One-third of September has already come and gone across Walt Disney World. September typically has the lowest average wait time across the resort, and the data so far in 2024 has continued that trend. Primary reason why? School is back across the United States. Below, the weekly average wait time for Walt Disney World for each week in 2024 is graphed. The past two weeks and the current week are the lowest that have been seen yet. How do the wait time at each theme park compare to past years for
August has come and gone at Walt Disney World, and Spooky Season has begun. Many schools have returned and most will in the next few days, leading to what is usually a quieter September. But remember that quieter does not mean dead; it means lower wait times, on average, than other parts of the year. Let's compare August 2024 wait times to other Augusts in recent years.
Animal Kingdom
August 2024 vs:
Average Wait: Difference of -5.5 min / -14.6%
August
It is early August... so Spooky Season has begun... at least at the Magic Kingdom within the Walt Disney World Resort. Beginning Friday, August 9th, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) is back for 2024, running through Halloween. Typical party days are each Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday night, with a few other dates sprinkled in. An often asked question is how do the Halloween parties affect wait times across Walt Disney World? Lets take a look at some data from the past couple years t
July at Walt Disney World saw a fundamental change to how guests visit the theme parks with the introduction of the Lightning Lane Passes, which brough back prebooking of attractions with Multi Passes and Single Passes that disappeared with FastPass+ in March 2020. Only a week in, it is too early to tell what difference the new system is making in terms of overall wait times. We'll have more on that in the future, but, in the mean time, we are now tracking all current and future date Lightning L
On the second day of the Lightning Lane Multi Pass (LLMP) system, we can compare Lightning Lane availability on the last day of Genie+ operation (July 23rd) to the first one and half days of LLMP to identify any interesting features or trends. Lightning Lane availability can vary due to a wide range of factors; for this analysis, we tried to pick scenarios where typical Genie+ behavior was observed on its last day. In the following graphs, each dot represents a time of Lightning Lane availabilit
Happy Fourth of July! Like last year's well publicized low wait times on Fourth of July that prompted several national news articles, 2024 is following the same trajectory at Walt Disney World. Comparing Fourth of July's going back to 2014, last year (in gray) and this year (in black) are at the bottom of the resort-wide average wait time profile graph.
Looking at all average wait time profiles for each day of the past year, today, the black line, is in the lower quadrant of the data.
Six months down, and six more to go in 2024: we are officially half-way through the year! How do wait times across Walt Disney World Resort compare to previous years up to this point? We dive into the data to find out!
Resort wide, the pinnacle of post-pandemic travel was in winter and spring of 2022. Demand was very high coming out of a couple vacationless years for many (often referred to as the "revenge travel" period). January has had higher wait times the past two years than 2022 and b
Summer arrived last month at Universal Orlando Resort with intense heat and the stormy season began. What were wait times like, how did they compare to the past, and what were the lightest & busiest days to go at Universal Orlando Resort? Lets take a look at the data to find out!
A resort-wide view of the daily average wait times shows a slight upward trend in wait times over the course of the month. Overall, wait times were up 2 minutes over May, but still the 2nd lowest, based o
June has come and gone across Disneyland Resort in 2024. What were wait times like, how did they compare to the past, how was Lightning Lane availability, and what were the lightest & busiest days to go? Lets take a look at the data to find out!
A resort-wide view of the daily average wait times shows (above) that typically Mondays and Tuesdays were the busiest days with the highest average wait times. The last three Sundays of the month were particularly light, thanks, in part, t
How have wait times compared in June 2024 to June 2023 across each Walt Disney World theme park? Lets take a look at the data, comparing June 1st to the 26th of each year. This provides a comparison before Tiana's Bayou Adventure opens on June 28th.
Magic Kingdom Date Range: 06/01/2024 to 06/26/2024 vs:
Average Wait: Difference of -5.2 min / -18.2%
Magic Kingdom Date Range: 06/01/2023 to 06/26/2023: Difference of -3.3 min / -12.6%
An
A frequently asked question by guests planning to visit the Walt Disney World Resort, often after taking a look at the Lightning Lane capacity/sell out data, is if any additional Lightning Lane slots for both Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane are released throughout the day?
Lets first take a step back to explain what a Lightning Lane "sellout" is. The Lightning Lane, which can be accessed for many attractions through Disney Genie+, and limited attractions through Individual Lightning L
Should you avoid Disney World on Mondays? Should you go on Wednesday or Fridays? Should weekends be avoided or embraced? While Walt Disney World can be busy any day of the week, when analyzing the statistics over a period of time, better and worse days to visit each theme park do begin to stick out. Let's take a look at the numbers so far in 2024, and back at the data for 2022 and 2023 to give you some data to pick better days to visit! Note: this article will update over the course of 2024!
