Disney Data Dump November 20 2024

And we’re back! I hope every had a great six sunny days in the Bahamas like I did. If not, I hope you were in sunny Orlando with lower-than-expected crowds during what should have been a couple of busy weeks. We’ve got a LOT of data to review from the past two weeks, so let’s jump into it.

Observed Crowd Levels November 5 – 18

Wow, look at those astounding Veteran’s Day Weekend and Jersey Week crowds (she said sarcastically)! There is a noticeable bump in crowd levels, but it’s certainly not anything crazy. Crowd level 5 days are not your typical crowded holiday long weekend result. We’re not seeing things bottom out to crowd level 1 or 2 like we did in September and October, but this still isn’t “normal” for November.

When we look park-by-park there aren’t too many other trends to pick out – other than EPCOT continues to be the most crowded park. And party behavior has definitely returned to Magic Kingdom. If you want to enjoy that park during these last 6 weeks of the year, you should absolutely go on a party day. Another note is that on non-party days, even if the daytime is reasonable, Main Street and the hub are total chaos leading up to fireworks. One example is November 9th – the park was a crowd level 3. But 30 minutes before Happily Ever After started, both the hub and Main Street reached capacity. Like no more humans could fit or were even allowed.

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 this week we have 56 different crowd level predictions 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 38% of the time. Better than two weeks ago … by a whole 2%, but still lower than normal. And, 65% of the time Touring Plans predictions were within 2 crowd levels, so that means we get a D for our predictions in the past two weeks. As has been the trend since this summer, crowds continue to be much lower than expected. In the past two weeks, if you had simply subtracted 2 crowd levels from any park prediction on any day, you would have been closer to reality. The biggest miss of the week was an overprediction by 6 crowd levels, at Hollywood Studios on the 13th, when a crowd level of 7 was predicted, but the actual crowd level was a 1.

Attraction Downtime November 5 – 18

If we average all of the capacity lost due to unexpected downtime over the past two weeks, it comes out to 3.6% of attractions unexpectedly being down. That’s up from two weeks ago, but continues to be slightly below our historical average. This week, EPCOT was the park with the most overall downtime, averaging 5.1% of its capacity lost to downtime throughout the week. With an already-small slate of attractions, downtime at EPCOT makes a big impact and contributes to some of those higher crowd levels.

The worst day for attraction downtime in the past week was on November 9th. On that day, 5.8% of all capacity at WDW was lost due to unexpected downtime. The worst park-day of the week was on November 10th, at Hollywood Studios. On that day, 12% of attraction capacity was lost at Hollywood Studios due to unexpected downtime. The park was open for 12 hours on the 10th, so 12% downtime is the equivalent of the whole park being down for more than 86 minutes. That’s a big impact during the day.

Attraction Downtime Worst Offender

This week, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was the WDW attraction with the worst overall downtime. This week, Winnie the Pooh was unexpectedly down for 16% of the week. It was followed closely by Rise of the Resistance and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. A not-great week for headliners! Easily the worst day for Pooh was on November 11th, when the ride was down for 80% of the day. It started the day broken and never really got it together throughout the day.

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 (34%), TTA PeopleMover (29%), Winnie the Pooh (29%), Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (25%)
• EPCOT: Journey Into Imagination (24%), Spaceship Earth (19%), The Seas with Nemo (15%)
• Hollywood Studios: Rock’n’Roller Coaster (19%), Rise of the Resistance (18%), Slinky Dog Dash (15%), Runaway Railway (12%)
• Animal Kingdom: Expedition Everest (15%)

Lots and lots and lots of rope drop problems this week. Especially at Magic Kingdom, where Tiana’s and 7DMT had significant issues, and at Hollywood Studios where a bunch of headliners were at least mildly unreliable.

