January 2021 at Disney World: Crowd Calendar & Info
Our strategy guide to January 2021 at Walt Disney World features free crowd calendar planning tips, days to visit & avoid, weather, seasonal events, and when Christmas decorations are taken down. We cover everything at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Updated January 1, 2021.)
Before we get started, keep in mind that a lot has been cancelled, cutback, or changed at Walt Disney World following the reopening of the parks, and that remains true even as of 2021. Even though we’re starting to see things return–like Park Hopping, which is back as of January 1–the experience is still very different from the same month last year.
In this guide, we’ll cover a normal January at Walt Disney World and then offer commentary about how this year will differ. That should make this a useful resource for those planning trips for both January 2021 and January 2022, and will also give the former group an idea of what they’re missing and how it’ll impact their Walt Disney World vacation for better or worse…
Typically, January is the month of the holiday hangover at Walt Disney World. Some Christmas entertainment continues for a few days in early January, and there are still decorations up for the first half of the month. January’s big draws are the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts and the Walt Disney World Marathon (the runDisney event is not happening in 2021 but will likely return for 2022).
Aside from those events, January tends to be relatively quiet. Most guests who want to visit during the winter do so in November or December of the previous year. Those who begin planning a visit for the new year typically don’t visit until Easter or Spring Break. As such, there are a lot of upsides to visiting in January, from light crowds to favorable weather. Of course, there are some downsides, too…
I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of Walt Disney World before mid-January. To me, it really does feel like a hangover. There are straggler decorations that feel out of place or forgotten, and the weather can be frigid. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, as I know some people enjoy being able to see Christmas decorations without dealing with the crowds. Personally, once Christmas is over, I’m done with the holiday.
Here’s what else you can expect from January at Walt Disney World…
January Weather at Disney World
If you go by historical averages, January is the coldest month of the year at Walt Disney World. In my experience, November through February can have weather ranging from cold to downright balmy, but January tends to have more of the former category than the other winter months. Expect weather on average from the upper-40s to low-70s.
Packing for January weather requires preparing for a wide range of weather conditions, and you’ll want to make sure you attention to the extended forecast before your trip so you don’t get surprised with a streak of 30-degree weather or 90-degree weather and not have the proper attire for either extreme.
Read our Winter Packing Tips for Disney post for more insight on what to take on your January Walt Disney World vacation.
January Special Events at Disney World
Between the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts and the Walt Disney World Marathon, January isn’t quite the “sleepy” month it once was. We absolutely love the annual Festival of the Arts, which will begin on January 8, 2021 and run until February 22, 2021. Read our Guide to the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts for more info and tips about this special event.
As noted above, the 2021 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend & Princess Half Marathon Are Cancelled. Walt Disney World will convert these races to virtual events, similar to the previous runDisney race weekends last year. This is ultimately mostly good news for anyone visiting in early January who had not registered for the event. More on that in the crowd calendar section below. If you’re contemplating doing the 2022 Walt Disney World Marathon, see our Idiot’s Guide to runDisney.
Normally, there’s a “holiday hangover” for a couple of weeks at Walt Disney World. During that time, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and (to a lesser degree) Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom parks still decorated for Christmas. There’s no other Christmas entertainment (there’s more info about all of this in our Ultimate Walt Disney World Christmas Guide), and not really anything else.
However, this is largely due to the Walt Disney World Marathon. Many runners postpone their November or December trips in order to run the event in early January, and enjoy seeing the illuminated Christmas decorations on the course in the early morning hours. Consequently, most decorations left up until that weekend and taken down shortly thereafter. It’s unknown when the holiday decor will be uninstalled in January 2021, but our guess is “earlier than normal.” (Don’t be surprised if it starts coming down the first week after New Year’s Day.)
January Refurbishments & New Attractions
In terms of other attractions that will be closed during January 2021, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. Just a heads up: that might be a bit deceptive in terms of actual construction work. There’s going to be a lot of ongoing construction throughout Walt Disney World, and will be for the next several years.
