Disney Data Dump May 21 2025

We’re back with the Disney Data Dump! And it’s a special Double Disney Data Dump thanks to me being out and about exploring Epic Universe last week. Two weeks of data means that we have lots of new trends to explore. And we’re headed into early summer with plenty of school districts wrapping up their year this week. So what can we predict moving forward? Let’s jump in!

Observed Crowd Levels May 6 – 19

That’s a nice couple of weeks! Even a crowd level two – although that was more thanks to that day being a total wash-out than just light crowds. Even so, mid-May can sometimes see an uptick of people taking trips before the real summer temperatures set in. But we haven’t seen that so far. I have a feeling anyone with a summer or summer-adjacent trip is going to make it happen during the big deals that start soon. So we’ll keep our eyes on wait times and see if they start trending back up.

Magic Kingdom continues to be the place to be for low waits, at least until whenever Starlight Parade decides to debut (which is looking like later and later in the summer). It was just a crowd level 2 on most days of the past two weeks, and even dropped to a crowd level 1 on the 19th. EPCOT, on the other hand, continues to be the problem child. There are only 2-ish weeks left of Flower and Garden festival, and then EPCOT becomes Diet EPCOT and maybe crowds will go down a little? But even then, Animal Kingdom will take over as the next-most-crowded park.

Performance of Crowd Level Predictions

Each week, I give you a very transparent look into how the TouringPlans crowd level predictions performed. Each day at each park is one data point, so each week we have 28 different crowd level predictions to evaluate (and in this special double edition, we have 56 to evaluate!). Any time a prediction is within one or two crowd levels, things won’t really “feel” much different than what was predicted. Being off by 3 or more crowd levels is where you might feel that difference in wait times throughout the day.

In the past two weeks, Touring Plans predictions were either spot-on or within 1 crowd level 61% of the time. That’s the highest number we’ve seen at least for this calendar year (an improvement over the previous high of 50% two weeks ago). And 89% of the time Touring Plans predictions were within 2 crowd levels, so that means we get a B+ for our predictions in the past week. All misses were over-predictions, meaning that crowds came in lower than expected throughout the past couple of weeks. On average, the crowd level at any park any day of the week was about 1.5 crowd levels below prediction. The biggest miss of the week was an overprediction by 5 crowd levels, which happened at Hollywood Studios on May 12th. On that day, the park was predicted to be a crowd level 7, but only ended up being a crowd level 2.

Attraction Downtime May 6 – 19

If we average all of the capacity lost due to unexpected downtime over the past two weeks, it comes out to 4.1% of attractions unexpectedly being down. That’s a big uptick from the past months. Part of that is due to weather-related downtime. In the past two weeks, Hollywood Studios was the park with the most overall downtime, averaging 4.9% of its capacity lost to downtime throughout the week.

The worst day for attraction downtime in the past week was on May 10th. On that day, 10% of all capacity at WDW was lost due to unexpected downtime. The worst park-day of the week was also on May 10th at Hollywood Studios and EPCOT. On that day, 13% of attraction capacity was lost at the Studios and at EPCOT due to unexpected downtime. EPCOT was open for 12 hours on the 10th, so 13% downtime is the equivalent of the entire park shutting down for over an hour and a half. Hollywood Studios was open for 13 hours on the 10th, so 13% downtime there is like the entire park shutting down for over 101 minutes. Not a great day to be in either park.

Attraction Downtime Worst Offender

In the past two weeks, Slinky Dog Dash was the WDW attraction with the worst overall downtime. That one hurts. Especially for families visiting Hollywood Studios. The ride was unexpectedly down for 13% of the week. The worst day at Slinky was on May 8th, when the attraction was down for 72% of the day. But it had several days of 15% or more downtime, seemingly sporadically throughout the two weeks.

Rope Drop Downtime

Here are problematic offenders from the past two weeks, with the percentage of downtime during the first hour of the day in parentheses:

• Magic Kingdom: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (44%), it’s a small world (21%), Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (18%), Winnie the Pooh (12%), Haunted Mansion (11%)
• EPCOT: Journey Into Imagination (21%), Spaceship Earth (15%)
• Hollywood Studios: Rock’n’Roller Coaster (18%), Rise of the Resistance (12%)
• Animal Kingdom: No rope drop downtime issues!

Two weeks ago I had a chat with Magic Kingdom about how it needed to get its act together. Obviously that chat did not go well. I am not powerful or influential. Because that’s not a good slate of rope drop downtime.

Rise of the Resistance is also back on the list, along with what is now a very regular appearance for Rock’n’Roller Coaster.

Gold star for the week goes to Animal Kingdom!

