Fall 2021 Crowds Fall Further at Disney World
We’re back with what will probably be our last look at low off-season attendance at Walt Disney World. In this crowd report, we’ll analyze wait time data from the last few weeks, along with thoughts on what’s likely to happen next with numbers at Walt Disney World in October 2021 and beyond.
As we’ve been reporting for the last month-plus, the fall off-season arrived earlier and has seen a sharper drop in wait times than normal at Walt Disney World. Everyone has their theories for why attendance and wait times are so low, including the lack of international visitors, conventions, and group events that would normally sustain the fall months after school goes back into session.
All of the above has played a contributing role, but the two primary causes of the bigger downturn were Florida’s run of record case numbers and Walt Disney World’s reinstated indoor mask rule. Florida’s latest wave peaked in late August and has dramatically decreased since–the state is now decidedly average with the 27th most new cases per capita as of September 24, 2021–but the perception persists that it’s a hotspot. For its part, the mask rule is considerably less onerous than last year at this time. Nevertheless, both of these things triggered a flood of cancellations rippling through the remainder of the year, and will impact attendance and crowds for months to come.
Regardless of what we’ve been experiencing in the parks for the last 7 weeks, that’s all likely coming to an end…as soon as today. Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary is exactly one week away, and tourists visiting for the momentous occasion will start arriving throughout the coming week.
Before that, locals appear poised to make this one of the busier weekends in the last couple months, with Disney Park Pass reservations fully booked among Annual Passholders for both Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Currently, this weekend’s weather forecast is relatively dry, with high temperatures under 90 degrees and lows under 70 degrees. This is some of the best weather Central Florida has seen since June, and that could cause more Floridians to get out of the house.
But this is a crowd forecast and report, not a weather one. In terms of wait times, here’s what’s happening in your Walt Disney World’s neck of the woods…
Let’s start with Magic Kingdom, which has seen its wait times fall following Labor Day. The highest single day average for Magic Kingdom since our last report has been 25 minutes (on September 20), with several days bottoming out at 14-16 minutes. No repeat of the single digits seen on September 1, but that was almost certainly an anomaly we won’t see again anytime soon.
Daily numbers bounce up and down with no good explanation as to why beyond attraction closures and weather. It thus likely makes more sense to smooth out the charts by looking at weekly averages. (All graphs and wait time stats courtesy of Thrill-Data.com.)
With this, we see Magic Kingdom’s average wait times are relatively flat for the last 6 weeks. The range is 18 to 21 minutes, which is fairly insignificant. These are lower numbers than normal in August/September, which is particularly noteworthy when considering that there’s less to do right now–meaning attendance is even (comparatively) lower than the data alone suggests.
To put this into context, these August and September wait times would garner a 1/10 or 2/10 on almost any Walt Disney World crowd calendar scale. Moreover, this run of weeks is all less than half the average wait times of Walt Disney World’s peak summer dates in late July.
Going attraction by attraction this week, the wait times at even the Magic Kingdom headliners aren’t bad.
Top averages are Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at 50 minutes, Jungle Cruise at 50 minutes, Peter Pan’s Flight at 40 minutes, Haunted Mansion at 32 minutes, Astro Orbiter at 29 minutes, Splash Mountain at 28 minutes, Space Mountain at 24 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean at 18 minutes, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at 14 minutes. Pretty rare to see all of the classic Magic Kingdom Mountain Range under 30 minutes!
Continuing to Epcot, where the average wait time has ranged from 11 to 18 minutes. Since Labor Day, Epcot has yet to break 20 minutes on average. For that period, the average weekly wait time has been 15 minutes (every single week).
Attractions with the longest wait times were Test Track and Frozen Ever After, each at 37 minutes. Nothing else has been above 30 minutes on average. Soarin’ Around the World is hitting 15 minutes and Mission: Space is exceeding that number, with a 22 minute wait. Perhaps that’s fueled by high demand for Space 220 Restaurant?!
Over at Animal Kingdom, it’s a similar story but with a far larger range in posted wait times. Post-Labor Day, the lowest average has been 11 minutes and the highest has been 24 minutes. The latter number is an outlier, with most days under 20 minutes.
Weekly averages have been 16-19 minutes at Animal Kingdom in the last month. Unsurprisingly, the two Pandora attractions are the only rides with non-negligible waits: Avatar Flight of Passage averaging 39 minutes and Na’vi River Journey averaging 34 minutes. Even those can be near walk-ons later in the day.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This continues to be the “busiest” park at Walt Disney World, with average daily wait times between 25 and 33 minutes.
