCOT include Moana’s Journey of Water (water exploration trail) and Luminous: The Symphony of Us (nighttime spectacular). Both are worth checking out.
Then there’s the biggest new attraction at Magic Kingdom: TRON Lightcycle Run. This is still the newest major attraction at Walt Disney World (for now), and is now one year old. See our Virtual Queue Strategy Guide for TRON Lightcycle Run for details, tips & tricks for success, and more (Cosmic Rewind also uses a VQ–apply the same advice to both rides).
Another alternative for Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle Run is buying line-skipping access via the Individual Lightning Lanes. Those posts explain each option, their pros & cons, and everything else you need to know. Suffice to say, do not just show up expecting to join the standby line–as there isn’t one for either ride.
For an overview of what’s on the horizon, see What’s New & Next at Walt Disney World in 2024 & Beyond. Sorry, but nothing new is opening this month. The next round of additions all open in June 2024.
May 2024 DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR
We’ll start this free May 2024 Walt Disney World crowd calendar section with the same preface as other months–skip ahead a few paragraphs if you’ve already read it. There’s no color-coded crowd calendar here because they’re unreliable at this point. If we just had a visual crowd calendar graphic here, many of you would only look at that and not read the accompanying explanation that covers what you might actually expect. That’d be doing you a disservice.
Disney doesn’t release official attendance numbers, so crowd calendars use things like school schedules, airport traffic statistics, hotel pricing & occupancy, and other indicators as proxies for crowds. For years, this approach worked and made crowd calendars reliable. Walt Disney World attendance followed an identifiable pattern that tracked with the aforementioned proxies.
More recently, wait times don’t always reflect actual crowds because Disney has become adept and more sophisticated at manipulating both attendance and crowd flow. Think of this as the difference between the actual temperature and the “feels like” temperature, but with crowds. We can still actual crowd and attendance patterns, but not wait times. The latter are what most of you likely care about (the “feels like” crowds), but it’s more difficult to accurately forecast wait times via Walt Disney World crowd calendars.
In a normal year, May is the shoulder season at Walt Disney World, a slower time between the peak travel seasons of spring break and summer. Crowds typically are at their highest levels at the beginning and end of the month, and even then, rarely go above 5/10. The last two years, May has been one of the 3 slowest months of the entire year.
Early May 2024 should be an incredibly attractive time to visit, with below-average crowds. Crowds until around May 12, 2024 should be pretty low. That date is not listed because it’s Mother’s Day (although it is), but rather, because that’s when the Summit 2024 Championship, Dance Summit, and D2 Summit all end. These events are held May 2-5; May 3-5; and May 10-12, 2024. Typically, participants arrive in the days and week leading up to these cheer and dance events.
As noted above, these do not have much impact on overall crowd levels for Walt Disney World as a whole. There simply are not enough participants with park tickets to move the needle in a major way. However, they can contribute in a major way to localized congestion and crowd levels, spiking wait times at various attractions. if you visit the same park as their entire (or large portions of) their group attends your perception of their impact might be very different.
Meaning that if you have the misfortune of getting in line for Haunted Mansion behind a huge group of cheerleaders, dancers, flag football players, etc., it can spike both the wait time for that particular attraction and feel unpleasant for various reasons. (Ask us how we know!!!)
Once the cheer and dance events end, you can expect even more of a consistent and predictable lull from around May 13-21, 2024. It’s very difficult to predict crowd levels for these dates with precision, but there’s every reason to expect this to be the slowest stretch of the month–and one of the least busy of the year–based on historical precedent and a lack of events.
Last year’s shoulder season ran from roughly April 15 until the Friday before Memorial Day. That was the Slowest Six Week Stretch for Walt Disney World Crowds Since 2021 at the time (August and September went on to surpass these weeks with lower crowd levels). That was a really big deal then, as it signaled the end of pent-up demand and was a dramatic drop as compared to 2022 through mid-April 2023.
For reference, every single week in May of last year saw below average crowds (including those coinciding with cheer and dance events), with the three weeks leading up to Memorial Day being the slowest and having 1/10 to 2/10 crowd levels. Crowds rebounded the last week but were still well below average (3/10).
It’s impossible to say with any degree of confidence whether the 2024 shoulder season will be slower than last year (thus far, mid to late April 2024 has been slightly busier). I’m inclined to predict that it will not. Last year, Walt Disney World got caught flat-footed by the end of pent-up demand and scrambled to release deals, many of which didn’t launch until later in summer.
This year, those were released in early April. That alone is a big difference, and could be enough to buoy attendance in May 2024. The good news, though, is that none of these deals end in May. The last week or so of ticket deals is always busy, as Floridians and other fans rush to use their tickets before they expire.
Between better deals and last year offering such a low baseline, it seems like the smart money is predicting on higher crowd levels for the 2024 shoulder season. With that said, “higher” is a relative term. The stretch leading up to Memorial Day should still be pretty slow, with crowd levels under 5/10 for the vast majority of days.
In a nutshell, 1/10 to 3/10 days are much more likely than 5/10 to 7/10 days for the duration of May 2024. Lower crowds can be expected through mid-June, as there’s a slight spike for Memorial Day and then usually another drop thereafter. Even Memorial Day isn’t bad by holiday weekend standards–it’s not on par with holidays like Presidents’ Day, Columbus Day, or Veterans Day. Those holidays are arguably “lower profile” but end up being bigger attendance boosters.
For daily park recommendations, we’d direct you to Best & Worst Days to Do All Parks at Walt Disney World. Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT typically follow patterns and picking the right (and avoiding the wrong) days can make a big difference, no matter what time of year (uncrowded or crowded) that you visit.
Beyond all of that, conventions and group events are another factor, but none of this really moves the needle on crowds or wait times in a major way. In short, the entirety of May 2024 should see below-average crowds, with the middle of the month being an especially great time to visit.
May PRICING & DISCOUNTS
In terms of promotions, there are room-only discounts for Annual Passholders, Florida residents, and the general public in May 2024. See All Current Discounts at Walt Disney World for the various resort deals.
Otherwise, when it comes to pricing, May is fairly average prior to Memorial Day weekend. For 1-day park tickets, May is “regular” season prior to the holiday weekend (read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post for multi-day ticket recommendations to avoid having to deal with seasonal pricing). For hotels, pricing is also typically at the “Regular Season” rate.
Overall, the month of May at Walt Disney World demonstrates that everything is relative. From our perspective, it’s a fairly appealing time to visit Walt Disney World in many regards. Yes, the weather is generally worse than February through April, but park hours are longer, summer entertainment begins to start, new additions have debuted, fewer refurbishments are occurring, and crowds are still manageable.
Plus, if you’re comparing weather to the summer months that follow, May is actually significantly better. (See, it’s all relative.) For this reason, if you’re looking at visiting during the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day), the end of May is actually one of our top picks. In other words, if you’re limited to traveling during the summer and May is an option, it’s when we recommend visiting Walt Disney World then!
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
Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts on the month of May at Walt Disney World? Are you looking forward to Summer 2024 at Walt Disney World? Do you like to visit in May? 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!
