Most Crowded Month in Two Years at Disney World!
We’re only two full months into 2022, and already have seen the biggest crowds in 2 years at Walt Disney World. This crowd report shares wait time data, photos from the parks, and thoughts on what’s likely to happen next with numbers at Walt Disney World heading into spring break season.
To quickly recap, attendance has been high over the last couple of months–just as it was two winters ago before the parks closed. In Winter Is Not Off-Season at Walt Disney World, we explained how January and February crowds have grown since ~2017, why last year was the outlier, and how now is more of a return to normal. (For good measure, we also pat ourselves on the back a bit for predicting this when it seems to have caught everyone else by surprise.)
Crowds at Walt Disney World surged in the last couple of weeks, with Presidents’ Day, Princess Half Marathon, and schools on winter breaks pushing attendance and wait times even higher. Honestly, this has caught us slightly by surprise. Not that the last two weeks have been busy–that was easily foreseeable–but just how packed the parks have been during that period…
Again, our 2022 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars warned that winter would be bad. That prediction was predicated upon postponed trips, pent-up demand for international travel, snowbirds resuming their normal Florida travel plans, the return of runDisney and youth sporting events, and people remembering how low crowds were this year.
That confluence of circumstances meant much more demand than normal in early this year. The lack of discounts through early March 2022 was also concerning and suggestive of more travel, and my expectation was/is that attendance will follow suit.
We also warned that the week of Presidents’ Day is always busier than people expect. Admittedly, even we didn’t think it would be this bad. If you asked me whether the last two weeks would be busier than the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s, I would’ve said no.
And yet, they were. Before we get ahead of ourselves with a forward-looking forecast, let’s dig into wait times and see to what’s up with winter crowds at Walt Disney World…
Let’s start with a high level look at monthly wait time averages across the entirety of Walt Disney World. (All graphs and wait time stats courtesy of Thrill-Data.com.)
There you have it–February 2022 was the busiest month in the last year at Walt Disney World. It dethrones December of last year as the busiest month since reopening, and is thus the busiest month in the last two years.
The average wait time at Walt Disney World was 45 minutes in February 2022. To put this into perspective, last December, it was 41 minutes. That may not seem like much, but 4 minutes is actually pretty significant, especially multiplied across all attractions–it adds up over the course of a day or trip.
To give you even more perspective, the average wait time in February 2020 was 50 minutes (see above weekly graph). The peak week that winter was also that of Presidents’ Day, which saw wait times average 55 minutes. So you could say that this month was bad…but it could’ve been worse!
If you break it down by week, you can also see how crowds have grown gradually over the course of February 2022. Since bottoming out at a 6/10 level in late January, wait times have risen each week since.
The last two weeks have both been 10/10 in terms of crowd levels, with the more recent week being even worse at an average wait of 52 minutes versus 48 the previous week. That makes the last week of February 2022 the busiest of the last two years, surpassing the week of Thanksgiving, which also averaged 48 minute waits.
Once we get into individual days, the graph becomes difficult to read–but you can still see the spike over the Presidents’ Day weekend on the far right.
In case you’re curious, February 20 and 22 rank as tied for the busiest days of the last 450 at Walt Disney World. So “congratulations” if you visited during the days bookending Presidents’ Day. You “survived” the #1 crowd day of the year (thus far) at Walt Disney World!
For park by park analysis, we’ll start with Magic Kingdom.
Magic Kingdom wait times had been all over the place from early January through early February, but settled into a “predictably bad” groove the last couple of weeks. Crowd levels hit 9/10 on February 14, and haven’t looked back since. Only one 8/10 day since, with most days hitting 10/10–only a few 9/10s scattered into the mix.
Here are the specific averages for the month:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train: 117 minutes
- Peter Pan’s Flight: 95 minutes
- Jungle Cruise: 76 minutes
- Space Mountain: 74 minutes
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: 63 minutes
- Pirates of the Caribbean: 57 minutes
- Haunted Mansion: 57 minutes
Following our Best & Worst Days at Each Park in Walt Disney World would’ve helped choose the “least bad” days to visit Magic Kingdom during the last two weeks, but there’s only so helpful resources like that are amidst peak season crowds. You would’ve still hit 10/10 days, but shaved a few minutes off the average wait. Small victories, I guess?
