Least Busy 3 Weeks of the Year at Disney World!
It’s been a slow September at Walt Disney World. Low off-season attendance has resulted in the first three weeks of the month also being the 3 least busy weeks of this year! This wait times report covers data for the month at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom, plus predictions.
These low crowds are not a new development–neither in the last few weeks nor in recent years. Excluding the post-reopening period, the window between when schools go back into session in mid-August until October has been the slowest stretch of the year at Walt Disney World for many years running. As the first mostly-normal year in a while, September simply confirms what we long have known.
Still, it’s nice to see this actually play out, with September having the 3 least-crowded weeks of the year thus far. Plenty of other weeks and months in the last couple of years have defied expectations, in ways good and bad. September continues to be one of the few consistent and predictable months of the year, although that could be starting to change…
This year has had some added wrinkles. One has been adjusted hours, with earlier park openings but also earlier closings. Another has been a lack of nighttime spectaculars in two parks, concentrating guests around Harmonious and Disney Enchantment on the evenings it has been held. Then there’s the biggest change of all–the return of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
This is something we’ve covered at length, again and again. If you’ve missed all of our posts documenting why or how Magic Kingdom is less busy on the days of parties, start by reading No, These Dates Won’t Be Busy at Walt Disney World. That specifically addresses the start of the party season, but applies to all dates of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party through December.
Every single day of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom has been 1/10 or 2/10 on the crowd calendar. Once again, we strongly recommend doing Magic Kingdom during the day before MNSSHP, bouncing to another park by ~4 pm. We’ve also covered the upside to this approach in our new Magic Kingdom Party Day Early Entry Report and My Day at Magic Kingdom Using Genie+ on a Party Night.
But this isn’t about the impact of MNSSHP on crowd dynamics at Magic Kingdom, it’s about the bigger picture of wait time trends at Walt Disney World. Let’s take a look at September crowds thus far. As always, all graphs and stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
We’ll start with the weekly numbers for Walt Disney World as a whole.
The first two weeks of September were 1/10 on the crowd calendar, across the entirety of Walt Disney World. With identical averages, those two weeks are tied for #1 as the best of the year thus far. Going back even further, those are the best numbers we’ve seen since the beginning of October last year.
Crowds increased to 3/10 last week, which is still good enough for the #3 week of the year. Not even the winter months of January or February can hold a candle to wait times during the first three weeks of September.
However, the current week is a totally different story. Granted, we’re only one (partial) day in, but there has been a big spike back to the same crowd level and wait time average (6/10 and 40 minutes) as before Central Florida schools went back into session in August.
The daily numbers underscore the lows of early to mid September versus the moderate crowd levels thus far today.
It wouldn’t be the first time wait times randomly spiked as a one-off, or today could mark the early arrival of normal fall crowds. We’ll be paying close attention to see whether today turns out to be an anomaly or the start of a new trend.
For park by park analysis, we’ll start with Magic Kingdom.
As noted above, Magic Kingdom has regularly been having 1/10 or 2/10 days since the start of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on event days. Yesterday and Friday were two such 1/10 days, with average wait times of 18 and 19 minutes, respectively.
However, today is a totally different story so far. Today is a solid 10/10 crowd level, with an average wait time of 46 minutes. If these numbers hold, it’ll be the busiest day in Magic Kingdom since March 15, and one of the worst days of this entire year. In September, of all months!
Animal Kingdom has actually seen its crowd levels increase in the last several days. It went from having 1/10 and 2/10 days from late August through mid September to having 3/10 to 5/10 days since Friday.
Once you get past the Pandora attractions, individual ride wait times still aren’t bad. For the entire month, Avatar Flight of Passage is the only attraction that has averaged a wait time over an hour. Our Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Strategy is once again the ideal approach for this park. Early Entry or rope drop also work really well.
It’s so easy to beat the crowds at Animal Kingdom that Genie+ is an absolute waste of money unless you’re arriving after 9:30 am and leaving before 3 pm…which, apparently, most people are doing. (Don’t be like everyone else!)
Over at EPCOT, it’s a similar story. The low lows with 1/10 crowd levels appear to be over, as crowd levels have been 2/10 to 5/10 since last Friday.
