Lower Wait Times in May & June 2022 Crowd Predictions at Disney World
Memorial Day weekend is in the rearview mirror, meaning it’s time to recap May crowds and offer some forward-looking predictions for June 2022 at Walt Disney World. This wait times report covers ride & daily data for the month at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom, while also offering a look forward at what to expect in Summer 2022.
In essence, this is a continuation of our last wait times report, Pre-Summer Slowdown at Walt Disney World, which covered the first half of the month. The main takeaway there was that wait times and crowds were starting to drop, even as Disney Park Pass reservations were booked for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios most dates.
Prior to that, wait times had been consistently elevated since Presidents’ Day. February and March had average wait times of 45 and 46 minutes, respectively. April ended with an average wait time of 44 minutes, but it was really a tale of two months. For those wanting to put those numbers into historical context, the average wait times for the entirety of 2020 and 2021 were 33 and 32 minutes, respectively.
This month was closer to last year than the first few months of this year. Instead of remaining elevated due to pent-up demand and ‘sold out’ park reservations, May will go down as the least-busy month since October when the 50th Anniversary kicked off to surprisingly low crowds.
Now, let’s dig into the data to take a look at May 2022 wait times. As always, all graphs and wait time stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
We’ll start with the monthly numbers, which pretty much tell the entire story.
The average wait time across all attractions at Walt Disney World dropped from 44 minutes in April to 38 minutes in May. This was the biggest one-month drop since last July to August, when last year’s summer vacation season ending coincided with reinstated face mask rules and the Delta surge (so, not exactly comparable).
Next, weekly wait time averages across the entirety of Walt Disney World.
The bar on the far right is Memorial Day weekend, which was unsurprisingly busier than the weeks before it in May, but still not as bad as the peak of spring break season.
Individual days illustrate mostly the same, but with more bars. I guess that checks out.
Wait times settled into the 5/10 to 6/10 range for the second half of May, which was slightly busier than the first half of the month. All of this is exactly what we’d expect for Walt Disney World’s normal shoulder season between spring break and summer.
For park by park analysis, we’ll start with Magic Kingdom.
As with Walt Disney World as a whole, it was a relatively average month for Magic Kingdom–the first with relatively uniform wait times in a while. Most days were between 4/10 and 6/10 on the crowd calendar, which is a relatively insignificant spread. The average wait time on a 4/10 day can be 33 minutes, whereas 6/10 can be 36 minutes.
Note yet another 2/10 day in there, which was May 15. Wait times were atypically low that date due to the park closing at 4:30 pm for a Cast Member Service Celebration. This always (ALWAYS!) happens, as people simply see the significantly early closing time and avoid Magic Kingdom.
It also helped that other sites were warning people to avoid Magic Kingdom on this date, which is objectively bad advice…but great for all of us! I’d consider this missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the park closed several hours earlier than normal, but wait times and crowds were so low that you could accomplish as much (or more) than normal by the early closing time and still have your entire evening ahead of you. We’ll continue alerting you about this days and “warning” you to take advantage of them.
Here are the specific averages for the month of May:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train: 70 minutes
- Jungle Cruise: 66 minutes
- Peter Pan’s Flight: 65 minutes
- Splash Mountain: 54 minutes
- Space Mountain: 46 minutes
- Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater: 45 minutes
- Meet Cinderella at Princess Fairytale Hall: 45 minutes
- Haunted Mansion: 45 minutes
- Pirates of the Caribbean: 42 minutes
The average Magic Kingdom wait time for the month was 33 minutes, which is a sharp drop from last month. While there are a few attractions averaging over an hour, nothing is above 70 minutes, which is the high-mark for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Since our last update, Jungle Cruise and the character meet & greets fell a bit, whereas pretty much everything else was up slightly.
That all tracks, as the newness of non-distanced character meet & greets has worn off. Splash Mountain is also getting more popular as the weather gets hotter, and will rise further in tandem with temperatures. Jungle Cruise’s continued popularity surprises us, honestly.
It’s a similar story at Animal Kingdom.
More than any other park, crowd levels fluctuate at Animal Kingdom. This is not a new phenomenon, and reflects the limited ride roster at DAK. When it’s busier, the park is under more strain and wait times spiral. When it’s less busy, the opposite happens.
As covered in our recent post, Animal Kingdom Afternoon Arrival Strategy, these crowds are relatively easy to avoid with proper planning. The same advice there can be applied to early morning arrivals, too.