With one notable exception, Slinky Dog Dash continues to have the longest wait time at 56 minutes. Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run is averaging 45 minutes, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is averaging 43 minutes, both Toy Story Mania and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster are averaging 33 minutes.
The aforementioned notable exception is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which just opened its standby line yesterday. We were not on hand for the fanfare, instead rope dropping Epcot for a third day this week (more on that in a minute). That was probably a mistake given all of the buzz, anger and excitement, but we’ll be giving it a try this weekend.
Right now, the “narrative” around Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance’s standby line is whatever you want it to be. The attraction peaked at 180 or 220 minutes (there was a discrepancy between the My Disney Experience wait and the posted wait at the attraction entrance) before settling around 80 minutes most of the day, with guests reporting actual wait times that were considerably lower–sometimes less than half of that.
You could say that a 220 minute posted time is ridiculous and far longer than you’d wait with boarding groups. You could say that an 85 minute daily average is pretty short and proof that a virtual queue was never necessary. You could say circumstances are very different in terms of ride reliability and demand than at any point since December 2019. You could say that it’s a weekday in September, check back in mid-October. You could say it’ll never be this low when paid Lightning Lanes debut and some of the capacity is reallocated to that upcharge.
I’m not going to say any of these things since it has been literally one day. I’m old enough to remember how opinions on the virtual queue soured back in December 2019 as word got out and circumstances changed. That happened very quickly–it went from being awesome to awful in less than a week. There’s no point in rendering a premature opinion on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance’s standby queue, as the scene will be dramatically different one week from now–let alone in a month.
Turning to Epcot, where we have spent the bulk of our week. This has been to experience Space 220 multiple times as a walk-up before it moves to reservations and becomes the most popular ADR at Walt Disney World for the next 5 years and we’re never able to do it again during that time. (Not a joke–that’s more or less what happened to us with Be Our Guest Restaurant!)
It’s been interesting observing multiple consecutive rope drops, as well as middays and evenings at Epcot–something we haven’t done in a while. My core takeaway has been “it’s pointless to rope drop Epcot” since lines are longest right when the park opens. (Test Track pictured above shortly after park opening v. mid-afternoon on the same day below.)
However, Epcot doesn’t open until 11 am right now, so what else are you going to do–sleep until noon? Another anecdotal observation has been that feels like crowds are highly variable, and you are far better off starting your day in World Showcase before moving to Future World. (As ‘advice’, this info has a shelf life of a week, at best.)
Speaking of which, the lack of shows, atmospheric entertainment, and ongoing dining constraints (among other things) can result in “feels like” crowds that are probably worse than what’s reflected in the wait time data. It’s also likely that with physical distancing gone and “please fill in all available space” back, guest perception of “comfortable congestion levels” is highly variable–especially among those who have largely avoided crowds for the last year-plus.
In terms of our perception as frequent visitors for the last year, late September crowds are already starting to noticeably increase. While beyond the scope of this post, we’re also seeing the same trend at Universal Orlando, where we’ve been spending a lot of time this month for hotel stays and Halloween Horror Nights.
Ultimately, we’ve been incredibly pleased by what we’ve seen from crowds at Walt Disney World over the last 7-8 weeks. This has been a great “calm before the storm” window for visiting, which is precisely why we ranked September as the #1 time to visit in our Best & Worst Months at Walt Disney World in 2021-2022. That was before Florida’s surge and the reinstated mask rule, so crowds have been even lower than anticipated.
With that said, we are far less confident in our forecast for October through December 2021. Our expectation has been that those months would extremely busy as a whole, but still subjectively good times to visit due to the festivities, new offerings, Halloween and Christmas. The subjective side of that should hold true. It’s also pretty safe to say that October 2021 will be busier than August or this month, which is a low bar to clear.
The question is whether truly heavy crowds will actually materialize beyond the obvious opening of the 50th and holiday weeks. Those stretches will undoubtedly be slammed, but what about a random week in late October, early November, or early December that doesn’t coincide with any holidays? We’re in unprecedented territory with a number of countervailing factors, and I don’t think anyone can predict with a high degree of certainty what happens next. It’ll be interesting to watch unfold, and we’ll keep you posted with more regular crowd reports!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Predictions for where crowds go from here in the last week of September, October, or the holiday season? Did you visit Walt Disney World in August or September? 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!
Maybe people are tired of Disney “nickel and dimin'” them; paying for fast passes, paying to park at a resort that you’ve already paid to stay in, no more magical express. The greed is real.
