Walt Disney World Wait Times for First Week of October 2022
As we’ve discussed, Walt Disney World no longer includes any sort of an off-season. So instead, what we notice is more of a slightly slower season.
During September, park crowds definitely diminished in size. However, slow for this place is wildly crowded for any other tourist site on the planet.
Technically, we should have another couple of weeks of smaller crowds before traffic picks up in mid-October. Is that what happened, though?
Let’s examine the Walt Disney World wait times for the first week of October 2022.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Out of the four Walt Disney World parks, Animal Kingdom follows its internal rules the most carefully.
Almost every week, the two attractions at Pandora – The World of Avatar require the longest waits.
Everything after that requires a reasonable wait, although Kilimanjaro Safaris sometimes comes with hourlong crowds, depending on the time of year.
This week could work differently at all four parks, though. Everything should increase some since there wasn’t, you know, a hurricane last week.
Here are the average waits at Animal Kingdom:
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 85 minutes, up 32
- Na’vi River Journey – 67 minutes, up 11
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 55 minutes, up 14
- Kali River Rapids – 44 minutes, up 19
- Expedition Everest – 39 minutes, up 24
- Adventurers Outpost – 36 minutes, up 2
- DINOSAUR – 29 minutes, up 12
- TriceraTop Spin – 12 minutes, up 7
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, no change
Overall, guests waited an average of 42 minutes to experience Animal Kingdom attractions. That’s a 14-minute or 50 percent increase from last time.
Please remember that Hurricane Ian is gonna skew all this week’s data, though.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
I expect similar behavior at Hollywood Studios. Also, I’ve heard anecdotally that this park, in particular, grew more crowded last week.
So, I’m looking forward to these numbers. Here they are:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 101 minutes, up 17
- Slinky Dog Dash – 89 minutes, up 17
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 59 minutes, up 7
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 59 minutes, up 9
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 58 minutes, up 3
- Toy Story Mania! – 56 minutes, no change
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 54 minutes, up 7
- Red Carpet Dreams – 44 minutes, up 5
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 40 minutes, up 5
- Celebrity Spotlight – 31 minutes, up 6
- Meet Sulley at Walt Disney Presents – 31 minutes, no change
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 13 minutes, up 3
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 12 minutes, up 2
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
As you can see, every attraction at both parks either stayed the same or increased in wait time.
Overall, guests waited an average of 47 minutes, an increase of nine minutes from the last time.
For what it’s worth, we still only had two attractions over 60 minutes and six over 55 minutes, which isn’t bad for this park.
EPCOT
Okay, let’s assess EPCOT next. Here are the park’s average wait times:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 68 minutes, up 13
- Frozen Ever After – 67 minutes, up 14
- Test Track – 58 minutes, up 10
- Soarin’ Around the World – 44 minutes, up 14
- Royal Sommerhus – 27 minutes, up 8
- Mission: SPACE – 18 minutes, up 9
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 16 minutes, up 11
- Living with the Land – 14 minutes, up 8
- Spaceship Earth – 12 minutes, up 4
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 10 minutes, up 5
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 10 minutes, no change
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 9 minutes, up 4
Overall, guests waited for an average of 29 minutes for EPCOT attractions. That’s a 10-minute or 53 percent increase from last time.
So, what we’re witnessing here is a weird combination of increased early October crowds combined with deflated numbers last time due to the hurricane.
Magic Kingdom
We’ve got one more park to discuss, but I expect the same here. These are the average wait times at Magic Kingdom:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 82 minutes, up 25
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 64 minutes, up 13
- Jungle Cruise – 57 minutes, up 12
- Splash Mountain – 51 minutes, up 15
- Haunted Mansion – 46 minutes, up 8
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 44 minutes, up 14
- Space Mountain – 42 minutes, up 13
- Town Square Theater – 39 minutes, up 6
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 37 minutes, up 7
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Range – 36 minutes, up 5
- Astro Orbiter – 35 minutes, up 4
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 34 minutes, up 6
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 31 minutes, up 5
- It’s a Small World – 30 minutes, up 14
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 28 minutes, up 11
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 24 minutes, up 13
- The Barnstormer – 22 minutes, up 14
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 19 minutes, up 7
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor 18 minutes, up 9
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 17 minutes, up 11
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 15 minutes, up 5
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 12 minutes, up 5
- Mad Tea Party – 11 minutes, up 4
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 10 minutes, up 5
- Country Bear Jamboree – 5 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Overall, guests stood in line for 31 minutes per attraction at Magic Kingdom.
During the hurricane week, the average was only 23 minutes. So, we’re up eight at this park.
Still, Magic Kingdom’s increases aren’t as significant as the other three parks. Therefore, it was probably impacted the least by Hurricane Ian.
We will keep that in mind for future weather events. It’s not really surprising, though.
The sheer volume of Magic Kingdom attractions keeps its wait times in the same general range.
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