Disney World, Disneyland, and Universal Orlando Crowd Calendar Updates

[Saturday, June 13 Update: We’ve lowered the crowd level forecasts for Hollywood Studios for many days through the end of summer. I mistakenly applied a set of rules in the wrong order when doing Friday’s updates. And then I also applied in the wrong order the “make sure these numbers make sense” rules. I apologize to anyone stressed out by that. And thanks for sending in emails to ask about it!]

We’ve updated our crowd calendars for Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Universal Orlando. Updated predictions start with June 15, 2026 and run through December 31, 2026. This post explains the changes and factors that went into these updates.

This is our third major crowd calendar update for 2026. The previous two updates were announced on February 5 and March 18. The next scheduled update will likely be toward the end of August.

Our crowd calendar uses a 1-to-10 scale to rank crowds in each park. Those numbers represent the average posted wait time at popular attractions in each park between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., when the park is busiest. Our goal is for each park’s predictions to be within +/- 1.0 of the wait times we measure in the park each day. Factors such as weather and unscheduled ride outages are two things that affect the accuracy of those predictions.

Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar Updates

Magic Kingdom Our Magic Kingdom crowd predictions have been within +/- 0.95 since our February 5 update and we’re averaging +/- 1.27 for the year. If that improvement trend continues, 2026 will be our most accurate full year of Magic Kingdom predictions ever, beating 2020’s +/- 1.24 and 2017’s +/- 1.28.

Like the earlier updates, most of the Magic Kingdom’s changes in this round are slight reductions in crowd levels. Disney noted a 1% decrease in domestic park attendance in May’s earnings call, and a similar drop to end 2025. It’s hard to see how the rest of summer 2026 would bring a substantical increase in attendance: U.S. consumer confidence is down, gas prices remain high, and Walt Disney World has no major new attractions opening until Tropical Americas in late 2027.

EPCOT’s crowd calendar updates continue the trend of aligning more with “same day last year”. For example, we’re predicting a crowd level of 4 at the Studios on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. And the same Tuesday in 2025 (June 17, 2025) was a 3 at the park. That rule has to take moveable holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter into account, too.

Like the Magic Kingdom, February’s updates for EPCOT improved the calendar’s accuracy to +/- 1.08. We’re averaging +/- 1.41 for all of 2026. If that continue, 2026 will be our most accurate full year of EPCOT predictions ever, beating 2017’s +/- 1.27.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios had quite a few downward revisions in crowd levels. We’d been overestimating crowds for 27 of the past 30 days prior to this update, so that adjustment makes sense. Those adjustments then went through the “same date last year” rule as a sanity check.

It’s worth noting that Hollywood Studios is the most difficult Disney World park to predict, in part because of unexpected early morning ride downtime.

With the re-opening of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets, the Studios has 9 rides with posted wait times. But as Becky noted in her latest Disney Data Dump, Slinky Dog Dash wasn’t operating at park opening around 18% of the time and Smugglers Run was down 12% of the time – roughly 1 day per week on average.

When the park has 9 rides and 2 of them aren’t running at opening, it immediately affects standby lines at the rides still operating. And the entire park eventually suffers a cascading effect of higher waits when guests with affected Lightning Lanes return to ride. (The Magic Kingdom has enough rides to dampen the effect of one or two rides being offline; EPCOT’s attractions are indoors and don’t close for bad weather. The Animal Kingdom has similar problems though.)

Disney’s Animal Kingdom changes bring it more in line with historical crowd levels. Like the Studios, a lot of those are slight downward revisions in crowd levels. The calendar’s performance for Animal Kingdom since the February update has been decent: +/- 1.40 including +/- 1.10 in the last 30 days.

A couple of specific dates to highlight for Walt Disney World:

The July 4 holiday is on a Saturday this year. We’re predicting a 3 crowd level at each park except EPCOT, which is a 6. Previous July 4th crowds have looked like this:

• 2025 MK = 3, EP = 6, DHS = 2, AK = 2
• 2024 MK = 2, EP = 2, DHS = 2, AK = 2

Crowd levels before July 1, 2024 aren’t directly comparable with crowd levels after due to Disney’s DAS rules changes that went into effect that summer. Those pre-DAS crowd levels are generally higher than post-change. Keeping that in mind, here’s the holiday for pre-2024:

• 2023 MK = 5, EP = 4, DHS = 1, AK = 2
• 2022 MK = 5, EP = 7, DHS = 6, AK = 1
• Ignoring 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic
• 2019 MK = 8, EP = 6, DHS = 2, AK = 2
• 2018 MK = 10, EP = 8, DHS = 3, AK = 5

For reference, the Magic Kingdom had nearly 21 million visitors in 2019. Annual Magic Kingdom attendance in 2024 was 17.8 million, a decrease of 15%. Combined with the changes in DAS rules and the state of the US economy, it’s difficult to think this year’s crowds are going to be dramatically different than the recent past.

