May 2026 at Disney World: Crowd Calendar & Info
Our May 2026 Walt Disney World crowd calendar offers a guide to the month, weeks to visit & avoid, weather, new attraction openings & closures, and the kickoff of summer. Plus, other info & tips for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.
We like the month of May at Walt Disney World. For most people, earlier in the month is going to be better. However, even right around Memorial Day, crowds at Walt Disney World aren’t nearly as bad as you might expect for a holiday weekend at Walt Disney World. We’ve had wonderful visits during May in terms of weather, crowds, and entertainment.
The other good news is that May sees a reduced slate of refurbishments, longer park hours, and only moderate crowds. Most schools are still in session during May, so crowds are typically fairly uniform for most of the month. While many things are still up in the air for May 2026 at Walt Disney World, we do have a pretty good idea of what to expect. There’s actually a lot more upside to May, especially as compared to other summer months…
May Weather at WDW
Our experience has taught us that the biggest make or break for May is the weather. I think that’s true when traveling to Walt Disney World during this time of year, in general. Low temperatures for May range from 64 to 70 degrees, with highs averaging 85 to 89 degrees. Those are just averages–temperatures in the 90s and high humidity aren’t unheard of.
As demonstrated by the “comfortable” band on this page for May, weather is generally on the upper end of nice (like you cold weather climate folks expect from a Florida vacation). It can creep into “unpleasant” territory with some regularity, with it being warm and above 64% of the time in May.
The potential for unseasonably hot weather in May is demonstrated with weather forecasts from last year that regularly topped out above 95 degrees and 75% humidity. Days like like make May a little questionable in terms of weather, but if you’re looking at a summer vacation and it comes down to May versus June, July, or August, May is by far the safest option. So there’s that upside.
While not technically weather, May is the first month of the year that you can get your money’s worth if you’re staying at Yacht or Beach Club. Technically, you have to spend 22.7 hours per day in Stormalong Bay (sorry, we don’t make the rules) to get appropriate bang for your buck, so at least the hotter weather helps with that!
May Special Events at Disney World
Throughout May, you can enjoy the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival; this annual event will likely run until Memorial Day. Flower & Garden Festival features marketplace food booths, gardening entertainment, and beautiful ambiance to Epcot. While it’s not for everyone, it’s one of my favorite events of the year at Walt Disney World…and I don’t even enjoy gardening.
There are no runDisney races in May, as the running ‘season’ is over until October. It’s also the tail end of the youth events season at Walt Disney World. As you can see from the ESPN Wide World of Sports calendar, the Cheerleading Worlds and Dance Worlds occur at the end of April, with the Cheerleading and Dance Summits being the first two weekends in May. There’s also the Memorial Day Soccer Tournament.
These are major dance and cheerleading competitions that boost attendance at the parks and occupancy at the hotels, usually the All Stars and Coronado Springs. However, the impact on crowd levels in the parks isn’t significant as a whole–and tends to be overblown based on anecdotal experiences, which can be quite bad.
Normally, Memorial Day weekend is the official kick-off of summer for Walt Disney World. Whether that’s the case in late May 2027 remains to be seen.
May REFURBISHMENTS & NEW ATTRACTIONS
In terms of other attractions that will be closed during May 2026, check the Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule. That schedule won’t be completely accurate until winter, but it’s likely that the major closures will be winding down before Spring Break. It’s still early, but possible closures at this point include Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
Starting May 22, 2026 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will allow guests to control the iconic ship like never before with a new mission featuring Mandalorian & Baby Yoda. For the first time ever, the crew will be in control of their own destination, leading to potential adventures on Bespin, the wreckage of the second Death Star around Endor, or the bustling city-planet, Coruscant.
Another new gameplay addition allows the engineer positions to care for and communicate with Grogu during the mission. This ‘choose your own destination’ update debuts on the same day as Lucasfilm’s upcoming title, “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” It’s possible that the new mission for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run will be accompanied by a new storyline or soft reboot of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which could be the big summer push.
As a fair warning, that refurbishment calendar doesn’t reflect the full scope and scale of construction at Walt Disney World. The parks are just now ramping up their next development cycle, and that will be very evident by early 2026 in Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
While the guest impact won’t be nearly as bad as the last development cycle, there will be visible construction walls, closures, and more. See Walt Disney World’s 5-Year Plan: Construction, Closing & Opening Dates for New Lands & Rides for everything you need to know.
Otherwise, the biggest new additions at Walt Disney World are both in Magic Kingdom: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and TRON Lightcycle Run. Both attractions now offer a standby line, as does Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (all three recently ditched their virtual queues). These attractions also have Lightning Lane line-skipping–as do almost all popular attractions at Walt Disney World. We highly recommend consulting our Guide to Lightning Lane Single & MultiPass at Walt Disney World & FAQ for everything you need to know.