The big project that will have the most noticeable impact on the guest experience is the massive reimagining at the front of EPCOT, which will eliminate Future World and replace it with 3 new neighborhoods. This project has already kicked into high gear, and the front half of EPCOT is a maze of construction walls.
This unprecedented overhaul has led us to ask (and answer) the question Should You Visit EPCOT in 2021? While we’d encourage you to read that, the answer is yes–we recommend spending a lot of time at EPCOT for Festival of the Arts. Just be mindful that it will have significant construction.
Other work around Walt Disney World won’t be visually noticeable. This includes ongoing construction on the TRON Lightcycle Run roller coaster at Magic Kingdom. Some minor projects will be visible in the other parks, but EPCOT is the major one at this point.
In terms of new attractions that have already opened, there’s Star Wars Rise of the Resistance at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This opened just over a year ago, but is still so incredibly popular that the ride has its own special policies and hoops to jump through in order to experience it.
If you only read one other post while planning, we highly recommend that it be our Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. That covers almost every conceivable question you could have about ‘best practices’ for experiencing the attraction, and basic info about it.
January 2021 Disney World Crowd Calendar
When it comes to January 2021 crowd calendars for Walt Disney World, it’s a real roller coaster of a month. In true “holiday hangover” fashion, the beginning of the month tends to be pretty busy. As we’ll discuss in this section, crowd calendars also spike at other points in January, which is otherwise a fairly quiet month.
If your Walt Disney World vacation starts before the holiday season ends, we have a post discussing Visiting Walt Disney World at New Year’s that you might want to check out. Every day of your trip before New Year’s Day, you can expect some of the worst crowds of the year at Walt Disney World. There’s a drop New Year’s Day, but not as precipitous of a drop as there used to be.
There’s not a color-coded crowd calendar here because we are becoming increasingly averse to those. 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.
We think such an approach would do readers a disservice, and we’d strongly caution you against over-reliance on any Walt Disney World crowd calendars. While they can be useful tools, crowd calendars are but one small piece of a much larger puzzle. We no longer choose our own travel dates based upon WDW crowd calendars and we’d encourage you to do the same.
Walt Disney World crowd calendars are less and less reliable due to how Walt Disney World manipulates attendance patterns, staffing, closures, and ride capacity. Few months demonstrate this as well as January, which is unquestionably Florida’s off-season. Since Disney doesn’t release official attendance numbers, crowd calendars use things like school schedules, airport traffic statistics, hotel pricing & occupancy, and other indicators as proxies for crowds.
Even the low-crowds portions of the last two Januarys were significantly busier than any Walt Disney World crowd calendars predicted. As we discussed in our “Is There an Off-Season at Walt Disney World” post, we’ve encountered some of the worst crowds of the year from mid-January through early February. We are of the belief that this was not an isolated occurrence, but a calculated move by Disney.
This is even more true for January 2021, as the reopening and capacity restrictions have thrown another monkey wrench into things. We can still forecast general trends, but that’s about it. With all of that in mind, here are our crowd calendar predictions for the best and worst weeks at Walt Disney World in January 2021…
With all of that said, if we had to choose one week to visit Walt Disney World in January 2021, it would be the week beginning January 24, 2021. Not only is this the lowest week for crowds, but it’s a few weeks after Festival of the Arts starts; EPCOT is always busy the first weekend of any festival.
Other good times to visit will be January 6-15, 2021 (avoid Saturdays and Sundays if at all possible). Basically, you want to avoid Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Weekend and the week that follows it, but the rest of the month is pretty solid.
If at all possible, we recommend avoiding January 3-5 because many local schools are still on holiday break for those dates. Blockouts for most Floridian Annual Passholders are lifted on January 3, 2021 and that will result in a surge of guests those dates. Osceola County schools go back into session on January 4, 2021 and Orange County goes back into session on January 5, 2021. However, with the rise of virtual learning this year, it’s entirely possible that entire week is slightly elevated.
