December Crowd “Slowdown” at Disney World
Wait times have dropped in the first two weeks of December 2021 at Walt Disney World, as predicted. This crowd report shares recent data, thoughts on what’s likely to happen next with attendance this week, and why wait times don’t tell the full story–or anywhere close to it–of high holiday season “feels like” crowds in the parks.
We’ve spent a lot of time in Walt Disney World the last couple of weeks, putting our money where our mouths are (I guess? We have APs so it’s not like we’re actually paying for each visit?) during our favorite week of the entire year at the parks. (See our Best & Worst Months to Visit Walt Disney World for 2021-2022.)
Despite it being our top pick, that’s largely for qualitative reasons and not purely wait times. The first week of December is the best week of the month, but it’s during a season that sees higher attendance across the board. Early to mid-December is still significantly busier than mid-September. The difference is that Walt Disney World doesn’t celebrate Christmas during mid-September (yet).
Anyway, our expectation for early December crowd levels were numbers in the 8/10 range, with some dates and parks dipping into 6/10 or 7/10 territory. Still on the upper end of the spectrum for the entire year, but lower relative to other holiday season dates.
Let’s turn to crowds as measured by (standby) wait times to see how those predictions turned out…
Let’s start with a high level look at weekly wait time averages across the entirety of Walt Disney World. (All graphs and wait time stats courtesy of Thrill-Data.com.)
As you can see, Thanksgiving week (the tallest red line) is plainly the highest bar on the graph, with an average wait time of 48 minutes. This surpasses the previous peak in July of 43 minutes, as well as last New Year’s week, which hit 44 minutes.
The week following Thanksgiving averaged a 36 minute wait time, which is down considerably but still sufficient for an 8/10 score on the crowd calendar. Last week averaged a 38 minute wait, good enough for a 9/10 on the crowd calendar.
Breaking it down by day, the peak of the Thanksgiving crowds dwarf wait times both before and after the holiday. Most of the dates after those highest highs are still in the 7/10 to 9/10 range, they just look a lot lower because Thanksgiving wait times were so much higher. The scale caps out at 10/10, otherwise those dates would be well above the upper limit.
This is part of why “feels like” crowds didn’t seem as bad after Thanksgiving for those who had experienced the parks in the days before the holiday. When your frame of reference is the highest 10/10 days of the year, a normal 8/10 feels blissfully uncrowded. It’s all relative.
Breaking this down by park, where we’ll start with Magic Kingdom. This is the only park for which we’re going to look at the daily averages, because it’s the only one that doesn’t have such a sharp contrast between Thanksgiving week and subsequent weeks.
Most of this is explained by the lack of Disney Park Pass availability for Magic Kingdom. Since reservations have been ‘sold out’ for almost every single day, there’s not much variance in crowds among days. Fully booked is fully booked. Perhaps the more surprising thing is that Disney has seemingly capped crowds at lower levels than back in July, when fully booked days peaked higher.
It should go without saying, but the above graph would look very different if Disney Park Pass were eliminated and organic demand were allowed to play out. Walt Disney World’s flagship castle park usually draws higher attendance than the other three–especially around Christmas.
At this point, the Disney Park Pass system doesn’t exist for keeping crowds low–that hasn’t been the case for ages. It’s to keep them manageable and prevent attendance from overwhelming staffing levels and available resources. Some fans have advocated for eliminating reservations “since the parks are busy regardless.”
This perspective overlooks the possibility that crowds could get so much worse if this were allowed to play out in free-for-all fashion. Walt Disney World still is not equipped to handle the same guest loads as in a normal year. I’m no fan of the reservation system in the long term, but it’s a “necessary evil” in the short term given the demand-capacity imbalance.
Since this crowd report encompasses the last two weeks, or essentially the first half of the month thus far, we’ll look at average attraction wait times for December 2021.
Jungle Cruise is averaging 85 minutes, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is averaging 79 minutes, and Peter Pan’s Flight is at 78 minutes. Everything else is under an hour. Haunted Mansion is back in the top 5, as is Splash Mountain thanks to warmer temperatures the past couple weeks. Space Mountain is only at 39 minutes, which isn’t a huge surprise as we’ve seen its average dip lower due to lack of demand for Individual Lightning Lane.
As discussed in our “Sweet Spot” for Genie+ at Walt Disney World, this is the park least likely to have issues with the paid FastPass service. Even guests who take a more laid back approach with that should’ve had no issue scoring Lightning Lane reservations for Peter Pan’s Flight, Jungle Cruise, and Haunted Mansion at the absolute minimum. That would’ve saved an average guest roughly 3 hours waiting in line. (See our Magic Kingdom Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks.)