It’s a similar story at Animal Kingdom.
There, wait times peaked at 64 minutes on February 20. That’s worse than the Walt Disney World average, but not as bad as over Thanksgiving when wait times hit 67 minutes.
Avatar Flight of Passage averaged 105 minutes and Na’vi River Journey averaged 69 minutes, which are right in line with holiday season highs. Kilimanjaro Safaris was at 64 minutes, while Dinosaur averaged 34 minutes. The few other attractions in Animal Kingdom were all below 30 minutes.
Also relevant here is that Expedition Everest is down for refurbishment until at least the end of April 2022. In another park, this would displace guests and result in higher waits elsewhere. To some extent, that’s probably happening. However, with so few rides in Animal Kingdom, it’s more likely that people are just finishing the park faster and leaving earlier. That would also explain some of the drop-off in average wait times. February was also a cold month, so Kali River Rapids only managed to average a 22 minute wait time. Double that a month or two from now.
Continuing to Epcot, which is skewed for a couple of reasons.
First, the 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts ended on Presidents’ Day. Events are always a big draw for this park, whereas “Diet Epcot” is not. With that said, festivals are big draws for locals, snowbirds, and other Walt Disney World regulars who visit the park without rides as their focus.
As we’ve stressed repeatedly, these crowd reports showcase wait times, which are not conclusive of attendance. They’re an imperfect measure of raw attendance or crowds–but they’re still the best measure that exists.
There are several other variables that can impact “feels like” crowds, from special events to weather to ride breakdowns to operational efficiency. Epcot, in particular, is notorious for higher “feels like” crowds in World Showcase on weekends and evenings. Weekends are busier for drinking and evenings are busier for people Park Hopping over to watch Harmonious.
During the past week, we’ve noticed that lines are particularly bad at Epcot counter service restaurants and outdoor vending. This is undoubtedly due to the lack of festival booths, which provide the park with needed dining capacity when it’s busy.
As for specific attraction wait times at Epcot, here’s what we have for February:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure: 89 minutes
- Frozen Ever After: 82 minutes
- Test Track: 67 minutes
- Soarin’ Around the World: 41 minutes
- Mission Space: 23 minutes
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Check out the tallest red line towards the right. That’s February 23, which goes down as the busiest day at any Walt Disney World theme park in the last 450 days with an average wait time of 72 minutes.
We weren’t in DHS on 2/23, but we did visit on the #2 day of the last 450 days at Walt Disney World back during Thanksgiving. I can’t imagine the park being even busier than that by an average 5 minutes. Absolutely astronomical number. (If anyone was in Disney’s Hollywood Studios on February 23, we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments.)
Here are February attraction numbers for Disney’s Hollywood Studios:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance: 140 minutes
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: 105 minutes
- Slinky Dog Dash: 103 minutes
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway: 75 minutes
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: 75 minutes
- Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run: 74 minutes
- Toy Story Mania: 67 minutes
- Alien Swirling Saucers: 42 minutes
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue: 30 minutes
Keep in mind that these are averages, not daily highs. They’re the middle-of-the-road numbers from February.
The total average time it would take to do all 9 of those rides is 681 minutes–or 11.85 hours. That’s essentially the full operating day, from opening until closing, to do the entire ride lineup at DHS. No time for bathroom breaks, eating, stage shows, or even walking between attractions.
This is why Genie+ is probably worth it at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, even if you’re only able to knock out 3-4 headliners with it. That’s the likely scenario given that Slinky Dog Dash is gone within seconds and Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run fills up in under 2 hours after that. From our perspective, spending $16 per person to save 3+ hours on vacation is worth it.
