January 2024 at Disney World: Crowd Calendar & Info
Our guide to January 2024 at Walt Disney World offers a free crowd calendar, days to visit & avoid, weather, seasonal events, planning tips, and when Christmas decorations are taken down. We cover everything at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.
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.
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 run from January 12 until February 19, 2024 at Walt Disney World. Read our Guide to the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts for more info and tips about this special event.
The 2024 Walt Disney World Marathon will occur January 3-7, 2024 and will be held live and in person. If you’re doing the WDW Marathon or any other race and need last-minute “training” “advice” (air quotes around both), 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 and not really anything else of substance, but you can expect to hear music and see decorations until around January 8, 2024. After that, decorations will gradually go down and the music will stop playing–but it’s not like flipping a switch overnight. It’ll take a week-plus for all signs of the season to vanish. (There’s more info about all of this in our Ultimate Walt Disney World Christmas Guide.)
This is at least partially 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.
January Refurbishments & New Attractions
In terms of other attractions that will be closed during January 2024, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. High profile attractions that will go down during the winter off-season include Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Kali River Rapids, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Frozen Ever After, and more.
The good news is that Walt Disney World is no longer a veritable construction zone, as most major projects have now wrapped up and the next development cycle has yet to begin. This is most noticeable in the front of EPCOT, which is no longer a complete sea of construction walls with a giant dirt pit in the middle.
The one exception is CommuniCore Hall & Plaza, which remains behind walls. Walt Disney World hasn’t given an opening date for that and it’s not mentioned in details for the 2024 EPCOT Festival of the Arts. Given that and the Odyssey being used along with visible progress on the project, our guess is that CommuniCore Hall opens for the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival, which starts February 28, 2024.
Speaking of EPCOT, Walt Disney World’s biggest addition to the park in decades is Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Be sure to check out our How to Ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind & Virtual Queue Speed Strategy to improve your chances of success for joining the free virtual queue.
Another alternative for Cosmic Rewind is buying line-skipping access via the Individual Lightning Lanes. Those posts explain the free and paid options, their pros & cons, and everything else you need to know. Suffice to say, do not just show up to EPCOT expecting to join the standby line–as there isn’t one.
Then there’s the biggest addition to Magic Kingdom: TRON Lightcycle Run. This is the newest major attraction at Walt Disney World, having officially opened last April–it’ll be over a year old by May 2024, but still very much having that new ride smell (and popularity!). This works very similarly to Cosmic Rewind; see our Virtual Queue Strategy Guide for TRON Lightcycle Run for details, tips & tricks for success, and more.
Bouncing back to EPCOT, there’s a bunch of other new stuff there. This includes World Celebration, Moana’s Journey of Water, and Luminous: Symphony of Us, all of which will only be <6 months old as of May 2024. That’s still pretty new in the grand scheme of things!
Back at Magic Kingdom, the big addition for 2024 is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but that definitely will not open this winter. At the earliest, it’ll debut during Summer 2024. For an overview of what else is on the horizon, see What’s New & Next at Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025.
January 2024 Disney World Crowd Calendar
When it comes to January 2024 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. The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is almost always the #1 worst week of the year for crowds.
There’s a drop New Year’s Day, but not as precipitous of a drop as there used to be. Last year, the first week of January ended up being tied for the second worst week of the year for crowds. It was tied with Easter week, and behind only Christmas to NYE (albeit by a fairly wide margin).
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 caution against over-reliance on any Walt Disney World crowd calendars. While they can be useful tools, crowd calendars are one piece of a larger puzzle. Choosing your travel dates solely on a crowd calendar is risky, as they’re less reliable than in the past. Walt Disney World can manipulate park reservations, staffing, closures, and capacity–the result of which is “feels like” crowds that do not reflect actual attendance or organic demand.
As a general matter, we want to warn you that winter is not the “sleepy off-season” at Walt Disney World. In Winter Is Not Off-Season at Walt Disney World, we explain how January and February crowds have grown since ~2017, and what to expect going forward.
There are a variety of times crowds spike during the first two months of the year. Everything from runDisney events to under the radar holiday weekends to school breaks push attendance and wait times even higher. With all of that in mind, here are our crowd calendar predictions for the best and worst weeks at Walt Disney World in January 2024…
The week beginning January 8, 2024 should be the lowest week for wait times, and also for crowds and congestion. That’s because it’ll be before Festival of the Arts starts, so EPCOT shouldn’t be as packed with locals for the start of that event.
During these days from January 8-12, our expectation is that crowd levels will be under 5/10 across the board. Offering more precise predictions is exceedingly difficult given inconsistencies with winter wait times the past several years.
Suffice to say, that should be a very good week to visit–one of the best in the first quarter of 2024. Crowd levels could end up being 1/10 to 3/10 for some parks and days. This just narrowly misses our list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025. (That’s only because that list is quantitative and qualitative, and we favor visiting during EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts. It’d make the cut from a purely crowds perspective!)
Another good time to visit should be the last partial week of January 2024, leading into early February 2024. That week does make the aforementioned 10 best weeks of the year list. Last year, this same week had 4/10 crowd levels–we’re forecasting slightly lower levels in 2024, as attendance has trended down slightly year over year.
There are no holidays this particular week, and it has historically been a lull in attendance and wait times as compared to most weeks earlier in January and later in February. From a subjective perspective, this is our favorite week of winter. You might encounter ever-so-slightly higher crowd levels than the second week of the month, but EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts is not to be missed and the likelihood of nicer weather is higher.