Here are the attraction averages for May 2022:
- Avatar Flight of Passage: 95 minutes
- Na’vi River Journey: 69 minutes
- Kilimanjaro Safaris: 52 minutes
- Kali River Rapids: 40 minutes
- Expedition Everest: 34 minutes
- Dinosaur: 24 minutes
The few other attractions in Animal Kingdom are all below 20 minutes.
Over at EPCOT, wait times remained low through the first 26 days of May even with the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.
Unsurprisingly, there was a spike for Memorial Day weekend and Cosmic Rewind’s grand opening. The extent of this was artificially limited by the Disney Park Pass and virtual queue systems. While EPCOT was unquestionably crowded–even the cavernous Connections Cafe couldn’t contain crowds–it wasn’t that bad. Cosmic Rewind’s opening day was only a 6/10, which is not what you’d expect for a blockbuster new thrill ride’s debut.
Here are individual attraction wait times at EPCOT this month:
- Frozen Ever After: 71 minutes
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure: 69 minutes
- Test Track: 58 minutes
- Soarin’ Around the World: 30 minutes
- Meet Anna & Elsa at Royal Summerhaus: 25 minutes
- Mission Space: 22 minutes
Nothing all that bad here, but it’s interesting to see Frozen Ever After surpass Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. We’re not surprised–Frozen Ever After is the better attraction, even as a ‘quick’ reimagining of an existing ride.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
DHS is saved for last because it’s usually the worst in both wait times and “feels like” crowds. That’s definitely “less true” with this update, and we don’t have any major complaints about our recent experiences at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
With that said, we are used to the DHS midday misery at this point, and have found ways to work around it (see our Disney’s Hollywood Studios Afternoon Arrival Strategy). If you visited Disney’s Hollywood Studios in May for the first time in 3 years, you would likely have a very different perspective on the park than us. Of course, you’d also be experiencing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Galaxy’s Edge with fresh eyes, so perhaps you’d be even more positive.
Here are ride-by-ride wait times for Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the month:
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: 101 minutes
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance: 101 minutes
- Slinky Dog Dash: 85 minutes
- Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run: 64 minutes
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: 61 minutes
- Toy Story Mania: 60 minutes
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway: 59 minutes
- Meet Disney Stars at Red Carpet Dreams: 53 minutes
- Alien Swirling Saucers: 41 minutes
- Meet Sulley at Walt Disney Presents: 36 minutes
Here are a few notes about DHS wait times:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance shot up a lot in the last couple of weeks. This continues to be the least accurate wait time in all of Walt Disney World due to its downtime and Individual Lightning Lane sales. You might wait half of the posted wait time, you might wait double it.
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is so high because it’s operating at half-capacity due to a “stealth” refurbishment. It’ll likely remain at this level through summer. Do it early.
- The (excellent) Red Carpet Dreams Meet & Greet Was Removed from Genie+, and standby wait times dropped sharply. Funny how that works.
- The Monsters, Inc. meet & greet at Walt Disney Presents also has long waits. It’s a great mid-morning option, as most people do it after lunch.
- The falling wait times of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway should be viewed as a success story, not a lack of popularity. This attraction is an efficient “people-eater.”
Frankly, I still don’t know how to account for these downright moderate crowd levels given the amount of yellow on the Disney Park Pass calendar throughout the entirety of the month. Both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom were booked solid for most of May–just as they were in March and April–which means that they should’ve been just as busy this month as those months. After all, fully booked is fully booked…right?!?
Probably not, actually. That’s not what the wait time data shows, nor was it our experience in visiting DHS or Magic Kingdom this month. All four parks had lower ‘feels like’ crowds, but those two shouldn’t have in light of the Park Pass calendar. And yet, they did.
It’s possible that meet & greets helped better absorb some of the crowds, but those are mostly low capacity. It’s also possible that the longer hours helped better spread out crowds to some degree. Finally, it could be that the difference between yellow and grey means overall attendance is down, and that levels out (to some degree) once Park Hopping starts, leading to lower wait times overall.
Another possibility is that economic reality is starting to set in. This is something about which we’ve been jibber-jabbering for months, discussing how pent-up demand could fizzle out and depleted household savings might result in reductions in travel spending, among other things. When that happens, consumers will return to being more cost-conscious and price sensitive, and attendance will normalize to at least some degree.
We bring this up yet again because there’s an interesting new survey finding that 90% of Americans will consider the price of gas and inflation when making their summer travel plans. Due to higher gas prices alone, a majority will likely take fewer or shorter trips and 33% will cancel travel plans entirely.