Magic Kingdom is a great “training wheels” park for guests who are anxious about Genie+ but still wanting to test out the service. It’s the most forgiving park due to the higher ride count–figure out the learning curve here before moving on to Hollywood Studios, where the stakes are higher and it’s harder to do well.
Continuing to Epcot, where crowd levels are now back down to their pre-Thanksgiving levels once again. After spiking to a 10/10 for the holiday, levels are back to 6/10 the last two weeks.
As always, “feels like” crowds at Epcot–especially in World Showcase–are always worse on weekends and evenings. We’ve spent a lot of time at Epcot in the last few weeks and our anecdotal experience is that the park has felt very busy most nights.
Wait time data simply does not tell the full story–or even the best story–when it comes to Epcot. There are simply too few rides and too many other reasons why people visit Epcot. Still, this is a data-driven report and there’s no other good way of objectively measuring crowds. We’ll just emphasize that a holiday season 6/10 is much busier than a 6/10 in late June.
When looking at attraction wait times, you could actually argue that the opposite is true. That’s because June wait times would not have been skewed by Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, which doesn’t have a traditional queue.
Once you get past that, Frozen Ever After is still averaging a very high 86 minute wait, but Test Track and Soarin’ Around the World are both under an hour. The actual wait times for both–and everything else–plummet in the evening, as Future World becomes a ghost town and ~95% of the guests in Epcot all cram into World Showcase.
Animal Kingdom had its busiest week of the year Thanksgiving week, and by a wide margin. The average wait time was 59 minutes, which is significantly higher than the previous peak of 50 minutes at the end of July. (Note that both qualify as 10/10 on the crowd calendar.)
The two weeks since have been 8/10 and 9/10, respectively, which is still pretty high…but a significant comparative drop.
Thus far in December, Avatar Flight of Passage has averaged 93 minutes and Na’vi River Journey averaged 68 minutes. Kilimanjaro Safaris averaged 58 minutes, Expedition Everest averaged 25 minutes, and Dinosaur averaged 28 minutes.
We continue to recommend staying late at Animal Kingdom, even if that means arriving late. We experienced Expedition Everest and Dinosaur as walk-ons in mid-afternoon, and Kilimanjaro Safaris pretty close to a walk-on. The Pandora attractions were likewise not nearly as bad–both tend to peak relatively early in the day.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After three straight weeks of 10/10 crowds, DHS feel to 8/10 in the first week of December and 9/10 last week.
DHS continues to be the busiest park at Walt Disney World, and anything above 7/10 here is arguably in unpleasant territory. I doubt many people in the park on only the “less busy” days in the last couple of weeks would describe their visit as such. Disney’s Hollywood Studios simply cannot absorb crowds. Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular cannot come back soon enough. Even then, it needs the other stage shows, nighttime spectaculars, and more additions to fix the problems. This is nothing new–see our pre-closure post: Disney’s Hollywood Studios: WDW’s Best Rides & Most Frustrating Park.)
During December, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is averaging a 121 minute wait time, Slinky Dog Dash is averaging a 81 minute wait, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is averaging 68 minutes, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run is averaging 58 minutes, Toy Story Mania is averaging 55 minutes, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is averaging 55 minutes, and Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is doing 50 minutes.
These are the longest averages for headliners in any park at Walt Disney World, and the only reason the average wait time is brought down is because it includes things that don’t really have wait times.
We’ve been in the parks a lot both before and after Thanksgiving, and there’s a clear before/after divide in wait times. That’s undeniable, as it’s evident in the data above. This is especially true for the parks that aren’t Magic Kingdom.
Although anecdotal, our perception of “feels like” crowds doesn’t reflect the same. It definitely hasn’t been as bad the last two weeks, but it has still been packed–busier than I would’ve expected for the first two weeks of December, especially without Pop Warner. To the contrary, the last couple of weeks have felt like the busiest early December we’ve ever experienced at Walt Disney World.
Our best explanation for this discrepancy is that there are two different demographics at play. During Thanksgiving week, tourists with breaks from school descend upon Orlando. These guests are largely infrequent or first-time visitors, and are more likely to prioritize attractions–even when wait times are high.
