March 2024 at Disney World: Crowd Calendar & Info
This guide to March 2024 at Walt Disney World offers a free crowd calendar, weeks to visit & avoid, weather, ride refurbishments, and what’s new. All of this, plus info & tips for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Updated February 29, 2024.)
March 2024 will likely be a “tale of two seasons.” The beginning should be slow, with crowds subsiding after Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day in late February 2024. Then later in March, colleges and many school systems in the country will take their spring break…and that means trips to Walt Disney World!
If you’re somehow able to get past that (perhaps you’re an avid queue enthusiast, in which case 120-minute waits might be right up your alley), the month of March 2024 can otherwise be a good time to visit Walt Disney World. Let’s take a look at the highs and lows of the month…
While it’s always above-average in terms of crowds, parts of March 2024 won’t be as bad for a couple of reasons. First, because Easter isn’t until March 31, 2024. This means schools that plan their Spring Breaks around the Easter holiday won’t be off for Spring Break the end of the month.
However, many K-12 schools and colleges in the United States have their Spring Breaks in earlier in March. That includes many districts in Florida, including the two counties with the biggest impact on Walt Disney World crowds.
This is where our Spring Break 2024 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World will come into play. If you’re only concerned with congestion, wait times, and planning around dates to avoid–that has you covered. It details which weeks of spring break will be best and worst.
We’ll discuss the ramifications of Spring Break in the March 2024 crowd calendar section below. Here’s what else you need to know about the month at Walt Disney World, organized into convenient categories…
March Weather at Disney World
As far as the weather goes, March is the month when the weather starts to turn around and warm up. Temperatures rise over the course of the month, and although they are still on the cool side of mild, it’s usually quite comfortable. Sure, it can be abnormally cold or hot in March (definitely check the long term forecast before visiting as it really could be either), but you’re generally in for weather that’s almost ideal for touring the parks.
Lows at the beginning of the month are in the mid-50s and creep up towards the 60s by the end of the month. High temperatures range from 75 to 80 degrees. In looking at those numbers and the “comfortable” band on this page, you might think that it skews towards chilly. That can be true early in the morning and late at night, but keep in mind that you’ll be most active during the middle of the day when it’s warmest; personally, I prefer slightly cooler temperatures when I’m active, anyway.
The result is that I find March to be one of the better months of the year for weather in Florida, particularly towards the end of the month. At the beginning of the month you’re more likely to experience unseasonably cold weather, so I tend to avoid that. About the only downside to this mild weather is that it can make visiting water parks or spending much time in your resort hotel’s pool less appealing (or downright unappealing). This can be a bummer for those seeking a ‘tropical’ reprieve from winter in the North.
Being Michiganders, that’s exactly what my family wanted from our trips when I was growing up. I still remember an early March vacation during which my parents decided to stubbornly stick to our plans (I paint them as “stubborn” but the reality was probably that I was a bratty kid who insisted upon going) to visit Blizzard Beach. There was almost no one in the park, and we all spent the better park of the day wrapped in towels on our beach chairs.
I recall crossing the icebergs in Ski Patrol Training Camp and envisioning them as actual chunks of ice, which wasn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination at the time. I share all of this because you might not want to make concrete plans for the water parks or put too much weight in a hotel’s swimming pool when choosing a hotel or planning a March visit–you may not want to spend time at either.
March 2024 Disney World Special Events
Let’s start out with the nonpublic events in March 2024 that impact attendance at Walt Disney World. While there is no Beer Bong World Championship (let alone more unsavory events) held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, there are youth events that can result in just as wild of crowds.
There are usually major dance and cheerleading competitions held in March that boost attendance at the parks and occupancy at the hotels, usually the All Stars and Coronado Springs. Here’s what’s currently on the ESPN Wide World of Sports calendar for March 2024:
- The Quest Recreational Championship: March 8 – March 9, 2024
- 2024 UCA All Star National Championship: March 9 – March 10, 2024
- Disney Spring Training: March 11 – April 07, 2024
This is actually not too bad, especially as compared with the cheer and dance competitions that peppered the calendar over the last month-plus. (There’s more to come in April 2024 before ESPN WWoS season winds down until there’s better weather in the fall.)
