Magic Kingdom Summer Kickoff Crowd Report
We’re back with another update on Magic Kingdom construction, crowds, and changes. In this Walt Disney World park report, we’ll take a look at wait times, problem points, and congestion (or lack thereof) over Memorial Day weekend, which is the traditional kickoff to the summer tourist season in the parks.
The big topic today is crowds and congestion at Magic Kingdom. For the past two-plus weeks and for the better part of the month, Magic Kingdom has been fully booked across all three buckets of Disney Park Pass reservations. So at least in theory, every single day should be equally busy, without much regard for weekends or holidays.
The real wildcard is capacity. Both the park itself and individual attractions. During the most recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Chapek indicated that Walt Disney World was in the process of started to raise capacity caps based on past guidance from the state and CDC. So current crowds are really a matter of how much the attendance cap has increased from 35% v. how much attraction efficiency has improved.
Cynically, we expected some growing pains during this process, with park capacity being bumped up first and attractions catching up with that later, as resources and staffing allowed. Based upon both our observations and wait time data, the opposite appears to be true.
Since early April, average daily wait times in Magic Kingdom have decreased from 35 minutes to 23 minutes this weekend (per Thrill-Data). This has been a pretty consistent weekly decline. Our theory is that increased attraction capacity/efficiency is outpacing any increases in the attendance limit.
This isn’t to say some attractions don’t still have long wait times.
During our visit, both Splash Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train never dropped below 45 minutes. However, when you consider that this was over a holiday weekend and the kickoff of a big summer travel season, that’s not too bad.
That’s especially true when other headliners like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain are both sporting 25-30 minute lines.
In fact, pretty much every major attraction aside from the mountains had a wait time at or under 20 minutes at some point during our day in Magic Kingdom. (And we did not arrive for rope drop–these are midday or later waits!)
In particular, Pirates of the Caribbean has seen its wait time collapse, going from regularly filling an overflow queue to being entirely inside the building. (Expect the “Please Wait Here” markers pictured above to disappear by the end of the week.)
This isn’t because swashbuckling is no longer trendy with the youth, but because the attraction is operating more efficiently. This should underscore what a difference it makes to load more guests in each boat. (And why that 35% number was always, largely, meaningless.)
Same deal with Carousel of Progress, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, and Country Bear Jamboree. All of these previously had measurable wait times due to in-theater physical distancing. Personally, I suspect that visible lines are also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy; more people line up for something when they see a line and vice-versa.
Now, seat spacing has been relaxed and the wait time is typically however long it is until the next show. This is a pretty big deal for us, as these Magic Kingdom masterpieces are among our favorite things to do. They’re also a great midday break. (Time for us to update itineraries yet again as scheduling shows has become easier!)
It’s a similar scenario for Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. Among longtime fans, this has a reputation as a no wait ride, but that hasn’t been true in years. Prior to the closure of Walt Disney World, its extended queue was routinely overflowing, with actual wait times of 20 minutes.
We did the PeopleMover as a walk-on for the first time in ages. There was a time when we measured “success” by whether or not we could loop the TTA PeopleMover (seriously, we wrote at length about this fine art a couple years ago). We have not looped the PeopleMover since September 2019, but could have during this visit. It’s been so long that I need to practice my finger twirl before giving it a try, though. (Plus, I wonder if Cast Members still recognize that as the universal TTA looping request signal.)
While on the topic of the Peoplemover, here’s our first elevated look at TRON Lightcycle Run construction in over a year. For more details and updates on the upcoming coaster–including photos from the Contemporary–see TRON Lightcycle Run Info: Opening, Construction Photos & Concept Art.
Despite travel roaring back, work has slowed to a crawl on the coaster. It could still open in 2022, but not at the current pace of construction. We’re starting to wonder if the new plan is to stagger the openings of major in-progress attractions between now and 2023.
While the return of FastPass+ is the biggest concern among readers right now, dining–not long attraction wait times–is the biggest problem-point.
We checked the walk-up waitlist repeatedly, and never saw anything available for a party of 2. I doubt we would’ve been more successful as a party of 4 or more.
During peak meal hours, you’re going to have a wait to place a Mobile Order and then another to pick up your food. Depending upon the park and where you want to eat, this could be a pretty significant source of frustration. If you submit a Mobile Order at noon, you might not be eating until 2 pm.
This is why we’ve stressed the buying groceries if you’re visiting Walt Disney World during the phased reopening. It has been a problem for months, but is getting worse. You don’t need to cook full meals, but at least do breakfast in your room and bring snacks to the parks. One of the biggest timesavers right now is eating at off hours–there’s your FoodPass hack! 😉
Aside from the dining situation, “feels like” crowds are really not too bad. You never would’ve known this was a holiday weekend by walking around Magic Kingdom. There are countless reports of this weekend kicking off a booming summer for travel, but Walt Disney World simply does not reflect this surge.
We’re still expecting this to change in the very near future, but for now, this holiday weekend felt pretty similar to last summer or this winter. Definitely more people, but not noticeably so, and with pretty low wait times.
