Magic Kingdom Report: Walk-on Wait Times & Pre-Celebration Construction
It’s time for another Magic Kingdom park report. In this Walt Disney World photo update, we take a look at the latest pre-50th Anniversary construction, feels like crowds, walk-on wait times, and more.
The hot topic among Walt Disney World fans right now is the off-season crowds. Everyone has their theories for why attendance and wait times are so low, and we cover the most–and least–plausible explanations in Walt Disney World’s Lowest Crowd Week of the Last Year.
Historically, September is the slowest month of the year at Walt Disney World. While other previously off-season months have seen increases in recent years (e.g. January, February, and October), the same has yet to happen with September. Starting from that already low baseline, thus far current attendance is even lighter than a normal September.
Since our aforementioned crowd report from last week, Magic Kingdom wait times have dropped even further. The average wait time on Tuesday was 10 minutes, versus 18 minutes last week (and down from 50 minutes one month earlier). On the first day of September 2021, the average wait time was only 9 minutes! NINE MINUTES!!!
That makes yesterday’s wait times a new record low for 2021. It’s also the second-slowest day at Magic Kingdom since reopening, beat only by July 15 of last year when attendance was capped super low as the phased reopening began. (There was more demand than reservations, so it’s not at all an apples to apples comparison.)
I don’t think we can overemphasize just how slow Magic Kingdom is on a day when the average posted wait time is 9 minutes. Some attractions default to a 10 minute posted wait time when they’re a walk-on. On a day like this, Haunted Mansion’s infamous 13 minute walk-on wait would actually be raising the overall average.
For better context, the only two attractions that had average wait times above 20 minutes yesterday were Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (30 minutes) and Peter Pan’s Flight (21 minutes). We’ve visited in late August and September consisting for the last decade, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this on a “normal” day. Even on days with massive numbers of cancellations due to hurricanes, the wait times have been worse.
Labor Day weekend will almost certainly cause an uptick in crowds beginning today, and after that new Annual Passes go on sale September 8, 2021. So we probably won’t see many more single-digit wait time averages for Magic Kingdom, but anything under 20 minutes is pretty incredible.
Even with a likely influx of new Annual Passholders, we’re still expecting weekdays for the next three weeks to have some of Walt Disney World’s lowest crowd levels of the last 5 years. As high temperatures start to drop below 90 degrees, we’re going to get our fill of the parks in the coming weeks before the anniversary crowds arrive. October is going to be a totally different ballgame, so if you’re visiting next month (or beyond), don’t start salivating at these low crowd reports.
Interestingly, “feels like” crowds are a poor barometer of attendance or wait times right now.
To be sure, the feels like crowds are down sharply as compared to late July. However, if I were forced to guess wait times based on congestion levels then versus now, I’d be way off.
I don’t have any great explanation for this.
It’s still really hot, so it would make sense for guests to avoid outdoor areas. On the other hand, masks are required indoors, perhaps making outside more attractive? Or it could just be shorter wait times mean less time spent in line and more time moving between attractions. Regardless, it’s not like the parks feel even remotely crowded–just busier than I’d expect given the walk-on wait times.
Switching gears, a stage has been installed in the Central Plaza around the Partners statue.
This is presumably for the ABC News television special, “The Most Magical Story on Earth: 50 Years of Walt Disney World.” We shared details about this in our last Walt Disney World news roundup, and many readers could barely contain their excitement. Or something like that.
Moving to Magic Kingdom’s other castle, where work continues above Be Our Guest Restaurant.
Since being installed, this has rightfully been derided as a toy castle showcasing the limitations of forced perspective. That came into clearer focus when Tokyo Disneyland actually built Beast’s Castle with its Fantasyland expansion.
With that said, the fresh coat of paint gives the Magic Kingdom version of Beast’s Castle more detail.
It won’t sell the effect any better, but at least it looks nicer.
Be Our Guest Restaurant is open during the refurbishment.
As attendance drops and staffing increases, this is one of many restaurants around Walt Disney World that suddenly has more ADR and Walk-Up Waitlist availability after several months of nothing.
We’re starting to see more signs like this throughout the parks, advertising last minute availability.
These were pretty common pre-closure and even last July or August. For most of the last year, those wanting same day ADRs pretty much only got table scraps.
Back to construction, scaffolding has been going up on Splash Mountain.
Last week, Disney released New Concept Art & Details for Splash Mountain’s Princess and the Frog Reimagining. Based on the language used there, we have no reason to believe this scaffolding is related to that project.
To us at least, it sounds like the Splash Mountain overhaul is still in its early phases of conceptualization, with physical work at least a year away.
Our assessment could be inaccurate, but Disney is deliberate with its language, and everything there indicates it’s going to be a while. Probably post-50th Anniversary celebration.
