Walt Disney World is entering the home stretch of the year, with the peak season crowds around the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. This shares our best time-saving strategies, and top twelve tips & tricks for beating 10/10 crowd levels during the holiday season (and beyond) at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and even Animal Kingdom.
A few notes before we dig into the tips & tricks for beating peak season crowds. First, Magic Kingdom closes on several nights per week at 6 pm to day guests for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. Those separately-ticketed events begin at 7 pm and runs until midnight and occur multiple nights per week. Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is almost entirely sold out for the remainder of the holiday season, with only a few dates remaining.
On the other hand, Disney Jollywood Nights Christmas Party has not sold out most dates. That holiday special event at DHS is honestly a decent “consolation prize” alternative if you didn’t buy MVMCP tickets, but keep in mind that the two are very different experiences. Jollywood Nights is a low crowds event that’s a lot like Disney After Hours, making it a good way to beat the crowds.
Honestly, Disney Jollywood Nights is probably better than anything on this list…but also with a higher cost. Still, we’d sooner recommend DJN tickets than buying Lightning Lane Premier Pass for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as it should allow you to ride many headliners over the course of the event–and more than once, if you so desire. The Christmas party is better, cheaper, and offers entertainment!
This isn’t to say Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a bad option. To the contrary, it’s a great way to buy your way out of lines and unpleasantness on the busiest days of the year if your budget allows. (Ditto a VIP tour, for that matter.) It’s just that most budgets do not allow. Also, this list isn’t exactly insightful if we just point you to the priciest picks that should be givens for beating crowds.
On that note, let’s dig into our favorite free or low-cost options for beating the crowds…
Choose the Right Days During Party Season – I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but Party Season operating hours cause chaos with crowds, pushing attendance much higher on the dates that MVMCP is not occurring and lower on the dates it is occurring. This is because Magic Kingdom closes to day guests at 6 pm on event nights, so intuitively, many (many!) guests avoid Magic Kingdom on these shortened days and cram into the full days.
Long story short, we strongly recommend visiting Magic Kingdom during the day on MVMCP nights. This is something we’ve covered at length, again and again. Rather than belaboring the point, I’ll direct new readers to our list of the Best & Worst Days to Do Magic Kingdom in Late 2024 for a rundown of when crowds will be especially good or bad.
This includes a handful of ‘red flag’ dates to avoid at all costs the rest of this month and December. These are non-party dates that are sandwiched among multiple party dates. There are some 4-5 days stretches when Magic Kingdom is only open until 10 pm or 11 pm once. This creates major problems, as there are several days of crowds consolidated into a single date by virtue of those concentrated 6 pm closings.
Suffice to say, you should avoid Magic Kingdom on the following dates: November 28, 2024; December 4, 7, 11, 14 & 18, 2024. (Note that this dynamic exists, except in reverse, with Jollywood Nights. We recommend going on party days, even if you won’t attend. Longer explanation here, if you want it.)
Rope Drop Rounds 1-2: Rides – There are two rope drops in each park, even if unofficially. First is Early Entry, which gives all on-site guests at least a 30 minute head-start. There’s also regular rope drop, which is when (more or less) the whole park opens to everyone. This distinction is only meaningful in Magic Kingdom, where around half the park isn’t open until regular rope drop.
Nevertheless, the full wave of crowds doesn’t hit all attractions at the same time, allowing you to take advantage of Early Entry and then regular rope drop. The optimal attractions for each will differ, as you’ll want to do the most popular rides during Early Entry, followed by the top second-tier rides at rope drop.
We are huge advocates of Early Entry in 3 of the 4 parks. Magic Kingdom is normally the exception when the park opens at 9am. However, it’s a different story entirely when moving that forward by an hour to 8 am–especially for the families with small children to whom Magic Kingdom and its Fantasyland headliners most appeal.
It’s a partially different dynamic on 8am to 11pm days at Magic Kingdom. On party-shortened days when the park opens at 8am, it’s a guest courtesy since the park closes at 6pm. Overall crowd levels are 1/10 to 3/10. By contrast, during peak weeks when hours are 8am to 11pm, expect crowds to be higher.
This blog focuses a lot on Early Entry and rope drop, so I’m not going to fixate on it here since there’s a lot of ground to cover and more under-the-radar zig when they zag park touring tips. See our Guide to Early Entry at Walt Disney World for more info & strategy.
Rope Drop Round 3: Characters – No matter which park you’re doing, it’s typically the case that character meet & greets open an hour or 90 minutes after rope drop. This is especially the case in Magic Kingdom, which has a half-dozen character spots with delayed opening.
It’s also a great way to knock out Red Carpet Dreams or Pixar Place at DHS, Adventurers Outpost in Animal Kingdom, and Royal Sommerhus or Mickey & Friends at EPCOT. Even meet & greets that open earlier usually don’t start getting busier until ~90 minutes after park opening. On the one hand, this makes sense–people prioritize rides.
On the other hand, it can be smart to get character photos as early as possible while lines are short and your family is still looking fresh. Our general rule is prioritizing princesses: Royal Sommerhus, Princess Fairytale Hall, Ariel’s Grotto, and Mirabel.
