Walt Disney World Wait Times for Pre-Christmas Week 2023
Hey, would you like to guess how crowded Disney theme parks were this past week?
If you’re thinking, “I dunno, probably crowded,” you’d be right!
As MickeyBlog’s excellent reporters demonstrated throughout the week, travelers wanted to spend the holidays at Disney. I mean, who wouldn’t?
Not coincidentally, Disney hiked its prices for digital services like Lightning Lane and Disney Genie+…and the latter still sold out anyway!
Yes, it was that kind of week…and we’re getting more of the same this week!
Due to the calendar configuration, we have a very tight 15-day holiday season.
With Christmas Eve/Christmas and New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day on Sunday/Monday, guests showed up starting on December 18th.
They’ll probably stay until January 2nd, January 3rd at the latest, and then we’re done.
So, the pre-Christmas Week wait times at Walt Disney World are pretty simple to describe. It was wildly crowded. Let’s see how much.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
I’ve already said all you need to know about the entirety of this week’s data. So, we’ll go basic from here.
These are the average wait times at Animal Kingdom this week:
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 127 minutes, up 53
- Na’vi River Journey – 86 minutes, up 26
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 58 minutes, up 24
- Adventurers Outpost – 57 minutes, up 15
- Expedition Everest – 54 minutes, up 31
- DINOSAUR – 40 minutes, up 26
- TriceraTop Spin – 18 minutes, up 8
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug – 15 minutes, up 5
- Kali River Rapids – 13 minutes, up 5
Overall, park guests waited for an average of 52 minutes per attraction during the holiday week.
That’s 20 minutes or 63 percent more than last time. So, yeah.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Batten down the hatches! This ride could get rough.
Here are the average wait times at Hollywood Studios this past week:
- Slinky Dog Dash – 122 minutes, up 49
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 111 minutes, up 31
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 94 minutes, up 40
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 93 minutes, up 35
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 85 minutes, up 20
- Toy Story Mania! – 83 minutes, up 26
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 73 minutes, up 18
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 56 minutes, up 25
- Red Carpet Dreams – 45 minutes, up 7
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 29 minutes, up 17
- Celebrity Spotlight – 25 minutes, up 7
- 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 58 minutes per attraction, which is 18 minutes or 45 percent more than last time.
However, I do think it’s important to note that this is NOT the longest average wait time we’ve ever tracked at this park.
Sometimes, the wait crosses an hour. So, while this may not provide solace to people in the park lately, it could have been worse.
EPCOT
Some anecdotal reports from friends suggest that EPCOT’s top attractions were absolutely packed this past week.
So, on a personal level, I’m really curious what’s about to happen.
Here are EPCOT’s average wait times for the past week:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 89 minutes, up 20
- Frozen Ever After – 83 minutes, up 11
- Test Track – 80 minutes, up 21
- Soarin’ Over California – 59 minutes, up 21
- Mission: Space – 42 minutes, up 23
- Royal Sommerhus – 38 minutes, up 5
- Spaceship Earth – 34 minutes, up 18
- Living with the Land – 20 minutes, up 2
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 20 minutes, up 2
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 19 minutes, up 6
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 15 minutes, up 5
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 14 minutes, up 3
During the week of Christmas Eve, guests waited for an average of 42 minutes, which is 11 minutes more than last time.
So, that’s 35 percent more than the second week of December, but I was legitimately braced for worse.
Magic Kingdom
As you might expect, the real action is always at Magic Kingdom, the most popular theme park in the world.
Due to the sheer volume of high-quality attractions at Magic Kingdom, there are theoretical limits on how long the average wait times will be.
This week is one of the rare examples of when we test the upper boundaries.
Here are the park’s average wait times:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 102 minutes, up 26
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 82 minutes, up 13
- Space Mountain – 80 minutes, up 35
- Jingle Cruise – 76 minutes, up 13
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 63 minutes, up 24
- Haunted Mansion – 60 minutes, up 11
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 55 minutes, up 12
- Town Square Theater – 50 minutes, up 13
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 48 minutes, up 15
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 48 minutes, up 10
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 46 minutes, up 8
- Astro Orbiter – 45 minutes, up 17
- Ariel’s Grotto – 43 minutes, up 8
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 41 minutes, up 11
- It’s a Small World – 39 minutes, up 13
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 38 minutes, up 21
- The Barnstormer – 37 minutes, up 20
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 35 minutes, up 8
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 34 minutes, up 20
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 34 minutes, up 11
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 32 minutes, up 13
- Mad Tea Party – 27 minutes, up 14
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 24 minutes, up 1
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 21 minutes, up 7
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 20 minutes, up 2
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 18 minutes, up 7
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 17 minutes, up 5
- Country Bear Jamboree – 16 minutes, up 1
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Final Thoughts
Some of these bounces were smaller, while others like Space Mountain, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and Tomorrowland Speedway had comically large increases.
The end result is that the average Magic Kingdom attraction required a wait of 39 minutes, which is 10 minutes or 34 percent more than last time.
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