Walt Disney World Wait Times for Third Week of August 2023
Walt Disney World crowds have proven unpredictable lately.
Just when we think we’d gotten everything figured out, we had a day this past Thursday when nobody showed up.
Was that an aberration, or were crowds smaller this past week?
Here are the average wait times for the third week of August 2023.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Let’s start with the most popular attraction at Animal Kingdom for the past six years and counting.
Avatar Flight of Passage appears likely to remain the alpha until Disney does that thing with DinoLand U.S.A. we’re supposed to pretend like we don’t know they’re doing.
For this past week, guests stood in line for an average of 103 minutes for the Avatar ride. That’s a whopping 14 minutes more than last week.
However, that’s not the rule for everything at the park, though. In fact, the other Avatar ride, Na’vi River Journey, fell 11 minutes week-over-week.
Guests waited for an average of 63 minutes for this attraction, which is still on the high side for it.
Here are the other average waits at Animal Kingdom this past week:
- Adventurers Outpost – 48 minutes, up 3
- Kali River Rapids – 38 minutes, down 10
- DINOSAUR – 33 minutes, up 4
- Expedition Everest – 23 minutes, down 14
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 18 minutes, down 6
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, no change
- TriceraTop Spin – 10 minutes, up 2
Overall, guests waited for an average of 37 minutes per attraction, which is two minutes less than last time.
So, yes, Avatar Flight of Passage proved an outlier.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
How were the crowds at Hollywood Studios? As with Animal Kingdom, I would most accurately describe them as weird and wildly inconsistent.
Here are the average waits for the various attractions:
- Slinky Dog Dash – 103 minutes, up 6
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 78 minutes, down 6
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 72 minutes, up 8
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 67 minutes, down 3
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 65 minutes, down 2
- Toy Story Mania! – 64 minutes, up 1
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 59 minutes, up 7
- Red Carpet Dreams – 40 minutes, no change
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 35 minutes, up 2
- Celebrity Spotlight – 19 minutes, up 1
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 18 minutes, up 1
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 15 minutes, down 3
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
Overall, guests at Hollywood Studios waited for an average of 44 minutes per attraction, which is one minute less than last week.
The oddity here is that six attractions required a wait of 60+ minutes, while a seventh averaged…59 minutes.
Typically, when seven different rides all average hour-long waits, the park’s wait time crosses 50 minutes.
That didn’t happen this time because the other attraction line queues were ridiculously empty.
EPCOT
Given what’s happened with the first two parks, I expect more chaos at EPCOT.
As a reminder, the 2023 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival remains a factor here as well.
However, the impact of the festival tends to diminish after the first ten days…usually.
Was that the case this past week? Here are EPCOT’s average wait times:
- Test Track – 74 minutes, down 7
- Frozen Ever After – 73 minutes, no change
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 66 minutes, up 3
- Soarin’ Around the World – 37 minutes, down 7
- Royal Sommerhus – 30 minutes, up 2
- Mission: SPACE – 22 minutes, down 3
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 21 minutes, up 8
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 18 minutes, down 1
- Spaceship Earth – 17 minutes, down 5
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 14 minutes, no change
- Living with the Land – 13 minutes, no change
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 12 minutes, up 1
Overall, the average EPCOT attraction required a wait of 32 minutes, which is two minutes less than last time.
So, all three parks have lowered wait times this week…but only by a minute or two.
This change could be statistical noise, or it could reflect more students returning to school.
Magic Kingdom
Here are the average wait times at Magic Kingdom this past week:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 77 minutes, down 7
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 72 minutes, down 6
- Space Mountain – 53 minutes, down 9
- Jungle Cruise – 48 minutes, down 4
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 44 minutes, down 5
- Haunted Mansion – 44 minutes, down 2
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 43 minutes, up 1
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 40 minutes, down 2
- Town Square Theater – 38 minutes, down 3
- Ariel’s Grotto – 37 minutes, up 1
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 36 minutes, no change
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 34 minutes, down 1
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 34 minutes, down 6
- Astro Orbiter – 32 minutes, no change
- It’s a Small World – 27 minutes, down 3
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 24 minutes, down 5
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 23 minutes, down 3
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 22 minutes, down 4
- The Barnstormer – 18 minutes, down 3
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 18 minutes, no change
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 16 minutes, down 3
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 15 minutes, up 1
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 14 minutes, down 2
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 14 minutes, up 1
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 12 minutes, down 2
- Mad Tea Party – 12 minutes, no change
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 10 minutes, no change
- Country Bear Jamboree – 5 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Final Thoughts
Overall, guests at Magic Kingdom stood in line for a modest 29 minutes, which is two minutes less than last time.
As I’ve said before, anytime you spend less than half an hour per attraction here, you’re doing VERY well.
Plus, these wait times should continue to go down with the “slow season” of September just around the corner!
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