The actual impact of youth sporting events on crowd levels is debatable. If you end up at the same hotel as them or behind a large group of cheerleaders in line or in the same Haunted Mansion stretching room as them, your perception of them will likely be very different than someone who stays at a different hotel and only encounters small numbers of them in passing. We speak from experience (including that very specific Haunted Mansion example), and say that this is generally not something about which you should be concerned.
Speaking of athletic events, on a positive note, there is no runDisney race in March 2024. The Princess Half Marathon is in late February, and the Springtime Surprise is in mid-April. Neither have any impact on crowds in March.
Then there are the public events held during the month at Walt Disney World. The 2024 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival kicks off at the end of February, and continues for the entirety of March and April. This will spike ‘feels like’ crowds at EPCOT, as it’s a big draw for locals who show up specifically for the event–to see the floral displays, eat food, and buy merchandise.
One thing locals typically do not do–or do disproportionately less than tourists–is rides. As a result, congestion at EPCOT is higher but wait times often are not. Locals also visit EPCOT disproportionately at the start of events, on weekends and after work. Meaning that some dates in early March 2024 identified below as great times to visit won’t be so great for EPCOT congestion or feels like crowds. Just something to keep in mind as you plan your days (or times of day) in each park!
Regardless of whether you’re into gardening (I’m not) this is event has the park looking lovely. The flower tapestry by the Imagination pavilion, between Future World and World Showcase is incredibly picturesque, as are the many topiaries around the park. There’s much more than that, all of which you can read about in our Guide to 2024 EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival.
Finally, there’s After Hours at Magic Kingdom and After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. These occur sporadically and, as the names suggest, are held after park closing. They have minimal impact on daytime crowd levels, but result in a slight bump in crowds during the evening ‘mix-in’ time.
We do not recommend changing your plans because of After Hours at Magic Kingdom, but you might want to do DHS on a different evening. Normally, that park is great for lower wait times at the end of the night, albeit to a lesser degree on After Hours dates.
Park Hours for March are usually pretty good. Walt Disney World has quietly been extending these, with Magic Kingdom now closing later and the other 3 parks opening earlier as a result. Of course, there’s a reason for this: spring break attendance forecasts!
March REFURBISHMENTS & NEW ATTRACTIONS
In terms of attractions that will be closed during March 2024, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. Major rides have downtime scheduled, including Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom (which is being reimagined into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure) and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios.
The construction project that will have the most noticeable impact on the guest experience is the massive reimagining at the front of Epcot. This is much better now that the World Celebration Gardens have opened and there’s a path directly to World Showcase, but there are still a sea of construction walls to navigate around the still-in-progress CommuniCore Hall & Plaza. Based on recent progress, it appears unlikely that this will be done in February 2024.
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 addition to Magic Kingdom: TRON Lightcycle Run. This is still the newest major attraction at Walt Disney World, and is less than a year old as of February 2024. 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 in March 2024. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is the next big addition, and that will debut this summer.
March 2024 DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR
We’ll start this free crowd calendar section with the same preface as other months—skip ahead a few paragraphs if you’ve already read it. Wondering why you don’t see a color-coded crowd calendar here? It’s because we don’t really trust them anymore and don’t think you should, either. 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.
While they can be useful tools, crowd calendars are one small piece of a much larger puzzle. We no longer choose our own Disney travel dates based exclusively upon crowd calendars and we’d likewise discourage you from doing so. Crowd calendars are increasingly less reliable because of the way Disney manipulates attendance patterns, staffing, closures, and ride capacity.
Walt Disney World doesn’t release official attendance numbers, so crowd calendars utilize info 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.
Let’s start with the good news: early March 2024 should be a great time to visit because it’s a lull in crowds. That isn’t always the case, as years when Mardi Gras is at the beginning of the month (or end of February) result in an influx of visitors from Louisiana and other areas of the South. Thankfully, the worst weeks of winter will occur in mid-to-late February 2024.
Bad for those who visit in February 2024, but good for those who opt for early March 2024! Actually, if you visit at the very end of February, you should be in good shape. The end of the month into the first weekend of March should be great (outside of EPCOT).
In fact, our expectation is that the first week-plus of March 2024 will see low-to-moderate crowd levels. This is especially noteworthy because the week before (Presidents’ Day/Mid-Winter Break) will have been very busy and the following week is the start of Spring Break season, which is also pretty bad.