This is more likely routine maintenance to spruce things up for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.
Here’s hoping the inside gets its typical winter refurbishment, as some of the show scenes are looking a bit worse for wear.
On the plus side, Splash Mountain is currently posting wait times under 20 minutes most of the time.
We walked onto the attraction and its counterparts in the Magic Kingdom Mountain Range. A far cry from the 120 minute wait time of just one month ago.
We keep coming back to those end of July wait times, but it’s hard not to given the stark contrast.
We fully believed this would be a slower than normal off-season in the lead-up to the 50th Anniversary, but the sharp drop happened faster, sooner, and to a more pronounced degree than anticipated.
Perhaps photos of a walled-off Country Bear Jamboree went viral on social media, and caused the crash in crowds? That’s an underrated theory that not enough people are talking about.
(For what it’s worth, Country Bear Jamboree is not closed–so no need to cancel your trips.)
Out front of Magic Kingdom, the walls have come down around the Main Street USA Train Station, and it is looking fantastic.
It’s now been almost three years without the Walt Disney World Railroad. Some readers have bemoaned this as poor planning, but the prolonged railroad downtime and operational cost-savings was a feature of the construction plan, not a bug. The train would’ve had to go down at some point, but not as early as it did. (Not to mention that the original plan involved TRON Lightcycle Run being open by now.)
Ultimately, it’s a pleasant time at Magic Kingdom right now with some of the lowest wait times we’ve seen in the last decade. We’d stop short of saying it’s a great time to visit given the weather, anniversary preparations & construction, and the current health situation–but it might be an attractive time to visit for those who are averse to crowds.
As we’re in the home stretch to Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary kickoff, we’re expecting a lot more changes at Magic Kingdom in the coming weeks. Accordingly, we’ll probably be back with another update sooner rather than later to showcase more of the changes!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
If you’ve visited Magic Kingdom this month, what has been your experience with crowds and wait times? Thoughts on feels like crowds or congestion v. wait times? Thoughts on any of the construction occurring around Magic Kingdom to prep for the 50th Anniversary? Are you anxious for more info or announcements about Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary? Thoughts about anything else covered here? Do you plan on visiting Walt Disney World this year, or are you sitting it out until 2022? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
very excited to be doing a last minute trip with a stay at Caribbean Beach 9/19-24 to do a passholder preview of Remy and see Happily Ever After a few more times.
always appreciate your insight about the parks and hoping the low crowds continue in September!
Thank you as always for your fun and witty commentary. At what point do you think the crowds will increase? I will be there September 24-27 and have my fingers crossed for wait times like I have been seeing. I check them daily!
Tom, there is a question you could help me with. I’m from Massachusetts and would like to squeeze in another trip before my AP expires. Currently, DVC is still restricting borrowing more than 50% points. So I need a deep AP hotel discount or borrowing limit to be lifted. Any thoughts on why restriction is still imposed more than a year after parks reopened? With the loss of so many benefits, I sometimes wonder if Disney wants me to sell my DVC so they can buy back the contract.
Hi Tom,
I have followed your blog for months now and as we are getting ready to head down to MK tomorrow morning (might even make it late morning at this point!) I can’t wait and the short lines makes it all the more exciting!! At least the teens will have something less to complain about and our toddler won’t be as fussy! â¤ï¸
Fingers crossed for continued low crowds throughout the month. We are in the group that start school August 1st and by mid-September we’ve been in school for 7 weeks so we have a break. We’ll be there the 18th-25th and I’m sincerely hoping there isn’t too much uptick. We only have one day (the 19th) out of the whole trip that is a weekend park day, so here’s hoping the passholders stick to the weekend. 😉
That said, I’ve been checking resorts every single day just to see what shows up. Today I was able to switch from a standard 5 sleeper at CBR to a standard (and save $50) for the last three nights of our stay. Every category of room is available right now at CBR for Sept 22-25 WITH the discount (which at CBR is only 10%). Every day I look there are more and more rooms available. I’m hoping this means low crowds for us. Disney is going to make plenty of money in October so I don’t even feel bad.
My friend and I did Disney from 26-29 August. We walked on every ride and did Food and Wine! This is our 3rd day at Universal and we have walked on every ride including Volcano Bay! And we rode Velocicoaster twice and waited 10-15 each time. It’s been a great vacation.
We came back yesterday after a nine day trip. We’ve been almost yearly the past 12 years and this was by far the lowest crowd totals we ever experienced! We walked on so many rides. By walking on, I mean we walked right through the entire queue and onto the ride. M and M railroad we went on two times in a row at 4 pm. CM were waving people in to enjoy such a good thing saying, you don’t see this often. We even did FOP in AK without barely a 15 minute wait Crazy! My kids did Space mountain back to back without a single wait to finish off our awesome trip!
