Disney World Crowd Update: A Tale of Two Seasons
As you’ve probably gathered from the flurry of Walt Disney World construction updates, we just returned from a trip to Florida. Crowds and wait times were…interesting…and we thought we’d drop in here with our experiences, and some tips on ways to have the best experience possible if you’re visiting in October, November, or December.
At first, crowds were great. I had anticipated this as I monitored wait times from home (as one does). Nevertheless, I was a little apprehensive that the calendar changing to October would cause a spike. We arrived in early October, and the first several days of the trip, crowds were low.
Definitely not what I expected for October. We walked on to numerous popular attractions, from Soarin’ to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We didn’t need FastPass+ for Space Mountain or Expedition Everest during the middle of the day. I even began thinking up “clever” names for a sequel to our All Quiet on the Crowds at Disney World Front post, intent on coming up with something even more obscure that fewer people would get. Then the first weekend of October hit, and it was like flipping a switch.
The next several days were all intensely crowded, which is somewhat unsurprising given the Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day holidays. Even as we employed strategies we normally use to minimize the impact of crowds, it was pretty bad. Instead of experiencing the off-season lull we had enjoyed on our last trip to Walt Disney World and the beginning of this visit, we experienced the “new normal” for October–perhaps even slightly elevated from the norm.
As we’ve reiterated in our October at Walt Disney World and Best & Worst Months to Visit Walt Disney World posts, October is not off-season. There is still some outdated info floating around that it’s a good time to go for a good mix of weather, crowds, and seasonal events, and that’s simply not the case. It’s not just the Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day holidays, either–this pattern of elevated crowds continues throughout October.
I mean, October definitely has one of those things (seasonal events) and can have another (good weather), but the crowds part is inaccurate. It also didn’t help on this trip that the weather was not favorable. It was hot and humid the entire time, with temperatures in the 90s and “feels like” temps well over 100.
Florida weather in October can be a crapshoot, and we definitely got the crap part of that. When you compound the crowds and hot weather, it’s rough.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the park where this all is probably the most noteworthy. As I mentioned in our October 2018 DHS Update, the Bus Stop Half Marathon is absolutely miserable, and sets a really sour tone for visiting that park. It doesn’t help that there’s very little shade once you’re inside.
I spent maybe 10 minutes in Toy Story Land before saying “enough” to that and bouncing. We’ve heard from credible sources that a minor ‘re-tooling’ of this land is coming to install more shade and rain cover…but we heard that back in July. I have no idea when this will occur–perhaps when the Christmas decorations are installed? More shade can’t come soon enough.
When you couple the park-wide wait times (you cannot possibly FastPass+ it all) with the heat and Bus Stop Half Marathon, I think a strong case can be made for Walt Disney World regulars who have been to the park before and will go again in the future to sit out Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the next month or so. We’ll definitely be back to see the Christmas decorations, but I’m perfectly content waiting until temperatures cool a bit.
The situation is in some ways worse and in some ways better at Animal Kingdom. Pandora – World of Avatar remains a big hit that draws guests all day long. Crowds are huge throughout the land, and Avatar Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey often are the longest waits at Walt Disney World. (It doesn’t help that Flight of Passage is often operating at reduced capacity.)
Fortunately, there’s more shade in Pandora, and the payoff of these attractions–Flight of Passage in particular–is far better than Toy Story Land.
The restaurant there is also indoors and air conditioned. For us, the upsides far outweigh the downsides. Animal Kingdom is a must-do even with the crowds–you just need good strategy.
Circling back to our previous post about early fall crowds, there were a few things we noticed from reader comments, specifically those that disagreed with us. First, we have it on good authority that August and September attendance and hotel occupancy were markedly down year over year. Irrespective of what crowds felt like on any individual day, these were the overarching patterns.
Second, several people pointed out that the parks seemed busier in mid-September around the time of Hurricane Florence. We have no insight into this one way or the other, but it’s entirely plausible that there was a spike then as residents of the Carolinas headed to Florida.
Third, we still have no concrete explanation for the attendance spikes at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. After a couple lower-attendance parties in early September, we assumed things were back to normal. Not so. In addition to several parties selling out, crowds have been heavier this year.