Wait Times May 6 – 19

Attractions with the Highest Average Posted Wait at Each Park

• EPCOT: Cosmic Rewind, average posted wait of 78 minutes (was 77 minutes two weeks ago)
• Magic Kingdom: TRON, average posted wait time of 65 minutes (was 75 minutes two weeks ago)
• Animal Kingdom: Flight of Passage, average posted wait time of 63 minutes (was 75 minutes two weeks ago)
• Hollywood Studios: Slinky Dog Dash, average posted wait of 59 minutes (was 61 minutes two weeks ago)

We’ve got an interesting anomaly here that is very telling – all waits at headliners in each park decreased compared to our last number two weeks ago. EXCEPT Cosmic Rewind, which actually ticked slightly up. There are a couple of things contributing to this. First, Cosmic Rewind is just that popular. But also, its actual wait times have been trending very close to the posted wait times, and we all know that Disney likes to have posted wait times that are higher than actual wait times (see below), so I think there is some bumping up of posted waits to try to get that to a better spot.

Parks with the Highest and Lowest Average Wait

These parks likely won’t change week-to-week unless something ridiculous happens, but these data points will give us a high-level view of how wait times are trending from week to week.

• Highest: Animal Kingdom, average park-wide posted wait of 36 minutes (was 39 minutes two weeks ago)
• Lowest: Magic Kingdom, average park-wide posted wait of 22 minutes (was 23 minutes two weeks ago)

Once again, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT are firmly below the 30 minute threshold. Even Hollywood Studios, which rarely drops below 30 minutes, was down to 31 minutes on average in the past two weeks. Wait times are light.

Most Inflated Posted Wait Times

We all know that Disney inflates their posted wait times on purpose. They have many reasons for doing this. Some are totally understandable, and some are potentially more problematic. We can figure out how much posted wait times are being inflated by comparing submitted actual wait times from the Lines App and the posted wait time when the person timing their wait entered the line.

Over the past two weeks, actual wait times in the Lines App averaged 67% of what was posted. This makes it a full month that we’ve been back in the “Genie+ era” of wait time inflation. Under LLMP, inflation hadn’t been as bad. But I think we’re back to “normal” now. Overall, if the posted wait time at a popular attraction was 60 minutes, you could’ve expected to wait about 40 minutes instead.

But the worst offender for the past two weeks was Na’vi River Journey. At this one attraction, submitted actual wait times were only 44% of posted wait times in the past week. That means that if the attraction had a 50 minute posted wait, you probably would have actually only waited 22 minutes instead. Less than half of what was posted. Remember to always check the Lines app for predicted actual waits instead of making decisions based on what is posted.

This Week’s Wait Time Rock Star

Between May 6th and 12th, we had over 1,300 timed actual waits submitted through the Lines app. The one person who recorded the most actual waits during that time was QueenofHearts, with 44 overall timed waits – 14 standby waits, 28 Lightning Lane waits, and 2 single rider waits. Thanks for all of that timing, QueenofHearts! It unfortunately does not compete with the the 97 timed waits in a single week from our current timing champion, preef.

Between May 13th and 19th, we had almost 1,400 timed actual waits submitted through the Lines app. The one person who recorded the most actual waits during that time was ajmndirish, with 44 overall timed waits – 43 standby waits and 1 Lightning Lane wait. Thanks for all of that timing, ajmndirish! It unfortunately does not compete with the the 97 timed waits in a single week from our current timing champion, preef.

Looking Ahead: May 20 – 26

I write this article on Tuesday evenings so that you all have the very freshest of data on Wednesdays. That means the 20th will already be in the past by the time you’ve read this, so it’s like you’re already in the future!

It’s that time of year, y’all – we’ve reached the official start of summer! But, oddly, Memorial Day weekend doesn’t typically equate to really large crowds at Walt Disney World. It certainly won’t be as empty as Labor Day, but there are still plenty of school districts that are in session past Memorial Day. So there aren’t millions of families suddenly able to go to Walt Disney World this long weekend. Well, maybe millions 🙂 But not hundreds of millions. Still, my family is a good example here. My kids’ last day of school is a half day Friday. We could easily go to Disney to enjoy the long weekend. But we’re headed to Atlanta instead to have a cheaper start-of-summer weekend. I expect crowd levels and wait times will go up at WDW, but not into the 8-10 range.

If you are headed to Orlando, summer temperatures have certainly arrived. Be prepared for the heat – have plenty of indoor time planned and stay hydrated. The Florida theme parks look like they’ll be unseasonably dry, so there won’t even be occasional showers to cool you off.

Were you in the parks these past couple of weeks? Or are you headed to Orlando for the long weekend? Let me know in the comments below!