Labor Day is Monday, September 7 this year.  We’re predicting a crowd level of 2 at the Magic Kingdom and 3 the other Walt Disney World parks. Previous Labor Day crowds have been:

• 2025 (Sep 1) MK = 1, EP = 2, DHS = 2, AK = 2
• 2024 (Sep 2) MK = 1, EP = 4, DHS = 2, AK = 5
• 2023 (Sep 3) MK = 1, EP = 3, DHS = 2, AK = 3

The Magic Kingdom’s crowds peaked at a 3 over the entire 2025 Labor Day weekend as well.

Universal Orlando Crowd Calendar Updates

We’ve been consistently overestimating Universal Orlando’s crowds for the past month, including 27 of the last 30 days at Epic Universe. This set of updates adjusts for that. We’re also using the “same day last year” rule as a sanity check for Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure.

Like Hollywood Studios, ride downtime affects Universal Orlando crowd levels in unpredictable ways. For example, the entire resort (not just one park) lost this much ride capacity due to downtime recently:

• May 29: 17%
• May 28: 12%
• May 27: 10%
• May 28: 12%
• May 27: 10%

Here’s the average daily downtime for Universal Orlando’s and Walt Disney World’s parks for 2026:

• 8.7% Epic Universe – That’s roughly an hour per day of lost ride capacity park-wide on a 12-hour day
• 7.7% Universal Studios Florida
• 6.5% Islands of Adventure
• 5.2% Animal Kingdom
• 4.9% EPCOT
• 4.9% Magic Kingdom
• 3.6% Hollywood Studios

All three Universal Orlando parks experience more average ride downtime per day than any Disney World park.

If y’all are interested I can do a blog post deep dive on it.

Universal Studios Florida and Island of Adventure updates also combine the rules from our February 10 update with a “same day last year” sanity check. Our 2026 accuracy for USF is +/- 1.59 including +/- 1.07 over the past 30 days. I think we’re headed in the right direction there.

The 2026 accuracy for IOA is +/- 1.71 including 1.40 in the past 30 days. Our historical average for IOA since 2017 has been +/- 1.40, and my expectation is that the addition of the “same day last year” rule will help there.

Epic Universe is the least predictable park we cover, and I suspect weather, ride downtime, and ride capacity are some of the contributing factors. We’ve overpredicted Epic almost every day for the past month despite significant downtime that should drive waits higher. That might be a sign that the park’s opening honeymoon is nearing an end.

It seems like Epic is getting ready to open the Celestial Park hub to non-paying guests in the next few weeks. That would turn the middle of the park into a sort of City Walk South, where guests can eat, drink and shop without paying for admission. A new nighttime fireworks show should also be coming with that change. And at some point Universal has to include Epic Universe in its Annual Pass coverage, right?

Disneyland Resort Crowd Calendar Updates

This set of Disneyland Resort updates addresses slight underpredictions we’ve made at both parks since the last update. Underestimating crowds is worse that overestimating crowds, of course. Like the other parks, we’re using a new “same day last year” rule as a sanity check on predictions.

Disneyland’s crowd calendar accuracy has been +/- 1.86 for 2026 and +/- 1.47 over the last 30 days. That 1.86 is high compared to Disney World’s parks, but it’s exactly our long-term average for Disneyland. My major project for the rest of 2026 is to improve the calendar’s performance overall, and I’m going to pay special attention to Disneyland’s parks. Local visitors there drive crowds in a way that we don’t see in Orlando’s parks, so you’d think that’d be more predictable.

Disney California Adventure crowd levels have averaged +/- 1.64 for 2026 and +/- 1.60 over the last 30 days. Our all-time best for DCA is +/- 1.64 in 2025 and I’m confident we’ll improve on that this year. We’ve underpredicted at DCA more than any other park in the last 30 days, and this update should help with that.

Next week I’m doing a deep dive into the best days of the week to visit Disneyland Resort’s parks. I expect the things we learn there to be incorporated into the next round of Disneyland crowd calendar updates.

Wrapping Up

Thanks for reading this far. As a reminder, a good touring plan is the first step toward low waits in line. Wear sunscreen, stay hydrated, and let me know in the comments below if I’ve missed anything here.