Walt Disney World Wait Times for Memorial Day Week
Last week, we talked about the possibility of Memorial Day holiday traffic spiking crowd sizes at Disney.
Did that happen? Here are the average Walt Disney World wait times for the week of Memorial Day.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Let’s start with Avatar Flight of Passage, one of the most popular attractions in Orlando.
This ride had trended down as Disney increased capacity in recent days. Alas, the holiday crowds led to a slight but not significant uptick here.
Guests waited 64 minutes on average for the week, up only four minutes from before the holiday.
Everything else remained unexpectedly reasonable. For example, Na’Vi River Journey’s wait decreased from 40 to 36 minutes, a surprising development.
Both Kali River Rapids and Kilimanjaro Safaris went down as well. The wet ride averaged 28 minutes, while the safari was right at a half-hour.
Expedition Everest, the best thrill ride at the park, experienced the most significant increase, going from 19 to 25 minutes.
I think we all agree that roller coaster is worth a 25-minute wait, though.
Meanwhile, DINOSAUR hovered around 20 minutes again. And you could have ridden the other two Animal Kingdom rides in 20 minutes.
TriceraTop Spin averaged a six-minute wait, while It’s Tough to Be a Bug! held in the same range as last week at 14 minutes.
Overall, the average Animal Kingdom ride’s wait time was 28 minutes, the same as the week before the holiday.
Did this happy trend continue at the other parks? Well…
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
I never mention Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance due to the odd nature of the virtual queue.
You still wait in line once Disney calls your Boarding Group. The time of day factors heavily into how long you’ll spend in the line queue.
At the start of the day, you could spend as little as 30 minutes in line. During the early afternoon, 60-80 minutes isn’t unreasonable.
Since you won’t care about this unless you’re fortunate enough to get a Boarding Group, I won’t mention it often unless something changes, though.
The top three other rides at Hollywood Studios stay around the same in wait time from last week, which is stunning.
Slinky Dog Dash sat at 65 minutes for the week, while Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run fell to 44 minutes.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster went up a tick to 45 minutes, which means that these rides held the same average as the previous week.
Disney deserves a lot of credit for managing crowds effectively after the sudden influx of vaccinated park guests.
Remember that we don’t even have a decision on FastPass yet. So, everything they’re doing doesn’t even factor in virtual queues yet.
Here’s what the rest of Hollywood Studios looked like during the holiday week:
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway (40 minutes, up five)
- Toy Story Mania! (30 minutes, down two)
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (29 minutes, up two)
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue (27 minutes, down three)
- Alien Swirling Saucers (25 minutes, down one)
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy (18 minutes, up two)
- Muppet*Vision 3D (10 minutes, down three)
As expected, Runaway Railway experienced more demand during the holiday, as it’s the newest attraction at Walt Disney World.
Still, a 40-minute wait for a new ride is excellent. Hopefully, we’ll have similar good luck with Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
Tower of Terror’s one-week drop proved accurate rather than a fluke. Disney has clearly increased capacity, thereby cutting wait times in half.
Overall, the average Hollywood Studios attraction required a wait of 31 minutes, virtually the same as last week’s 30 minutes.
So, that’s two parks without any noticeable changes in holiday wait times! Let’s keep it going!
EPCOT
Okay, the momentum just came to a complete stop. The top three attractions at EPCOT all increased week-over-week.
I wouldn’t describe this turn of events as unexpected, though. It’s a top-heavy park as well as a perfect group hangout spot.
Test Track averaged an hour-long wait for the week, which is up from 52 minutes last week.
Soarin’ went up slightly from 47 to 50 minutes, but that’s not the bad news. Frozen Ever After spiked from 40 to 52 minutes.
The Frozen attraction required the second-longest wait at the park. Let’s hope that doesn’t turn into a trend, as I’ve loved the ride’s short lines this year.
The yin and yang of Mission: SPACE remained about the same over the holiday weekend.
Along with the Green side of Mission: SPACE, the rest of EPCOT’s attractions included waits of 20 minutes or less. Here are the details:
- Spaceship Earth (16 minutes, down one)
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends (15 minutes, down one)
- Living with the Land (14 minutes, up four)
- Journey into Imagination with Figment (13 minutes, down two)
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros (nine minutes, up four)
Overall, the average EPCOT attraction came with a 30-minute wait, just like last week. If Magic Kingdom isn’t up, we’re four for four!
Magic Kingdom
I’ll go ahead and spoil it for you. Magic Kingdom went up…but only slightly.
The average attraction included a 25-minute wait, up from 23 minutes last week. We’d all take that over Memorial Day weekend, right?
Here are the specific wait times for the various Magic Kingdom attractions:
- Splash Mountain (55 minutes, down three)
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (51 minutes, up three)
- Jungle Cruise (45 minutes, up five)
- Space Mountain (40 minutes, no change)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (36 minutes, up one)
- Peter Pan’s Flight (35 minutes, up five)
- Astro Orbiter (31 minutes, up four)
- It’s a Small World (29 minutes, up two)
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (26 minutes, up five)
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (25 minutes, up six)
- Haunted Mansion (21 minutes, up three)
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (20 minutes, down two)
- Prince Charming Carrousel (19 minutes, down one)
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid (18 minutes, up three)
- Mad Tea Party (16 minutes, up four)
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover (15 minutes, up three)
- Tomorrowland Speedway (14 minutes, up five)
- The Magic Carpets Aladdin (12 minutes, up three)
- The Barnstormer (11 minutes, up three)
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant (11 minutes, up three)
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic (10 minutes, down 15)
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (five minutes, down seven)
- Country Bear Jamboree (three minutes, down nine)
Most of this is relatively static from last week. You may notice a few jaw-dropping exceptions, though.
Several shows experienced dramatic changes in wait times due to Disney’s filling every row now.
In the case of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, this modification cut the wait time by 60 percent!
The overall effect here is that even though most ride lines increased, the change in shows limited the overall average wait times.