We were there from the 13th to the 17th have have never seen it that crowded so your version of low crowd is highly subjective. We normally go in May and most rides are walk on to 30 min wait. We did not encounter a single ride in our entire stay with less than a 40 min wait time including the people mover.
Reporting back on Space 220 in case anyone finds it useful tomorrow. We got to the park right before 10, and there was already a small line. Security wasn’t open yet. We had to activate APs, so we stopped off at guest relations first. Luckily that opened before the ticket lines, so we were still able to do that and get a reasonable spot in line. Once they started letting people through, we were those people everyone has been making fun of on Twitter and made a mad dash to the space 220 line. We were in line by 10:15. They opened rope drop, including our line, at 10:30. From our walk over to the line at the host stand and then our wait, we waited about 15 minutes to reach the front. They were not letting anyone choose times and just took our names for the next available slot. Despite being fairly close to the front, we were given a 5 pm return time. Based on that, I don’t even know if the end of the rope drop line would get a spot. I have heard that Disney has less space for parties of 2, which we are, so I do think it’s possible there were earlier spots left for bigger parties. We actually requested a later time to be there for sunset, but they weren’t taking requests. It also did not seem like anyone was lining up for the Lounge yet. Good luck to anyone trying tomorrow, and best to just play it safe and get there early!
We’ve been here since last Sunday and this is the least busy I’ve ever seen WDW. The longest that we waited all week was 30-35 minutes tops. We went to Hollywood Studios pre Rise standby and the longest we waited that day was 35 minutes for Smugglers Run.
Yesterday we rope dropped Magic Kingdom and it seemed a little busier than last Sunday but still not too bad. We were able to knock out everything else we wanted to do, which was pretty much everything, by 3:00. We park hopped to Hollywood Studios and rode Toy Story Mania twice, Rock n Rollercoaster and Mickey and Minnie by 6:30 or so (about 2.5 hours). We contemplated another ride on Rise as it only had a 50 minute posted wait time but had some tired kids and headed back to the resort.
We had really good luck park hopping in the afternoon and being able to knock out 2-3 big rides a couple evening. Our strategy was to monitor crowds throughout the day and jump when it looked like the cumulative wait times for a park started to die down.
We arrive on Monday for a last minute trip ( booked 10 days ago) Hoping to sneak in before the 50th festivities. I’m hoping I didn’t make a mistake and it’s super busy next week without the 50th stuff. Oh well! We’ll make the best of it!!
We are currently in MCO after being in the Magic Kingdom this morning and every day over the past week and half felt busier and busier. Today was a zoo there leaving at 1pm. Crowd wise but also dining reservations. Yesterday snagged an Ohana for dinner at 7 am. Today couldn’t find any decent times.
Our mid-September visit was pretty great crowd-wise, so all the other pre-50th celebration early birds should enjoy themselves in these final September days. The places where it was the low crowds were the most noticeable for us was Epcot (on a Friday) and at DHS (on a Thursday). We had experienced much more Epcot congestion at Spring break this year — this time around there was plenty of breathing room around the World Showcase even with the festival going on. And Star Wars Land (admit it, that’s what we all call it) was the most pleasant it’s ever been. And those portable air conditioners you recommended, Tom, on your packing list post were really effective. Thanks for the recommendation!
@Darren, well said my friend, I wish I could upvote your comment!
Oh I agree that most people won’t get ripped off on a Magic Carpet and know it enough to turn around and write a Strongly Worded Letter to City Hall, but I think some might notice, and will even post. In fact, not two months ago, my mom posted on facebook about random Disney news, and she’s not a huge Disney fan. She doesn’t even have her own Disney+ account, and I’m running out of devices. She added a meme to the post -a MEME, Tom- and even though it made no contextual sense, she is starting to exhibit a developing tech savvy that has me very worried about a moment of reckoning I like to think of as The Day My Mom Discovers My Twitter.
The non-planners might not notice but the planners, the people who inhabit these interwebs, the Disney fans, the people who take two or three Disney trips a year, the Disney+ primary account holders, the locals and passholders, the people who disturbingly know too much about every High School Musical, THOSE people will notice, and they’re already largely hostile toward pay-per-ride access. That’s a sizable demo to vindicate. All I’m saying is if I’m a Disney decision-maker, I’m looking at all the Christmas event tickets still available and getting nervous that maybe we’ve finally gone beyond flesh wound territory. At the very least I’d rethink the dynamic pricing aspect of LLs. But, as my first grade teacher told my parents in a funny voice, I might be different. I guess we will see where it all goes!