In the weeks that follow, there are fewer travelers and more locals. Among the tourists, there are disproportionate numbers of DVC members and other more regular non-locals. All of these groups are less likely to prioritize rides (that they’ve done before, some many times) and more likely to do “other things.” This explains the gap–more like a chasm–between the feels like crowds in World Showcase, and the 6/10 crowd levels as determined by average wait times.
This really isn’t bold or highly speculative analysis. Orlando International Airport numbers show a steep drop-off in travelers between Thanksgiving week and the last two weeks, as should be expected.
The best recent example of this phenomenon is October 1, 2021. Anyone in Magic Kingdom that day could tell you that the park was absolutely packed, with long lines at everything from counter service restaurants to gift shops. Everything except rides, which indicated a 1/10 crowd level that day. That’s because the people visiting that day disproportionately were not there for attractions, so wait time data did not even begin to pick up actual attendance levels. This is an exaggerated example, but the same idea holds true other weeks of the year–including during the Christmas season, when there are other reasons than rides that people visit Walt Disney World.
Looking forward, you can expect crowd levels throughout this entire week on par with or above the last two week’s levels. This week, the only park fully booked for Park Pass reservations (for now) is Magic Kingdom, plus Hollywood Studios on a couple of days. Don’t be surprised there’s less availability by mid-week, as locals start realizing this is pretty much be their last chance to visit before the Christmas and New Year’s Eve blockouts take effect.
Crowds should further increase heading into the week…because they always do. That’s when tourists start arriving in full force for the week of Christmas, which should end up being one of the 5 busiest weeks of the year–unless Walt Disney World sets reservation caps lower after seeing the chaos of Thanksgiving. We’ll be in the parks both this week and next, and will have more reports on our experience with holiday crowds, daily ops for Christmas entertainment, and more.
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
Predictions on crowds for the two weeks before Christmas 2021? Thoughts on our predictions? Agree or disagree with our theory that fewer tourists–but more locals–drove feels like crowds up and wait times down the last couple weeks? If you’ve visited in prior months during the last year, how did crowds compare between then and now? What did you think of the wait times? Any parks or times of day noticeably worse than the 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!
Low crowds? No way! Mk and Epcot have been nuts!
Im hoping crowds slow considerably after the holidays. But i doubt it. I dont understand why so many people are visiting..we are still in a pandemic! And parents taking kids out of school to go to wdw is ridiculous.
And why does Disney require reservations when they are allowing 50k guests in the parks !!
The wait time at Animal Kingdom was unbelievable yesterday! The Avatar constantly posted more than 1h (same for Navi and Safari), even peaked at 180min in the afternoon! LOL I kinda regretted knocking the other two rides first as they had almost walk-up later in the day…I was waiting for people to fade away after 3pm like you said but that never happened and had even more people coming in, so sadly we didn’t manage to ride avatar in the end…T T Nevertheless, thank you so much for all the blog posts!!! They helped me tremendously on Friday and Saturday at Hollywood Studio and Magic Kingdom, especially with Genie+ and 6:45 am wake up time, haha!
Hi Tom,
We were there 11/28-12/4. Was a first visit for my so. In law and grandchildren. The crowds were horrible! Long wait times everywhere! We also went to Universal and the longest wait time was 35 minutes. We were able to eat at Leaky cauldron with minimal wait 10 minutes.
Epcot on Friday, even Spaceship earth was55 minutes. All the Kiosks in World showcase were packed! Not a fun experience.My husband said Never again!
Tom, what is the correct avenue to give a cast compliment? We just got back from a stay at the Riviera (11/25-12/4). I noticed that overall, Disney cast members are polite, similar to how the employees are at my local target. A few, however went out of their way, much like all of the Disney cast members used to do when we’ve visited in years past. I’m sure it’s a combination of fatigue, mask rules, stressed out guests and many of them being new hires, but I want to make sure I compliment the ones who reminded me why we go in the first place. I want to make sure management knows how crucial they are and how special it is when one of the cast is “all in”. Thanks!
We just returned from a weeklong trip, staying at Port Orleans Riverside. This was our first trip since August 2019. We tend to visit every other year but after this trip we have no urgent desire to return. So many cost-cutting measures have truly contributed to a loss of Disney magic for me and my family. We are so disappointed to feel this way. The rude Cast Members we encountered on a daily basis surprised us! That used to be an aberration at Disney but not this trip. I hope things change when we are ready to come back in 2 or 3 years.
We’re here now, and the crowds have been pretty crazy. I agree Magic Kingdom has been a nightmare to leave after fireworks. We did however go to very merry Christmas party, and it was awesome. Even more enjoyable was the small crowd. Animal Kingdom Lodge is amazing. I’ll never stay at an all star resort again, it’s too small for a family of five.
