WDW Wait Times on Halloween Party Days

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 to find out the impacts to the Magic Kingdom and the other three theme parks.

When the Magic Kingdom hosts a MNSSHP event, which is a separately ticketed event, the park closes at 6 PM to regular ticket holders for the Magic Kingdom for that day (usual closing time is around 9 or 10 PM on a typical day). This, alone, seems like a big discouragement to visit the park as you do not get access to the fireworks and the park is open fewer hours. And the data supports that. In both 2022 and 2023, the daily average wait time for the Magic Kingdom, which only considers wait times from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (and not the party that features lower wait times), is over 30% lower (~11 minutes lower, on average) on a MNSSHP day than the non-party days that surround it. It is clear to see when this is depicted graphically, as shown below for 2022 and 2023. The party days, in the orange dots, show clear separation to the surrounding non-party days (blue dots).

So if Magic Kingdom wait times are lower on a party day, are the other three theme parks busier? The same analysis was conducted for the other theme parks with their graphs for 2022 and 2023 below. Visually, you can notice that there is not as significant of a difference as with the Magic Kingdom, but what do the numbers says?

EPCOT

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Across the board, by average, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party days are busier at the other three theme parks by at least 4%. The difference at Disney's Animal Kingdom has been greater, with wait times increasing by 17%, or over 5 minutes, on party days. EPCOT is the most stable on party and non-party days. If your goal is to have shorter wait times at the Magic Kingdom, party days are your best bet. However, you must give up spending the evening at the park and no fireworks. And it's best to visit the other parks on a day the Magic Kingdom doesn't have a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party event.

What are wait times like during a Halloween Party itself? Check out the data from each event last year here: https://www.thrill-data.com/mnsshp/2023