But in the first week of March 2024, it’s likely that crowd levels range from around 2/10 to 6/10, with the average being below 5/10. This means average wait times across the entirety of Walt Disney World of around 30 to 35 minutes. Of course, headliners will be worse than this (you can safely expect the most popular rides to have hour-plus or even triple-digit waits), but it won’t be nearly as bad as the school breaks before or after. This is precisely why the first week of March 2024 makes our list of the 10 Best & Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025 (on the best side, obviously).
Specifically, March 1-7, 2024 will see the lowest wait times and attendance of the month. That might sound high or not great, but it’s a sharp contrast to the aforementioned worst week of winter. That stretch saw 10/10 crowd levels and average wait times of 54 to 61 minutes. That’s a huge difference over the course of an entire day!
This is more or less normal, reflecting the lull between the popular Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras holidays in late February and the start of Spring Break season in mid-March. Weekends will be busier, especially when the weather is nice.
In the aforementioned Spring Break 2024 Crowd Calendar, we note that the ‘season’ will unofficially kick off on March 8, 2024. This is because that’s the Friday when Osceola County starts its student holiday, with the district being out of session for spring break from March 11 to 15, 2024. Same deal with its neighbor to the west, as Polk County is also out March 11-15.
To be sure, you should avoid Walt Disney World starting March 8, 2024 if at all possible. However, we don’t expect the worst of the crowds to arrive that early. Likewise, the week that follows (March 11-15, 2024) is Spring Break for a handful of Central Florida school districts, but it should not be terrible. Worse than the previous 2 weeks, but better than the 2 weeks to come. If past precedent is any indication, crowds and wait times will gradually increase throughout that week.
Things will get significantly worse starting March 15, 2024. Both Seminole and Orange County, Florida are scheduled to have their Spring Breaks March 15-24, 2024 (including student breaks and weekends). That alone will make that week-plus pretty busy.
Consequently, we forecast the week of March 18-23, 2024 to be the second-busiest week of the quarter, and one of the worst 10 weeks of the entire year at Walt Disney World. The weekends before and after will also be bad, but we’ve seen Saturday and Sunday crowd levels fall off a bit during spring break recently.
You might notice it’s only the second-busiest week of the quarter, which is because of the following week…
That next week will be even worse, with lots of school districts having Spring Break from March 25 until 29 due to Easter falling on March 31, 2024. As a result, school districts that have their breaks anchored to Easter will be off that week–and we’ve also noticed that more districts than normal are on break that week (probably a matter of convenience/courtesy).
This means that the weekend before and the one including the Easter holiday itself will also be very, very busy. Easily among the worst 10 weeks of the year and possibly “top” 5. Whether that ends up being the worst week of spring break or the week before it is an open and almost irrelevant question. Both will be very bad and far (FAR!) worse than the first half of the month.
Expect daily crowd levels of 9/10 or 10/10 at every park during this date range. Some of those 10/10 days will have particularly high wait times (not all 10/10 days are equally busy–that’s just the maximum crowd level).
No matter when you’re visiting in March 2024, we’d advise leveraging Genie+ and Lightning Lanes to beat the crowds. Everything you need to know, including ride priorities, strategy for avoiding pitfalls, maximizing your time saved & ride count, and much more is covered in our Guide to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World.
March PRICING & DISCOUNTS
As a result of Spring Breaks being fairly common in March, you typically won’t find much in the way of exceptional promotions. With that said, there are currently a surprising number of deals available for Annual Passholders, Florida residents, and even the general public. See All Current Walt Disney World Discounts for specifics. Some of these are actually quite good.
However, “good” is a relative term when describing these discounts, as March is above average in terms of rack rates and ticket prices. Even a higher-than-normal percentage off an astronomical price is still a high price! For hotels, much of the month is peak season, which is exactly as expensive as it sounds. Only holiday pricing is worse. For tickets, the pricing is not as bad, but it’s still far from the off-season in terms of per-day pricing.
Overall, March is a tale of two months–but also a month on the rise. Normally, the last week of February/first week of March is one of the year’s “sweet spots” for planning a vacation. In fact, we love it so much that it’s one of the top weeks of the year on our aforementioned rankings. Even with slightly elevated wait times, we once again expect that to be true in early March 2024.
There’s a reason that window ranks so highly–and it’s not just that the wait times are low. March typically offers pleasant weather, longer hours, and the start of the spring bloom with Flower & Garden Festival beginning. After that, March’s attractiveness deteriorates, but even later in the month, I still think the weather goes a long way to compensate for crowds.