We haven’t pointed this out in a while, but these reports actually measure wait times, which are not conclusive of attendance or crowdedness. They’re an imperfect measure of raw attendance or crowds–yadda yadda yadda–but the best measure that exists. Nothing else is objective, and perceptions vary too much. (Plus, aren’t wait times what ultimately matter most?)
Usually, there’s a nexus between crowds and wait times. Higher attendance usually equals higher wait times. But not always. EPCOT is notorious for higher “feels like” crowds, especially in World Showcase, during festivals, and on weekends and evenings. World Showcase is worse on weekends due to day drinking, while evenings are busier for people Park Hopping over to watch Harmonious. In short, people show up for things other than attractions, so that elevated attendance isn’t picked up by wait time data.
EPCOT during Food & Wine Festival weekend nights is a confluence of bad “feels like” crowd conditions. (Throw in an away UCF game and it’s a perfect storm!) In short, that 5/10 crowd number for this Saturday probably wouldn’t align with the perception of most guests in the park. We try to avoid EPCOT on weekends during this time of year, and that’s precisely why.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Daily crowds have had their ups and downs, but the overall trajectory is similar to Walt Disney World as a whole. The first two weeks of the month were 2/10, last week was 3/10, and this week is 6/10 so far.
As a reminder, individual park crowd levels are relative to other dates at the same park. Disney’s Hollywood Studios has the highest averages in all of Walt Disney World, due to its top-heavy ride roster (plus shows that don’t post wait times). Consequently, a 2/10 at DHS is an average wait time of 40 minutes, whereas 2/10 at Magic Kingdom is 27 minutes. That’s actually a pretty big difference over the course of the day.
Over at Universal Orlando, it’s a very similar story.
Honestly, this chart is more in line with what I expected to see from the Walt Disney World numbers. Last week and this week (meaning today) are starting to creep up, but more gradually. Of course, this doesn’t take into account Halloween Horror Nights, which is doing absolutely bonkers numbers this year.
With backward-looking wait times out of the way, let’s talk look forward to the rest of this month and October. The Disney Park Pass calendar is nothing but green for the entirety of September, minus today.
Honestly, I’m a bit surprised no other dates have gone yellow, particularly the last couple days of the month. Granted, it is September, but we’ve flagged that weekend as being the “worst” of the least busy month of the year.
As we’ve mentioned previously, October will be a different story. It’s too early to say when the crowds will return in full force, my expectation is that the first weekend ends up being busier than any dates in September. Of course, that’s a relative term given the total lack of crowds this month–even if crowd levels are 6/10, that prediction is technically true. (And that’s about what I’d expect.
That and other weekends being green while weekdays are yellow isn’t necessarily indicative of anything. Walt Disney World has been allocating more resources to weekends, meaning the parks are better staffed. That means the capacity cap is higher, and thus, the likelihood of reservations running out is lower.
Then there’s the Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day holiday weekend. As discussed in the latest update to the October Crowd Calendar, this holiday always catches people by surprise, but it is busy at Walt Disney World during that long weekend and the dates thereafter.
This holiday coincides with fall break for many school districts, making it the most popular week for vacations to Walt Disney World since July. Walt Disney World uses Park Pass reservations to redistribute crowds so we’ve been more inclined to ignore them the last several months, but there’s a reason that week has been yellow since August. It will almost certainly be busy–I’d bet on it being the worst week in October.
In the nearer term, our expectation is that wait times start rising. In our last crowd report, we questioned when attendance would bottom out, making a “just for fun” prediction that September 11-17 would be the slowest week of the off-season. That turned out to be wrong.
September 11-17 was a 3/10 on the crowd calendar (31 minute average). The week before that was actually the least busy of the month, registering 1/10 on the crowd calendar (27 minute average). In our defense, we did say it was a “just for fun” prediction since each of the first three weeks of September would see similarly low crowds, making it likely that good or bad weather any of those weeks would be the deciding factor.
It now seems likely that the lowest crowds of the fall off-season are in the rearview mirror.
While the jury is still out as to whether today is the start of a new fall trend or an anomaly, I think the most likely possibility given the data (historical and present) is: a bit of both.
