Walt Disney World Wait Times for Early December 2024
Late next week, Disney’s American theme parks will enter the busy season.
While there’s nothing official about the term, the Twelve Days of Christmas signifies Disney’s most popular time of the year.
Disney’s POP Century Resort Holiday Decor
Families flock to Disney for the holidays so that nobody must host, cook, and/or clean.
Instead, Disney will do it for them, providing an ideal vacation spot to celebrate the holidays in a magical environment.
That’s (late) next week, though. For now, we’re more focused on what just happened at the parks.
So, here are Walt Disney World’s average wait times for the first week of December 2024.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Mickey and Minnie in their holiday best!
This week is a particularly unusual one relative to other post-Thanksgiving weeks.
Since Thanksgiving Week ended on December 1st, the post-Thanksgiving lull will be MUCH shorter than usual.
Photo: Disney
Basically, the parks should have slowed down a lot this past week, and they should remain less crowded this week.
After that, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But for the time being, here are the park’s average wait times last week:
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 64 minutes, down 27
- Na’vi River Journey – 51 minutes, down 7
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 48 minutes, down 12
- Adventurers Outpost – 37 minutes, up 3
- Expedition Everest – 32 minutes, down 9
- DINOSAUR – 22 minutes, down 10
- TriceraTop Spin – 11 minutes, up 1
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 10 minutes, no change
- Kali River Rapids – 8 minutes, down 16
Photo: Facebook/Imagineer Podcast
Overall, guests waited for an average of 32 minutes per attraction, which is eight minutes less than during Thanksgiving Week.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Gertie
Here are words I was starting to think I’d never say. Hollywood Studios has finally started to slow down.
There was a five-year period where seven different attractions were likely to average a wait of at least an hour.
Long term, that was never sustainable, or so I thought… However, the behavior continued unabated until 2024.
Finally, some semblance of normalcy has arrived at the park, but it definitely has taken a while.
Photo: Disney
During the holiday season, I fully expect the Rule of Seven to return at Hollywood Studios, but that’s a discussion for two weeks from now.
For the moment, here are the average wait times at Hollywood Studios last month:
- Slinky Dog Dash – 70 minutes, down 23
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – 65 minutes, down 86 (!)
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 54 minutes, down 6
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith – 54 minutes, down 16
- Toy Story Mania! – 48 minutes, down 4
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 48 minutes, down 5
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 45 minutes, down 8
- Red Carpet Dreams – 39 minutes, no change
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 37 minutes, down 4
- Celebrity Spotlight – 20 minutes, up 1
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 12 minutes, down 8
- Muppet*Vision 3D – 10 minutes, no change
Tower of Terror
Overall, guests at Hollywood Studios stood in line for an average of 38 minutes, which is nine minutes less than last time.
EPCOT
Perhaps the biggest in-park story this week was that it was the first full week for the 2024 EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays.
The event started on November 29th and had an immediate impact on last week’s wait times.
No, wait. That was the day after Thanksgiving. So, the holiday crowds were the cause for the long lines.
Still, the park generally remains quite popular during the early days of every new festival.
Was that the case this time? Here are EPCOT’s average wait times last week:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 60 minutes, down 10
- Frozen Ever After – 58 minutes, down 8
- Royal Sommerhus – 44 minutes, up 6
- Soarin’ Around the World – 43 minutes, down 3
- Meet Mickey & Friends – 27 minutes, up 1
- Living with the Land – 26 minutes, up 4
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 26 minutes, up 2
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 23 minutes, up 5
- Spaceship Earth – 20 minutes, down 2
- Mission: SPACE – 19 minutes, down 6
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 18 minutes, down 1
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 15 minutes, up 2
Overall, you can tell that EPCOT’s behavior was slightly different than the first two parks. It had nearly as many rides go up as down.
The result is that guests waited in line for 31 minutes per attraction, which is nearly identical to last week’s 32 minutes.
Living with the Land — Glimmering Greenhouses
So, the end of the holiday impacted this park the least due to the festival’s beginning.
Magic Kingdom
Photo: Disney
Finally, here are Magic Kingdom’s average wait times last week:
- Tron Lightcycle / Run – 94 minutes, down 21
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 58 minutes, down 12
- Jingle Cruise – 53 minutes, up 2
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 50 minutes, down 5
- Haunted Mansion – 42 minutes, up 1
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 37 minutes, down 2
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 36 minutes, down 8
- Space Mountain – 36 minutes, down 17
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 35 minutes, up 1
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 34 minutes, no change
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 34 minutes, no change
- Town Square Theater – 33 minutes, up 2
- Ariel’s Grotto – 32 minutes, down 2
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 28 minutes, up 1
- It’s a Small World – 25 minutes, down 2
- Astro Orbiter – 24 minutes, down 7
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 24 minutes, down 2
- The Barnstormer – 23 minutes, down 4
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 23 minutes, down 4
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 22 minutes, down 3
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 22 minutes, down 2
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 17 minutes, down 1
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 17 minutes, down 6
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 16 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 16 minutes, down 1
- Mad Tea Party – 15 minutes, down 5
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 15 minutes, no change
- Country Bear Musical Jamboree – 13 minutes, down 2
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 13 minutes, no change
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Final Thoughts
Photo: Disney Parks
As you can tell, several Magic Kingdom attractions were down significantly.
That led to an overall average wait time of 26 minutes per attraction, which is three minutes less than last time.
Credit: Disney
Notably, these drops in average theme park wait times aren’t anywhere near as dramatic as in recent years.
I presume that’s due to the abbreviated timeline between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that’s sheer speculation.
We’ll find out for sure throughout the rest of December.
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