Rope Drop Round 4: Restaurants – I mean no disrespect to the senior citizens out there, who are known for having their meals a few hours earlier than the general population. There’s a reason they say with age comes wisdom. I, too, eat early.
Part of this is because my day starts early. I’m doing Early Entry every single day at Walt Disney World, which means I’m out the door of my hotel room before 7 am most days. As a result, I have a second rope drop each morning: when counter service restaurants open and start serving lunch.
This is honestly perfect. Even the most popular counter service restaurants are dead at this hour, and I rarely have anyone anywhere near me. I often don’t even bother with Mobile Order, because there’s always no line at the cash registers.
Trust me, the amount of time you’ll save–and stress you’ll avoid–by eating at or before 11am is huge. In my opinion, this is one of the most underrated tips for dealing with crowds at Walt Disney World. Since restaurants don’t have wait times, people tend to ignore this type of advice…but they really shouldn’t.
Midday Resting & Recharging – You cannot do it all. Park hours are longer during peak weeks, and it’s almost impossible to arrive early and stay late. That is, of course, if your family is full of Energizer Bunnies and endurance is no issue.
If you’re mere mortals, you probably aren’t going to be able to keep going and going and going (etc.) the entire day. However, you still shouldn’t choose between arriving early and staying late. Instead, cut out midday portion. It’s the most crowded and congested, with the longest wait times and least desirable weather.
The first 2 hours the parks are open are going to be the most productive hours of your day. Getting up at the crack of dawn and being to the parks early doesn’t jive with the notion of relaxing and unwinding on vacation, but the simple reality is that you’d be better off showing up for the first 2 hours and last 2 hours and skipping the (roughly) 8 hours in between than you would by showing up 2 hours late, doing those 8 hours in the middle of the day, and leaving 2 hours before park closing.
Go back to your hotel to take a nap or enjoy the pool during the worst hours of the day. If you’re staying off-site or just don’t want to head all the way home, decompress by visiting a monorail loop hotel or making time for stage shows. No need to go go go between 11am and 3pm, though.
LLMP Maximization – If you’re arriving early or staying late–nevermind arriving early and staying late–Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is not a strict necessity. On these longer days, you can accomplish most of each park without Lightning Lanes. It’s pretty much a numbers game–the extra time offsets the longer waits, and you can beat the crowds at the beginning and end of the day.
With that said, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass will help you accomplish much more when the hours are longer and the crowds are higher. Again, this is a math problem. Longer hours means more time to use Lightning Lanes, and higher standby wait times means more time saved. So even though LLMP will undoubtedly reach peak season prices, its value is also higher during weeks like this.
Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is great at Magic Kingdom due to longer hours and the higher ride count. It’s also excellent at Disney’s Hollywood Studios due to the distribution of “big” rides that are popular. If you’re only going to purchase LLMP at two parks, make it these two. EPCOT is more borderline, and we usually avoid it at Animal Kingdom, unless we’re not arriving early or staying late (which happens approximately never).
Temperamental Temperatures – There are misconceptions about how the weather impacts attendance at Walt Disney World. A little rain does not clear out crowds, unless it’s a veritable monsoon. If the parks weren’t busy whenever it’s rainy, they’d be uncrowded like one-quarter of the time! Tourists and locals prepare for wet weather with tools such as umbrellas and ponchos, so it doesn’t send them heading for the exits.
What does make a difference is colder weather and, more importantly, a wider range of weather. If the daytime high is in the upper 70s or low 80s but the nighttime low is in the low 50s, that is the sweet spot. It’s even better if a little bit of precipitation, or better yet, wind, is thrown into the mix.
A lot of visitors will dress for whatever season it is when they head out the door, and won’t be prepared for a dramatic drop when the sun goes down. At that point, their options are to buy a sweatshirt (an expensive proposition), bear the cold weather, or head home. People start dropping like flies.
The best way to ‘forecast’ a lower crowd level in the evening at Magic Kingdom during the winter is taking the difference between the day’s high and low temperatures. The bigger the spread, the more likely crowds will be lower. That’s a better predictor than day of week trends, crowd calendars, or anything else. I’m 100% serious.
Night Times Two – We love Magic Kingdom. We have spent many long days here, and all of the tips here are speaking from experience during visits during the holiday season–and especially the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But I’ll be honest with you: we seldom do the full day in one park, especially when that one park is open from 8am until 11pm or later.
Most of the time, we head somewhere else for the middle of the day. I’m not a big napper and do have Energizer Bunny endurance, so it’s usually not the hotel, either. Our default is usually EPCOT. It’s easiest on the monorail, we enjoy eating at the festival booths, and EPCOT is our favorite place to be. But that’s not what we’d recommend to you. Or not the only park we’d recommend.
Instead, consider Animal Kingdom. Sunset during the holiday season is ~5:30pm in Orlando, and if you arrive at Animal Kingdom around 3pm, you can enjoy Merry Menagerie and knock out most of the park with minimal waits after the day crowd departs. Once you’re done with rides, be sure to stick around and enjoy the brilliance of bioluminescence in Pandora at night, the Tree of Life Awakenings, and Discovery Island Luminaries. You’ll practically have the park to yourself in the last hour of the day at DAK, and you can still make it back to Magic Kingdom in time for Happily Ever After.