Crowd levels for January 2021 will actually be quite different from a normal year. Typically, the Walt Disney World Marathon would spike crowds early in the month. Then the Dance Team National Championship, a colossal youth cheer event held at Walt Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports, would result in an influx of event attendees. However, both are cancelled for January 2021.
Another complicating factor would be that January is also the start of ‘summer’ vacation season for South America, namely Brazil. In a normal year, you’d encounter large South American tour groups in Walt Disney World. These tour groups typically don’t have a significant impact on crowd calendars, but could impact on the “feels like” crowds if you encounter them frequently. However, current travel restrictions make it unlikely that international visitors will have any impact on crowd levels for at least the first half of 2021.
January Pricing & Discounts
The silver lining to a January vacation is prices. Disney already released some 2021 room-only discounts that offered up to 40% off Walt Disney World resort discounts for Annual Passholders and Florida residents, with up to 35% off for the general public. Those are good discounts–about 5% better than what’s historically offered for the same dates.
There’s also a new 35% off PIN Code was released that extended that same discount even deeper into Summer 2021. However, the best deal of all is the Half-Off Hotels at Walt Disney World for Visa Cardholders, which has great rates for January 2021.
While some of these deals have been offered for the last couple of months, the difference now is that rack rates are at their offseason levels for most nights in January, making these discounts in late January cheaper than the same offers in November or December.
We prefer the room-only discounts to the Free Disney Dining Plan promotion, which is not being offered for January 2021, anyway. Our Walt Disney World Discount Comparisons post covers why the room-only discount gets our vote over “free” dining. In this case, free isn’t always better, even though it is for many guests. If you’re booking a room-only discount, you can decide for yourself which hotel might be best by reading our Walt Disney World Hotel Reviews.
Overall, January is a mixed bag at Walt Disney World. Once January 1 hits, I’m not interested in anything Christmas, and by the second week in January, the background music and decorations just feel awkward. If you go to Walt Disney World to escape the cold weather, this month might also not be for you. Florida in January can be surprisingly brutal, especially if you’re dressed for a tropical getaway. Plus, park hours are often short and crowd calendars spike at various points through mid-January.
The upside to a January visit is lower attendance later in the month, which also means lower prices. The cooler weather can also be very beneficial, and we’ll take January weather over summer heat and humidity any day. You might actually prefer the shorter hours, since it means getting everything done in a shorter timeframe. Festival of the Arts is also the best seasonal event of the year at EPCOT. In other words, there’s a lot to love about January–especially later in the month leading into early to mid-February, when the crowds are just as low, the weather is starting to improve, and there are no remnants of Christmas left lingering about.
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 like Walt Disney World in January? Are you a fan of the holiday offerings after Christmas at Walt Disney World? Looking forward to Epcot’s Festival of the Arts or doing Star Wars Rise of the Resistance? Do you agree or disagree with our advice or crowd calendar recommendations for January 2021? 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!
Well, with low DVC rental rates and free (points) flights on Southwest, we are going for MLKJ day week, 16-23. Hoping for great weather, low crowds, and the Moonshine Express to be running at MK! Still irritated about the railroad not being back up and running due to someone’s incompetent planning.
Not looking forward to what I now call Project Suck at Epcot with all the crazy demo and utter destruction of the remaining Future World, but anxious to see the new (old) entry fountain. Would be nice if Remy is running soft opening so we could compare that to the one in France, but not expecting it.
Also hoping hat RRC is running again by then! And of course, getting onto ROTR at least twice. Wish us luck!
We’re going Jan 23 for a week, so I’m happy with your Best Week predictions! I specifically chose this week because it seems Disney expects low crowds, too – when I booked it back in August it was the least expensive week of the year. We’re coming from PA and actually looking forward to wearing jeans and maybe even a hoodie while there, because we can’t take the Florida heat we’ve encountered in other months. This is our first time at Festival of the Arts, too!
Is there any news for those of us visiting in January? There doesn’t seems to be much information available yet.
What kind of news are you looking for? Park Hopping is back, Festival of the Arts starts January 8th.
Shows, fireworks and parades are still mostly on hiatus.
