We're back, and today we're taking a look at wait times and crowd levels over what is typically the busiest week of the year for Disney, the week between Christmas and New Year. In this post, we'll pull up the raw data and compare these numbers to last year. We'll also see if we can figure out whether the recent trend of "soft" crowds at Disney World carried over to the busiest time of year.
I want to define what I mean by "soft" (with those heavy air quotes). The overall trend for Disney World in terms of wait times in 2024 was down compared to the previous year. As always, when you visit, how prepared you are, ride down time, weather and just plain bad luck can impact your particular trip. I'm not saying your individual experience is any less valid - if you went during a school break, for example, and found the place bustling with people, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. We can only focus on attraction wait times, which is the best indicator of crowds, even if it is imperfect.
Objectively, the wait times for the past year were lower than the previous year. You can see that trend when you look at any time period in 2024. I didn't write a post on this, but there was even an interesting trend where times basically just kept falling after Spring Break, instead of having peaks and valleys. And this isn't just my opinion (or even skewed data) - Bob Iger, Josh D'Amaro and others are on record (on investment calls and such) as saying that attendance has been lighter in recent times.
So with that context, let's take a look at crowds during the heaviest part of the holiday season. As I did last year, I'll take a look at the period from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day and see what we can see. As usual, all wait time data comes from Thrill Data:
12/24 (Tuesday) - 37 minutes
12/25 (Wednesday) - 40 minutes
12/26 (Thursday) - 43 minutes
12/27 (Friday) - 52 minutes
12/28 (Saturday) - 62 minutes
12/29 (Sunday) - 50 minutes
12/30 (Monday) - 65 minutes
12/31 (Tuesday) - 46 minutes
1/1 (Wednesday) - 40 minutes
As we thought above, these numbers are down from last year at this same time. The "bell curve" aspect is pretty similar (with the dates from 12/27-12/30 being the highest of the high levels, while the earliest and latest dates are the lower points) but the numbers are noticeably lower across the board. The highest wait time day here (12/30 at 65 minutes) would have been only the fifth busiest day of 2023. And 12/26 was down eleven minutes on average from last year - that's a large difference, even if it doesn't seem like it.
On average, this nine day period had an across the board wait time of 48.3 minutes; in 2023, these same days averaged 56.8 minutes. That's definitely a big gap! Remember, these are wait times across all four parks on average; as I hinted at above, if you ended up in Epcot on New Year's Eve (for example - I've seen videos), these numbers wouldn't mean a whole lot to you, as you would be unable to even look at this post on your phone given how tightly packed the crowds would be. But the numbers are instructive as a tool to look at wait times in general and how busy the parks are.
There is also the post holiday "spike" that continues to be a thing for Disney, where the days right after New Year are busy when most people might think the crowds would die away as people go back to school and work. This remained true this year, with days in the 50-55 minute range, down only slightly from the previous year. Things seem to be leveling off as they often do around this time (as I've said before, there's a reason Disney starts to do seasonal ride closures around January 9, and not January 1).
Is there anything we can glean from these numbers as a representation of crowd trends overall? Maybe. As I said above, Disney had already factored in these lower crowds when discussing financial numbers so it's not unexpected. Disney has spent a lot of the last year releasing discounts and incentives to get guests back in the parks, but these aren't short term fixes as there is a long tail between a discount being released and guests actually visiting.
In the big picture sense, you can see this as a referendum on Disney's myopic thinking coming out of the pandemic. Crowds were huge at the time due to pent up demand, even as Disney cut some of the many perks guests had come to love. This was short sighted, and most of us said that at the time. They have worked on "righting the ship" so to speak, but a lot of people were turned off by these guest unfriendly policies and have had enough. Can Disney lure those people back?
When it comes to 2025, Disney is already forecasting continued lower attendance. The big question in the theme park world is what happens when Universal Orlando opens its third park, Epic Universe, in May? While this won't "crush" or even "beat" Disney, there is a possibility that Universal takes more market share than Disney is used to. On the other hand, people traveling to Orlando for that new park might also hit Disney while they're there, thus buoying attendance. Time will tell on that one, and we'll be talking about it as we see what happens.
Regardless, as it relates to the holidays specifically, my recommendation is always to go some other time, even if the crowds are down year over year. This is a very difficult time to navigate the parks and if you're not a savvy visitor, it can lead to lots of lines and frustration (not to mention expense). If this is your only opportunity to visit, perhaps you can go in with a good game plan and use these lower crowds to your advantage. Still, if crowds are down no matter what time of year you visit, I'd still pick something slightly off season, thus getting the best of both worlds.
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