Crowds typically trend up later in the month as October draws nearer. This is a week earlier than normal, but this year has seen a lot of shifts in crowd dynamics, so that alone isn’t shocking. Today’s jump is sharper than typical, but if that drops by even ~3-4 minutes tomorrow (and it almost certainly will drop by much more than that at Magic Kingdom with tomorrow being a Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party night), we’re in the realm of what’s reasonable.
Ultimately, our expectation is that below-average attendance continues throughout the last two weeks of September, but that the 1/10 and 2/10 crowd level days and weeks are over. It was a good run while it lasted! We hope you took advantage of our advice and visited between mid-August and late September, because crowds will only go up from here for the rest of the year.
The crowds will return in October and won’t let up–at least, not consistently–until after winter school breaks end in the second week of January 2023. The big questions are just how bad crowds get, how quickly, and whether there are reprieves in the next three months between all those holiday weeks. Any idiot can predict low crowds in September. (Just look at me, a true success story in that field!) It takes a lot more skill and luck to get the coming weeks within these busier months right!
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
Thoughts on sleepy September crowds at Walt Disney World? Predictions for the rest of the month? What about October through December? How bad do you expect crowds to get for the heart of Halloween and the holiday season? If you’ve visited within the last month, what did you think of wait times? Have you done Magic Kingdom during the day of a MNSSHP night? What about posted v. actual wait times? 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!
We were there Sept 4-11 and thought it was gloriously uncrowded. Used all your advice for G+ and had mostly late starts. Had great weather for our party night but the heat lightening closed outdoor rides frequently and we were treated to long afternoon deluges more than once. Probably didn’t need G+ most of the time but it sure made things nice! The hardest thing was keeping an eye out until the times dropped late enough for us to actually be in the parks! I felt like it was worth it because it meant I got to do shows and see things we would have had to skip if we were in line for the 3-4 headliners we used it effectively for.
We split HS into a Star Wars day with late start and an early start everything else day where we left at 6. No G+ on our Star Wars day but we did ILL for Rise. Then we got G+ On our second day and started on toy story land, moved to Hollywood boulevard, did shows during the afternoon rain, and ended with MMRR. Even with LL that was a 40 min wait so it must have been down at some point. We did wait 45 mins for the Falcon, and 30 mins each to meet Vader and Chewy, but that again got us out of the rain for awhile so no one was mad!
Only thing that I wasn’t prepared for was at one point at MK we had a TON of redemption experiences from trying to ride Big Thunder on a day where lightening kept bumping out our LL and just kept rebooking it. It was a non party day so it was the most crowded day we were there. We had maybe 6-7 redemption passes and then a LL for space at 5:15-6:15. Tried to tap into space at 6:07 and it was blue… the CMs said it was because our redemption passes were not good for space… we almost left before I remembered to pull it up on the app and saw it we did, indeed, have a specific LL for space… CMs made it work eventually but it seems to me that at some point all the redemption passes got in the way of being able to use my LL? I hadn’t heard of that happening but was glad I happened to think to check before we just gave up on our ride.
We were there Labor Day weekend. Great low crowds. Genie plus is much better with the time to rebook at top. Followed your party day advice. Got most everything done at magic kingdom including table service lunch by 3 and headed back to swim. Thanks!
I have a group of 15 coming October 10-17. I would not have chosen that week myself but it was the only week the rest of the group could travel so we’re stuck with it. Hoping for the best and expecting the worst. It’s a first visit for half of our group so I hope the crowds are at least manageable so we can try and fit in most everything we wanna do
My family was also visited WDW 9/10-9/17. It seemed busier than a 3/10. I’m not sure if there was a glitch for genie + but we were able to book our next lightening lane either when we tapped in OR after the end of the window ie if the return time was 1-2, at 2, I could book another lightening lane despite being before two hours or tapping in! Epcot seemed to run out of lightening lanes early for frozen and remy everyday (tried to park hop to Epcot at night after spending party days at mk). Hollywood studios seemed busy. Wait times over 90 min posted for rise, rock n rollercoaster and TOT and felt similar to our end of Jan trip this year. Your advice has helped me plan my last three WDW trips w great success! Thank you!
