Is Disney Less Busy on Super Bowl Sunday?

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 going back to 2014.

On a park by park basis, we can see the same trend holds true, although some other days are equal to Super Bowl Sunday.

Next is a comparison of the other Sundays around the Super Bowl for the past two years and for 2020, before the pandemic. Typically, only a week or two separates the Super Bowl from the very busy President's Day weekend, which leads to a busy Sunday after the Super Bowl.

In 2023, Super Bowl Sunday (2/12/2023), shown above, was quite similar to the other non-holiday Sundays in the same time frame.

In 2022, Super Bowl Sunday (2/13/2022) was busier than most of the non-holiday Sundays in the same time frame.

In 2020, Super Bowl Sunday (2/2/2020) was about average for a Sunday over an 8 week period. Below is a look at the Super Bowl (2/12/2023) and the week that followed. Super Bowl Sunday wait times were right above the average or slightly below it for that week. A drop off around 6 to 7 PM can be observed each day of the week, and is not unique to Super Bowl Sunday.

A look at attraction wait times from last year reveals that wait times were higher before the game started at 6:30 PM Eastern, with a noticeable change that typically occurs around dinner time.

A closer look at the evening wait times on Super Bowl Sunday 2023.

Here is a look at the wait times the Sunday before the Super Bowl last year. Wait times fell off a little less suddenly in the evening.

Finally, a wide view of the first part of 2023, with the Super Bowl noted by the red mark. Click to see the larger image. You can see it is not one of the lowest days of the period.

At Disneyland Resort, Super Bowl weekend has been busier than MLK Weekend and Valentine's Day. Both Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure exhibit the same trend.

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At Disneyland Park, wait times were slightly lower on Super Sunday than the day prior.

As the graphs below show, the Super Bowl in 2023 (on 2/12) is about average compared to 7 other surrounding Sundays, and average for the week after the Super Bowl. Wait times do not appear to appreciably drop off when the game started at 3:30 PM Pacific.

Finally, the wide view of Super Sunday, denoted by the red mark, compared to a wider range of days across Disneyland Resort. Late January 2023 featured lower wait times than Super Bowl Weekend.

For comparisons sake, a look at wait times at Universal Orlando reveals that Sunday wait times are lower than surrounding holidays, but higher than the Monday after the Super Bowl.

The wider view of Universal Orlando shows that many days early in the year feature shorter overall wait times than Super Bowl Sunday.

So what does all of this mean? At Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando, Super Bowl Sunday is typically similar to an average Sunday for early in the year that is not a holiday weekend. Nothing suggests it is less busy than an ordinary Sunday. At Disneyland Resort, Super Bowl Sunday is busier than MLK weekend and about average for a Sunday for the time of year. Overall, it doesn't seem like there is a specific reason to plan to visit Disney World, Disneyland, or Universal Orlando on Super Bowl Sunday for less crowds. It should be noted that Sunday is typically one of the better days to visit Disney or Universal, as the graphs below show. So maybe that is a good reason to plan for it if you aren't interested in the game.