The Best Day of the Week to Visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Last week we did a deep dive into 22 million wait times to figure out the best day of the week to visit the Magic Kingdom for short lines. The big finding was that the “best day” depends on the time of year you’re visiting, since the park’s Halloween and Christmas parties affect crowds so much.

Today we’re looking at the best day of week to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We’ll use the same statistical tools as before, focusing on posted wait times collected from the My Disney Experience app:

• Since July 1, 2024 when Disney’s current Disability Access Service rules went into effect
• For the Animal Kingdom’s most popular attractions (sorry, Wildlife Express Train)
• During the busiest part of the day

We’ve collected 1 million posted wait times that fit those criteria. We’ll start there and then look at actual wait times for good measure.

Our hypothesis: Magic Kingdom parties affect Animal Kingdom crowds

Last time we confirmed that Magic Kingdom crowds are lower on days when that park hosts Halloween and Christmas parties, because the park closes very early on those days and families try to maximize the value of their admission ticket purchases.

It’s reasonable to start our Animal Kingdom analysis by guessing that it’s busier on days when the Magic Kingdom hosts parties, i.e., guests not at the Magic Kingdom are in the other parks.

The vast majority of those parties happen on Friday, Tuesday, and Sunday, so that might be when we see longer waits at Animal Kingdom, since we know crowds are not at Magic Kingdom on those days.

Let’s do the analysis and see how that theory holds.

One thing to watch out for, and I think this is true for all three Walt Disney World parks that aren’t the Magic Kingdom, is that there are fewer popular attractions at Animal Kingdom than there are at Magic Kingdom.That means the effects of temporary ride downtime, weather, and bad luck are amplified in the results, because there are fewer rides (and less data) to mask it.

Animal Kingdom’s best days to visit throughout the year

We’ll look at the full-year picture to start with. As a reminder, we’ve filtered the data to include only the most popular rides during peak times of the day.

Here’s the chart showing average posted wait times by day of week:

And here’s the matrix that compares each day with every other day of the week. Read this left to right:

Wednesday is the day with the lowest average posted waits – around 33 minutes per attraction. Thursday’s just over 35 minutes, followed by Tuesday at just over 36 minutes.

There’s a pretty big jump in average wait times after that, with Monday and Friday waits averaging just under 42 minutes per attraction. Sunday follows those with an average of around 43 minutes. And Saturday’s the Animal Kingdom day with the longest average posted waits, at just over 46 minutes per ride.

That 13-minute gap between Wednesday’s lowest waits and Saturday’s highest waits is double the full-year gap we see at the Magic Kingdom’s attractions. Until Tropical Americas opens in the second half of 2027, Animal Kingdom has seven major attractions with posted wait times: five rides, the popular Zootopia film, and the adorable Adventurers Outpost meet and greet.

A savings of 13 minutes per attraction over those 7 attractions is an hour and a half less waiting in line. That’s a surprising amount for just picking the right day of the week.

Next, let’s see how much the Magic Kingdom’s Halloween and Christmas parties affect Animal Kingdom crowds. We’ll re-do this analysis and focus on the months of January through July, then August thorough December.

Animal Kingdom’s best day of week: January through July

Here’s Animal Kingdom’s posted wait times for January through July, when the Magic Kingdom does not host Halloween or Christmas parties (“yet”, you say):

And here’s the matrix:

Wednesday’s still the best day to visit from January through July, and Saturday’s still the day with the highest average posted wait times. Monday’s also in the same spot as the 5th-best day. But the other four days of the week have moved around.

The 11-minute difference between Wednesday’s lowest waits and Saturday’s highest waits is again a decent amount of time saved per attraction.

Let’s do the same analysis for August through December and see if the Magic Kingdom’s parties make a difference in Animal Kingdom traffic.