These conclusions are unsurprising, but it’s nevertheless interesting to see them quantified–especially when pent-up demand and “revenge travel” are dominating the conversation about summer vacation plans.
If these phenomenons were already occurring in May, cancellations could be the most simple and straightforward explanation for why the crowd calendar dropped to the 6/10 range even as the Park Pass calendar remained mostly yellow. Although most people book Walt Disney World vacations months in advance, last minute travel has been increasing in the last 2 years–and the cost of airfare, driving to Florida, or all of the added/higher costs once at Walt Disney World could be taking a toll already.
With that said, we also don’t want to get hyperbolic or sensationalize this commentary. For one thing, we don’t know if cancellations are up at all. For another, even a slight increase can have an outsized impact on wait time and crowd levels. As noted above, only a few minutes per attraction separates an average day from an above-average one. Even if this isn’t like the “Delta Deluge” of cancellations last fall (and there’s no reason to believe it is), it could have a meaningful impact on attendance, congestion, and wait times.
Looking forward, there’s no reason to expect the next couple of weeks to be much different than the month of May. Although Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer and when Florida’s tourist season kicks off, it usually starters slow and gets progressively busier.
Most schools are not out of session yet, and thus, most families aren’t doing big summer vacations yet. That tends to start in the second half of June, and really accelerates around Independence Day. While June is no longer shoulder season, the first half of the month is typically closer in crowds to May than it is to July.
As you can see from the Disney Park Pass calendar above, there are many dates that are yellow–including in those “less busy” first two weeks of June 2022. On its face, that could be cause for concern…but several of these dates have been yellow for a while.
Rather than being concerned about the yellow dates, we’re optimistic that there’s still no grey–and that there are some green dates later in the month. Additionally, most of these yellow dates have availability in at least two parks, which helps with resort-wide wait times once Park Hopping starts.
Ultimately, this month’s numbers ended up not being too bad. May 2022 had healthy crowds aside from Memorial Day weekend, and even that wasn’t awful. Whether intentional as a result of “carefully managed attendance” (Chapek’s words) or unintentional as a result of cancellations, Walt Disney World is hitting the happy medium between uncrowded and unpleasantly crowded, with moderate wait times and congestion.
The big question continues to be: what happens next?! Our expectation is that June 2022 will end up resembling this past month in terms of wait times and crowd levels, with naturally higher demand for the summer season partially offset by increased cancellation due to rising gas prices, inflation, and other factors. We anticipate crowd levels being a tad higher to start June, increasing gradually in the last couple of weeks. In the end, slightly worse than this month, but still manageable and better than July 2022.
Of course, so much remains to be seen. Walt Disney World has been heavily advertising Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind–everywhere from the internet to pre-trailer reels in front of Top Gun: Maverick. It’s entirely possible that we’re putting too much weight on the potential for a slowdown and not enough in the potential for a marketing-induced spike. Given the billions of dollars Marvel films have made at the box office, perhaps that’s an oversight or mistake on our part. We’ll continue monitoring crowds and see how these predictions play out!
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 crowds in May 2022? Predictions on crowds for June or the duration of Summer 2022? Are you expecting rising gas prices or inflation to meaningfully impact attendance and crowds at Walt Disney World? Think that this upcoming month will end up being more or less busy than May? If you’ve visited within the last month, what did you think of crowds and 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!
We were just there May 20-25 and didn’t find it crowded at all. Our Guardians preview was Sat at noon and we strolled right through an uncrowded World Showcase grabbing snacks with no lines along the way at the various booths. We used the Skyliner at lot and never waited more then 2 or 3 families before getting on the next car no matter time of day. It was really hot but the lack of crowds made it totally manageable.
Can’t wait for this fundamentally pathetic Disney boycott to fail HARD.
We had a blast in February but with gas prices, inflation on absolutely everything, Disney nickel and diming you at every turn, not to mention their idiotic politics, we are out. The Disney savings account is depleted and we had to reallocate those funds to help cover gas and food. So long, Disney! See you probably never again… certainly not real soon.
People who think Disney is “idiotic” for fighting for the rights of their LGBTQ employees are the people I hope boycott the parks forever. In the immortal words of the Black Widow, thank you for your cooperation!
We were in DHS for Memorial Day no doubt it was a 10/10 crowd level. Completely miserable for most people, slinky was 2 hr wait all day along with ToT. Rise approached 3 hrs. Luckily we had park hopper got in and out quickly doing a few rides.