Wait Times November 5 – 18

Attractions with the Highest Average Posted Wait at each park

• Hollywood Studios: Slinky Dog Dash, average posted wait of 81 minutes (63 minutes two weeks ago)
• Animal Kingdom: Flight of Passage, average posted wait time of 65 minutes (57 minutes two weeks ago)
• EPCOT: Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, average posted wait time of 60 minutes (52 minutes two weeks ago)
• Magic Kingdom: TRON, average posted wait time of 62 minutes (59 minutes two weeks ago)

These numbers give us more of a picture of increased wait times than the bar graphs at the top of the article. Wait times were definitely up at all major attractions. But not by that much compared to Halloween week, which was remarkably low. The fact that the average posted wait at Flight of Passage is still barely over an hour is a little crazy. And Tron’s wait times have also come down considerably. But that’s more due to more accurate posted waits rather than real actual lower waits.

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: Hollywood Studios, average park-wide posted wait of 32.5 minutes (29 minutes two weeks ago)
• Lowest: Magic Kingdom, average park-wide posted wait of 21 minutes (20 minutes two weeks ago)

More numbers, same story. Wait times are up overall, but not by much at all. It’s wild that we’re in November, looking at data from Veterans Day weekend and Jersey Week and Hollywood Studios is still barely over 30 minutes on average overall.

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 70% of what was posted. This is quite a bit higher than our historical average, which means wait times are being inflated less than they usually are. Overall, it means that if the posted wait time at a popular attraction was 50 minutes, you could’ve expected to wait 35 minutes instead.

But the worst offender for the past two weeks is a new one – Meeting Mickey at Town Square Theater. At this one attraction, submitted actual wait times were only 38% of posted wait times in the past two weeks. That means that if the attraction had a 40 minute posted wait, you probably would have actually only waited about 15 minutes instead. Almost a third of what was posted. Remember to always check the Lines app for predicted actual waits instead of believing what is posted.

This Week’s Wait Time Rock Star

Between November 5th and 11th, we had almost 1300 timed actual waits submitted through the Lines app. The one person who recorded the most actual waits during that time was ThomFoolery, with 46 overall timed waits – 43 standby waits and 3 virtual queue waits. Thanks for all of that timing, ThomFoolery! It unfortunately does not compete with the the 97 timed waits in a single week from our current timing champion, preef.

Between November 12th and 18th, we had just over 1200 timed actual waits submitted through the Lines app. The one person who recorded the most actual waits during that time was gmcc, with 54 overall timed waits – 19 lightning lane waits, 29 standby waits, 1 single rider wait, and 5 virtual queue waits. Thanks for all of that timing, gmcc! It once again does not compete with the the 97 timed waits in a single week from our current timing champion, preef.

Looking Ahead: November 19 – 25

I write this article on Tuesday evenings so that you all have the very freshest of data on Wednesdays. That means the 19th will already be in the past when you read this post. You’re welcome to the future.

This next set of dates starts covering what is usually one of the most crowded weeks of the year at Walt Disney World – Thanksgiving! Notice that I said “usually” and “most crowded”. Both of those are going to be important to keep in mind as we head into next week. Because this year is decidedly unusual, and also being “most crowded” this year would be pretty easy – without even being very crowded at all.

I do expect wait times to start trending back up this weekend. There are also Christmas parties at MK on the 19th, 21st, 22nd and 24th (plus the 26th and 27th). This should mean high crowds at Magic Kingdom on the 20th and potentially very high crowds there on the 25th. Another note is that last year, Jollywood Nights had approximately zero impact crowds at Hollywood Studios. This year it’s not like Magic Kingdom, but there is a notable dip in wait times during party days. The park closes an hour earlier this year compared to last year (because Jollywood starts an hour earlier). So even though Fantasmic is still offered, more day guests are opting to visit on a different day.

Temperatures will be downright chilly by Florida standards this weekend, so pack those sweatshirts. Otherwise you’ll be paying exorbitant amounts for them at Disney stores!

Were you in the parks the past two weeks? Or are you headed there between now and the end of the month? Let me know in the comments!