Keep in mind that current crowd levels are not due to a lack of demand. Disney Park Passes are, and have been, fully booked for weeks. When Walt Disney World releases more reservations (and it’s really a matter of when, not if), that’s going to change the equation.
Frankly, we wonder why this hasn’t already happened. There could be other constraints at play–such as the lack of dining, transportation, or other woes due to staffing. Regardless, we’ll be closely watching the Disney Park Pass calendar this week, as we suspect another big refill could occur on June 2.
As always, we’d caution against looking at photos and assuming they tell the full story. We’ve stressed this repeatedly in our post-reopening park reports, but it bears repeating.
The above photo was taken at park closing with a telephoto lens. This is literally the busiest time of day on Main Street; three hours earlier, I could’ve taken an empty shot of this scene. While this is definitely more crowded than it was in January or last July, this is about par for the course at park closing–and has been for several months.
The elephant in the room with all of this is the recently-relaxed health safety protocol. As you can probably surmise from the photos, most guests are not wearing masks outdoors at Magic Kingdom. As mentioned in our EPCOT Update, we’re going cover that divisive topic in a separate report (just didn’t want you to think we’re intentionally glossing over it).
Rather than reopening that unpleasant can of worms, we’ll leave you with more ‘pleasant’ photos from what was an incredibly enjoyable and surprisingly serene visit to Magic Kingdom:
That’s a wrap on another great visit to Magic Kingdom. Aside from the rule relaxations, not really any profound updates this month. We view that as pretty much the best case scenario, as there’s really only one direction for crowds and wait times to go at this point. For now, it’s still a great time to visit Walt Disney World with short waits, fast-moving lines, and relatively low crowds. Of course, that does entail compromises like missing parades, nighttime spectaculars, meet & greets, etc.
We’re still concerned that June is going to be the “growing pains” month, with attendance limits increasing to catch up with the improved attraction efficiency, but without more entertainment, dining, and other temporarily suspended offerings. Hopefully these worries are unfounded, but it seems unlikely that Disney will keep crowds artificially low as demand soars. Now that our break is over, we’ll be visiting Magic Kingdom regularly throughout the next several weeks and will let you know if/when the scales tip.
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 anything covered in this Magic Kingdom park report? If you’ve visited Magic Kingdom recently, what has been your experience with crowds and wait times? Do you expect Walt Disney World to ramp up attendance caps as soon as the holiday weekend is in the rearview mirror, or do you think staffing and/or other constraints will preclude that? Have you been able to loop the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover? 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!
I have some great memories of Disney from when my parents took the family and I was 12 but the best time was when may closed the park in 1975. It was grad night with popular bands though out the park and yes rides too. Then in 1993 my wife and kids went again and had a great time the closing night parade and fireworks was awesome. So it’s time to take the grandkids which we just got back. This time I could afford to stay in one of there cheaper park resorts. I have to say the staff there and in all the parks where the best. We went to the 4 parks in our 7 day stay. I was so disappointed it was a ok fun trip for the kids thanks to the swimming pool and couple rides in each park. Most rides where the same as I remember years ago. Maybe one or two worth the hour or more wait. They really missed on Epcot redo. The dark jerky small rides were horrible that the young one could ride.the only good things I saw was in the Star Wars and the avatar scenery was fantastic the ride was so so. The food and drink as you would expected begins with water at about 4 bucks. like everything else We preplanned and ate at there nice restaurants. Sorry nothing to brag about there ether. If you still here go to universal where they don’t lie about fast pass. We didn’t get any with there resort at art but before u would have. We stood in line enough to know they are a few ways in the fast pass lane one was the tour guy, the vip, the other club twelve something and the handicap clause where the whole family rides. If you have waited in-line long enough u see it happing some have set times to show up. If you like rides go to six flags you want your money’s worth at a resort go to universal the wow at Disney is I spent how much WOW ! never again
Tom: You take a tripod to the PARK?! You really are a trooper. So, thanks from the fans!
None of the night time photos are accurate as th MC closes at 9:00pm.
Also, the wait time are considerably longer on my disney experience.
Just returned, we noticed similar line wait times, but some posted at 20 were as few as 10 min waits. We love the mobile ordering and found we could order any time of day and not have any problems. The longest line of the week was Lion King show in AK. Shows were full both times we attempted and don’t want to wait in line for an hour. Splash and Dwarfs were rarely if ever under 50 min. We can’t wait for nighttime entertainment to return, what is your guess on that?
We have been walking up to the counter to order. From December 2020 to this April it would have been fadter to Mobil order, and CMs were pushing it. This last weekend it was faster at some places to walk up and I heard a lot of guestd complaining about it, some very loudly. Mobil ordering would have been faster getting a Dole whip, but even that was slow. Getting a Bratwurst across from 7Dwarfs Mine ride walking up was about 3 minutes, ordrring, paying, getting food.
Beautiful nighttime photos! We’ve visited twice during the pandemic when the parks weren’t open in the evening, and I’ve really missed those views!