There have been rumblings among Cast Members that Disney increased the attendance cap, but we don’t have credible confirmation of this. It’s surprising that even as prices spike for this event every year, so too does demand. (It’s also tough to reconcile lower daily attendance in September with higher party attendance.)
Finally, crowd levels can be very differently based upon the day of the week you visit each park. To that end, we have some easy ways to minimize your exposure to ‘peak’ crowds If you’re visiting between now and…pretty much the end of the year.
If at all possible, plan your day visits to Magic Kingdom on weekdays when there is a hard ticket party scheduled in the evening. Day crowds at Magic Kingdom are considerably more manageable when the park closes to regular guests at 6 p.m. Conversely, day crowds are significantly heavier when the park closes at 10 p.m. or, worse yet, has evening Extra Magic Hours. (Park Hopper tickets are your friend this time of year.)
Avoid Epcot on weekends and week nights when there are Extra Magic Hours. Weekends are when local Food & Wine crowds show up in full force, and EMH nights are a similar draw. In fairness, we do not follow the second half of this advice ourselves. We love evening Extra Magic Hours at Epcot; we just suck it up and deal with the crowds those nights. (However, we usually don’t show up until evening; crowds during the day are worse on EMH nights.)
Morning Extra Magic Hours remain the best option for resort guests wanting to experience Toy Story Land or Pandora – World of Avatar with minimal crowds. If you’re staying off-site, you should absolutely avoid these two parks on mornings with EMH–rope drop them a different day.
Alternatively, do either of these newer lands at the very end of the night and jump into the standby line right before park closing. Not only is this a solid approach for minimizing your wait, but it’s cooler at night and there’s (obviously) no sunlight to make the wait even more excruciating. We favor this same approach with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train–it’s typically the only way we do that ride.
This advice applies year-round, but it’s especially true in the fall and winter when new-ish offerings seem to be the most popular. We’re guessing this is because annual visitors favor these times of year, and also make more of a point of experiencing whatever’s new?
That’s really about it. The Magic Kingdom tip deserves the strongest emphasis, because the difference in daytime crowds between a party night and non-party night can be extreme.
It’s one of those things that’s self-evident when you think about it, but is easy to overlook. Visitors without Park Hopper tickets (which is a lot of people) plan around park hours, and a 6 p.m. closing is far less appealing than 9 or 10 p.m.
If you do have Park Hopper tickets, we’d strongly encourage you to do Magic Kingdom in the day on a party night, bounce to Epcot for the evening (or whichever park is open latest), and return another night for Happily Ever After and nighttime at Magic Kingdom.
If you don’t have another day on your tickets to return, you can always watch HalloWishes from the Ticket & Transportation Center, which is arguably the best viewing location to see those perimeter bursts in their full glory, anyway.
Overall, October has been one of the worst months of the year crowd-wise the last few years, and that trend would appear set to continue in 2018. What’s unclear is where crowds for November and December go from here. Given that several resorts appeared ‘sold out’ for select holiday dates months in advance, we’re guessing that the low crowds of August and September were a short-lived anomaly, but we’re holding out hope that they make a reprise…for early to mid-November, at the very least.
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
What has been your experience with Walt Disney World crowds over the course of the last three months? (If you share your experience, please also share your travel dates.) Do you agree or disagree with our assessment of crowds at WDW? 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!
I always enjoy the updates! Thank you!
I know the Christmas Party is a crazy busy one but I feel you should be able to experience more considering the additional price. We went last year and I don’t think I’ll ever bother with the Christmas Party again. It was so oversold that you could hardly walk through the park let alone do much. We saw one character after waiting in line for almost 2 hours and unfortunately because of that seeing the parades were out of the question. It was mass chaos and I usually expect a lot more of Disney. We weren’t able to enjoy it at all. I have been to the Halloween party before and it’s always a good time. I don’t know if they’re overselling it now but I think quality over quantity goes a long way.
Our annual MNSSHP trip this year was from Sep. 30-Oct. 3 with the party date being Oct. 2nd. This trip was probably the least crowded “fall” trip we’ve had in a few years, and it sounds like we got super lucky and hit the sweet spot from what others are saying.