Went to MK today and the crowds were surprisingly pleasant. The weekend crowds weren’t particularly awful. The run of good weather could have had a lot to do with the moderate level of crowds.
We’ve been in the parks for 7 days and Disney is not hurting by any means contrary to what ppl may think. They aren’t hurting for crowds and people were spending. The food has been the best it’s probably ever been and transportation on grounds has been amazingly efficient.
On another note the only complaint we’ve had all week was the extra magic hours for Epcot. Complete and utter trash. Totally useless. Only 4 rides worth riding, all on opposite sides of the park, all the people from regular hours were still on the rides for an hour, and the icing Remy broke down the last hour of the night stranding 1000’s of ppl.
Close second is the early entry, 90 min wait for Remy at 8:15 am, and Mine Train at 8:30 am.
Any chance that continued lower crowds will lead to the end of park reservation system??
Eventually, but not anytime soon. Unlike others, I do not think the reservation system will stick around forever–regardless of what executives might claim.
It is probably here for the long haul, in some form, for Annual Passes.
Park Pass exists because of the COVID-19 liability waiver. The executives won’t admit it for obvious reasons. Once the pandemic is entirely over I’d expect Park Pass to go away.
We were at WDW last week of April and the parks “feels like” crowd definitely felt lower than week after Mother’s Day in 2021. I just want to interject I think having the shows open in the parks has made a difference as Indiana Jones, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King , Frozen Singalong and the parades give the crowds options especially when crowded and spread wait times on big attractions out a bit. Can’t wait for Nemo and Fantasmic to return. I love all the shows,especially during the bewitching hours after lunch.
The shows definitely make a huge difference, especially as compared to last year around the same time (not so much as compared to last month, though). Nemo and Fantasmic will likewise help both DHS and DAK big time!
Just flew home today and I must say, crowds seemed heavier than when we were there between Christmas and New Year. Sunday We waited almost 2 hours for tower of terror because we used our Lightening Lane on Slinky Dog. Very crowded in my little tourist opinion but we still love it and already have another trip planned at Christmas
Thank you for addressing these issues in a practical manner. It is in part an economical, social and functional downturn. We cannot pay $6/gallon for fuel nor fly at double the cost. That and over 5000 flights over Memorial Day cancelled/delayed. Socially it is difficult to understand taking a stance for issues that others think should not be part of Disneys public discourse. Behind closed doors is a good policy. Finally Genie plus is a poor substitute for fast pass. Normal visitors such as I find it cumbersome and lacking the magic and spontenaity of former visits. We all have better ideas or think we do. But we vacation to in part relax. It is frantic and frustrating using a economy model app. for a deluxe company. We still think Walt is the greatest. His predecessors are suspect !
I’d like to second your savvy comments!!
Could bad management and the fact that disney has been in the news for all the wrong reasons have anything to do with it?
That’s entirely possible, but I doubt word of mouth on the bad management decisions would have an impact in the near-term. The effects of that will be felt in the long-term, which is one reason why Walt Disney World is scrambling to fix some Genie+ problems behind the scenes.
I’m also skeptical that any of the recent headlines are moving the needle much. I don’t doubt that some people have cancelled trips, but probably an insignificant number in the grand scheme of things. By and large, the only products either side “boycotts” are the ones they don’t use in the first place or that have a readily available replacement. It’s one thing to boycott Patagonia or MyPillow, another entirely to boycott a conglomerate that touches so many aspects of pop culture and life in general. Most people don’t care, and even those who do don’t want to be inconvenienced.
I don’t doubt that social issues could push some fans over the edge who were already disenchanted, or that hyper-partisans do go from “zero to boycott.” But average American families (let alone hardcore fans) are not boycotting in meaningful numbers. That’s not just true with Disney and one end of the political spectrum, it’s true of literally everything. (Chick-fil-A is still incredibly popular!) Threats of boycotts are mostly just chest-thumping.
Maybe I’m wrong, though–all of this has stayed in the news cycle much longer than I expected.
I think you’re right!
We just got back from spending May 19-27 in Disney World. It was more crowded than we anticipated, especially at MK and HS. We typically go in early Nov so it was definitely more crowded than that. There were a lot of British people there early in the trip as most people we heard had that accent. We “beat” the crowds by arriving an hour early before early magic hours, leaving for a few hours, and then returning at night. We had three kids with us and this was manageable. Wait times were still high in my opinion.
I expect Disney World to slow down eventually, just not in the near term. We usually go every year but will start to cut back as its gotten significantly more expensive, less magical, and just more crowded.