We are a family that travel the first week or 2 in Sept for low crowds. However, the last time crowds were like this for us, was in 2014. Since then 2 of my 3 kids have started Elementary school. I still plan to pull them early and apologize profusely to the teachers but I figure they actually haven’t started much so it’s not a terrible time to pull them.
Crowds are probably low because everyone is pissed off with greedy Disney right now. I hope crowds stay low so Disney gets the point and stops ripping people off. If we already paid to get in the park, being charged more per ride and/or getting to watch all the rich people skip you is anything but magical. If the line skipping system were to end entirely everyone of all income levels will have a better experience. We should all stay away from Disney for a couple of years until they get it.
One reason for lower crowds might be that this is prime visiting time for folks from the UK, as their schools start later than ours. But…border’s closed, so they can’t come. At least, that’s the opinion of a UK friend of mine who had to cancel his trip.
Our school system started this past Monday but always takes Friday before Labor Day off to give a longer weekend. PLUS this year we have a Tuesday Jewish holiday making this a 5 day weekend for us. Therefore, I am on my way to the airport right now for 5 days at Food and Wind Festival!
Maybe it’s just me, but I was astonished to see the Beast’s Castle with the scaffolding and the human standing there. I had no idea it was so tall! If you’d asked me, I would have said it was a foot or two high, like the Stonehenge from Spinal Tap. Thanks for helping me see the true impressive height!
Yeah, same.
This isn’t just poor forced perspective, it’s forced perspective that makes the object appear smaller than it actually is!
So why does country bears have a wall around it? Refurbishment?
They’re redoing the sidewalk all throughout Frontierland. I guess I should’ve mentioned that detail along with my dumb little joke!
i really hope that stage is temporary, as in, if it’s used for the tv special, get rid of it immediately after, not throughout the celebration. because that’s just gross. incredible eyesore.
It’ll be gone within days.
What are your thoughts on Be Our Guest bringing back breakfast? We are headed down the 3rd week of November. We enjoy the dining plan and always either use all the credits or stock up on snacks for the drive home. This time we are going to track our meals (if it doesn’t return by then) and see if we saved any money. Love your blog, we use it to keep all the families in our group in the loop – thanks
My only thought is that I hope it happens, but I haven’t heard anything to substantiate that hope. If the crowds are back, it seems like an inevitability by November, but I’ve been wrong plenty of times before.
@Harrison, yeah I actually don’t know how much the crowds will go up after 9/8 because a ton of people who already have a 10/1 MK reservation (for resort guests or day tickets) can’t start using an AP before then and wipe out their current reservations. It’d be different if there was a guarantee that your reservation will stick. But my understanding is that they’ll be canceled and that’s why the recommendation is to bridge park tickets on the last day of the ticket. I’m personally going to be in Orlando next weekend for HHN and could easily go pick up my AP then and if I did would start using it that following Sunday. But instead I’m staying far away so I don’t mess up my 10/1 weekend park reservations. I’ll just bridge it then. Of course, there are some who don’t have reservations and don’t have to worry about that or who live out of state and will just bridge on their next trip, but my guess is there’s a decent pool of people who fall into the wait until 10/1 category, especially among recent locals who are more inclined to get an AP and would otherwise start using it right away.
Doesn’t DL rely more on annual pass holders than WDW? What are your thoughts on people who are annual pass holders waiting until 10/1 anyways?
Looks like a fun day.
As attractive as September is re: crowds, and as willing as I am to let my kids miss several days of school for vacation, missing school right as things kick off will just always be a bridge too far.
Re: Forced Perspective…my son & I watched the behind the attraction episode on Disney+ about the building of the castles. The show itself was just ok, but I must say the trick worked on me in Disneyland. I never realized how much taller the MK castle is when compared to Disneyland.
“…missing school right as things kick off will just always be a bridge too far.”
And I hope enough parents will always have that mentality! Don’t want to lose the one reliably off-season month at Walt Disney World. 😉
A lot of school systems still don’t start until after labor day (at least here in Maryland) so I’m surprised folks aren’t squeezing in a trip. Out of curiosity, I checked my Universal Studios app to see if it was just a Disney thing. They are showing Hagrid’s as having only a 25 min. wait and the new Velocicoaster as 15 minutes. Crazy!
The drop in wait times between Disney and Universal have been pretty proportionate, which suggests to me that certain variables unique to one or the other–specifically, masking policies and Annual Pass availability–aren’t making a huge difference.
I think the low crowds thing is about to change as I’m assuming many coming this weekend. We are headed down tonight from PA.