An often spread notion is that an excellent time to visit Disney, either Disney World or Disneyland, is on Super Bowl Sunday, especially during the game itself. But is it really true? Let's take a deeper look at the wait time data from recent Super Bowls and surrounding days & weeks to figure out if the notion is true.
An overall look at holidays around Super Bowl Sunday across all the Walt Disney World theme parks shows that Super Bowl Sunday has the lowest wait times of the days shown
Based on recent data (from the Slinky Dog Dash page: https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/attraction/hollywood-studios/slinkydogdash/), a somewhat consistent release of additional Genie+ slots has been present over the past month.
Between 3:40 and 3:50 PM, availability with a return time around 4:30 PM has been released on a majority of days in the past month. Likely a good a idea to keep refreshing during this period to try to snag a spot. Any similar Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lane
The first month of 2024 has already come and gone at the Walt Disney World Resort. There has been a lot of chatter about how busy the parks have been in what is traditionally a slower month for the resort. Let's take a look at the wait time data to see how true or not that was.
Resort Wide
Across Walt Disney World, the average wait time in January 2024 was down 9 minutes compared to January of last year. Compared to most of the months in 2023, it would have been considered a slower mon
In what seems like a flash, the 2023 season has come and gone at America's Roller Coast: Cedar Point. This season introduced the new The Boardwalk section, featuring the Wild Mouse roller coaster, which replaced Wicked Twister. However, most of the focus was turned to what was going to happen to Top Thrill Dragster. Mid-season, it was announced that Top Thrill 2 would modify/replace the existing TTD layout and transform it into a triple-launched coaster with a new vertical spike. Top Thrill 2 is
Welcome to October and month 2 and a half of Spooky Season. September has historically been a lighter month across the resort with school beginning. With September now gone, how did wait times compare this past month to September of previous years across Walt Disney World? Let's take a look at the data.
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Wait times at DAK in September were down compared to each year going back to 2017 except for 2021. They were down nearly 30% compared to the average over t
Halloween Horror Nights 32 (HHN32) has been underway for almost a month at Universal Studios Florida. This year's event has been as popular as ever, averaging close an hour wait time for the houses each night, and with little difference between weekday and weekend events (i.e. no slow day to go). Let's take a look at some of the data that Thrill Data users have provided. The graph below shows the event average wait times so far in 2023 as reported by the Universal Orlando app.
Posted
Halloween Horror Nights, HHN for short, is in at least its second week at both Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood. Both events are historically popular, but the events during the month of September are usually a bit more mild in terms of wait times. Has that story held true in 2023?
During HHN 31 at Universal Studios Florida last year, the highest average wait time for any given event (the average wait time of each haunted house on a given night) was 64 minutes on 10/
It was well publicized in the national media that the Fourth of July weekend at Walt Disney World this year was particularly slow. A large contributor to this was block outs for the $89 per day ticket deals and Passholders. This same scenario occurred over the past Labor Day weekend holiday. So were wait times low across Walt Disney World again on the latest holiday weekend?
First, a comparison for each Disney World theme park between the 4th of July weekend, Labor Day weekend, a non-holida
August has quickly come and gone, and now we enter the fall season at the Disney theme parks, with Halloween events, and, typically, lower wait times with kids back in school. How did August wait times in 2023 compare to previous years? Let's take a look.
Disney's Animal Kingdom
At DAK, August wait times this year were down compared to last year and before the pandemic, but up over 2021. The Flight of Passage wait time being lower is a huge factor in this drop.
August 2023 vs:
Down I-4 from Universal Orlando, the data showed that wait times are significantly lower at the Magic Kingdom during days when there is a Halloween Party. Does the same conclusion hold true at both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida on days where Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) takes place? Let's a take a look at the HHN 31 data from 2022 to find out.
At Universal Studios Florida, where HHN is held, the average wait time in 2022 on days with a HHN event was 32.5 minutes. On da
If you are planning to visit the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World over the next couple months, you will run into days where the park closes at 6 PM for the separately ticketed event, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP). Events are typically held each Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. On these days, the park is typically open for 10 operating hours (8:00 AM to 6:00 PM) compared to 13 hours on a typical day (9:00 AM to 10:00 PM), and does not feature a fireworks show (assuming you are not
How has the first half of August in 2023 compared to previous years at each Walt Disney World theme park? Let's take a look at the data so far to find out!
Disney's Hollywood Studios
At DHS, wait times are down over 7% compared to last year, but are up nearly 10% compared to the same period in 2019. At this point in 2019, Star Wars Galaxy's Edge was not yet open. Rise of the Resistance and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster are averaging a lower wait time this August than last year despite Slinky
The 32nd edition of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando is soon upon us. This year's offering for HHN 32 includes:
Stranger Things 4
The Last of Us
The Exorcist: Believer
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count
Universal Monsters: Unmasked
Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origi…
Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy F…
YETI: Campground Kills
The Darkest Deal
Blood Moon: Dark Offerings
We can take a look at past house wait time data to get a