Disney World Crowd Report – September 28 to October 4, 2014
Last week was a great week for low crowds across Walt Disney World, especially Monday through Friday. Magic Kingdom Crowds stayed relatively low and were particularly low on days when that park hosted an evening Halloween Party.
Let’s look at how the crowd levels stacked up each day last week:
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
---|---|---|---|
Magic Kingdom |
1
|
1
|
Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom stayed within expected ranges on Sunday but wait times were high at Epcot and The Studios, led by Mission: Space – Green (10 minutes, predicted 5) and Toy Story Mania (81, predicted 58). |
Epcot |
2
|
4
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
2
|
6
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
2
|
3
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
4
|
3
|
Monday’s wait times returned to normal at all four parks with our predictions doing well across the resort. Despite being the day after Sunday night’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, crowds at the Magic Kingdom stayed at a level ‘3’, one lower than predicted. |
Epcot |
3
|
2
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
3
|
2
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
3
|
3
|
Fittingly, Tuesday, the last day of September, brought low crowds across all four parks. Only Magic Kingdom managed to reach a level above ‘2’ on our scale. |
Epcot |
3
|
2
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
1
|
2
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
3
|
1
|
Magic Kingdom did not host a Halloween party on Wednesday but crowds were very low none-the-less. Across the resort, Wednesday’s wait times were the lowest of the week. 18 minutes at Splash Mountain, 47 at Soarin’, 23 at Tower of Terror, and 7 minutes at Expedition Everest. In fact, all attractions at Animal Kingdom were walk-ons most of the day. |
Epcot |
4
|
2
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
3
|
2
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
2
|
1
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
3
|
2
|
Another Thursday and another great day for the Studios. Star Tours only managed an average posted time of 11 minutes while Toy Story Mania reached 50 minutes, as low as possible on our scale. |
Epcot |
5
|
2
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
4
|
1
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
3
|
2
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
2
|
1
|
Another Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom on Friday brought low crowds throughout the day. In fact, for the third day on a row no park reached a crowd level higher than ‘2’. |
Epcot |
4
|
2
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
4
|
2
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
3
|
2
|
|
WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
Magic Kingdom |
5
|
5
|
Other than Sunday, The Studios wait times were very low all week and the theme continued on Saturday with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster averaging a posted time of 40 minutes (a ‘2’ out of ’10’). |
Epcot |
3
|
3
|
|
Hollywood Studios |
5
|
2
|
|
Animal Kingdom |
5
|
4
|
October 5 to 11, 2014 |
---|
Crowds will pick up this week, sometimes significantly so as many school districts see their first fall mini-breaks. The approaching Halloween season, Food & Wine at Epcot and new Fastpass+ only experiments will affect wait times across the resort as well.
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.
Is there a crowd report coming in the blog for the following week? Those numbers are what I’m more curious about for sure.
I agree that the parks felt crowded. The lines for rides weren’t extremely long, but there sure were a lot of people. I wonder if the low crowds (times) on Wednesday had anything to do with the fact that it pretty much poured down rain most of the day?
Was at MK on Friday afternoon. I agree with your “1” vs. predicted “2.” Lines were 3-5 minutes shorter than expected until party started. During party, lines were more or less on target, except Peter Pan (5 minutes longer than projected) and meeting Daisy/ Minnie (2x as long as projected). Overall I think we came in even- got through everything we had planned on.
I trust your data, but the parks sure did “feel” more crowded than expected.
Agreed, I’m not sure what busier times of year feel like because I was spoiled by late February crowds, but the parks even at a 1 or 2 felt yucky at times. Maybe it’s the heat and rain. :p