No Need to Panic – Wait Times Dropped Significantly Following Labor Day Weekend

There’s a saying I used to have when I was a Disney Cast Member: “the calm before and after the storm.” The time leading up to a busy period and the time immediate after was always so calm. This Labor Day weekend was the busiest weekend at Walt Disney World since reopening – which came as no surprise. Also no surprise is the days immediately following it have been extremely quiet. Wait times plummeted down to the low numbers to which we have grown accustomed.

The park hours have now been reduced, which while annoying, is also understandable. Our Lines App can help you make the most of the shorter park hours to make sure you maximize your time. The app uses real-time data to show Expected Wait Times compared to Disney’s Posted Wait Times and make recommendations as to when to visit each attraction so you save as much time as possible.

Let’s see how things looked at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT yesterday and Tuesday.

Wait Times at Magic Kingdom on Tuesday September 8, 2020

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 45 / Expected 28
  • Posted Wait Time 35 / Expected 27
• Space Mountain 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 7
  • Posted Wait Time 15 / Expected 10
• Haunted Mansion 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 22
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 15
• Big Thunder Mountain 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 21 / Actual 14
  • Posted Wait Time 15 / Expected 13

Now, let’s head over to EPCOT to see how things looked on Tuesday, September 8, 2020. When looking at the Expected and Actual Wait Times below you’ll see that our Lines App showed wait times that were 10 – 15 minutes less than what Disney’s Posted Wait Times indicate.

• Frozen Ever After 1:00 p.m. vs. 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 35 / Expected 18
  • Posted Wait Time 45 / Expected 27
• Test Track 1:00 p.m. vs. 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 23
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 23
• Soarin’ 1:00 p.m. vs. 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 12
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 8
• Mission: SPACE 1:00 p.m. vs. 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 8
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 8

In short, for both EPCOT and Magic Kingdom the longest expected wait times barely reached 30 minutes. However, some rides like Test Track, experienced some down times. This can cause a ripple effect and it helps to have our Lines app to be able to adjust your plans based on real-time information.

Yesterday our field team visited Magic Kingdom. Let’s see if wait times continued to stay low.

Wait Times at Magic Kingdom on Wednesday September 9, 2020

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 35 / Expected 27
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 24
• Space Mountain 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 5
• Haunted Mansion 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Offline at 1:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 20 / Expected 18
• Big Thunder Mountain 1:00 p.m. vs 3:00 p.m.
  • Posted Wait Time 25 / Expected 17 / Actual 11
  • Posted Wait Time 20 / Expected 13

When comparing Tuesday and Wednesday, wait times were slightly lower than the already low wait times at Magic Kingdom. Haunted Mansion did experience some down time and when it came back up the wait time was close to 20 minutes. Our Lines app recommended going to other attractions knowing from the data that the wait time would go down later on.

You can check historical wait times for any Walt Disney World attractions on our site. Here’s the full day’s worth of wait times at Haunted Mansion yesterday. The green dots show actual wait times experienced and submitted by users of our app, known as Liners. You can see that as of 4:30 p.m. Haunted Mansion was a walk-on, with practically no wait at all.

 

While the hype about Labor Day Weekend attendance was warranted, it is no surprise that crowds dropped off significantly right after. We anticipate things to be pretty quiet for the next few weeks in Orlando. We’ll continue to bring coverage and helpful information about Walt Disney World and other experiences.

Are you planning on visiting during this slow period at the parks? What do you think of these wait times?