We were at MK Friday, Blizzard Beach and Disney Springs Saturday, Epcot Sunday, and Animal Kingdom Monday. As I have been several times throughout my pandemic WDW trips, I was surprised at how short the wait times were. I don’t think we waited longer than 30 minutes for any ride at MK (although we ended up not doing 7DMT because the rope drop line was already long when we got there, and the line never really went down the rest of the day). Last time I was at MK Sleepy Hollow didn’t have mobile order yet, and that might have been our longest wait of the trip. Mobile order for the waffle sandwich I have to have every time I go to MK was a lifesaver this time.
Blizzard Beach was great. We got there before opening, but there was already a huge line of people that made it in before us. I followed your advice to head toward the back for a shady chair, and I think we scooped up the last ones. By the time we got back there, it was just barely after park open, so those went QUICK. The wait times for the slides were pretty much under 20 minutes all day, but this was the only time I had bad luck with the mobile order pickup times. We ordered around 2:45, so not a peak meal time, and we still had to get a pickup window 30 minutes out.
Disney Springs on a Saturday night was really packed. Luckily we were just there for dinner and had a reservation, so it was just getting around through a mob of people. But if anyone is still going through covid shock at seeing crowds again after this past year, this is probably going to be the most anxiety-inducing experience.
Epcot felt better than when I was there around Christmas. I think it felt like there were more people, but the lines for the food booths were really short, which was not true when I was there around Christmas. I’m not sure why.
We rope dropped Animal Kingdom, and we had already cleared Pandora, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, and a couple walking trails by 10. We got in line for for Festival of the Lion King about 35 minutes before show time, and we were one of the last groups to make it into the auditorium. So people should line up really early if they want to guarantee getting in.
We were staying at All Star Movies, and the buses were painless . . . for the most part. We went for rope drop every morning, and they always had multiple buses lined up for the morning rush. We like sticking around after park close, so I don’t know how the closing rush went. It was cleared up by the time we left ~ an hour later, and on our Epcot night we were the only ones waiting for ASM so they called a bus for us. Our longer bus waits for ASM were when we tried going anywhere in the middle of the day.
Also, the biggest change I noticed from my earlier covid trips was the rope drop lines. We rope dropped Flight of Passage, Test Track, and attempted 7DMT, and they started letting people in earlier than the 30 minute mark, and the ride lines were way longer than they were over Christmas. FoP was a walk on when I rode before park open before, but that was when the buses got us there before they started letting people in about 30 minutes before park open. I don’t know what the magic time is now, but I think AK opened yesterday shortly after 7. We were on the bus from ASM right at 7, and that’s a short ride, so I was really surprised there were already people walking in by the time we got there.
@Jody Bentley
QUOTE:
Can I still walk up to any quick service in the park and just place an order and eat lunch there or do i have to use mobile order. That seems like a pain. I don’t want to have to plan my lunch. If it is 1 pm and we are hungry, my family should just be able to pick a place to eat and go wait in line. Is this still an option?
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It is an option still for those who only have cash, or who need to make a special dietary request. Otherwise, everyone is being strongly encouraged to use mobile ordering to reduce contact with CMs, and make it easier to distance from other guests.
It does NOT take any longer to put in a mobile order at all – with very rare exceptions, I have always been able to put in an order with a time window of NOW or within 30, during peak meal times. Right now, at 11:40 am, I looked in the app to see if that is the case, and it is, with the exception of Woody’s Lunch Box. Once you order, and click “I’m here, prepare my order” you still have to wait the preparation time, and you can be waiting while sitting in a shady spot, hit the restroom to wash hands before eating, or if you wish, you can stand like you’re in line.
Mobile ordering is dead simple, and takes no longer than waiting in line.
This is exactly what I hoped to hear–that they’d be increasing ride efficiency with the increase in capacity. They should have done that MONTHS ago, since their distancing on rides was really counterproductive. I remember waiting over an hour for pirates last fall, with the people behind us ignoring their lines and creeping up right next to us with their masks below their chins, then going on a 10 minute ride with six feet of distance between groups. If they had just filled every row, we’d all have been much safer because we wouldn’t have had to wait so long with people breathing down our necks!
Can I still walk up to any quick service in the park and just place an order and eat lunch there or do i have to use mobile order. That seems like a pain. I don’t want to have to plan my lunch. If it is 1 pm and we are hungry, my family should just be able to pick a place to eat and go wait in line. Is this still an option?
I looked at wait times across WDW Sunday and Monday between 3:30PM and 4PM, as one does, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was the only attraction in any park with a wait time over 60 minutes (and barely at that). Not only are larger crowds being absorbed by longer lines, but they’re being distributed a lot more equally than during pre-FASTPASS days, *especially* on a major holiday weekend.
Maybe the same tech that lets me check out the length of lines from many states away has helped balance out line sizes? This was in the afternoon both days, after park hopping was allowed, so that may have had an effect as well.
Beautiful pictures. Thanks.
I just wanted to say that the photos are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I read the blog for the most up to date information but the photos are spectacular! Thank you for sharing them, they are truly a work of art.
Thanks for the kind words. The photos on the blog used to be even better (IMHO), but I’ve gotten a bit lazy over the last year about taking my tripod to the park–and the circumstances haven’t been ideal for it, anyway. Hoping to remedy that in the near future!