I am surprised what we saw is considered low crowds. We finally were able to get our APs back and went to both AK and MK. Packed!!! With no fps, we had to wait for every…. single….. line…. And this is LOW crowds?! Ugh…. I suppose Disney is doing it perfectly. Make everyone wait on line for hours on end and then people will happily pay for genie+. Annual passholders, go with Universal or SeaWorld. I used to like Disney better but not with standing in 90 degree heat for hours on end for a 3 minute ride.
Just returned from a 914-9/18 trip staying at Pop Century (2 adults) and can concur that wait times were definitely low on Wed/Thurs but started picking up on Fri/Sat. We managed to hit every attraction we wanted at every part (Rise x2) during the visit with the exception of Test Track due to weather, not wait times. It was delightful to experience everything within 30 minutes or less. Weather was generally bearable but I never realized how un-shady Epcot is! Finding a breeze or natural shade is difficult at best. Pop was a good value resort and we were able to get a room in the 50s – close to both Skyliner and Bus depot. Skyliner was superb and the buses weren’t bad, never had more than a 15 min wait. All in all a fantastic trip that I would do again next year if I could guarantee similar circumstances (I’m not holding my breath…).
Next trip will be end of January, so I’m hoping for better weather and not terrible waits. I’ll be following your advice/experience with Genie+ and pay-for-play attractions to determine if those will be worthwhile investments for the 11 of us. One thing you haven’t mentioned (at least here), that could possibly impact crowds for Dec and early 2022 is the availability of a 5-11 child vaccine. If that is approved by end of Oct, what are your thoughts on what that might do for people who have been holding out AND for how Disney will handle their COVID protocols?
“which is precisely why we ranked September as the #1 time to visit in our Best & Worst Months at Walt Disney World in 2021-2022.”
I think you could have dunked a little harder :-). As one of the few people anywhere that writes things and acknowledges when they were wrong, you can spike the football when you nail it. You earned it.
Enjoy the weekend.
Eh, I don’t want to spike the football too hard because that would require loudly eating crow when getting things wrong–which happens plenty.
Plus, this blog is laced with sarcasm, which can sometimes be perceived as arrogance. I’m content just letting readers draw their own conclusions. 🙂
As with most of my comments on message boards, this is a little off topic since I don’t know how to people correctly, but your mention of Rise of the Resistance standby made my brain go there, so it’s your fault, really, I can’t be this dark shell of a human who constantly blames himself for everything. Self care.
What happens when Lightning Lane debuts, with its “highway toll” system that already has everyone up in their feels, and people are waiting 60 minutes in a Rise of the Resistance queue that is posted at 180? I mean, it will increase guests’ “cash grab” cynicism wouldn’t it? Posted waits are often already overstated, both because they are a snapshot of the past (a posted wait that jumps to 40 minutes was what the wait was like 40 minutes ago, not necessarily now), and because it increases guest satisfaction (“Gee, that posted wait time said 40 minutes, and it only took 18, I’m justifying forcing my family to endure the humiliation of Jumpin’ Jellyfish after this, even if it does come up in the divorce hearing”).
My point is: Skepticism already abounds when it comes to Disney wait times. Why, for example, were people talking about an actual wait time for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway debut being less than the posted wait and, more importantly, being less than the actual waits of much older rides like Star Tours and Toy Story Mania? Answer: Because Disney cannot admit failure. Or something like that. Whether that has any basis in reality is not my point. When Rise posts 220 minutes for the morning rope drop which causes people to fork over the $24 (or whatever) to bypass that, only to find out it wouldn’t have been anywhere near that long, they’re going to feel ripped off. And the cynicism will only escalate. It will be all over the message boards, the twetes, the facebooks, etc. whether it was ever Disney’s cash-grabby intent or not.
I have no idea how this is working out in Disneyland Paris, but, like making Troy the team leader despite the fact that he abandons his team in EVERY film of the High School Musical trilogy, I just don’t think Disney thought this all the way through.
What you’re describing will absolutely happen to some degree–it’s unavoidable. I think it would probably be worse if Disney went the other direction and underestimated wait times, which would prompt reactions that paid line-skippers “caused” wait times to be off in the wrong direction.
Ultimately, my expectation is that the audience for a la carte purchases will be disproportionately non-planners who simply want to buy their way out of problems and excessive wait times. There won’t be a ton of overlap with that demo and those who are deep into Disney planning sites, forums, social media, etc. So they’ll never know about any actual v. posted wait time discrepancy.
Hi Tom,
You mentioned the unpredictability of crowds late October early November.
