Walt Disney World Wait Times for End of September 2023
Folks, I dunno whether you’ve looked at the calendar lately or not, but I swear to you that this year is 75 percent done.
We’ve got less than three months left. You need to be figuring out your Halloween candy, Halloween costume, and Thanksgiving-New Year’s plans.
At Disney, Halloween crowds foreshadow the most popular times of the year, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So, we should have about seven more weeks of calmness before the theme parks grow hectic.
I’d describe the past week of wait times as the calm before the coming storm. Here’s what happened at Walt Disney World last week.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
During the prior two weeks of this column, wait times had required longer line time than I’d anticipated.
We really don’t know for sure what that statement reflects, as I discussed last week.
Historically, longer wait times have indicated larger crowds. However, Disney could be staffing parks and attractions more efficiently today.
What I’ll say heading into this week’s data is that crowds were objectively lower according to several accounts.
Do the wait times reflect this fact? Let’s check.
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 63 minutes, down 32
- Na’vi River Journey – 62 minutes, down 13
- Adventurers Outpost – 43 minutes, down 6
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 27 minutes, down 10
- Expedition Everest – 22 minutes, down 9
- Kali River Rapids – 18 minutes, down 10
- DINOSAUR – 14 minutes, down 12
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, no change
- TriceraTop Spin – 9 minutes, down 1
Overall, Animal Kingdom guests waited for an average of 31 minutes, which is nine minutes less than last time.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Obviously, we’re trending toward a very slow week based on the single data point.
Then again, longtime readers know that Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios don’t always align. In truth, they’re typically their own things.
Hollywood Studios has proven an island unto itself when it comes to wait times. How were the crowds last week at the park:
- Slinky Dog Dash – 79 minutes, down 10
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 70, down 12
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 56 minutes, down 9
- Toy Story Mania! – 56 minutes, down 9
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 53 minutes, down 11
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 48 minutes, down 16
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 48 minutes, down 3
- Red Carpet Dreams – 39 minutes, down 3
- Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy – 15 minutes, up 2
- Celebrity Spotlight – 14 minutes, down 7
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 11 minutes, down 5
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
Overall, guests at Hollywood Studios stood in line for an average of 39 minutes, which is seven minutes less than last time.
So, these two parks are definitely slower at the end of September than during the middle portion of the month.
EPCOT
As I mentioned last week, plenty is happening at EPCOT right now.
EPCOT currently hosts works as the Disney100 hub at Walt Disney World.
Also, the 2023 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival is ongoing, and Journey of Water | Inspired by Moana hasn’t technically opened yet.
However, the attraction has increased traffic in the area. Also, Disney has offered a standby queue at times and a virtual queue at others.
We won’t discuss its average wait times for a while, but its impact on other attractions in the area was glaringly obvious in the prior article.
Was that statement still true at the end of September? Here are EPCOT’s average wait times for the past week:
- Frozen Ever After – 74 minutes, down 8
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 67 minutes, down 9
- Test Track – 57 minutes, down 6
- Soarin’ Over California – 53 minutes, down 26
- Royal Sommerhus – 36 minutes, down 1
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 19 minutes, up 1
- Mission: SPACE – 18 minutes, down 7
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 17 minutes, down 4
- Spaceship Earth – 15 minutes, down 8
- Living with the Land – 14 minutes, down 5
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 14 minutes, down 6
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 13 minutes, down 4
Before we talk about the overall data, I want to highlight the Soarin’ wait time.
As a reminder, Disney brought back the original version of Soarin’ as part of the Disney100 event.
We can tell now that an early rush occurred as people rushed to the attraction.
While at least one other attraction decreased its wait time by a more significant amount, what happened with Soarin’ is probably its status quo.
We’ll track whether that’s true over the next few weeks. To a larger point, you should enjoy Soarin’ while you can. It remains spectacular!
Overall, guests at EPCOT stood in line for an average of 34 minutes per attraction, which is three minutes less than last time.
Magic Kingdom
Thus far, all three parks have signaled shorter wait times and presumably smaller crowds. Only two attractions have increased their waits thus far.
So, was that true of Magic Kingdom? Here are the average wait times for the end of September:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 72 minutes, down 7
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 62 minutes, down 7
- Jungle Cruise – 48 minutes, down 7
- Haunted Mansion – 42 minutes, down 6
- Space Mountain – 40 minutes, down 10
- Ariel’s Grotto – 37 minutes, down 2
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 36 minutes, no change
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 35 minutes, down 3
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 33 minutes, down 3
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 32 minutes, down 9
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 31 minutes, down 9
- Town Square Theater – 31 minutes, down 5
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 29 minutes, down 8
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 27 minutes, down 3
- Astro Orbiter – 26 minutes, down 3
- It’s a Small World – 21 minutes, down 3
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 20 minutes, down 5
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 18 minutes, no change
- Tomorrowland Speedway –18 minutes, down 8
- The Barnstormer – 16 minutes, down 6
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 16 minutes, up 2
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 15 minutes, down 6
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 15 minutes, down 1
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 14 minutes, down 2
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 13 minutes, down 5
- Mad Tea Party – 12 minutes, down 3
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 10 minutes, down 3
- Country Bear Jamboree – 5 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Final Thoughts
Overall, guests at Magic Kingdom waited for an average of 26 minutes, which is four minutes less than last time.
So, I think it’s fair to say that Walt Disney World was less crowded than earlier in September. Will that trend maintain?
Typically, the crowds increase as Halloween approaches. But Disney parks have evolved since the end of 2019. I take nothing for granted.
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Feature Photo: Disney