Minor Crowd Calendar Update: Summer is Slow

We are updating our Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Universal Orlando crowd calendar estimates for July 5 through Labor Day, 2026. The vast majority of these updates are to lower our crowd estimates, based on what we’ve seen in June.

These parks’ updates are almost entirely lower crowd level estimates:

• EPCOT
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• Disneyland
• Disney California Adventure
• Universal Studios Florida
• Islands of Adventure

No changes were made to our Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or Epic Universe crowd calendars. Those recent updates are performing well: Our Magic Kingdom estimates have averaged a really good +/- 0.86 on our 1-to-10 scale for the last 90 days. Hollywood Studios is +/- 1.14 since the last update, and Epic Universe is +/- 1.29. Epic Universe has relatively more downtime than other parks, which is probably contributing there.

EPCOT and Animal Kingdom Crowds

EPCOT is in the middle of its festival-free summer until Food & Wine starts on August 27. Our crowd calendar estimates for this summer have been averaging 2 points higher than actual crowd levels, and this adjustment moves the predictions in line with that trend.

Likewise, our crowd calendar estimates for Disney’s Animal Kingdom have run about 1 point over actual crowd levels since Memorial Day. This update is a shift towards that recent trend.

Disney seems to have signaled this lower-than-expected attendance when it announced a Two-Day, Two-Park Ticket for EPCOT and Animal Kingdom at $199 to the general public on June 16.  I checked historical ticket discounts going back to the year 2000 and couldn’t find a similar offer for 2-day tickets to the general public. I may have missed something, but it’s safe to say discounts are rare on two-day park tickets. What makes it even more unusual is that this offer can be ‘stacked’ with hotel discounts.

Disneyland and California Adventure Crowds

Our Disneyland estimates have been overpredicting crowds by about 1.3 points since Memorial Day; At DCA the overestimates are closer to 1.0 points. Today’s updates move our estimates closer to what we’ve been seeing.

Like EPCOT and Animal Kingdom, Disney’s recently-announced $59 evening tickets for Disneyland and DCA seem to be a signal that Disneyland crowds are low enough to warrant action.

However attractive those $59 tickets are, a couple of macro-level things are working against Disneyland:

• Fuel and airline prices remain historically high. AAA says Californians are paying an average of $5.41 per gallon at the pump.
• Neither park has a major new attraction opening in 2026.

Thankfully, the weather in California hasn’t been as hot as in other parts of the country.

Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure Crowds

Like Disneyland, Universal Orlando has no major attractions opening for the remainder of 2026. That, coupled with high temperatures and high transportation costs are likely contributing to lower crowds.

Our crowd estimates for Universal Studios Florida have averaged about 1.0 points higher than actuals. That gap is closer to 2.0 at Islands of Adventure, even with Lost Continent closed for demolition. And while our crowd forecasts for Epic Universe have been pretty good, the fact that admission tickets are routinely available on short notice seems to indicate the park is no longer running near its imposed capacity limits.

The Upside: Historically Low Wait Times

I got the following email the other day from someone looking at the next few weeks of our Walt Disney World crowd calendar:

Is 5 the highest crowd calendar level for Walt Disney World? I want to make sure I’m reading the scale right.

For the record, each of our crowd calendars use a 1-to-10 scale, with 10 the highest level of crowds. But it got me thinking that we’ve been in a period of relatively low crowds for so long that many of us forget what it’s like to be in Walt Disney World on a truly busy day.

I thought it would be a good idea for my response to include some context on when each Walt Disney World park last had a “10 out of 10” day, and what those wait times looked like. Here’s what I wrote:

• The Magic Kingdom’s most recent “10” day was April 4, 2024, and the most recent “9” was this past February 17. For context on that “10” day, the average wait at Jungle Cruise was just under 100 minutes in the afternoon. Haunted Mansion’s average wait was nearly 80 minutes, and Big Thunder’s was at 82 minutes.
• The most recent 10 at EPCOT was this past New Year’s Eve in 2025, and the whole week of Christmas was 10’s and 9’s. The average wait for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was 197 minutes (3 hours and 17 minutes). I joked at the time that I’ve had relationships that didn’t last that long.
• The most recent 10 at Hollywood Studios was in that same week – December 30, 2025. Every major ride had average waits of around 100 to 140 minutes each, with Slinky Dog Dash at the top of that list.
• And the most recent 10 at Animal Kingdom was on December 29, 2025, when Flight of Passage’s average wait was 158 minutes (2 hours 38 minutes) in the afternoon.

By any measure, this summer is a period of relatively low historical waits across America’s major theme parks. That’s going to change once Disney World starts the cycle of opening big new things every year, with 2027’s Tropical Americas. If you don’t mind the construction, off-season in Walt Disney World right now is about as good as it’s every gonna get.

Our next scheduled crowd calendar update will be around mid-August, 2026.