Walt Disney World Wait Times for Christmas Week 2022
Happy holidays, MickeyBlog readers! By the time you see this, Christmas and Hanukkah have ended, but we still have one holiday yet to go in 2022!
For this reason, Walt Disney World will host massive crowds for another few days. We had an unexpected wrinkle this past weekend, though.
Florida turned cold. And I mean real people cold, not just what Floridians call cold.
This freezing weather may have reduced the crowds enough to keep them sane…or at least reasonable. Did that happen?
Let’s check the Christmas Week wait times at Walt Disney World.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
In case you don’t keep up with Central Florida weather as a rule, here’s what happened.
Most of the week was fine, but the mild weather on Thursday took a turn on Friday.
On Saturday, which was Christmas Eve, Orlando temperatures never reached 50 degrees.
That was the first time the city had experienced any daily high temperature under 50 degrees since 2014.
For this reason, part of the data we’re tracking should reflect that people avoided outdoor attractions more than usual due to the cold.
That knowledge impacts two parks significantly. One is Animal Kingdom, and the other is Magic Kingdom.
However, Animal Kingdom’s most popular attractions both reside indoors. So, it should experience less of an effect than Magic Kingdom.
Let’s test that theory with the Animal Kingdom wait times:
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 148 minutes, up 30
- Na’vi River Journey – 80 minutes, up 10
- Adventurers Outpost – 45 minutes, up 4
- Expedition Everest – 42 minutes, no change
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 42 minutes, down 26
- DINOSAUR – 35 minutes, up 10
- TriceraTop Spin – 15 minutes, no change
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 12 minutes, up 2
- Kali River Rapids – 5 minutes, down 4
Obviously, nobody wanted to take the Polar Bear Challenge at the park this week by riding Kali River Rapids.
Similarly, Kilimanjaro Safaris took a hit for being an open-air bus experience.
These two drops counterbalanced the massive spike in wait times for the indoor rides at Pandora – The World of Avatar.
Still, guests waited an average of 49 minutes, four minutes more than last time.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Even in the best of times, Hollywood Studios can get wild and chaotic. During the week before Christmas, the lines should have been insane.
Even scarier, I’d expect them to be worse this upcoming week as the post-Christmas crowds linger.
Here are the average waits at Hollywood Studios for the week:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 145 minutes, up 41
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 139 minutes, up 49
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 123 minutes, down 15
- Slinky Dog Dash – 110 minutes, down 15
- Toy Story Mania! – 90 minutes, up 13
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 87 minutes, up 11
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 71 minutes, down 24
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 60 minutes, up 12
- Red Carpet Dreams – 49 minutes, up 5
- Celebrity Spotlight – 47 minutes, up 15
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 46 minutes, up 7
- Meet Sulley at Walt Disney Presents – 40 minutes, up 2
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 15 minutes, no change
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
Overall, guests waited an average of 65 minutes, which is only two minutes more than last time.
As I said then, past a certain point, we approach a theoretical limit on average waits. This park operated eight rides with 60+ minutes of lines.
EPCOT
I always tell friends visiting Disney that they’ll experience the least stress and shortest lines at EPCOT.
However, Christmas Week tests that theory. Here are the average waits for EPCOT:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 100 minutes, up 25
- Soarin’ Around the World – 90 minutes, up 41
- Frozen Ever After – 83 minutes, up 1
- Test Track – 82 minutes, up 14
- Mission: SPACE – 58 minutes, up 30
- Spaceship Earth – 44 minutes, up 18
- Royal Sommerhus – 31 minutes, down 9
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 18 minutes, up 5
- Living with the Land – 17 minutes, up 5
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 15 minutes, up 5
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 12 minutes, up 2
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 5 minutes, down 2
I think the data here speaks for itself. Anything that takes place indoors proved more popular.
Since that’s a lot of the options at EPCOT, the park’s average wait was 49 minutes, ten minutes more than last time.
Magic Kingdom
As I mentioned, the cold weather should hurt Magic Kingdom the most out of the four Walt Disney World parks. Did it?
Here are the average wait times:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 81 minutes, down 26
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 80 minutes, up 9
- Space Mountain – 67 minutes, up 11
- Jingle Cruise – 55 minutes, down 3
- Town Square Theater – 47 minutes, up 10
- Haunted Mansion – 46 minutes, up 3
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 45 minutes, up 6
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 44 minutes, down 2
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 40 minutes, up 10
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 38 minutes, up 3
- It’s a Small World – 35 minutes, up 5
- Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 27 minutes, up 4
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 26 minutes, down 5
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 26 minutes, up 1
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 22 minutes, up 2
- The Barnstormer – 21 minutes, down 4
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 20 minutes, up 3
- Astro Orbiter – 19 minutes, down 9
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 17 minutes, up 5
- Mad Tea Party – 16 minutes, down 1
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 15 minutes, no change
- Splash Mountain – 9 minutes, down 19
- Prince Regal Charming Regal Carrousel – 6 minutes, down 2
- Country Bear Jamboree – 5 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
About Magic Kingdom’s Wait Times
First, let’s talk about want-to and willpower for a second.
Splash Mountain closes for good quite soon. People should be lining up to ride it as much as possible!
Did this many Magic Kingdom guests let little things like freezing cold temperatures and fear of pneumonia stop them from Splash Mountain?
Seriously, this is a terrific Disney trivia note. During the final Christmas Week for Splash Mountain, it averaged a nine-minute wait.
Overall, guests at Magic Kingdom waited an average of 30 minutes, only one minute more than last time.
Apparently, few fans are like Elsa and say that the cold never bothered them anyway.
The cold weather definitely impacted the parks on the Friday and Saturday of Christmas Week.
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Feature Photo: Disney