We’re Tampa Bay area folks and I can attest that this summer the heat has been brutal. Summer heat here in central Florida is never pretty, but this year it started early (April) and has been unrelenting through October thus far. We’ve had one or two days where the highs have only hit 85, but otherwise it has been 88-90 degrees every day since April. And the bay area is usually a few degrees cooler than Orlando on any given day.
I have never fully appreciated a stay at Saratoga Springs until we went to Hollywood Studios. The bus stop location is perfect, just not in early after noon sun.
But, can you see the projections on the castle from the T&TC? Thanks!
Love the picture of the castle with the fireworks! Absolutely amazing!!
We were there Sept 23-28 and enjoyed a relatively low crowd week. The only exception was one morning at Toy Store Land where it was insane. Definitely agree about going to MK during the day on a party night. The waits were great.
We were some of the evacuees from South Carolina. Seemed our entire hotel was full of Carolina plates. We had a huge group with us neighbors/friends. We purchased 17 MNSSHP tickets. It was our first Halloween party. We visited our first XMAS party last year near Veterans Day. It seemed much more crowded at this years event. Didn’t help that the weather was in the 90s earlier in the day. We still had a great time but I couldn’t help but notice the crowds and wait times for a “special event”. This while the sign headed into the park said it was a sold out event.
We just returned Oct 15 from a business-related trip. Thanks to your previous updates we skipped the parks & enjoyed a few resorts instead. We are returning mid Dec for hopefully lower temps & more holiday spirit, (with no little ones.) Then it’s back to planning for all the future grandchildren trips. It seems there are very few enjoyable times left in the year with our healthy economy and increasing global temps. We are hoping for both to cool! Thanks for your precision in reporting both.
We were there October 3-8, and crowd levels were accurate. Hit MK on a MNSSHP day (Epcot for us that night) and it was remarkable how quick lines were! We had younger kids in the group and got on Dumbo, Teacups, etc. with 5 minute waits tops. Headliners were longer waits, but not by much. MNSSHP was great on Friday night, too, got on tons of rides and there was only a 10 minute wait to meet the Seven Dwarfs! Fast forward to Saturday and Sunday, and things were significantly different. Saturday at HS was crazy with crowds and lines (we were lucky to get the FP we got for Slinky Dog and Toy Story Mania), though Sunday at Epcot was okay. Monday at MK was also very crowded (it was Columbus Day) and rode just a few rides before leaving for our flight. The early part of the trip with light crowds made it all worth it, though; if September is like that, we’re in for our next trip!
We just came back from a weekend getaway at Disney. And I sadly didn’t see what was posted. Both Epcotnand Disney Springs were MAD HOUSES. In the past year of us living in Orlando we had never seen such an outpouring of guests. The traffic for the entrance to the park was backed up to the highway and the lines for tickets at the park we’re almost to the monorail entrance. Have to say that you must’ve gotten lucky because fast passes and even resort rooms were impossible to come by.
I completely agree with everything on your post. We are on the bus back to the airport right now from our vacation and wow what a crazy busy trip it was. I have never seen the park so busy. The weather was also very unfavorable. We made the trip the best we could this time, but I think we will go back to our favorite time time to go in late Jan/Early February. Great post, thanks for sharing your pointers.
Be wary of Disney anticipated crowd levels. My trip in Jan 2018 with 9 people experienced reduced staffing and slower than normal ride speeds that yielded wait times of 30-50 minutes on most rides rather than the 5-10 minutes predicted by the Touring Plans APP based on past history. I had used those plans very successfully in the past, but Disney blindsided everyone with their unannounced changes. I certainly did not expect June/July wait times on rides during January when crowds were low. To say that I was disappointed is putting it mildly. We were lucky to complete about 70% of the plans I created where In the past we completed 100% and still had extra time available. I was constantly busy each day adjusting schedules and deleting steps to salvage what I could. This was the first Disney trip for the other 8 Party members, so they don’t know what they missed, but I sure do.
