Walt Disney World Wait Times for Third Week of March 2024
If you’ve read MickeyBlog at all this week, you know that Spring Break has arrived.
Vacationers swarmed the parks and relished the opportunity to put winter weather behind them, hopefully once and for all.
Based on what we’ve seen this week in terms of park traffic, it’ll be a shocker if the line times weren’t way up last week.
Here are Walt Disney World’s wait times for the third week of March aka Spring Break 2024.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
As MickeyBlog’s reporters and writer Kristin Sabol tracked this past week, crowds surged with the start of Spring Break.
Disney Genie+ prices increased to their highest cost for 2024 to date, yet the digital services still sold out on multiple dates.
Overall, our crowd reports suggested that a larger number of guests arrived last weekend to spend Spring Break at the parks.
Then, on Saturday, March 16th, the price of Disney Genie+ decreased and stayed that way on St. Patrick’s Day.
That pricing strategy might be Disney’s signal that Spring Break attendance was easier to predict this year.
So, the wait times might drop again until Easter arrives…or maybe not. You’ll just have to wait and see!
Here are Animal Kingdom’s wait times for this past week.
- Avatar Flight of Passage – 122 minutes, up 21
- Na’vi River Journey – 76 minutes, up 9
- Expedition Everest – 58 minutes, up 19
- Kilimanjaro Safaris – 55 minutes, up 20
- Adventurers Outpost – 52 minutes, up 5
- DINOSAUR – 34 minutes, up 9
- Kali River Rapids – 31 minutes, n/a
- TriceraTop Spin – 15 minutes, no change
- It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – 15 minutes, no change
Overall, Animal Kingdom visitors stood in line for an average of 53 minutes per attraction.
That’s a massive increase of 14 minutes or 36 percent more per attraction.
The other point to make here is that these wait times likely would have been higher if not for the unexpected return of Kali River Rapids.
Then again, as one Disney influencer discovered, the ride’s opening day didn’t go perfectly.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
I think you can already identify the clear sign of a Spring Break vacation factor.
Still, we won’t know for sure until we evaluate the other parks.
Let’s start with Hollywood Studios, where Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance no longer dominates the charts.
I haven’t made a big deal of it, but Slinky Dog Dash typically tops the wait times these days.
The explanation involves the throughput difference between the rides.
Obviously, the Star Wars ride can host a LOT more people than the short roller coaster.
As proof, Slinky Dog Dash averaged a wait of 124 minutes, which is 24 minutes more than last time.
Rise of the Resistance has also increased its wait time by 15 minutes, giving it an average of 102 minutes.
Here are the other Hollywood Studios attractions:
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 92 minutes, up 31
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 83 minutes, up 21
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – 79 minutes, up 11
- Toy Story Mania! – 72 minutes, up 12
- Alien Swirling Saucers – 49 minutes, up 9
- Red Carpet Dreams – 44 minutes, up 5
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue! – 33 minutes, up 15
- Celebrity Spotlight – 27 minutes, up 5
- 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 55 minutes per attraction, which is 11 minutes or 25 percent more than last time.
EPCOT
Ordinarily, I give the benefit of the doubt until we’ve evaluated the other parks…but come on!
We can easily identify that Spring Break crowds have arrived.
So, here are EPCOT’s average wait times for last week:
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – 104 minutes, up 17
- Frozen Ever After – 103 minutes, up 17
- Test Track – 87 minutes, up 19
- Soarin’ Around the World – 67 minutes, up 16
- Royal Sommerhus – 39 minutes, down 2
- Mission: SPACE – 38 minutes, up 16
- Spaceship Earth – 30 minutes, up 9
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends – 25 minutes, up 8
- Living with the Land – 21 minutes, up 1
- Turtle Talk with Crush – 21 minutes, up 3
- Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros – 18 minutes, up 2
- Journey into Imagination with Figment – 16 minutes, up 5
Overall, the average EPCOT attraction required a wait of 47 minutes, which is ten minutes or 27 percent more than last time.
Magic Kingdom
The evidence is quite clear at this point. So, let’s just look at the average wait times at Magic Kingdom for confirmation:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – 102 minutes, up 17
- Peter Pan’s Flight – 78 minutes, up 9
- Space Mountain – 75 minutes, up 15
- Jungle Cruise – 74 minutes, up 6
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 59 minutes, up 16
- Haunted Mansion – 58 minutes, up 8
- Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – 52 minutes, up 11
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – 50 minutes, up 5
- Ariel’s Grotto – 47 minutes, up 4
- Princess Fairytale Hall – 47 minutes, up 5
- Pirates of the Caribbean – 46 minutes, up 6
- Town Square Theater – 41 minutes, up 3
- Astro Orbiter – 40 minutes, up 6
- Pete’s Silly Sideshow – 40 minutes, up 5
- It’s a Small World – 39 minutes, up 5
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – 38 minutes, up 12
- Enchanted Tales with Belle – 38 minutes, up 6
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid – 38 minutes, up 5
- The Barnstormer – 36 minutes, up 7
- Magic Carpets of Aladdin – 31 minutes, up 6
- Tomorrowland Speedway – 26 minutes, up 6
- Mad Tea Party – 25 minutes, up 9
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover – 23 minutes, up 7
- Walt Disney World Railroad – 22 minutes, no change
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor – 19 minutes, up 5
- Mickey’s PhilharMagic – 18 minutes, up 1
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel – 17 minutes, up 2
- Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – 5 minutes, no change
Final Thoughts
At Magic Kingdom, guests waited for an average of 38 minutes, which is five minutes or 15 percent more than last time.
So, the smallest overall average park attraction increase was 15 percent.
Overall, the average wait time across Walt Disney World spiked by 26 percent.
As an FYI, Disney dropped the price of Disney Genie+ over the weekend.
Based on that information, park officials must believe that the Spring Break crowds won’t be as sizable this week.
Are they right? Tune back in next time to find out!
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Feature Photo: Disney