If at all possible, we recommend avoiding through January 1-7, 2024 because many local schools are still on holiday break for those dates. It’ll actually get bad after the holiday weekend, as blockouts for most Floridian Annual Passholders are lifted on January 3 and that will result in a surge of guests on that date. Osceola County and Orange County schools do not go back into session until January 8, 2024. That’s a Tuesday, meaning Sunday and Monday could be surprisingly crowded.
There’s also the 2024 Walt Disney World Marathon that will occur from January 3-7, 2024. The main event for that is on January 7, but runners typically arrive early and enjoy the parks before the races rather than extending their stay into the following week. Typically, race participants are not in the park starting the Sunday of the main event (January 7, 2024). This year, that decrease could be offset by locals taking one last visit before school goes back into session on Tuesday.
Following that, the drop will be sharp and sudden–don’t be surprised if crowd levels go from 10/10 on January 8 to 3/10 only a couple of days later. It’s not completely like flipping a switch from peak to off-season…but it’s pretty close!
Another time to avoid is January 12-14, 2024. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. Day long weekend, and usually slightly spikes crowds.
However, it typically does not disproportionately impact the following Tuesday through Friday…or even the holiday itself. The biggest impact is usually Friday through Sunday, with those taking long weekend trips starting to head home on MLK Day itself. Being so close to Christmas and New Year’s, most people don’t get or take a full week off.
Even so, this is hardly bad by holiday weekend standards. Because it’s so close to Christmas and New Year’s, very few people travel for the MLK long weekend. It’s basically just locals who have the day off–and not all of them do. In the last few years, crowds have only spiked ever-so-slightly, and still been below average. They’re just a tad worse than the adjacent winter off-season dates.
We also want to draw your attention specifically to January 29, 2024 at Magic Kingdom. On this day, the park closes at 4:30 p.m., which is 4-5 hours earlier than it’ll close on adjacent dates. As a result of that, the vast majority of guests will avoid Magic Kingdom on that day. After all–why pay the same amount for 4-5 fewer hours, no fireworks, and no nighttime in the park?!
Which is exactly why we highly recommend visiting Magic Kingdom on that day, especially if you have Park Hopper tickets or the opportunity to return on another full operating day to see the fireworks. This will be one of the 5 least busy days of the entire year at Magic Kingdom, and you absolutely will not need Genie+ on that day. This is all doubly-true if park hours are extended and the opening time is moved forward to 8 a.m. (that hasn’t happened…yet).
As a result of this day being less busy, the adjacent days will also be busier. We’d probably avoid Tuesday at Magic Kingdom if at all possible.
On balance, our expectation is that crowd levels for January 2024 as a whole will once again be more similar to a normal year. The Walt Disney World Marathon will likely 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, will result in an influx of event attendees later in January 2024.
Speaking of the latter, there are actually several events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports throughout the winter and spring months, which makes sense–the weather is conducive to it this time of year and prohibitive from roughly April through November. These can have a major impact on resort room availability, as there are tons of attendees and they take up huge blocks at the All Stars, Coronado Springs, and a few other hotels. That, in turn, reduces inventory there and pushes other people to different hotels.
Long story short, a lot of hotels can sell out completely, causing planners to freak out that the parks are going to be chaotic and crowded. And they can be…sometimes. But there are two things to keep in mind. The first is that the majority of guests in the parks at any given moment always come from off-site. The second is that the youth groups are primarily participating in sporting events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports. So to some extent, they are occupying rooms and displacing guests who would otherwise visit the parks.
To be sure, some of these youth events do have an impact on overall crowd levels in the parks. The bigger ones especially can have a material impact on the parks, especially if you visit the same park as their entire (or large portions of) their group attends. For the most part, though, it’s more localized. Meaning that if you have the misfortune of getting in line behind a huge group of cheerleaders, dancers, flag football players, etc., it can spike both the wait time for that particular attraction and feel unpleasant for various reasons (the same reason you probably wouldn’t want to be around hundreds of under-supervised pre-pubescent kids anywhere).
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.
It’s likely that international visitation numbers will rebound to some degree throughout the years to come. The extent to which that occurs really depends on whether the dollar weakens, and when that happens (thus far, it has not occurred). At present, international visitors are facing higher costs due to conversion rates–and that’s on top of all Walt Disney World’s price increases over the last three years.
January Pricing & Discounts
The silver lining to a January vacation is prices. Disney typically releases some room-only discounts for the general public, Annual Passholders, and Florida residents. While some of these deals are offered year-round, the difference in January 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 likely to be offered for January 2024, 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 TRON Lightcycle Run? Do you agree or disagree with our advice or crowd calendar recommendations for January 2024? 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!
This was very helpful, thank you. I’m planning my January trip as a Christmas gift for the kids!
We are FL residents and have a rescheduled trip due to Covid for the first week of January after NY day and I’m actually excited to go in the cooler weather! But we deal with heat and humidity all year long. Ready to brace the crowds and hope we some Christmas decorations! Love your blog and rely on it for all of our Disney info
We actual chose Jan 19-23 2022 because hotels in February were significantly higher priced! I was shocked. And many rooms weren’t available when we booked 2 months ago. Maybe everyone is catching on to February being a great month to travel. Who knows!
We always go in Jan from the 20th to the 28th it’s my bday gift lol to myself and I take my son of corse . Sometimes can be very cold though as cold as back home in mass
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! .
Maybe everyone is catching on to February being a great month to travel. Who knows!
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.