Agree on the crowd feel- we were there 12/4-11 and at times the crowd feel was intense. One other thing- Tuesday night trying to leave Magic Kingdom after fireworks was a complete cluster. The crowd was at a total standstill due to Christmas party guests entering through the tunnel, making very limited access for exit. Our group was stuck in front of Tonys for 20 minutes before finally being able to break free and get out the other side. It honestly felt dangerous- the crowd was so packed in and not moving at all. It was not hard to see a tragedy happening with a stampede.
That has been happening post-fireworks several nights per week for the last few months. I’m honestly shocked there haven’t been any serious injuries yet, as the same scenario keeps repeating itself. Why Disney hasn’t done anything to address this is beyond me.
Just came back from WDW , spent a week @ Pop Century, have been passholders for years and lack of perks , genie plus nightmare and ridiculous price increases we don’t have any desire to renew passes when the time comes . STOCKHOLDERS is their only concern , bottom line profit margin.
We also were in the Parks from the 4th to 11th of December and in Magic Kingdom on the Wednesday and Friday and it was the worse I had ever seen when it comes to crowds. Forget about staying for the fireworks people started lining up at 6PM and the crowd reached from the castle all the way to the exit and packed in tight. Great way for a covid spread. We missed a few things do to the crowds became overwhelming. Majority of people though were nice and had the best non-alcoholic drink at the Oga’s Cantina in the studios which quenched my thirst better than water. Every park we visited was packed and while just a yearly visitor always going around the same time I will never do this again till Tom tells me the crowds are really down lol. I will state contrary to some posts I have read is the every single Disney employee went out of their way to help us if needed. They were smiling, polite , helpful and I saw no so called disgruntled employees in the 8 days I was there. I would like to mention though that we ate most dinners in the parks the food was served lukewarm when I received it and that was all of the restaurants. For me this visit I felt no magic just sore heels from people walking into them or the strollers attacking my calves. But beware the real danger comes from the scooter drivers I thought I was in a Pac-man game.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Totally anecdotal, but I think things (generally speaking) improved with Cast Members starting in summer when mask rules were first relaxed. That was the cause of A LOT of tension between guests and CMs, and them not having to be mask police (for the most part) has definitely helped. Getting the College Program back also brought in some fresh faces, and it seems like the start of the 50th Anniversary was a fairly good morale boost (ditto the holiday season).
Hi Tom — Our family of four (kids 10 & 7) was at WDW from 11/28-12/5 had a great time! It was my first visit since the 1990’s and just wanted to say thanks so much for all your advice. Yes, it often felt crowded but we used the Genie+ system and were able to hit pretty much all the rides we wanted without a problem. We aren’t morning people and opted to buy lightning lanes for rides like ROR rather than rope dropping, but were willing to pay that price for the opportunity to sleep in a bit more on vacation. Per your advice, I set my alarm to 6:55 each morning and went straight back to sleep after booking our top lightning lane priority for each day. It worked like a charm and even at DHS, we had no problem getting reservations for Slinky, Millennium Falcon, Rockin’ Roller Coaster, etc. At the end of the night we did Star Tours and Toy Story Mania as a walk-on. I’ve never used the FastPass system, so have no basis for comparison but Genie seemed to me to work reasonably well (maybe because we hit that “sweet spot”)? To echo others, I wish there was a way to choose reservation times rather than refreshing constantly, but when our Slinky Dog Dash reservation came back at the same time as our Sci-Fi ADR, we just went to Guest Relations and they gave us a Slinky “experience” for later in the day. I’m sure we also did more criss-crossing the park than what’s ideal, but with all that eating the extra exercise probably wasn’t a bad thing. The kids are now super-spoiled and think they shouldn’t have to wait in line for anything–ha!
In any event, thanks again! I’m sure the experience would have been very different without the benefit of your advice.
P.S. We also stayed at Wilderness Lodge per your recommendation and it was wonderful–just beautiful with all the Christmas decor. The 4th floor fireplace ended up being one of our favorite places to decompress at the end of a chilly evening, and we also lucked into a standard-view room with a fireworks view, which was amazing.
Great to hear your trip went well and you enjoyed Wilderness Lodge.
You definitely hit the “sweet spot” with Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. They were about as helpful as possible for your dates, without having nearly the same degree of problems as Thanksgiving week.