We just returned from a 6-day WDW last week. We were there from January 22-27. I couldn’t believe the crowds at each of the four parks! Waits for rides in which we didn’t have FPs for were anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours for Flight of Passage! It wasn’t just HS, which was so insane we took the skyliner to Caribbean Beach to eat lunch! Every park was like this! It was discouraging. The tickets are so expensive and we maybe got our 3 FPs in each day! The exception to this was that we had a great experience at MK for the After Hous event, but we paid an $200 for that event We have to consider how often we will be going in the future. Is it really worth it to ride 3 rides a day? And we are DVC members! The food was incredibly expensive. We ate at Restaurantosaurus at AK and paid $36 for cold french fries and ho-hum hamburgers and brownies and it was only two of us! .
Will be heading down January 9th to 16th, will let you know what we experience for crowds.
The first day of our upcoming trip is Jan 26, just what you recommend here! But I’m getting a little bummed by all these comments…
Our 8 day trip begins the 26th of January. Very concerned about our decision to go then after reading this. . We haven’t been able to receive ANY discounts or deals and it’s quite expensive. Going to celebrate our granddaughters 16th birthday.as it’s what she requested. Staying at the beach club.if the air is chilly we won’t swim in that awesome pool… Pray that the weather and crowds are on our side. It’s not going to be easy for us to go again…
We go every January as DVC members. We typically go for a week the week before MLK day as our teens go back to college the Tuesday after lol This is personally my favorite time of year and I’ve gone at every time. This will be my 45th trip and I’m 42 years old lol. We also go at the end of March or beginning of April every year with the high school marching band and January is still my favorite. If I want hot weather I go to the islands (those are our summer trips lol) I love wearing jeans and a t-shirt sometimes shorts and visiting my favorite place with little to no crowds, little to no waiting and literally no sweating! do not have any worries! You’re going at a great time and will love it! It’s also a time of year where rain is very minimal. Enjoy your trip!!
Am here now crowds pretty heavy still at the mo
Hoping they’ll die down between the 13th and 17th
Planning WDW for 2021 is around the corner. Looking forward to your update, Tom!
Jan 6-10 Marathon
Jan 15 Fest of Arts likely begins
Jan 18 MLK Monday (crowds start Fri the 15th)
We’re trying to plan 9-10 day split stay in Jan 2021 at CBR/BWV, before Wed Jan 20. We’d like to avoid MLK weekend but then we’ll miss the awesome Art Fest 🙁
Guess that leaves us Jan 8-17, 2021. If Epcot decided to start Fest of Arts during the Marathon, then we’d go with our preferred Jan 4-13.
In my opinion, the qualitative gain of waiting until Festival of the Arts starts more than offsets the (potential) quantitative loss from a crowds perspective. It’s such a good event.
Also keep in mind that there’s no sure thing with crowds in January and February. Over the last two years, these months have become arguably the most inconsistent of the year.
Thanks Tom.
We’ve only tried the 1st Art Fest and were totally impressed. Didn’t want to miss it this trip so I appreciate your confirmation that dealing with MLK is worth the compromise. And it makes sense not to put much weight in crowd strategy this time of year anyway. Prediction is futile, lol. We’ll hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Happy New Year to you and Sarah!
Tom,
Any updated info on construction over at Ft. Wilderness?We are going Jan 26th- Feb 4th. Other than the second week of December this is our favorite time of the year to go! We come from Boston so 50 is balmy in February
Many South and Central American countries have their Summer Vacations around this time of year. This is their summer tourist season, so Orlando has an uprise in South American tour groups and families.
We went the last week of January and it was extremely busy. 80 percent of the people were from South America, all I can say is very rude people constantly trying to cut in front of you while waiting for rides. When confronting them they just responded with no speak English. Didn’t seem like anyone had any manners either, not sure if excuse me or I apologize for bumping into you exists.
I am sorry that most of us south americans don’t have manners. I can guarantee a good percentage do have it and feel very embarrassed for the others. I hope to have a good trip in January 2020. Best wishes for you and your family from Brazil.