Follow our Speed Strategy for Genie+ Selections and DHS Lightning Lane Ride Ranks to max out your Genie+ count at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. For comprehensive advice for all parks, see our Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World.
We spend more time at Disney’s Hollywood Studios than I would like, in large part because it’s the most difficult from a strategy perspective. From our experiences at DHS in February, it was a rough month for the park. It wasn’t a matter of waits being inflated or congestion somehow being lower. What you see is what you get at DHS. It was very bad. Fantasmic cannot come back soon enough.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios felt like one of the days shortly after the opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, with overflow queues everywhere, long waits for Mobile Order, packed shows, and a much fuller parking lot. This park is definitely back in February 2020 form, but without the entertainment and other offerings to help absorb crowds.
Back then, we wrote Disney’s Hollywood Studios: WDW’s Best Rides & Most Frustrating Park, which focused on how the attraction roster was too top heavy, with an insufficient supporting lineup. Now, that post seems so quaint. Never would’ve imagined even more could be cut from the supporting lineup!
Looking forward, you can expect more of the same for the coming month. As covered in our March 2022 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World, Mardi Gras plus lingering Princess Half Marathon crowds will kick off the month, before Spring Break season arrives in full force.
Our original expectation was that the second week would see a bit of a lull, but Walt Disney World inexplicably extended hours that week. We were (and still are) expecting the worst of the crowds to come in the third week of March 2022. (My prediction: that ends up being the worst week of the month and the first quarter, surpassing Presidents’ Day week.)
Due to Mardi Gras, this week could also end up being the worst of the month or year to date. Walt Disney World has already extended hours for the first week of March 2022, including an unprecedented move for Epcot. The park now opens at 8:30 am this week, which is something we haven’t seen before during the phased reopening.
Pre-closure, there were occasions when Epcot opened at 8 am instead of 9 am. The thing to keep in mind is that it was staggered, with World Showcase not opening until 11 am. Now, the whole park opens at once, with some entertainment not starting until 11 am. (So it’s not a huge shift, but certainly better than the previously scheduled 10 am opening time for Epcot.)
We were in Magic Kingdom for Early Entry and regular park opening today, and it was one of the busiest mornings we’ve seen in a long time. If this is a ‘sneak peek’ of spring break crowds…big yikes. (It’s also crazy to me that Magic Kingdom is only open from 9 am until 9 pm this week. Given crowds, park hours should be at least 8 am to 11 pm.)
Disney Park Pass reservations are also starting to fill up for this week and beyond in March 2022. There’s already limited Disney Park Pass availability for Monday through Thursday of the third week. It’s still early, so expect Friday through Sunday to follow suit very soon.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Disney Park Pass availability the second week. Normally, nearer dates will faster, as many guests don’t make reservations until the last minute. As such, we’re still holding out a sliver of hope that the second week of March isn’t terrible. Same for the fourth and final weeks.
Even though wait times are once again hitting pre-closure levels, keep in mind that Walt Disney World is still not operating at 100%. Many stage shows are still dark, some nighttime spectaculars & parades are still cut, meet & greets are mostly absent, atmospheric entertainment isn’t back, hours remain reduced, and not every venue in the parks & resorts (dining, in particular) is fully efficient due to staffing shortages.
All of this might seem minor, but the totality of it means that Walt Disney World isn’t equipped to handle nearly the attendance levels as it was in March 2020 (well, at least the first half of the month before the parks closed). As a result, this still is not an apples to apples attendance comparison.
Even when Walt Disney World is busy, it’s still possible to have a satisfying and productive day in the park. Be sure to use our Walt Disney World Itineraries for efficient step-by-step strategy, with options now with and without Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
Speaking of which, we’d recommend Genie+ and Lightning Lanes for Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. I used it over the weekend (read about My Day Using Genie+ Lightning Lanes in Peak Crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios), and while I was able to make fewer selections per day with it than normal, I still saved over 4 hours in line. Your mileage may vary, but that’s worth the $16 per person per day to me.