I have no idea if this is any help but we’ll be there the last week in October and
so far I’ve been able to reserve everything we wanted, Sci Fi Dine In lunch,
Space 220 lunch, Oga’s Cantina, Spice Road Table fireworks event, Boo Bash.
On our last trip in May we weren’t able to pre-book the dining reservations we wanted and sure enough there were some big crowds when we got there.
This trip I was easily able to book everything we were going for and they would normally be some difficult to get reservations so maybe it might have some bearing on low crowds that week?
I could be wrong but you’re the the expert here, just wanted to see what you think.
By the way, love your blog, you two are the cutest couple and thanks for all the wonderful WDW information I find here every day.
While instructive, ADRs aren’t the best barometer of crowds. (Especially May v. October, as physical distancing at restaurants was still a thing back then, and many locations had yet to reopen.)
Still, an interesting observation and one that I’m glad you shared! 🙂
I seem to have a different tolerance for lines than the average poster on this blog but an 80 min wait for Rise of the Resistance is something I would do in a heartbeat. Definitely worth it in my opinion. Is it nicer to get a boarding pass at park open and then do what you want until you are summoned by the Disney app gods? Definitely, but being able to choose to wait in an 80-120 minute line sure beats being shut out of the one ride you really want to do.
To be perfectly clear: I think an 80 minute wait for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is fantastic.
I personally would not wait that long for it as a local given how many times we’ve experienced it, but if our parents were in town? Absolutely. (Locals having a knowledge advantage and no opportunity cost was actually one of the main downsides of the virtual queue continuing.)
With that said, it’s a weekday during one of the least busy months in the last decade. Let’s see where that wait time goes next month, even pre-Lightning Lanes. I’d be shocked if the average isn’t triple digits.
I had really hoped the expected crowds for the 50th would coincide with Genie+ but it appears anyone going in early October will just have to slog it out. We’re going 3-6 October. I guess my only hope is that the weekdays won’t be as bad.
Walt Disney World (wisely) never gave a launch date or specific timeframe for Genie, but it has been delayed. I haven’t heard anything since last week (an eternity when it comes to this project), but my understanding is that they are/were still trying to launch sometime in October. We shall see.
I’ve been watching Hollywood Studios numbers the last couple of days to see what effect the switch to the standby queue on Rise would have on other rides. Sadly, it’s appeared to have zero impact on the wait times for other popular rides like Slinky Dog Dash, Smuggler’s Run, and Runaway Railway. Maybe crowds at Hollywood Studios are just coincidentally picking up this week, it’s hard to say for sure. But at the moment, it appears that the options are to either plan on spending an extra few hours at Hollywood Studios to ride Rise, or shell out the extra cash for Lightning Lane access, which is probably exactly what Chapek wanted.
At this point, I think it’s still too early to say what the impact will be. Longer-term, RotR should pull people away from Toy Story Land at rope drop–that’s pretty much a given. However, don’t expect that to show up in September v. October wait time data, as the coming month is busier than the current one.
Hi Tom just wanted to thank you for all your posts for sometimes I think appreciation needs to be noted especially now in this world we live. You and your wife do a fabulous job and have helped me several times through the years with our Disney World trips including one coming in early December 2021. If we ever bump into you guys the drinks are on us. Many thanks!
Thanks for the kind words–hope you have a great trip!
With the suits at WDW fleecing the guests as they are with the $200 pp cost of seeing Mickey after hours, I hope many boycott WDW.
Any advice for “rope dropping” Space 220, or just getting into the Lounge, since you’ve been there all week? We’re driving in tomorrow just to do that, but we have to stop by Guest Relations first to activate our APs. So we won’t be able to just jump into the security line and will be at the mercy of Guest Relations opening and processing us quickly. We’re not picky about the Lounge v. pre fixe. I know AP availability is sold out now, but do you think we’ll be ok to get something if we’re walking into the park at, say, 11:30? Does the walk-up Lounge line get full and cut off fairly early, or have people been able to jump in line mid-afternoon and still get in (after waiting a few hours)? Thanks!!
It’s really hard to offer an accurate prediction for tomorrow, since it’s the first weekend and thus first chance many locals will have at doing Space 220. My guess is that same-day reservations will be gone pretty quickly and anyone wanting those will need to rope drop that line.
As for the lounge, it appeared busier yesterday than on Wednesday. We did dinner last night and heard people in line say they’d been waiting (which means physically standing in that line) for 4 hours. No clue whether that’s true, but CMs were also quoting a wait of “1 to 4 hours,” so probably.
Hope you’re successful! Report back if you have the chance! 🙂