It is Jan 2nd now and I see some free food dates released for those interested. 🙂
I’m guessing the high crowds in January could be because DVC points are the lowest of the year. We are planning a Disney trip for the end of January, and honestly this article was depressing to read. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to travel to the Disney parks (FL & CA) multiple times a year, so we go whenever we get the opportunity. I’m excited for our upcoming trip regardless of the special events. Also, ANY break from winter is appreciated!
I have a feeling I know why the crowds were bad last winter. The northeast had a brutal winter. BRUTAL. I live in New England and nearly everyone I know took off for a week in Orlando. It was that or sit home and cry. Fingers crossed for an easier season this year.
Tom we are going New Year’s Day to the 6th of January 2019. Last trip we went at MLK and all the parks were ok except MK. Does the crowd lessen after NYE. We are staying at Port Orleans Riverside. Should I do MK towards end of week for less crazy.
My husband and I are arriving January 5-8. Praying for moderate crowds!!
Jeff
I agree with Jim. We are in the magic kingdom as I write this and the crowds are massive. Over an hour wait for almost every ride in this park. We arrived here on the 23rd with the idea the parks would be dead. Travelers beware. They are not.
We are here now and I am surprissed by the crowds. Last time we came was October and the crowds were ALOT less, so much for January being the “off season”.
We were there this past MLK weekend. I expected crowds would be higher than normal, but they seemed crazy to me! I have been different time of the year and have never seen it so bad. There was a huge line for the Tomorrowland People Mover! I’ve NEVER had to wait for that ride EVER!
January feels extra busy even when the crowds are less then average because WDW by design puts operations into low gear. Resorts and tickets are cheapest to help create interest during this off-season, but as a result WDW also reduces park hours and staff to match the lower spending. Most guests don’t even realize when rides are operating at half capacity.
WDW knows guests pay less during Jan, in turn WDW reduces service.
Traditional WDW hacks no longer work in the data age of MB, whether it’s travel dates, night show views, ticket strategy, etc. Whatever there was for guests to exploit, WDW has now figured them out and is now using it to their own advantage either through upselling or reducing op/ex.
That sounds harsh on the surface, but it’s not negative for all guests. Many people didn’t know how to play the WDW system. They’d spend big money but get left in the dust by other savvy guests. With all the new data, WDW is able to even the playing field towards guests getting what they’ve paid for.
We just returned from WDW yesterday, we planned it for this time of the year because the crowds were supposed to be light. This turned out to be one of the busiest times that we have been there. We went to Disney World 3 times in the last 11 months and the crowds have gotten progressively worse. Each time is when you recommended as light crowds ( late feb., last week of September, and week after MLK). Lines and crowd have grown nearly unbearable levels. The best thing about this last trip is that the weather was perfect. As on person mentioned I think that their must have been a huge discount I South America because about all of Brazil was there.
My family was also there the last week of January. Agree with previous posters. All we could talk about was was how crowded it was. Hear people talking about it everywhere asking why it was sooo crowded, I even heard Disney employees saying it was unusually crowded. Still had a good time but when you go when it is supposed to be the least crowded time of the year and the crowds are that heavy it is frustrating. It definitely was not peak crowded but it was heavy. 1 hr or more most rides, 2.5 or more for biggest rides. Previous posters correct in that there seemed to be very many large groups of South Americans there but I believe there were a lot of Florida residents there also. Most people I talked to were frustrated but just said everyone must have had the same idea as us to come when it was supposed to not be crowded.
Was at Wdw from Jan 8th to the 12th. Crowds were comparable to trips taken in mid June. 3 hour wait for Pandora an hour and a half after park opened. Would never go back nor would recommend this week. Lines for everything were horrible. The number of large groups from Brazil were incredible. I think half of France was there also.
Does anyone know what part of January that the dance groups and cheerleading groups come to stay at WDW and how long they are there?
Dance and Cheer is usually the end of Jan, often the last week and sometimes even into the first couple days of Feb.