Animal Kingdom’s best day of week: August through December

Here’s a chart of Animal Kingdom posted wait times for the months of August through December:

And here’s the matrix:

The best days to visit the Animal Kingdom from August through December are the same as the full-year results:

• Wednesday has the lowest wait times, around 28 minutes per ride
• Thursday is next at ~30 minutes
• Then there’s a big jump to Tuesday’s average of ~35 minutes
• Then another jump to Friday’s ~39 minutes
• Monday’s waits average just under 40 minutes
• Sunday’s average is ~42 minutes
• And Saturday’s the day with the highest waits at 44 minutes

That’s a 16-minute difference in wait times per attraction at the Animal Kingdom, which is more than we saw at any point in our Magic Kingdom analysis.

First conclusion: Go to Animal Kingdom on Wednesday and avoid Saturday if you can

Remember that the Magic Kingdom’s party days are generally on Fridays, Tuesdays, and Sundays, with relatively few parties on Wednesdays or Saturdays. So it’s surprising that, at the Animal Kingdom at least, the best and worst days of the week to visit are both days without Magic Kingdom parties, when you’d expect more guests to be at the Magic Kingdom taking advantage of that park’s longer hours.

After Wednesdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are in the next tier of best days to visit the Animal Kingdom.

What’s the best month to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom?

Let’s do the same analysis for months as we did for weekdays. Here’s a chart showing the Animal Kingdom’s average monthly posted wait time since July 1, 2024. Note that we’ve only got one month of samples for May and June, since we’ve not yet hit two full calendar years since that date:

And here’s the matrix:

September’s clearly the best month to visit the park, so an Animal Kingdom trip on a Wednesday in September should get you the best possible odds for short lines. Late December’s holiday crowds almost certainly cause it to have much higher waits. In fact, with a difference of nearly 20 minutes in line per attraction, you could save around three hours in line just by changing the date of your visit to after Labor Day.

It’s surprising to see February with the highest wait times at the Animal Kingdom. I would not have guessed that Presidents Day, Mardi Gras, and Princess Half Marathon dates would bring larger, sustained crowds than Christmas and New Year’s.

Comparing Animal Kingdom actual wait times by day of week

Posted wait times are the estimated waits that Disney shows on the signs at each ride entrance. Actual wait times are how long you end up waiting in that line. We collect these actual wait times from our staff and from our community’s use of our Lines app, which has a built-in timer function.

There are a number of limitations to be aware of when looking at these actual waits. We’ve collected over 15,500 actual wait times at Disney’s Animal Kingdom since July, 2024. That means our confidence intervals are going to be wider than with the posted waits. We may not be able to differentiate every day from every other.

Also, many of our users who submit wait times are doing so while following a touring plan designed to minimize waits in line. That generally means visiting popular attractions during the times of day they have low wait times. That can influence the results. Let’s do the numbers and see what happens.

Here’s a chart showing the average actual wait in line for Animal Kingdom’s popular rides:

And here’s the matrix:

Wednesday’s got the lowest average actual wait, which matches what we saw with posted wait times. But there’s enough variation in Wednesday’s waits that we can’t rule out Thursday just yet. And Thursday’s also got low average posted waits, so we’re seeing consistent results from two different sets of data. That’s good.

What’s slightly more interesting is at the higher end of the actual waits: Sunday’s average actual wait of around 31.5 minutes per ride is higher than Saturday’s average of ~31 minutes, though both are within the margin of error. In terms of posted wait times, Saturday’s average is higher than Sundays. So it’s possible that Saturday’s posted wait times are slightly less accurate than Sunday’s. Friday’s also in that ballpark, and I don’t think those differences are meaningful in terms of park touring.

Wrapping Up: Wednesday is the best day of week at Animal Kingdom

Wednesday is consistently the best day to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom regardless of the month you visit or if the Magic Kingdom’s having parties. Disney’s social media team needs to do some sort of “Hump Day” campaign to highlight the benefit of visiting the park in the middle of the week, right?

Thursday’s a close second-best. Avoid Saturdays and Sundays if you can – those are bad posted wait times and actual wait times.

Next week we’ll check EPCOT’s wait times to find the best days of the week to visit. Let us know in the comments below if there’s any other analysis you’d like to see. Thanks for reading!