Ultimately, it’s not just this past month that’s going to end up being crowded. The next month-plus will be busy at Walt Disney World, with only a few potential reprieves from the crowds. Whether March 2022 will surpass February remains an open question. There’s another wildcard: the possibly that added hours or more returning entertainment could help offset higher raw attendance, meaning lower wait times despite higher crowds. That feels like a bit of a wonky “technicality,” though.
Suffice to say, March 2022 will be busy (and, spoiler alert, so will April). Pack your patience and arm yourself with savvy strategy if you’re visiting Walt Disney World this spring break season or beyond. It is going to be very busy with “feels like” crowds and wait times among the highest we’ve ever seen in the last two years, yet again. We’ll be in the parks throughout the week and should have some reports and advice that will help you make the most of Spring 2022 at Walt Disney World.
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
Predictions on crowds for spring break season? Thoughts on our prediction that the third week of March 2022 will be the busiest week of the year (so far) at Walt Disney World? If you’ve visited in prior months during the last year, how did crowds compare between then and now? What did you think of the 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 there before President’s Day. In the parks 2/7-2/9, and this was the busiest trip we have ever taken. That includes Spring Break 2018 and 2021 and Christmas 2020. The wait time for Peter Pan was 130 minutes on Wed. 2/9 midday. This is the first time we have ever skipped Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, and Winnie the Pooh in the same trip. We couldn’t get Lightning Lanes for any of them and refused to wait an hour or more. Hoping for a redo MK day in Aug.
I would like to bet a lot of money on “Ultimately, it’s not just this past month that’s going to end up being crowded.”
Winter Is Not Off-Season at Walt Disney World … HOWEVER, Expect Spring, Summer, and Fall To Be Worse (except parts of May and September) is what I expect. Except for major holidays where capacity has historically been capped, just about every day in 2019 seemed to have higher attendance than comparable days from prior years.
Since I don’t think WDW has even felt the full force of international “revenge travel” yet, I would definitely plan for (parts of) May or September if you want to avoid crowds and can deal with lovebugs and humidity better than I can.
We were there Feb 19-25th and…yeah. It was an absolute crush. Genie + and ILL couldn’t even help us out some mornings as the app crashed, errored out, or just plain gave us times that didn’t work (several hours after the initial time offered).
EPCOT was honestly a nightmare with all the pavilions, and you are 100% on waits for food. It would take us 20-30 minutes to get anything from a non-sit down restaurant.
We were used to DLR crowds (holiday) and even that didn’t prepare us. The only “quiet” place we found was Typhoon Lagoon.
For the amount of money guests spend, I think Disney is going to have to go with some harsher strategies on crowd control. Based on our experience–even though we had fun–I wouldn’t go back.
We were at Hollywood Studios on its busiest day so far, Feb 23! And yes, it was absolutely nuts! Way busier than when we were there for Christmas week. Got to the tapstiles for early entry at 7:45 and went right to Slinky. I was close to the front of the line but it didn’t start moving until 8:15 and once they filled the queue, they didn’t start up until 8:25. Then I went straight to Runaway Railway at 8:50 and waited 35 minutes. At this point, the wait times everywhere were already becoming prohibitive. I tried for RnRC single rider but the ride was down, and Tower was already at 2 hours. I decided to head towards Galaxy’s Edge and the entire outdoor queue for Star Tours was filled and wait time over an hour. I headed to Smuggler’s Run to try single rider and that line was backed up almost to the entrance so I bailed. The walk through Galaxy’s Edge was the most unpleasant I have ever experienced – it literally made me claustrophobic. I went back to RnRC and it was still down, so I left around 11:00 after only accomplishing 2 rides in over 3 hours. My husband was supposed to meet me at the park but decided it wasn’t worth it after I relayed my early morning experience. We cancelled our second HS park pass for later in the week and likely won’t return anytime soon after that mess!
We are going the last week in March and this post is helping me plan out what not to do – i.e. cut our plans! We’re already doing two MK days with the goal of hitting half the things we want each day. And we’re traveling with out 7yo so there’s many top attractions eliminated because she doesn’t want to do them (thank goodness). But this post is reminding me to go and enjoy being there, not race from ride to ride. Thanks.
