Disney World Crowd Report – September 7 to 13, 2014
We saw record lows across the four parks last week with level ‘1’s most days. Super headliner attractions which measure average waits in the range of 90 to 120 minutes during the rest of year saw averages of 30 minutes or less. Magic Kingdom in particular was virtually empty – or at least as empty as it ever gets.
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 |
2
|
1
|
Epcot was our only prediction low enough to hit the mark on Sunday. Pirates of the Caribbean at Magic Kingdom (22 minutes) and Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom (17 minutes) were the only two attractions not at a level ‘1’ or ‘2’. |
| Epcot |
1
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
3
|
1
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
3
|
1
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
1
|
Low waits continued on Monday, especially at Magic Kingdom. Every attraction hit its lowest level of the year with only a few exceptions. |
| Epcot |
1
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
2
|
1
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
1
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
1
|
1
|
For the first time of the week a park (Animal Kingdom) hit a park-wide level above a ‘1’ on our scale. Magic Kingdom hosted a Halloween Party on Tuesday and wait times were low during the day as expected. |
| Epcot |
2
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
1
|
1
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
2
|
1
|
Back to level ‘1’s across the board on Wednesday. Soarin’ averaged a paltry 34 minutes and Test Track only 39. Although our predicted ‘1’ at the Studios was correct we were surprised that Great Movie Ride hit an average of 15 minutes, only two minutes less than Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. |
| Epcot |
3
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
1
|
1
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
1
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
3
|
1
|
Extra Magic Hour morning at Magic Kingdom wasn’t enough to push wait times above a level ‘1’ on our scale on Thursday. Space Mountain averaged 19 minutes while Pirates of The Caribbean averaged only one minute lower at 18 minutes. |
| Epcot |
2
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
1
|
1
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
1
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
1
|
1
|
Another Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom on Friday kept waits very low during the day, a level ‘1’ for every attraction! Pretty safe to say that September 12th, 2014 is the single lowest crowd Magic Kingdom will see all year. |
| Epcot |
2
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
2
|
2
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
| WHAT WE THOUGHT |
WHAT WE SAW |
ANALYSIS | |
| Magic Kingdom |
4
|
4
|
Saturday tells a different story from the rest of the week. Other than Epcot, we saw wait times jump up to normal levels for Fall. A 29 minute average for Pirates of the Caribbean, 33 minutes for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and 26 minutes for Kali River Rapids. |
| Epcot |
3
|
1
|
|
| Hollywood Studios |
4
|
2
|
|
| Animal Kingdom |
2
|
2
|
|
| September 14 to 22, 2014 |
|---|
The ultra low wait times of early September are over now so we expect waits to slide upwards next week. Mid-September is still a fantastic time for low crowds at Walt Disney World, however.
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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I’m not sure what the crowd prediction was for Monday, September 15 at Magic Kingdom but the crowds and waits were pretty high. At one point, the Seven Dwarves Mine Train was a 110 minute standby wait. A CM told us on Tuesday that they were caught off guard also and that every seat on practically every train ride was full. By Tuesday, the crowds were back to their expected low levels.
My daughter’s birthday is September 5th, but because of school we’ve never made it ON her birthday… after reading this and hearing from others about the ridiculously low crowds, I’m thinking our next trip (after our 1st Christmas trip for MY birthday this year 12/15-22) will have to be the first week of September!
Fred, will you revise the crowd calendar based on these numbers going forward? I feel like the numbers were also lower during May and June, so they can’t be up for the year, right?
We were at WDW last week also. We did standby on most of the major rides even though we had fastpass’s for them. We we amazed at the low crowd sizes. HS did have a lot of people for the evening fireworks, but Fantasmic wasn’t full on Sat 9/6.
We were at WDW last week and found the standby lines as short as you describe above. Just 15 minutes to get on Soarin’ a good two hours after Epcot opened; Toy Story Mania standby less than half an hour one evening; and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train standby at under an hour (amazing for that attraction). As for the attractions that are usually less crowded, we literally walked onto Pirates of the Caribbean a couple of nights and had boats all to ourselves and had similar experiences on many other attractions – either very short lines or no lines at all. If it weren’t so danged HOT I would never go to WDW at any other time of the year.
But I was a bit surprised by the crowds in the streets at the Magic Kingdom Thursday evening. The attraction lines were still quite short, but getting from point A to point B was a bit of a chore. Also, the evening parade route was very crowded, much more so than when we saw the Main Street Electrical Parade last April even though crowd estimates were significantly higher during our spring trip.