As for Walt Disney World’s newest additions, they’re all entertainment as opposed to rides: Zootopia Better Zoogether, Villains Unfairly Ever After, and Little Mermaid: A Musical Adventure. The biggest addition of all is Disney Starlight Night Parade at Magic Kingdom, which should be performed nightly in May. We’ll update accordingly once more is announced.
Overall, the biggest new thing in Orlando isn’t at Walt Disney World at all, but rather, at Universal Orlando: Epic Universe. This brand-new theme park will be less than a year in early 2026, and this should be a sweet spot of lower crowds and smoother operations. When it’s firing on all cylinders and crowds are manageable, Epic Universe is something special. We highly recommend a visit.
For an overview of what else is on the horizon, see What’s New & Next at Walt Disney World in 2026.
May 2026 DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR
In a normal year, May is the shoulder season at Walt Disney World, a slower time between the peak travel seasons of spring break and summer. Crowds typically are at their highest levels at the beginning and end of the month, and even then, rarely go above 5/10. The last two years, May has been one of the 3 slowest months of the entire year.
May 2026 should be an incredibly attractive time to visit, with below-average crowds. The biggest spikes will occur as a result of events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports (last year’s dates in parentheses–expect these to largely occur the same weekends in 2026): the Summit Championship (May 1-4), D2 Summit (May 9-11), Special Olympics Florida Summer Games (May 16-17) and Disney Memorial Day Soccer Tournament (May 24-26). Typically, participants arrive in the days and week leading up to these sporting events.
As noted above, these do not have much impact on overall crowd levels for Walt Disney World as a whole. There simply are not enough participants with park tickets to move the needle in a major way. However, they can contribute in a major way to localized congestion and crowd levels, spiking wait times at various attractions. if you visit the same park as their entire (or large portions of) their group attends your perception of their impact might be very different.
Meaning that if you have the misfortune of getting in line for Haunted Mansion behind a huge group of cheerleaders, dancers, flag football players, etc., it can spike both the wait time for that particular attraction and feel unpleasant for various reasons. (Ask us how we know!!!)
Once the cheer and dance events end, you can expect even more of a consistent and predictable lull. That should be around May 12-21, 2026. It’s difficult to predict crowd levels for these dates with precision, but there’s every reason to expect this to be the slowest stretch of the month–and one of the least busy of the year–based on historical precedent and a lack of events. Even before May 12, it’s not as if the parks will be busy–crowds should be below-average for those dates, too. Shoulder season is a great time to visit.
The good news is that shoulder season will start earlier in 2026 than last year, as Easter didn’t occur until April 20 last year. It’s 15 days earlier this year, on April 5, 2026. The result is concentrating Spring Break, and most schools having their recesses before then–with a few off the week after Easter. By the following Tuesday, it’ll be shoulder season!
Expect the 2026 shoulder season to run from roughly April 14 until the Friday before Memorial Day. For reference, every single week in May of last year saw below average crowds (including those coinciding with cheer and dance events), with the three weeks leading up to Memorial Day being the slowest and having 2/10 to 3/10 crowd levels. Crowds rebounded the last week but were still slightly below average.
It’s impossible to say with a high degree of confidence whether the 2026 shoulder season will be slower than last year. Against all odds, I’m inclined to predict that it will. This has been up-and-down in the last couple of years, largely dependent upon the degree to which Disney discounts.
For one thing, there’s no reason to believe there will be any major new attraction openings in Central Florida before May 22, 2026 (when Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run debuts). Last year, there were lengthy soft openings of Epic Universe, and those ended up drawing people down to Orlando during the shoulder season. By May 2026, Epic Universe will be “old news,” consistently drawing crowds.
For another, we’re already seeing Walt Disney World release incredibly aggressive (unprecedentedly so) discounts for the late spring and early summer. This suggests the parks are in store for a slowdown, likely due to economic uncertainty and travel trepediations as consumer confidence dips and fears of a recession rise.
Given that, it seems like the smart money is predicting lower crowd levels for the 2026 shoulder season. The stretch leading up to Memorial Day should still be pretty slow, with crowd levels under 3/10 for the majority of days.
However, none of these new offerings will boost Walt Disney World summer attendance nearly as much as Disney Starlight Night Parade, and the opening date for that has yet to be announced. With each passing week that it’s delayed, so too will the summer crowds. This isn’t really relevant to May 2026 crowds, as it’s definitely not debuting then.
In a nutshell, 1/10 to 3/10 days are much more likely than 5/10 to 7/10 days for the duration of May 2026. Lower crowds can be expected through mid-June, as there’s a slight spike for Memorial Day and then usually another drop thereafter. Even Memorial Day isn’t bad by holiday weekend standards–it’s not on par with holidays like Presidents’ Day, Columbus Day, or Veterans Day. Those holidays are arguably “lower profile” but end up being bigger attendance boosters.
For daily park recommendations, we’d direct you to Best & Worst Days to Do All Parks at Walt Disney World. Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT typically follow patterns and picking the right (and avoiding the wrong) days can make a big difference, no matter what time of year (uncrowded or crowded) that you visit.