To that point, before you freak out about heavy crowds, remember that better weather and also the likelihood of extended hours. You can still beat the crowds if you arrive early, take a midday break, and stay late. Savvy strategy, strong use of Early Entry & rope drop, our step-by-step itineraries, and staying late can help overcome crowds. That’s even before buying Genie+ and using Lightning Lanes, which is obviously advantageous during Spring Break season. You can always beat bad crowds–but the same isn’t true with miserable weather!
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 March at Walt Disney World? Have you done Walt Disney World during Spring Break before? Do you think it’s a good or bad time to visit? Any questions? Hearing your feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!
My husband and I discovered the first week of March a couple of years ago. Now we do the end of Feb. and the first of March, which seems to work for us. We used to only go to WDW the first 2 weeks of November or first week of December. However, this Feb/Marc time opened up and we haven’t looked back. We love the temperatures (70 degrees fills like our summers here in N. Mn., LOL) and the lower crowds. However, one time after the Princess Half Marathon the end of Feb, it was very crowded with the people staying over after the race. Something to consider when booking right after the race. Otherwise we love this time of year, with Dec and Nov coming a close second/third.
Thanks you, Tom, for the well thought out crowd calender:)
How do you anticipate the new Mickey & Minnie ride impacting your suggested plan for DHS? We are only able to fit DHS in on Sunday March 8th, with our priority being Star Wars. Any suggested tips to make this go more smoothly? Thanks!
Do you think RotR will still have the early morning openings and virtual boarding pass in March as they have now?
Need to fix the title to read “March 2020”. It now reads “March 2019”.
Fixed it–thanks for the heads up!
We will be visiting the first week of March and are a bit worried about the opening of the Mickey and Minnie’s runaway train. Do you think visiting HS on March 5th or 6th will still be crazy and we should visit the park earlier in the week instead? We would love to go on the new ride but also don’t want to miss out on the rest of the park as well. Thanks!
We doubt that it’ll be too bad, but if the park is busy, it’ll likely open earlier. The upside there for early risers is that you can still get more done and just hop to another park later in the day once things really get busy!
Thanks Tom! Do you also have any tips for the first day of the Flower and Garden festival? Should I also avoid Epcot on March 4th?
We have visited Walt Disney World during Spring Break and yes, the crowds are substantial, but… The weather is perfect, there are more transport buses operating and Disney operates with a full crew of cast members. There are very few, if any, closures and many extra touches to keep the throngs of guests busy and happy. We found that the Parks ran very smoothly during Spring Break and we actually enjoyed all the people enjoying their vacations!
My husband won a 2 day/3 night trip in March 25-28th and I’m wondering what to expect as far as crowds and weather. Any info would be most appreciated.
We are planning on going March 28-April 4, 2017….what is your thoughts about this time frame? Crowds? Our other possible date May 2-9th. I preferred the March date for a break from winter. But concerned about crowd level. Thanks for any information!
HI, we are planning a trip to WDW 03/12/17 to 03/18/17 with a 12 yr and 10yr old girl with Special needs. What can we expect for weather and wait times as she can’t be in the heat too long or stand too long. Staying at the AOA, do you have any suggestions for meals or parks/dates? My youngest would like to be in the Jedi training, how can we be sure to make this happen for her.
thanks
Hello. I would look into Disney’s Diasability Access Service! They offer that to those who can’t wait in long lines, and they give the party a pass to come back, so you can enjoy other things in the park and it can be used along with your fastpass reservations!
As soon as they open send someone from your party to sign her up for later that day.
I know Disney can/will change hours due to crowd expectations, but do they change the days on which the parks are currently scheduled to have extra magic hours? For example: as of now Magic Kingdom has extra magic hours scheduled on Wednesday, March 29th. Could these be lessened and moved to another day that week for this park? I’m trying to plan ADRs accordingly. Thank in advance!
We are planning a trip March 16-21st. Do you think St. Patrick’s day will bring a crowd? I’m sure the weather will be perfect.
Hi, I’m going this March as well, the 18th-23rd. Maybe we will have a chance meeting! I think we can expect some crowds but more in Disney Springs and less in the parks. Hope you have an incredible trip!
