Disneyland Wait Times for March 2023
We’ve just experienced an eventful month at the Happiest Place on Earth!
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway has operated for a full month now…and already switched to a standby queue!
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Toontown
So, Disney’s newest attraction will appear on our list this week, albeit with limited data.
We’re still a few weeks away from the reopening of Mickey’s Toontown, though. For this reason, a couple of attractions remain offline for now.
Mickey’s Toontown
How did these changes impact Disneyland’s wait times for the past month? Here’s what we know!
Disneyland Park
Let’s start with the new ride.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway surprised many people, including me, when it switched to a standby queue in late February.
The attraction didn’t even utilize a virtual queue for a full month before dropping the system.
Just last month, I said the following: “The catch here is that Runaway Railway won’t offer a standby line queue for several months.
Carnival scene
In fact, there’s no guarantee that it does during the calendar year 2023.” So, I got that one loud wrong!
Park officials have reserved the right to change back as needed, but that appears unnecessary for now.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Toontown
Runaway Railway offers tremendous throughput, which explains why its average wait for the final week of February hovered around 72 minutes.
Somehow, after one month, Runaway Railway already requires a shorter wait than the version at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which I tracked at 82 minutes last week.
Image Credit: Kent Phillips, photographer
Will that trend continue? I doubt the two versions will possess a gap that significant, but anything’s possible. Hollywood Studios has gotten wild.
Even though Runaway Railway was new, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance remained the attraction with the longest average wait…but barely.
Guests stood in line for 75 minutes on average this past month, three minutes less than in January. That’s a bit of a surprise.
Average Waits at Disneyland Park
(Richard Harbaugh/Disneyland Resort)
Here are the other average wait times at Disneyland:
- Space Mountain – 57 minutes, down 2
- Matterhorn Bobsleds – 50 minutes, no change
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 49 minutes, down 11
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 44 minutes, down 2
- Haunted Mansion – 42 minutes, down 1
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 40 minutes, down 2
- Alice in Wonderland – 36 minutes, up 1
- Splash Mountain – 32 minutes, up 8
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 31 minutes, no change
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters – 30 minutes, up 1
- Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage – 30 minutes, no change
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 30 minutes, down 2
- Star Tours — The Adventures Continue! – 30 minutes, up 2
- Astro Orbiter – 29 minutes, up 3
- Autopia – 29 minutes, up 2
- Jungle Cruise – 28 minutes, up 2
- Toad’s Wild Ride – 25 minutes, up 2
- Snow White’s Enchanted Wish – 24 minutes, down 1
- Disneyland Railroad – 23 minutes, up 1
- Storybook Land Canal Boats – 22 minutes, up 1
- Casey Jr. Circus Train – 21 minutes, up 1
- It’s a Small World – 20 minutes, down 14
- Pinocchio’s Daring Journey – 19 minutes, no change
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 17 minutes, no change
- Mad Tea Party – 16 minutes, up 2
- Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes – 13 minutes, no change
- King Arthur Carrousel – 12 minutes, up 1
- Disneyland Monorail – 10 minutes, no change
Photo: Disneyland
Overall, guests waited for an average of 30 minutes per Disneyland attraction. That’s one minute less than January, which is a bit odd.
I should mention that Southern California suffered a rare amount of inclement weather, at least by its standards.
Photo: Disney
That likely kept the locals away a bit more than usual. Also, I’ll point out that Splash Mountain remains in operation at Disneyland.
Park officials have yet to announce a closing date for the attraction here even though it has already permanently shut down at Magic Kingdom.
Photo: Shutterstock
Finally, I should mention that the 30-minute average represents a 25 percent increase from February 2022.
The Disney100 event definitely appears to be drawing crowds to the Happiest Place on Earth!
Disney California Adventure
Photo: CrispyCream27
As I mentioned last month, Disney California Adventure works as the side park for Disney100.
While this gate offers some unique merchandise, food, and beverages, it’s not THE draw during Disney100.
Photo: Disney
For this reason, Disneyland Park earns a much bigger traffic bump.
Meanwhile, DCA gets the spillover, which has largely been its fate throughout its existence.
(Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort)
However, park officials have anticipated this issue in designing Avengers Campus.
The constant influx of temporary character interactions has proven effective.
During the past month, Moon Girl, her pet dinosaur, and Kang the Conqueror have all debuted.
This strategy controls wait times better than you might realize.
Average Waits at Disney California Adventure
Photo: Disney
Here are the average waits at DCA for the past month:
- Radiator Springs Racers – 82 minutes, down 9
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! – 58 minutes, down 2
- Toy Story Midway Mania! – 54 minutes, down 2
- WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure – 54 minutes, down 4
- Soarin’ Around the World – 45 minutes, down 3
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! – 44 minutes, up 1
- Goofy’s Sky School – 41 minutes, down 4
- The Incredicoaster – 38 minutes, down 5
- Pixar Pal-A-Round – 30 minutes, no change
- Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind – 24 minutes, up 5
- Jumpin’ Jellyfish – 21 minutes, up 7
- Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree – 20 minutes, no change
- The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure – 16 minutes, no change
- Silly Symphony Swings – 12 minutes, down 3
- Golden Zephyr – 10 minutes, down 2
- Jessie’s Critter Carousel – 9 minutes, up 4
Photo: DisneyDreamer.com
Overall, guests waited for an average of 35 minutes per attraction at DCA, five minutes more than this time last year.
That’s also two minutes more than last month, and I’m baselessly claiming that’s all because of Kang!
hs tracking whether the new strategy pays dividends.
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Feature Photo: Disneyland