Have you seen any signs yet that Disney’s made any changes to Genie+ leading into the busy Christmas weeks? I know it might be hard to tell with the decreased crowd levels, but I’m anxiously watching to see if any of your suggestions play out (like allocating more slots to Genie+ users at the smaller parks). I hate the feeling of paying so much to come over the holidays just to be a Guinea pig, and I feel bad for the Thanksgiving people who were just that.
I also wonder how much the new AP structure will affect Christmas crowds. That was a huge blow taking the holidays out of all but the highest pass. We reluctantly got Incredi-passes because the end of the year is when we can realistically take that much time off work for a full Disney deep dive, but if I were an Orlando local, there’s no way I would have paid the extra $400 for access to Christmas crowds.
“Have you seen any signs yet that Disney’s made any changes to Genie+ leading into the busy Christmas weeks?”
No. The “change” has been in the crowds and demand for the service. Disney is going to run into the same problems as Thanksgiving if actual changes aren’t made.
The easiest solution is limiting sales–and that’s what I still expect to happen.
I can confirm that WDW was UNBEARABLE last week! Went to MK on Wednesday – packed like sardines, especially for fireworks. (The castle overlays are very pretty). Genie+ saved me some time, but caused more walking, almost 18,000 steps. Lots of foreign travelers and kids pulled out of schools in USA. Parents I ask d, said they pulled their kids out without regret!
HS on Thursday was very crowded. Did early entry for RoTR and walked ALL the way through the queue…right in front of and about to board the transporter…and they announced the ride was down. They gave us a pass to use anytime that day to return and bypass the queue, but that was a shame. Saw several kids meltdown with disappointment at having gotten up SO early and waiting SO long and getting SO close only to be denied a ride! Hurried over to Smugglers Run and rode that twice. Genie+ burned up my gym shoes that day….walking across the park to next available slots constantly. Wasted a LOT of time by using it. Don’t feel it was worth the cost. Walked 19,000 steps at HS.
Did Epcot Friday. Did early entry. Long line for Frozen and it shut down shortly after opening. No passes given for later in day. And never got to ride it that day cuz lines were long all day. Did score Remy’s at 7am, but what a disappointment. Ride is NOT worth all the aggravation. And they call up so many groups at once, that I had to wait a VERY long time in line to get on ride, even though I was Group 6 !! Did NOT buy Genie+ because of my bad experience with the prior two days attempts at usage, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my money yet again. Long wait for Soarin, but not too bad for other rides. Harmonious was very good. Frighteningly crowded with no attempts by CMs to clear paths in case of emergency. Walked 20,000 steps.
So tired of the crowds that I’m not going back to use the rest of my 10day ticket. My trip to WDW for the 2 weeks pre-Christmas this year is just a colossal waste of my time, money and energy. Spare yourselves and do NOT go and do NOT waste even more money on Genie+ as it’s a horrible use of technology. I expect technology to make my life easier and better but it failed miserably and this is just a money grab for Disney.
Anyone have suggestions/strategies on trying to get money back for the unused 7 days remaining on my 10-day ticket?? IF annual passes were available I’d bridged, but alas, they stopped selling those.
I was kind of surprised by the “feels like” crowd, if we’re being honest (a rarity for me, honesty). I always hear WDW people saying mean stuff about Disneyland like, “It’s too crowded here” and “The paths are too small” and “If this stroller hits the back of my ankle one more time, I’m turning that stroller into a baby catapult” but I thought the WDW parks were as congested as any busy Disneyland day short of Christmas. I was shoulder to shoulder on Main Street quite a few times, and I don’t like people’s shoulders rubbing mine, I’m an American. The sea of people flopping all about in front of the castle before the fireworks was larger than anything I’d seen for a similar DLR show. Parts of Epcot were nice and quiet but World Showcase was like Memorial Day weekend in the UC Santa Barbara party town of Isla Vista. I think I was honestly expecting to have more space –as there IS more space, in terms of acreage and path width– but the shuffling and dodging and stroller-catapulting you have to do felt just like home, or at least it did to me. Interesting. I just don’t want to hear “Disneyland is too crowded” as if WDW is not, because it is too. And both can get serene at the right times of year, I’m sure. We are the same.
For what it’s worth, the nighttime spectacular crowds at Epcot and Magic Kingdom are worse right now than I’ve ever seen them. Everyone assumes “new” means “good,” I think.