My family of 5 will be at wdw Feb 27 to march 8th for the first time. I am trying to figure out which parks would be best to visit for each day of the week. I’m not sure how crowded it will be. Any suggestions or help would be great!
Ouch! We are travelling from March 7th till the 15th….so…Right in the Middle of the chaos!! Oh well!! we will try to focus on the bright side….we will be at Disney!
Hi your blog is brilliant thankyou
We are going to WDW in May next year please could you tell me when do they release the 2017 Park Hours?
Thanks
We’ve been to WDW in Mid March (our Spring Break), Mid October and Mid November. Strangely, October and November were our most crowded trips. March/Spring Break remains our favorite time to visit WDW and Universal. I suspect it has something to do with the doldrums of winter and the nearly tropical feel of Orlando in Mid March. We had fabulous weather and moderate/manageable crowds during both of our March Orlando trips.
We’ve had the exact same experiences regarding March, October and November. All were “peak” times as my husband is a school employee but of the peak times, Spring Break remains our absolute favorite time to go to WDW. Crowds are manageable and the weather is close to perfect.
Ok, so now my question is, which time of the year is worse: the week leading up to St. Patrick’s day, or the last week of May/first week of June? I imagine they’d be the same, in terms of crowds and pricing, but is St. Patrick’s day as horrendous as it sounds? I’m currently planning a week-long trip with some college-aged friends, we are all FL residents so we can almost always get discounts, and humidity doesn’t scare us. I guess crowds are the only thing I’m worried about.
I don’t think St. Patrick’s Day will be horrendous next year (or the following) at all. Both in terms of weather and crowds, I’d take that over May/June.
We’re coming in March, from the 25th, from the UK. Didn’t realise about spring break. Taking our little one out of school a week early from our own Easter break to have tried to beat the expensive flights around Easter. Really hope it isn’t super busy all the time, first time the children will have been to WDW 🙂 planning a few days in the Polynesian before going to a private villa. Just trying to decide when to book the accommodation.
It’s very unlikely to be super busy then. You’re still 3 weeks in front of Easter, and 2 weeks in front of the heaviest crowds. You’re probably looking at moderate crowds around the first week of your visit.
Thanks for doing these Tom, even if I did have to wait until the very last one for the month we’re going. 😉 We’re heading out 3/4-3/12, so hopefully we’ll be ahead of the crowds. Being from CA, it surprised me to learn that several places have a fixed spring break in March, as it seems almost all of CA is tied to Easter. But, that won’t be a concern next March.
Our last trip to DW was April 2009, the week before Easter. Crowds didn’t seem too bad, but that was during the Great Recession. Still, I think if we can handle that, we can probably handle next early March.
Percentage-wise, I’m not sure how many schools have Spring Breaks in March. I think I recall reading a post by Fred Hazelton, the statistician at TouringPlans, but he’d be the one that would know.
My *guess* is the number of K-12 schools with fixed Spring Breaks is <25%, but that's just a guess. In college, it's more common, but I'm still not sure how common. In any case, I think March 4-12 would be a pretty safe time to go. That’s fairly early by any standard.
We will be there the 4th-9th also! I’m from MS and most of our spring breaks are around the 20th here. Ours aren’t fixed they are scheduled around Easter.
We did the first week of March this year from the Wilderness Lodge, and with the exception of nearly ridiculous standby times for the usual suspects in Fantasyland, the parks did not feel crowded (especially with strategic use of Fastpasses). We skipped the nearly three hour wait for Anna and Elsa and visited many of the other characters, who seemed almost neglected by comparison with their very short lines. Absolutely no troubles finding a great spot for the parades down Main Street and show on Cinderella’s castle (we camped out beside the nearly empty Fastpass viewing area next to Main Street). Epcot looked great with all the landscaping freshly finished, and again next to no wait for meeting characters. Disney Studios felt a bit disjointed – almost in anticipation of the attractions due to close in April. Plus with fewer activities to do there, wait times felt longer than at the other parks (couldn’t even move inside Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground with all the people). Overall, the combination of comfortable weather and manageable crowds made the first week of March a nice time.
Yep, one of the reasons we love the end of February and beginning of March. Hopefully with the multi-room system in Norway, those long waits for Anna and Elsa will now be a thing of the past, too.
Early March 2015 we had some of our best days ever at WDW. Nice (warm, not too hot) weather, crowds (low!), and pre-peak ticket pricing. The perfect trip!