Walt Disney World Wait Times for January 12th, 2023

Now that the holidays have ended, many vacationers have returned to work.

While that’s a bummer for most people, it’s the best possible news for everyone still at Walt Disney World.

So many guests have left, reducing the crowds at the various parks. That trend will continue for more than a month, save for one exception.

The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday represents the only crowded time on the park calendar from now through President’s Day.

Photo:visitorlando.com

For this reason, you should like the Walt Disney World wait times this week!

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

During the final days of 2022, guests waited for more than three hours on average to experience Avatar Flight of Passage.

Photo: Disney

Those same people stood in line for nearly two hours for Na’vi River Journey, even though most of them feel that Avatar Flight of Passage is superior.

That’s two attractions at Pandora – The World of Avatar that combined for a five-hour wait! Folks, the holidays at Disney get pretty crazy.

Photo: touring plans.com

Did normalcy return last week? The answer is yes, but it’ll get better in the coming week.

Here are the average wait times at Animal Kingdom:

• Avatar Flight of Passage – 110 minutes, down 84 (!)
• Na’vi River Journey – 60 minutes, down 52
• Adventurers Outpost – 40 minutes, down 20
• Kilimanjaro Safaris – 35 minutes, down 55
• DINOSAUR – 12 minutes, down 43
• It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, down 5
• TriceraTop Spin – 7 minutes, down 16
• Kali River Rapids – 6 minutes, down 24

Photo: Disney

I don’t think you need me to tell you this, but I will anyway. Everything went waaaaay down last week.

Guests waited for an average of 34 minutes per attraction, less than half the time they needed the previous week.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Photo credit: DisneyWorldVacationGuide.com

Guests stood in line for 70 minutes for a Hollywood Studios attraction during the final week of 2022.

Checking my notes, I’m wrong. ALL the rides at the park combined to average a 70-minute wait. In the immortal words of Archer, that’s…too much.

Image Credit: Kent Phillips, photographer

I’m fanatical about the attractions at Toy Story Land and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Also, I’ve been an evangelist for Twilight Zone Tower of Terror for decades.

Even I wouldn’t wait 100+ minutes for these attractions, but that’s what many did during the holidays.

Has the situation improved? Here were the average wait times last week:

• Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 142 minutes, down 5
• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 103 minutes, down 27
• Slinky Dog Dash – 75 minutes, down 50
• Toy Story Mania! – 70 minutes, down 26
• Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 57 minutes, down 34
• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 53 minutes, down 53
• Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 50 minutes, down 50
• Red Carpet Dreams – 45 minutes, down 8
• Meet Sulley at Walt Disney Presents – 25 minutes, down 11
• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue – 18 minutes, down 25
• Celebrity Spotlight – 17 minutes, down 24
• Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 15 minutes, down 1
• Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change

Photo: Matt Stroshane

First, I should mention that Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy only operated a couple of days during this timeframe. It experienced technical glitches that kept it offline for a week.

Overall, guests waited for an average of 43 minutes, 27 minutes less than the final week of 2022.

We are definitely trending the right way here.

EPCOT

Photo: Disney

You know that the parks include too many people when EPCOT attractions require a 60-minute wait on average. How is that even possible?

When Spaceship Earth requires a wait of 45 minutes, there’s a problem…and I say that as someone who ranks Spaceship Earth as Disney’s best attraction.

Happily, the problem solved itself at the start of 2023. Here are the park’s wait times for the first few days of the year:

• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 107 minutes, down 24
• Frozen Ever After – 57 minutes, down 53
• Test Track – 52 minutes, down 60 (!)
• Soarin’ Around the World – 26 minutes, down 55
• Mission: SPACE – 16 minutes, down 61 (!)
• Royal Sommerhus – 15 minutes, down 35
• Turtle Talk with Crush – 15 minutes, down 5
• Spaceship Earth – 10 minutes, down 35
• Journey into Imagination with Figment – 5 minutes, down 19
• Living with the Land – 5 minutes, down 18
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 5 minutes, down 30

Friends, this is a funny list. Some attractions dropped more than an hour at a park that’s not known for its hour-long waits.

To wit, guests waited for an average of 20 minutes per attraction at EPCOT last week. That’s a drop of 42 minutes from the final week of 2022.

Putting this in different terms, people waited less than one-third of the time last week as the week before it.

Magic Kingdom

Photo: TripAdvisor

I think you get the point by now. Everything improved as soon as the holidays ended, and guests returned home.

Here are Magic Kingdom’s average waits for last week:

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 82 minutes, down 36
• Peter Pan’s Flight – 70 minutes, down 20
• Splash Mountain – 54 minutes, down 6
• Jungle Cruise – 50 minutes, down 22
• Space Mountain – 48 minutes, down 37
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 42 minutes, down 23
• Haunted Mansion – 38 minutes, down 24
• Town Square Theater – 36 minutes, down 8
• Astro Orbiter – 32 minutes, down 8
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 31 minutes, down 24
• Princess Fairytale Hall – 30 minutes, down 12
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 29 minutes, down 11
• Pirates of the Caribbean – 28 minutes, down 20
• It’s a Small World – 23 minutes, down 22
• Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 18 minutes, down 20
• The Barnstormer – 17 minutes, down 20
• The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 16 minutes, down 20
• Tomorrowland Speedway – 13 minutes, down 23
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 11 minutes, down 25
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 11 minutes, down 7
• Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 11 minutes, down 8
• Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 10 minutes, down 10
• Mad Tea Party – 8 minutes, down 14
• Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 6 minutes, down 11
• Country Bear Jamboree – 5 minutes, no change
• Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change

Image Credit: Disney

Overall, guests waited for an average of 27 minutes. That’s 18 minutes less than last time.

If you ever want proof about how much the holidays inflate theme park wait times, last week’s and this week’s data will work nicely.

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Feature Photo: Disney