Your advice prompted us to book a last minute trip last week…on the day of NSSHP, we enjoyed wonderfully low crowds – had the entire Astro Orbiter to ourselves and an entire boat to ourselves on Pirates! We hated to leave but needed to hop to Epcot to try Guardians – got a pretty quick virtual queue return and a quicker ILL return…and a capsule to ourselves on Mission Space. Fun day!
We’re here now, 17-24. Yesterday at MK was nice, got a lot done b/c it was a party day. Today we hit HS around 8:30 and it was a nightmare just getting inside the park. We got on MMRR after about a 40 min wait, did Lightening McQueen but refused to wait for RR or ToT. Headed to Toy Story Land and bailed on that too. We ended up leaving the park and headed back to fort wilderness to eat lunch and regroup. The kids were upset, it was just not fun to see wait times well over an hour.
We headed to AK and walked in right at 2, walked on the safari and Everest twice, had a very short wait on the rapids, and got in one more thing before dinner, so that saved the day.
I booked HS for Monday since it was a non party day, thinking MK would be busier. Apparently it was, but HS felt horrendous. AK was the least crowded I have ever seen it, so I’m not really sure what to think at this point. I have another reservation for HS Tuesday morning, but I’m thinking of canceling and booking another park. In the least we’ll prob hop to MK after 2 to redo some of our favorites.
We’re passholders now, so I don’t feel the pressure to do all the things, we’ll be back in November. But I feel sorry for anyone who had to deal with those wait times and didn’t really have the luxury of walking out like we did. This is our first experience with the park reservations, and honestly I hate it. If you choose poorly, you’re either stuck in that park until you can hop at 2, or you have to just abandon half your day.
Doing Magic Kingdom on a MNSSHP day and hopping to DHS for the evening appears to be the best strategy right now. And by right now, I mean from mid-August through mid-September. It remains to be seen whether today marked a shift in that dynamic.
We’ve been here since 13th and flying out on 24th and concur that the parks are horrendously busy. Not sure where the stats cone from for this website but I’m here, now, and all the parks are absolutely rammed.
Unfortunately, the only day we can go to WDW is September 26. We are taking my nephew for his first time ever after his first Disney cruise. My daughter insists he has to go to Magic Kingdom as his first park ever. Of course that day is at capacity. I hope it’s not so miserable that he absolutely hates it.
Even if the park is as busy as today was, Genie+ works great at Magic Kingdom. Just prepare for it to be busier, plan on buying Genie+ and not worrying too much about crowds.
We arrive this week and are also attending MK on the 26th. I’ll remain hopeful that many will leave or decide not to come if the weather forecast is accurate. We are fully prepared for rain the whole 7 days we visit WDW and will enjoy the decrease in crowds if so. Good luck!
Would this crowd dynamic work also with Disneyland?
Not really.
Disneyland had a few slower days in late August and early September as school went back into session, but that’s over. I think part of the “problem” is that Disneyland has a great slate of included-with-admission Halloween offerings, and that draws out the locals.
Beyond that, trying to predict crowds at Disneyland has become a fool’s errand. There are times to AVOID due to high crowds (the usual suspects around holidays), but it’s increasingly difficult to forecast which dates will actually have low crowds. Late January and early February is still good (for now?) but that’s about it.
I’ve been here for a week now, arrived 13th Sept, and after coming nearly every year for 30 years I can easily say I have never seen the parks so busy, especially in Sept. I am currently sitting on the ground waiting for the EPCOT fireworks to start and can hardly move. To say the parks are slow or empty is just plain wrong. Its absolutely terrible here.
We were at Disney last week, we had genie + and thanks to all the tips, we had absolutely no issues booking them and bypassing lines. Overall though it didn’t seem crowded at all, except for DHS that showed horrible wait times. (Didn’t help Rise was close all the way from park opening to at least 2pm when we park hopped to MK and Runaway kept closing that same morning)
While the Disney magic was definitely still here, it was quite different and way more complicated (usually for no reasons, which is the frustrating part) that it used to be in 2018 when we did our last trip.