My daughter and I made a girls trip to Disney World Feb. 12-18. Yes, the crowds were nuts! We rope dropped every day and invested in Genie + (plus individual LL’s) and got to do nearly everything we wanted to do. (On our one day at Hollywood Studios, Rise of the Resistance was closed most of the day.) What bothered me the most? Trying to walk around former Future World at Epcot with a stroller. With massive crowds and so many walls up for construction, there were some very narrow passages. And woe to you if you were going against the grain! My daughter loved getting to paint the mural, and I enjoyed it too! Not sure when we’ll be back. We were hoping for October. But I’ll watch and wait…
I have been super excited for an upcoming trip the week of March 7th but the crowds thus far and the sudden extension of hours is making me very nervous. I’ve been to DW a few times in the distant past but this is the first time I am taking my kids who have never been. I’ve study the suggested itineraries provided here so here’s to hoping. Any last minute advice? Hope the crowds won’t be as bad as feared?
If I step out of Epcot for lunch at Ale & Compass on one of those super crowded days (March 15th), is there any chance I won’t be able to get back into Epcot after the meal due to crowds and the park filling up? Or am I guaranteed admittance for the entire day with a park reservation?
As long as you don’t tap into a second park, you are guarnateed to get back into Epcot when you have a park reservation. So you will be fine.
In retrospect (and looking forward?), this is a decent year to have visited during the holidays. The “off season” is a lot less appealing this year with moderate to very high crowds and high hotel rates, and therefore less worthy of missing school etc.
Tom, I imagine all your immediate and mid-term crowd predictions apply to Universal, too?
Hey there Tom! I saw you at Magic Kingdom when you were about to get off of the People Mover! We had just gotten on so I couldn’t say hello! Keep up the good work on your blog! We appreciate all of the help with planning our trip….through your articles!!
My family (3 young kids and hubby) and I were there for 16th Feb – 22nd Feb. We rope dropped every day and actually got on all rides except rise of the resistance. That said we didn’t leave the park for a mid afternoon break, those kids were troopers. We didn’t use genie+ it was too expensive for family of five on multiple days.
I think genie+ is overrated as it’s very expensive and I heard a lot of complaints from others who were using it.
Epcot- I have to say we got on soarin and mission to Mars all by 10.15am but the world showcase was far too packed and ruined one of my favourite parks. And the lines for food in Epcot!!! It was quicker to walk to the boardwalk and grab some hotdogs.
I think overall we did It as we were committed to those dates but the prices and the packing everyone in and staff not being filled with magic left me and my husband agreeing that we won’t be back for a long while. And I’ve been in love with Disney for 33 years! I’m a little sad by this experience
I decided last year that August was going to be our month in Florida. Hoping that the horrible heat, humidity and storms keep rational, sound-minded people away. 😀 Wondering what my chances are for lower crowds by that time.
Hi, Tom. We’ve planned a trip to Orlando for the fourth week of March, 3/20 thru 3/25. What do you think about a strategy that involves rope dropping for 2 or 3 attractions, taking a lunch / mid-afternoon break (e.g., Kennedy Space Center or other attractions, pool time, drink time, lunch, etc.) and then building up Genie+ options for the evening? We only plan on hitting DHS and maybe MK for a couple of days. We also plan on being at Universal Studios for a couple of days. Do you know how well the Universal Express Pass works on 10/10 days? Thank you.
I think that is a good plan (although KSC is it’s own day, but pool breaks are fun.). Universal express is pretty good; it didn’t work great on Gringotts or Mummy over Xmas break though. We merged into the regular line very very early (they re-routed it). Try Single RIder on Gringotts. If you can swing the shared VIP tour you will get backstage on every single ride (literally no line). I would stay in a cheaper hotel and do the shared VIP if it were a busy time and I only had a day or two. If you have a few days then just go for express. We had a great time there in December! I love Universal. Velocicoaster is amazing. We rode it 4 times. Islands of Adventure blows Hollywood STudios out of the water. I love all the other Disney parks though. We stacked Genie rides in October and I plan to do that again in July. My teens love sleeping in. We will probably book RoTR and stack a few Genies, go over there in the evening for those and otherwise avoid HS like the plague! Have fun!