Beyond all of that, conventions and group events are another factor, but none of this really moves the needle on crowds or wait times in a major way. In short, the entirety of May 2026 should see below-average crowds, with the middle of the month being an especially great time to visit.
May PRICING & DISCOUNTS
In terms of promotions, there are room-only discounts for Annual Passholders, Florida residents, and the general public in May. See All Current Discounts at Walt Disney World for the various resort deals. As noted above, some of these are the best deals Disney has offered since 2019!
Otherwise, when it comes to pricing, May is fairly average prior to Memorial Day weekend. For 1-day park tickets, May is “regular” season prior to the holiday weekend (read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post for multi-day ticket recommendations to avoid having to deal with seasonal pricing). For hotels, pricing is also typically at the “Regular Season” rate.
Overall, the month of May at Walt Disney World demonstrates that everything is relative. From our perspective, it’s a fairly appealing time to visit Walt Disney World in many regards. Yes, the weather is generally worse than February through April, but park hours are longer, summer entertainment begins to start, new additions have debuted, fewer refurbishments are occurring, and crowds are still manageable.
Plus, if you’re comparing weather to the summer months that follow, May is actually significantly better. (See, it’s all relative.) For this reason, if you’re looking at visiting during the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day), the end of May is actually one of our top picks. In other words, if you’re limited to traveling during the summer and May is an option, it’s when we recommend visiting Walt Disney World then!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts on the month of May at Walt Disney World? Are you looking forward to Summer 2026 at Walt Disney World? Do you like to visit in May? 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!
Am I crazy that I can read all the text and see the pictures on this but don’t see an actual calendar with crowd levels anywhere? 🙂
We are going for my son’s birthday on May 5th and are so excited! Our stay is from May 2 – May 7. Hopefully the weather won’t be too hot yet. Once again I’ve been reading your blog like you’re a world famous author! So much to learn with the new LL system and updated strategies. I’ve used your Amazon links to prep/shop for our trip. I wish you had a “buy me a coffee” link or something though, because I’ve love to Venmo you all some $$ for all the wonderful knowledge you generously share!!!
Hi Tom,
Please need your advice – we will be at MK on one of the low Crowd Level-4 days: how long before the fireworks show do you think we would need to arrive to get one of the best/premium spots? And I mean one of the primo spots – like near the Walt statue. Have read ALL of your articles about the really good spots that can still be found later, which we have used many times with great effect. But we have never wanted to go early enough to get a spot by the statue… Figure since the crowd is predicted to be level 4, it might be a good time to try it. Don’t know when we would need to camp out and start waiting though.
Thank you!!
And please from readers too! Would welcome advice from anyone who might have an idea of when to line up by the statue for fireworks on a relatively low crowd level day?
Would 30 minutes be enough? More??
My family is going May 13-18 and we are so thrilled! Staying at All Star Movies with my husband, 8 year old son, and 3 year old daughter. Going in between my kids’ birthdays (right after son’s, right before daughter’s). Thank you for all the great information, Tom! It has been instrumental in my planning.
My daughter and I went the week leading up to Memorial Day last year- it was the best trip!!! The weather was hot, but not oppressively humid like when we go in August . The crowds were low to manageable. The biggest plus – Flower and Garden Festival!!! We had such a good time we’re going back again this May!!!
I have a question about the June calendar. HS is closing early June 5th for an after hours event. We had planned our HS say that day, to hopefully avoid smaller crowds because of the early closure. According to the reservation calendar, they are now sold out that day. Shocked!!! Does this mean that everyone had the same idea as us and it will be packed? Or is Disney dropping attendance that day to make it easier to close the park for the private event later? Should we love our HS day??
did you keep that day and visiy HS? your experience ?
When does the crowd calendar for the following year usually get released? Looking to plan my 2025 trip.
Hello, we are going May 7-12 and it looks like Disney recently added later hours to the parks while we are there. Is that a bad sign that they are expecting higher crowds than previously for those dates?
When was this last updated? I have a trip planned for May 12-18 2024 and part of the reason is for the potential for low(er) crowds (the other because it’s close to my wedding anniversary). I’ve got other strategies in mind for making the most of our time there, but having some up-to-date crowd insights would be helpful too and I appreciate your more realistic approach to crowds. Thanks!
With crowds in May predicted to be below average, would you still recommend purchasing Genie+ and/or LL for EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, specifically?
I thought park reservations weren’t needed any more???
Coming from New Zealand with 3 kids for the first time May 22-3 June i can see lots happing at this time with Grad nights and your public holidays what 2 days do you think we would be best to go?
be weary of Memorial day weekend, it falls on May 27th. It can get busy during the US Holidays. Have a great time.
I would try to visit during week days if possible, Tues-Thurs, except for Wednesdays at Magic Kingdom. Wednesday is arguably the best day for all other parks, and Tuesday and Thursday not far behind. Data for the first couple months of the year showed Wednesday actually worse than Monday now, for Magic Kingdom. It might not matter as much during summer, but this is the general rule from the current data.