We did Universal first part of the trip, and it was just so much more relax and easy. I know it’s not comparing apples to apples, but it definitely made us consider that the next trip will be more universal focused (especially when that next trip will probably be when their 3rd gate opens, since we don’t have the budget to be here as often as we would like). Portofino Bay was absolutely amazing, their boat system super efficient, the express pass much easier to use.
Felt more like vacation than Disney.
I knew it would be this way before even arriving in Orlando, but still.
Again I’m not one of these people claiming that Disney is done for them (not judging, everyone is allowed to have their opinion) and that it lost all the magic, but lots of things are making the experience way too frustrating, they add up and leave a weird taste in your mouth.
From Genie + hiccups (that I was able to overcome due to being prepared), lack of staff (one cashier at a hot dog/hamburger place in front of tower of terror where I waited 45min to get 2 burgers), park reservation system not allowing you to change plans on the fly, not being able to park hop before 2pm, the pain of finding free water (hello coke refill machines at universal, so nice), etc..
It was a great trip overall, with low crowds as expected, and with Disney manipulating wait times to crazy extends as expected, but if they don’t fix things, we might focus more on Universal moving forward (but will never totally skip Disney)
We were at WDW the week of Aug. 29- Sept. 2 and experienced extremely low crowds. By far, our shortest wait times were at MK. We followed your advice and went on Tuesday and Friday- both early open/early close days. Staying off property, we arrived early for our 8am rope drop times and were among only 20-30 people walking through at that time on both days. The longest wait time we experienced either day was 20 minutes, for a posted 35 minute wait at SDMT. We walked on to both Peter Pan’s Flight and Space Mountain (despite 25 and 20 min. posted wait times), and witnessed Disney cast members allowing guests to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad a second time because there was nobody waiting to get on the ride (this happened at 8:45 am). We did not experience the significant disparity between posted and actual wait times at EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, or Hollywood Studios. We saw fairly short wait times there, which were usually 5 minutes less than the posted time.
This was our first trip to Disney in 8 years, but we are acutely aware how unusual our experience was at MK. We are very happy that we followed your advice to go there on MNSSHP days- we experienced more in our first three hours than we did from open to close on our last trip!
Those who visited last week and felt crowds/wait times were higher than 3/10, what’s your most recent frame of reference?
Crowd levels in 2022 are up considerably as compared to 2020 or 2021 (but not 2019). This calendar year, the only timeframes that come close to September are early May and late January, but September wait times for the first two weeks were lower than both by ~10 minutes on average, which is pretty significant. Last week the gap was only a few minutes, but still better.
Our frame of reference is every trip in early May we’ve taken for over 20 years. Both my wife and I commented throughout last week that it never felt this crowded when we go in May. I was totally shocked (and disappointed). And as I said, the long wait times started right at rope drop each day and were sustained throughout the day.
Sorry, it wasn’t clear whether every May for the last 20 years includes May 2022 or if that trip moved to September. There was a significant difference between wait times this and last May.
Sorry…we decided to take a cruise in May this year and moved the WDW trip to Sept. But in addition to the crowd data you provide, I’ve seen data from several other sources each year that says early Sept is the best time for low crowds, which is why we chose the week we did. My point, however, is that in the 20+ years that we’ve been going in early May, including 2019 pre-Covid, we don’t recall ever seeing crowds like we did last week.
We were last at Disney in 2019. We also were there in 2018 and 2017. It felt much busier and crowded than those years.
On my reservations calendar, September 26 has been full at MK for about a week now (I know because that’s our current MK day though I’m strongly considering switching to a party day). It had been the only yellow September day before today. I wonder why it is still green on yours?
I’m having a hard time reconciling missing the fireworks; we haven’t seen Enchantment yet.
I just looked again and 9/26 is still green for me. Are you not seeing that?
No, how weird! It’s yellow on mine, and I checked my Facebook messages, I think it went yellow 5 days ago because that’s when I messaged my friend to say, “Ugh, our MK day is the only yellow day all month!”
Try refreshing again, maybe? As of 6:11 pm EST, it’s green–I even did a hard refresh (not that that matters) and it’s still green!
I checked on the computer, too, when I wasn’t even logged in, just to make sure it’s not something weird with my phone. It has been that way every day for 5 days, because I kept looking to see if more days would go yellow. I can’t post a screenshot here or on your Facebook posts, but I promise it’s yellow for me!