We just got back last night. We had no choice but to go the week of Feb 20th to the 26th which for us was shortened to visit a sick friend in South Carolina. Looking back I’m so glad we weren’t there for race weekend (24 – 27). Disney actually hands out a two sided flyer listing the impacts of the event and it’s not pretty.
Thank goodness we are “empty nesters” who go to Disney without needing to do rides. It was SUPER CROWDED but you could travel around the parks ok because everyone was on a line for something. Lines were horrible. They say if you remember the 60’s you weren’t there well you can now say that if you weren’t on a line during Feb 20h to the 27th you weren’t at WDW. Lines were so bad I had to wait an hour to get into our hotel room’s shower. Ba-dum ching.
We arrived Sunday and went to EPCOT to see the festival and have dinner at the Regal Eagle. We ate and listened to the 8 pm Disney on Broadway show. The show was underwhelming and had me worried as I’d set up lunch ticket reservations for the next day that gave us preferred seating for the special 8 pm finale show. The next night there were 4 performers instead of two and they were dressed for the occasion as that show was being streamed live. All four have Broadway resumes and they turned up the talent and charisma for the camera. That show alone made the two day drive one way from NY worth it. FANTASTIC!
We skipped Harmonious and walked onto Ratatouille which was never under 2 hours Sat or Sun. Note: even when we walked on 5 minutes before Park closing it said 35 minute wait. Tom taught us not to be fooled by posted wait times at the end of the evening in any Park.
During the day on Monday we just went around the Park searching out the painting masterpieces featuring Figment to complete our map. You can have a great time at WDW without rides.
Tuesday the lines at MK were dreadful so we just did the Liberty Belle, staked out Tom Sawyers Island and caught the Hall of the Presidents. Interestingly for the first time ever people reacted during the presidents naming. A big applause erupted for Trump catching me by surprise and when Biden began the oath of office someone yelled out “Where’s your mask.” which had everyone laughing and then chants of “Let’s go Brandon” and other jeers broke out. We love this patriotic show and have seen it over two dozen times in 4 years but this was the first time anyone ever reacted.
Wednesday the 23rd, HS was so crowded we just did a little shopping then headed for a wood sign making class at Fort Wilderness. What a great way to spend an afternoon. Highly recommended. There’s so much more to enjoying WDW then rides.
Thursday was our last day before heading to SC and WOW was that ever crowded. So glad we were leaving after we did UP CLOSE WITH RHINOS. If you can arrange to do this or any of the AK events they offer you will not be disappointed. Part of your money goes to help preserve endangered species all around the world and you learn all sorts of interesting tidbits while petting a baby rhino.
BTW, Monday was our first time eating at Chefs de France and it was excellent.
During the worst week in over a year we did exactly 5 rides (Spaceship Earth, Ratatouille, Liberty Belle, Carousel of Progress, People Mover); 2 shows (Disney On Broadway, Hall of Presidents) and 1 event (Rhino’s) in 4 days and had a great time.
We were there from Feb. 17 until 21 and have never seen it so busy. Yet transportation was smoother than ever. We stayed at CBR and the Skyliner was great, but we also had good luck with buses to MK and AK and everywhere else we went, so that was great. That said, we just lowered our expectations and made peace with the fact that there were rides we weren’t going to be able to do. I’m looking at you 7DMT… even with Genie + and buying two ILL (Space Mountain and Remy) and rope dropping every day, we didn’t see as much as we normally do. I’m okay skipping Peter Pan and assume that by the time I go back Seven Dwarves will be less of a wait because Tron will be open. However, I feel really bad for families who have never been before and may never be able to go again.
