Walt Disney World Wait Times for Last Week of August 2023
Friends, we’ve reached the end of August, meaning this year only has four months left.
You may want to start thinking about holiday gifts. Or maybe it’s only me who shops this early.
Anyway, we’ve now reached a point where the kids are back in school pretty much everywhere.
When the school year begins, theme park attendance usually drops…but the last three years have proven unpredictable.
How were the wait times at Walt Disney World this past week?
I presume they’ll be more reasonable than the last few weeks…but I’ve been wrong before.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
When school returns to session, this park tends to slow down the most.
Obviously, Animal Kingdom skews the youngest of Disney’s four theme parks since it’s basically a zoo with Pandora thrown in.
So, we’ll know quickly whether crowds diminished last week, and we’ll start with the park’s best attraction.
Last week, guests at Avatar Flight of Passage stood in line for an average of 91 minutes, which is a drop of eight minutes from last time.
Perplexingly, Na’vi River Journey demonstrates the opposite behavior.
This attraction averaged a wait of 75 minutes, an increase of 12 minutes from last time. How perplexing.
Let’s examine the park’s other rides to better understand the crowds. Here are Animal Kingdom’s wait times last week:
- Adventurers Outpost – 47 minutes, down 1
- Kali River Rapids – 40 minutes, up 2
- Expedition Everest – 30 minutes, up 7
- DINOSAUR – 28 minutes, down 5
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 26 minutes, up 8
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, no change
- TriceraTop Spin – 5 minutes, down 5
Overall, guests at Animal Kingdom spent 39 minutes in line per attraction.
Hmm, we’re actually up a bit from last week, which isn’t something I’d expected.
Obviously, Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Na’vi River Journey skew the curve, though.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Anecdotally, park guests indicated tolerable wait times at Hollywood Studios.
That information often proves inaccurate once the data arrives, though.
Here were the park’s average waits last week:
- Slinky Dog Dash – 94 minutes, down 8
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 87 minutes, up 9
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 78 minutes, up 19
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 72 minutes, up 5
- Toy Story Mania! – 69 minutes, up 5
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 67 minutes, up 2
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 67 minutes, down 5
- Red Carpet Dreams – 43 minutes, up 3
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 38 minutes, up 3
- Celebrity Spotlight – 21 minutes, up 2
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue – 20 minutes, up 2
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 15 minutes, no change
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
Overall, guests stood in line for an average of 47 minutes, which is three minutes more than last week.
More alarmingly, seven different attractions averaged a wait of 67+ minutes, which is definitely on the high side here.
Also, there was a strange amount of inconsistency from attraction to attraction last week.
Generally, most attractions tilt in the same direction, especially when the change is significant. That isn’t happening here, which is odd.
EPCOT
Due to the 2023 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, this park is the one where I wouldn’t expect a downturn in park traffic.
Am I right? Here are EPCOT’s average waits for last week:
- Frozen Ever After – 76 minutes, up 3
- Test Track – 65 minutes, down 9
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 64 minutes, down 2
- Soarin’ Around the World – 41 minutes, up 4
- Royal Sommerhus – 32 minutes, up 2
- Mission: SPACE – 20 minutes, down 2
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 19 minutes, down 2
- Spaceship Earth – 18 minutes, up 1
- Turtle Talk with Crush — 18 minutes, no change
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 13 minutes, down 1
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 13 minutes, up 1
- Living with the Land – 12 minutes, down 1
Overall, EPCOT guests waited for an average of 32 minutes, which is the same as last week.
Magic Kingdom
Here are the average waits at Magic Kingdom last week:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 81 minutes, up 4
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 74 minutes, up 2
- Space Mountain – 59 minutes, up 6
- Jungle Cruise – 54 minutes, up 6
- Haunted Mansion – 43 minutes, down 1
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 43 minutes, no change
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 41 minutes, down 3
- Ariel’s Grotto – 40 minutes, up 3
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 38 minutes, up 4
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 37 minutes, up 1
- Town Square Theater – 37 minutes, down 1
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 36 minutes, up 2
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 34 minutes, down 6
- Astro Orbiter – 33 minutes, up 1
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 27 minutes, up 3
- It’s a Small World – 26 minutes, down 1
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 23 minutes, no change
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 23 minutes, up 1
- The Barnstormer – 18 minutes, no change
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 17 minutes, up 1
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 16 minutes, down 2
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 15 minutes, no change
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 15 minutes, up 1
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 14 minutes, up 2
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 13 minutes, down 1
- Mad Tea Party – 10 minutes, down 2
- 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 stood in line for an average of 30 minutes per attraction. That’s one minute or three percent more than last time.
Also, this week qualifies as one where I kind of throw my hands up in the air.
The one park I would have expected to increase, EPCOT, stayed the same.
The three that should have lowered their wait times did the opposite instead. It was just one of those weeks.
Crowds this week should prove a bit more predictable, as Labor Day Weekend signifies the end of summer for many vacationers.
Park attendance should increase. Then again, I was wrong at the start of today’s article. Maybe I’ll be wrong at the end, too!
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Feature Photo: LA Times