Enchantment is amazing. I’d genuinely suggest park hopping over to MK for it, plus a couple of the lower wait time rides and dinner could make for a nice way to do it.
We missed out on Harmonius and wish we’d been a bit more savvy.
Rich, we don’t have hoppers and the other days we are there are all party days anyway, so that wouldn’t be an option 🙁
Just FYI, I also see yellow for 9/26 for Resort Guests and Theme Park Tickets options.
Okay…now I also see yellow for that date (as of 6:25 pm), with Magic Kingdom gone. Super odd.
Very odd! I liked it better your way haha
We were at Disney World Sept 11-17 and it sure didn’t feel like 3/10 crowds. It felt super busy and crowded and coupled with the constant afternoon deluges, we didn’t have a great time at all. 🙁
Having just spent Sept 10-17, 2022 at WDW and experiencing average wait times of well over 60 minutes for many rides at every park, I must say that boots-on-the-ground data doesn’t seem to match the data you are sharing. Every day, at every park, shortly after rope drop, we immediately saw 60+ minute standby wait times for the major rides, and easily 45-60+ minutes for several others as the morning continued. And these wait times remained high throughout the day and into the evenings. We usually go in the first or second week in May (been doing that for over 20 years) but finally decided to go in Sept this year for what we expected to be lower crowds (certainly was not 3/10 crowds), but I will take the early May crowds over this any year. We could not believe how many school-aged children were there given (at least we thought) that most, if not all, schools had already started. We ended up buying Genie+ for all but 2 of our days (wasn’t planning to need to buy it at all) and feel pretty confident that we were only able to ride everything each day because of that…and we were at the parks all day long, i.e., we did not see significant drops in wait times in the evenings. Another reason this was surprising is because it rained (and rained hard for several hours) every day, so we thought many people would decide to leave the parks and the wait times would go down, but that didn’t seem to play out, either. Methinks we’ll stick with May for our future annual trips.
We have just returned from a 3 week trip. We also usually go around Easter time but went later accepting the weather issues would be offset by lower crowds. Not really true except on the Party day we went to MK.
It seems that new norms are being created by several factors I’ll not bore you with here.
Hey Tom,
As we are approaching Thanksgiving, your thoughts on Thanksgiving Day dinner at the resorts and which one has the best Thanksgiving Day offerings.
THANKS
Tom- Please Help! Somehow my email address is posted on 2 different articles that you have written. I would like to know if my post and/or email can be removed. Your comment section indicates that my email will not be posted but it has happened twice to me. I have already tried to reach out to you but have not received a response.
Your email is not published…but that doesn’t apply if you enter it in the name field. 🙂
In any case, sorry about the confusion–I just found and deleted those comments!
Thank you!
I think the trend went the other way today, 9/19. I’ve peaked at the wait times at all the parks today and they all jumped.
We are heading down on Friday and seeing last weeks wait times compared to today’s gives me lots of concern. It appeared that Epcot was out of G+ decent selections by noon central time today. It will be interesting!
We shall see what happens. I wouldn’t be worried yet, but if it’s a similar story tomorrow…perhaps you should be.
Same here. Chose the week mostly due to low crowds in Sept. Disappointed by this news and hoping it isn’t a trend. At least we can temper our expectations. Thank you Tom and Sarah
For people like me who live far away and must book trips and flights early, I imagine that the height of hurricane season being about September 10 has some bearing on low September crowds. After a ten-year hiatus, I went solo to Disney World in September 2004. That happened to be a year with four hurricanes in a row. I was lucky that my visit happened between hurricanes, and the crowd level was very low – but there had been damage (a big tree in the lion area of Kilimanjaro Safari was destroyed) and I thought that could have scared off the locals. I have avoided September ever since.
Hurricane season, bad weather generally, start of school, and no one wanting to schedule special events (sports or conventions) in Florida during September all play big roles–and what are likely to prevent September from ever going from off-season to moderate/busy season, like we’ve seen happen with January/February and October.
Locals typically avoid September due to school and since it’s still hot–but unseasonably cool weather can spike crowds since they have the ability to visit at the last minute. (Typically not true for the average tourist.)