This post is really helping us manage our expectations. Thankfully, we are just as happy at country bear jamboree, walking through Walt Disney Presents, looking at animals at animal kingdom, and hanging out in Morocco at Epcot as we are riding 7DMT or ROTR. Our only must do attraction this April is Ratatouille because it’s new to us. Come to think of it- I’m most looking forward to the new club cool, finally having reservations at Oga’s, and seeing Harmonious.
Sorry to say Morocco is more or less empty. The bazaar is closed. There’s only the spice road restaurant open.
Yeah… you told me that President’s weekend wouldn’t be thaaat bad! I want my my money back! lol.
In all seriousness, I’ve traveled President’s weekend before to both WDW and Universal, and I’ve never ever seen it this bad. Extended queue for Journey Into Imagination bad. Unable to get into immediate viewings of the shows bad.
This was Christmas level bad, in February.
The bigger question is whether this is a temporary spike — revenge travel combined with still-limited capacity. Or is this a new normal — As if we are catching up to where the growth curve would have been if Covid never happened, but without a commensurate increase in capacity.
There are hints that this is the new normal, or at least for the rest of this year. For March, Epcot is looking at extending opening to 8:30 am. This is with half the park still under construction, no new Guardians of the Galaxy ride open yet. This is a real indication that WDW is expecting massive crowds to continue.
You mentioned the lack of discounts. Another potential sign — a return to Christmas season Lighting lanes, with only 1 paid lane per park. I wish they had done this for President’s weekend. The fact that they have made this adjustment through August suggests 1 — it may become a permanent change, and 2– they are expecting relatively high crowds on a continuing basis through at least August.
All I’ll say — These high crowds are horrible for a “one in a lifetime trip.” You will be miserable. For the frequent WDW traveler, this is the time to go with a smart touring plan and being ready to appreciate some of the “lesser” attractions. I liked the Pixar Short films at Epcot far more than I expected to.
Schools in the SE always have a week off for Presidents’ Day. It’s called “Winter Break”. NY also has a break then. I would say it’s not a fluke. Why they put a race on a holiday week is beyond me. If they move the race, then it might die down a little, but you still have the school break people from multiple states. I think people without kids don’t realize the impact Winter Break has on Orlando, cruising and ski destinations. The week after, (what would be this week) is usually not as bad, so maybe you can report back your experience! Hope you have fun! 🙂
Is it too early to make a prediction about 2023 end of January and first two weeks of February. We are still trying to reschedule our trip from April 2020. With everyone’s schedule it is about our only time to go. Just curious what you think about next year? Thanks
Hi Rachel, I am not Tom but I would expect it to be busy. As Tom pointed out, January and February were already trending towards being busy pre-closure, so I would expect that to continue. I was not there this month but I *was* there in February 2020 and for what it’s worth, we had a great time. It was certainly busy and there was some waiting in lines, but the weather was much nicer than at other times of the year. Hopefully by this time next year all missing entertainment and dining capacity will be back and that should help disperse crowds.
All of this is a long way of saying that if January/February 2023 is the only time that works for you, it is totally possible to have a great time even with the winter crowds! My one piece of advice would be avoid EPCOT on the weekend; the Festival of the Arts was great but the massive crowds on the walkways were not. It’s the only thing I would change about that Feb 2020 trip. Hope that helps 😀
We were in WDW last week 2/18-2/25. It was the busiest I’ve ever seen. We usually take 2-3 trips a year and feel we’re pretty savvy park navigators, but we had trouble navigating the crowds last week. In my opinion Genie + is a must have for DHS and MK. We didn’t purchase Genie + for our Epcot or AK days, but in hind sight, I wish we would have. Not only were the parks busy, but our resort OKW was packed as well.
Thanks for the thorough analysis, Tom. We’re headed there this weekend through next week and are hoping that crowds miraculously don’t end up being as crazy as we fear. The mystery of the extended hours for that week (surprise, MK is closing at 11 pm!) really threw us a curveball. Do you think there’s any possibility that Disney did that as a way of ramping up for more intense crowds the third week of March?