We just returned from a 7 day 6 night stay that we split between Universal and Disney. The 3 park days spent at Universal were excellent and a lot of fun. We added the Express Lane pass on 1 of the days, which allows you to use their version of the FP line on all rides in the park with the exception of 2. Their system is far superior to Disney, although it is expensive, because you can go on the rides whenever you want using the express lane and you don’t need to book a FP time. You can also add the ‘unlimited’ option or be limited to using the express lane once per ride. We enjoy thrill rides and Universal is also far superior to Disney in that regard. The Hagrid’s motorcycle ride and the Velocicoaster were amazing. The wait times were also manageable on the days where we did not have the Express Lane pass and we still had a great time.
As for our days spent at Disney, they were not nearly as enjoyable as our prior visits and this was the first time that we did not accomplish everything that we wanted to during our stay. In my opinion, the current Genie+ system is a terrible replacement for the Fast Pass model. We always had a ton of success securing the premium rides before lunchtime and we would add 1 ride from there for the rest of the day without any problems using FPs. Simply refreshing the screen would always open up immediate choices. With Genie+, I hated the fact that you could only accept the next available time rather than choose from the list of available times like you could with Fast Pass. This required you to constantly check the next available time slot until it was offering at a time that worked for you. You also had to cancel your existing Genie+ reservation to book a different one rather than having the choice to modify it. And the app always defaulted to your original park rather than adjusting to the park you were in at the time after park hopping. Very annoying. I also didn’t like that the system added 1 hr to my ride reservation when I chose a ride at a park we intended to park hop to in the afternoon. I had already accounted for the time it would take for us to switch parks so the additional hour became a huge inconvenience. Not to mention the limited availability of time slots. We went from using 10+ Fast Pass rides per day to only about 5 Genie+ rides. We also missed out on the new ride at Epcot because we didn’t start at that park (we didn’t want to wait until it opened at 10 or 11 since we are early risers) and all of the LL’s we’re sold out by the time we park hopped. We also missed out on Rise of the Resistance for similar reasons. Fortunately, we got to go on it during our last visit to Disney in 2019 and we didn’t want to wait for over 2 hrs in the standby line. So all in all, the Disney trip was a huge disappointment and our vacation was saved by a good experience at Universal. If the Genie+ system is not improved and if they don’t remove the 2 PM park hop rule, we won’t be back to Disney in 2022. The cost doesn’t justify it. Not to mention the other lack of incentives to stay onsite which we had become accustomed to (Free Dining, Magical Express, Extra Magic Hours for more than 30 mins).
Oh wow, those crowds are much higher than I was expecting. Really highlights the importance of solid touring strategy + extended evening hours (if eligible).
Its culture shock for me, as I have only been to Disney in the post-Covid era and have timed all my visits to miraculously low crowds. However, since I purchased an AP and have been following your advice in general, I’ve been working remotely during the day and heading to the parks for rides and ambiance at night. Its my first Christmas here and everything is stunning! And right at the end of the day wait times are pretty low. Disney does not advertise that they are low, but I walked right onto a Banshee in Flight of Passage when it was advertising a 70 minute wait, which is a pretty big discrepancy (0 vs 70 mins). This strategy has led to a lovely trip so far…but we will have to see how it goes when my sister arrives and we tour Weds and Thurs like normal park-goers.
We were in MK the evening of 11/30/21, and I was taken aback by the crowds. We’ve been in the parks the Tuesday after Thanksgiving for several years now…I’m not claiming to be an expert but we do have a frame of reference. The scene on Main Street and in the hub was objectively not pleasant. Once you got away from those areas everything was quite nice, and perfectly enjoyable. Godspeed to those traveling b/w now and New Years. I’ll be interested to hear how things evolve (or devolve as the case maybe).
“The difference is that Walt Disney World doesn’t celebrate Christmas during mid-September (yet).” The funny part is, if it wouldn’t cannibalize Halloween sales, you know they would.
If this is what a drop in crowds looks like….was just there on Tuesday the 7th. A friend and her wife were there the 7 & 8th. The lines were unbearable, EPCOT was busy, Hollywood you couldn’t even walk. Went to Universal and almost everything was walk on. Longest wait times were 35 minutes.
I use the Tune In app to listen to podcasts and radio, and both Tune In and Sirius XM have been running ads for WDW Annual Passes. But they’re still “paused,” per the URL in the ad. This is just a digital advertising manager mistake, right? It doesn’t mean APs are returning soon?
Genie + was a saving point for us in magic kingdom. Okay in Epcot (didn’t even attempt frozen) and ridiculously useless in Hollywood. Couldn’t get lightning lane on anything worthwhile and we went first week of December.