Am I crazy going over Thanksgiving? This will be our first visit ever to the park, a family of 4. We’re staying at the Boardwalk and I’m trying to plan as best as possible…
You’re not crazy, but be prepared for high crowd levels. Thanksgiving week is a popular time to go.
I’m trying my best to plan this out, we’re going to be on the park from Tuesday the 20th to Friday the 23rd. I didn’t purchase Park Hopper options and setup fast passes for each day in the select parks. I’m trying to as organized as possible knowing it is going to be busy. My question is not having Park Hopper during busy times is not a good idea? Should I go for the Park Hopper when all the parks will prob be busy?
My family of 4 is going Thanksgiving week for the very 1st time ever and of course we bought a 1 day pass -hopper ticket, which we will start emh in magic kingdom, move to animal kingdom around noon for fp everest & the safari. Than head to Epcot (which sounds extremely busy on a friday evening), my kids 25 & 27 just have to go there! lol… but even in all the posts I’ve read I haven’t heard about the ending fireworks HEA? (over the castle; except a small clip up above about the HalloWishes from the Ticket & Transportation? We thought we would end our very exhausting evening there….suggestions?? thanks so much!
I think it’s probably a personal decision, but the park hopper option will certainly provide more flexibility. For example, if you go to Magic Kingdom only to discover that it’s insane, you can check your app to see how the lines are looking at other parks. If they’re much better, it might be worthwhile to change your plans. Without the option, you are locked in.
Don’t fret too much. I am sure you and your family will have a lovely trip.
Understand & thank you for the advice.
Recently took a trip to Disney, I was only in the parks for two days (September 28 & 29) and I haven’t seen the parks that empty in a really long time (probably because I haven’t visited in September in about three years). I was with my mom and her friends and I kept remarking in utter amazement on how low the crows were–none of them gave a shit. We also did Mickey’s Not so Scary, I’ve done that party before and there have been times where the crowds for it were overwhelming. This time it felt like our group was practically alone in the park! Even Hollywood Studios was far less packed than I expected. We didn’t make it to Epcot but Animal Kingdom was also empty, minus Pandora Land. I remember walking on to Mount Everest in the middle of the day. We were able to walk on almost every ride at Magic Kingdom–even the mountain range rides. Definitely visiting in September again!
We recently returned for our “once in a lifetime” trip to WDW. We could not have been more pleased with our experience and wait times! Perhaps we were there before the crazy began. Our 5 days at the parks spanned from Sept 30 to Oct 5. It was important to us to see the fireworks at MK in the park, so we went on a Saturday. (However, ending our week on a ticketed party night was a nice excuse to leave the park early.) I believe our longest wait time was 65 min for Pandora. We stayed off property, so our FPs were not many of the top rides, but we still were able to manage what we wanted to do. I feel we were well prepared with a flexible plan having read this blog for our months of planning!
Please keep me updated. Planning a trip in the next year. Thanks.
We were there Sept. 29th to Oct. 7th and the 1st day at Magic Kingdom on Sunday the 3oth, which was a party night and it was great. Wait times weren’t bad and we were able to get on some rides without Fast Passes. Fast forward to Friday the 5th (another party night) it was a whole different story. Wait times were awful. The only reason I can think of the change was it was a Friday.
Just any FYI, your strategy for riding Pandora rides before closing doesn’t always work either. I showed up for my Fast Pass for Flight of Passage at 7pm on Saturday the 6th, an hour before the park closed and the wait time was 135 minutes.
“Just any FYI, your strategy for riding Pandora rides before closing doesn’t always work either. I showed up for my Fast Pass for Flight of Passage at 7pm on Saturday the 6th, an hour before the park closed and the wait time was 135 minutes.”
Walt Disney World is notorious for inflating posted wait times at the end of the night to discourage people from getting in line, as the more people in line for headliners, the longer it takes to clear the park (and overnight maintenance and other work cannot start in each land until it’s cleared).
I’m not saying that was the case on that particular night, but several times I’ve jumped into line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 2 minutes before park closing when the posted wait was 70-90 minutes, and waited less than 30.
Josh says the line will flush quickly after park close with no more FP+ returners. All capacity goes to standby, so things will move along nicely.