Fantasyland Fireworks – Cinderella Castle the centerpiece of the Magic Kingdom fireworks, and everyone should watch from Main Street once. However, it can be downright uncomfortable crowded and congested before, during, and after the fireworks–especially during peak weeks of the year. On these dates, there are exponentially more people in Magic Kingdom than will safely fit on Main Street.
Fortunately, there’s one location in the park that’s outside of Main Street where you have almost all of the upside but none of the downside. Directly behind Cinderella Castle! It’s a totally different perspective of the show, and much less crowded back there. This is our favorite “secret spot” because it feels like you’re in the midst of the fireworks, with bursts both in front of and behind you.
You’ll also enjoy pyro over Beast’s Castle above Be Our Guest Restaurant, which is immersive and unique. Granted, I’ve seen the fireworks many times, but on peak season dates, there’s no way on earth I’d try to watch Happily Ever After from Main Street. It just is not worth enduring the chaos and crowds.
Oh, same advice applies to watching Luminous from deep in the Japan pavilion (try the stairs to the restaurants) or from near EPCOT’s Christmas tree. Ditto seeing the second showing of Fantasmic instead of the first. Game-changers.
Beat the Post-Fireworks Ride Rush – The other upside to watching the fireworks from Fantasyland is that you can beat the rush to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or Peter Pan’s Flight. Every time we watch from the location above, we inch our way towards one of those two attractions during the grand finale, and then jump in line the instant the fireworks are over.
The “instant” part is key. You only beat the rush so long as you’re not part of the rush, and thousands of your closest friends will have the exact same idea. You want to be ahead of that tidal wave, not part of it or, worse yet, behind the wave. That’s literally the worst case scenario.
You’ll know whether you’ve beat the crowd, but what you won’t know is the actual wait time. It’s usually inaccurate–massively inflated. It’s often the case there that the posted wait time will be 60+ minutes, and the actual wait around then will be 15-20 minutes–sometimes less!
Alternatively, the plaza around TRON Lightcycle Run is a fun and immersive location for fireworks viewing. This is not as good as the middle of Fantasyland, but it’s new and unique, with TRON’s lightcycles whizz by overhead and the dancing lights of the Upload Conduit canopy. While we don’t recommend it for your first or only viewing, it’s one of our favorite “secret” or “low-stress” locations for fireworks viewing in Magic Kingdom. In any case, you can now do the exact same thing there and race to the TRON standby line as soon as the fireworks end.
Rope Drop Round 5: Reverse – There’s the tried and true approach for any headliner attraction: 1 minute before park closing. This is like the reverse rope drop, or ‘rope rise’ option. All you’ve gotta do is jump in line before the clock strikes the top of the hour at park closing.
Disney doesn’t cut lines for attractions until park closing, which means you can queue up right until the clock strikes midnight or whenever the parks close. This effectively extends your day and is when the actual wait time is lowest for all headliners in all 4 parks at Walt Disney World.
Ignore the posted wait time. Disney deliberately inflates wait times at the end of the night to discourage guests from getting in one last ride. The more people who jump in line for the buzz beater approach, the longer it takes to clear the park, which means more $$$ for Disney in staffing.
We have done the ‘buzzer-beater’ approach to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, TRON Lightcycle Run, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Avatar Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and other top-tier attractions dozens and dozens of times. Almost every single night, in fact. The overwhelming majority of the time, our actual wait time for any of these attractions has been between 10 and 15 minutes. There have been times when they’ve been walk-ons!
Stay & Shop Late – I hate shopping. Both in real life and at Walt Disney World. A big part of this is navigating claustrophobic aisles and stores not designed for the levels of crowds during the holiday season. I also think merchandise is generally overpriced, but that’s not really germane to this post.
I am nevertheless a sucker for coffee mugs (not overpriced) and I love to check these out at the end of the evening. Most of the marquee gift shops in each park stay open at least 30 minutes or more after the park closes. The optimal approach is doing a ride one minute before closing and then shopping. Hitting up stores right at the park closing exodus is a recipe for chaos and crowds. Give it another ~29 to 45 minutes, and browsing is a breeze!
In fact, this is my perfect way to end the evening at Magic Kingdom. Do TRON or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at the last second, exit into an empty Tomorrowland or Fantasyland, soak up the vibrant lighting, clear background music, and brisk air before heading onto Main Street to see the warm glow of the popcorn lights and nostalgic music filling the air–and maybe do a bit of shopping. I’m reminded of why I fell in love with Walt Disney World in the first place, and feel that magic once more. Even on a 10/10 crowd day, you’re 100% guaranteed to leave Magic Kingdom with a smile on your face!
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 done a busy days at Walt Disney World during the holiday season? Were you able to accomplish a lot with savvy strategy? Planning on being in the parks between Christmas and New Year’s Eve this year? If you’ve done it in the past, what do you think of our recommendations? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!