If the lower crowds are because of cancellations then that can just keep happening all the way through October for all I care. I would love nothing more than this next (and final) trip to Disney World for us to be as low with crowds as it was back in 2005 or earlier.
We were given a spot in the virtual queue for Guardians by one of the CM’s who are out in Epcot to answer questions. When we got in line for Guardians, I was shocked to discover how many people were actually in the building! If Epcot doesn’t look very full it’s because so many people are in there. I would be curious to know how many people it holds. The line started just inside the door and we moved slowly for an hour, never stopping in one place very long. Not sure when we will ride it again as my stomach is flip-flopping just typing these words about Guardians. 🙂
After having to cancel our June 2020 trip, we’re finally going this June 10 – 18. Our flight times were changed twice now—just hoping like you, Tori, our flight doesn’t get canceled! I’ve been keeping up with this blog for the past couple of years now. Thanks for all the great information. It has really helped us prepare for this trip!
We must be flying the same airline! We’re heading to Disney on 6/3 and our flight has been changed twice now too! So frustrating!
Perhaps Bob Chapek’s actions are starting to show up………many folks are upset with Disney right now. I’m not saying it’s the only reason, but it definintely could be a factor! Just saying!
That’s definitely possible, but I think most of those issues impact attendance in the long-term, rather than from one month to the next.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if part of their “crowd management” includes manipulated distribution across parks so that not all sold out days within each individual park are equal. For example, bookings and park reservations told Disney in advance that attendance would be high in February, so they set a higher capacity at each park. The spots filled easily. Then, when May bookings indicated a slowdown, they set the capacity lower for the fastest booking parks, like MK, to encourage reservations at slower parks. So then MK is sold out in both February and May, but it’s not actually the same attendance. Kind of like what free Genie is supposed to be doing in theory (heavy emphasis on “supposed to” and “in theory”), only at a park to park level instead of individual attractions. Then guests in MK aren’t complaining about a 2 hour 7DMT wait while WDW is left staffing a ghost town DAK.
I love this theory, and I think there’s a good chance you’re correct. Great thinking!
genie+ stinks and I think it’s all because of that.
I mean, fair point, but if that’s the cause, why is it just showing up in crowds now? Why were the past several months–when Genie+ also existed–so busy?
We were there in mid May and the crowds and wait times we’re not nearly as bad as I expected. Could Disney have lowered the overall capacity all the parks without announcing anything ? We had a great experience and definitely spent more money than we would have if we’re waiting in lines all day
“Could Disney have lowered the overall capacity all the parks without announcing anything?”
They could have, but why would they have? That would effectively mean leaving money on the table–not something Disney seems keen on doing.
We went to Disney the day after Easter? It was very nice. But it was crowded. We only rode a few rides because of this. We have a special neefs child & he wanted to ride the bew Remy ride in Epcot. The wait was 2 hours 45 minutrs. He could never wait that long so he never rode it. Many rides were like that its sad but we made r´the most of it!
I was at WDW the first week in May. We traveled with my sister who is an adult, but has Down’s Syndrome. Patience and attention span of a gnat. I learned from another guest at our resort, that Disney has a special pass for people with disabilities. I think it is called the DSP (disabilities services pass). It is essentially a “lightning lane” for people with disabilities. You can either request it when you purchase your tickets, or, speak with Guest Services at your first park, like we did. It was phenomenal. What a difference! Disney seems to be very accommodating to individuals with needs.
The pass allows the individual and their caregiver/family to get in the lightning lane and the wait time is only a fraction of what the stand-by lane is. I really wish this was a better known service, since I’m sure there are a lot of visitors who could benefit from it. I wouldn’t have known about for my sister if I hadn’t chatted with a mother at our resort’s pool!
For your next trip you can apply for a DAS pass for your child. I’ve never done it before, but I have heard you have to apply prior to your trip and there’s an interview process in which a cast member will need to speak with the person who needs the pass.
We will be there the 3rd week of June so really hope your projections are correct! I was following wait times this past weekend and was shocked to see how low they were in Magic Kingdom. For a Holiday weekend I would have expected to see things much busier. Right now my biggest concern is our flights being canceled
We are planning a trip for January 2023. I know January and February 2022 had record crowds, but I’m really hoping that was the result of “Covid fatigue” and not the “new norm.” (I really hate both of those phrases!) We used to go during summers and holidays only, but now that the kids are grown, I don’t see us ever going back in the summer, especially now with Genie and no Fast Passes, so I’m really hoping things calm down by the time we go next year. What do you think our odds are?? 🙂