Disney World Crowd Report – September 21 to 27, 2014
A strange week for crowds across Walt Disney World last week, with some parks swinging as much of 5 index points depending on the day. We’re not sure whether the big swings were due to actual increases in crowdedness or anomalies in wait times. Most notable were skewed wait times at Maelstrom and Backlot Tour, and surrounding or related attractions. None-the-less, it is clear that the low crowds of September have passed and Fall crowds have arrived.
Let’s look at how the crowd levels stacked up each day last week on the Touringplans.com Disney World Crowd Report:
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
1
|
Typically, when Magic Kingdom hosts an evening hard ticket event like Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, we see very low crowds during the day. This was the case on both Sunday and Tuesday this week. Meanwhile crowds were heaviest at The Studios and Animal Kingdom. |
| Epcot |
4
|
3
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
3
|
6
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
5
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
6
|
6
|
Equally as predictable is the bounceback crowd after the Magic Kingdom hosts a party, especially after a weekend party. Peter Pan’s Flight averaged 48 minutes on Monday (predicted 54) which was double the previous day. |
| Epcot |
4
|
3
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
2
|
2
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
1
|
1
|
Crowds didn’t peak at the other parks as much on Tuesday as they did on Sunday. We did see a 30 minute average wait at Kali River Rapids (predicted 21) and 67 minutes at Toy Story Mania (predicted 57) however. |
| Epcot |
6
|
3
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
2
|
3
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
3
|
4
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
4
|
3
|
Wednesday had the most similar crowds at all for parks that we saw all week. Animal Kingdom was the best choice as predicted. |
| Epcot |
5
|
5
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
2
|
4
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
6
|
6
|
Thursday’s low crowds at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom were enough to push the resort-wide index down two points from predicted and only Magic Kingdom broke above the middle point on our scale. |
| Epcot |
5
|
5
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
5
|
3
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
3
|
Crowds at all parks except Magic Kingdom flipped around relative to our predictions on Friday. We saw a ridiculously high average wait of 31 minutes at Great Movie Ride which puts it at a solid ’10’ on our scale. Not sure if that attraction is experiencing capacity issues or just an increase related to the closure of Backlot Tour. |
| Epcot |
6
|
3
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
3
|
6
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
6
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
5
|
6
|
The Studios surprised us for the second day in a row on Saturday. We have never recorded a level ‘8’ at the Studios in October so it likely that the index is reflecting some unique occurrences at that park. Technical issues at Tower of Terror pushed wait times to the extremely high level of 113 minutes (predicted 63), on average. Also, Great Movie Ride hit 28 (predicted 11). |
| Epcot |
6
|
4
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
4
|
8
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
4
|
5
|
|
| September 28 to October 4, 2014 |
|---|
Savvy guests to Walt Disney World can make educated choices on which park to visit each day in October. A two-day plan for Magic Kingdom works great on two days where the park hosts an evening Halloween Party. Crowds will be low and touring will be relaxed. In the evening, hop to Epcot or the Studios for your evening entertainment.
To see Walt Disney World Crowd predictions for the days of your vacation, check the Crowd Calendar.
To get details about our predictions of future crowds or details about crowds in the past check out the Crowd Calendar and select “Jump to Date” on the left margin.
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We were at Hollywood Studios on Thursday Sept 25…
This blog post says that the crowds at HS were lower than expected,
yet the lines were consistently longer than what was predicted
in our TP, which I had re-evaluated the day before arrival.
In the words of the Robot in the classic TV show, “Lost In Space”,
“THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE”. 😉
As you wrote in the entry for Sept 26, The Great Movie Ride lines
in particular were… not right on Sept 25, not even close. 😉
Perhaps the R&Roller Coaster being out for most of the morning
contributed to the increased wait times throughout the park?
Reports of walk-on lines for the Halloween party were greatly
exaggerated, but still mostly manageable. I got the sense that
everyone had the same exact idea we did (i.e. “The parade just
ended & this will be the one time during this trip that Peter Pan
won’t have any line!”) I imagine that it’s entirely possible that
for the 1st time, TP is actually having an *effect* on crowd patterns,
as more people discover it? FWIW, this party was “sold out”. I
believe it was probably over-sold. The crowds on Main St. & the
hub were insane.
In response to Heather, all NYC schools were off Thur-Fri Sept 25-26
for the Jewish holidays, which is why we were able to go. Perhaps
we weren’t the only ones & this skewed the typical numbers?
We spent the last week in September at Disney World. We visited all the parks and felt like all were more crowded than past years at the same time. I am a DVC member and know Disney well. I will not return this week again. Past best weeks for us have been: third week of September, October after the week of Columbus Day.
We were there last week and the crowds were higher than I’d expected based on what I’d heard previous years about September crowds. Even with this though, the only time we felt overwhelmed was Saturday in World Showcase. There were so many people that it was almost impossible to move and the lines at each food kiosk were easily 40 people+! We made it as far as China and then scooted back to Future World where the crowds were much more manageable!
I would also agree that with the closing of Backlot Tour and the final showings of the Frozen Fireworks probably popped up crowds at DHS immensely!
I was at the parks last week for vacation- woo hoo! The only days to see the Frozen fireworks that week were Friday and Saturday…and we were there those days for that very reason. This could have had an effect on the difference in what was predicted versus what really happened.