easyWDW

Right Side Utility Bar
  • Home
  • Forums/Questions
  • Crowd Calendars
    • Month-by-Month Overview
    • January 2017
    • February 2017
    • March 2017
    • April 2017
    • May 2016
    • June 2016
    • July 2016
    • August 2016
    • September 2016
    • October 2016
    • December 2015
  • Animal Kingdom
    • Attractions
    • Quick Service
    • Restaurants
    • Theme Park Touring
    • Wait Times
  • Epcot
    • Attractions
    • Food and Wine Festival
    • Quick Service
    • Restaurants
    • Theme Park Touring
    • Wait Times
  • Hollywood Studios
    • Attractions
    • Quick Service
    • Restaurants
    • Theme Park Touring
    • Wait Times
  • Magic Kingdom
    • Attractions
    • Quick Service
    • Restaurants
    • Theme Park Touring
    • Wait Times
  • Resorts
    • Deluxe
    • Moderate
    • Value
    • Villas
You are here: Home / Blog / The Curious Case of January Wait Times at Walt Disney World

The Curious Case of January Wait Times at Walt Disney World

February 24, 2019 ~ 10 minutes read15 Comments

Last year, we spent a considerable amount of time examining wait time trends in January and February. The main question we were trying to answer was, “Is There an Off-Season at Walt Disney World?” Historically, WDW has seen some of its lowest crowds of the year during much of the first two months. There are exceptions, of course. The first week in January is typically busy with lingering holiday crowds. There’s a bump during the Marathon Weekend that follows and Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend is typically busy as well. An increase is also seen around Mardi Gras. But the period between MLK day in the middle of January and the Wednesday or Thursday before Presidents Day Weekend in February, was, for many years, one of the least crowded four-ish week periods of the year. As we’ve learned from the previous studies, this is now much less the case.

Nowhere have wait times increased with more intensity than Animal Kingdom. The following chart shows the combined average wait in the month of January at five Animal Kingdom attractions in each of the last five years:

The five attractions included in the calculations are DINOSAUR, Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Primeval Whirl, and TriceraTop Spin. Each attraction was open for the entirety of January each of the last five years. The numbers do not include Flight of Passage or Na’vi River Journey because the high wait times there would skew the numbers much higher in 2018 and 2019. Obviously, the 26.9% rise in average wait time from January 2017 to January 2018 could probably be attributed to Pandora, a new Land that has been incredibly successful since it debuted in May 2017. On the other hand, we also saw a jump of 13.8% from 2015 to 2016 and 18.2% between 2016 and 2017, all before Pandora opened. From 2018 to 2019, the first year that Pandora was open during both Januaries, we see another 21.8% jump. Overall, average wait times at Animal Kingdom in January have increased over 108% in just four years. That’s pretty wild.

Unlike at Magic Kingdom, where we’ve seen a reduction in the average number of hours that the Park is open each day, Animal Kingdom has actually seen an increase.

A large part of that is due to the introduction of the nighttime entertainment – Jungle Book: Alive with Magic debuted in May of 2016, followed by Rivers of Light in February of 2017. But no matter the reason, it’s important to keep in mind that Animal Kingdom wait times continue to increase even as the number of operating hours increase alongside them.

You can find the following attendance chart on Wikipedia, based on the Themed Entertainment Association’s annual report, found here:

Larger: Here.

At Animal Kingdom, we saw a 13.8% increase in January wait times from 2015 to 2016, despite the fact that attendance was actually down year-over-year. Animal Kingdom attendance went up 15.2% from 2016 to 2017 with Pandora only open for the second half of 2017. During that same time, January wait times went up 18.2%, an even greater amount. It’s a popular opinion that attendance will be down this summer because people are putting off their vacations until after Star Wars opens in fall; it doesn’t appear like vacationers gave Pandora’s opening the same respect as they visited in droves in the months leading up to the summer 2017 opening of the alien landscape.

We’ll move over to Magic Kingdom to see if the trends that we saw at Animal Kingdom are similar.

The answer is…not really. While wait times at Animal Kingdom are up every January from 2015 to 2019, Magic Kingdom’s average actually drops twice, from 2015 to 2016 and again from 2018 to 2019. You might remember that at Animal Kingdom, January wait times are up 20.3 minutes, or 108%. At Magic Kingdom, they’re up 9.5 minutes, or just 31.8%, over the same period from 2015 to 2019.

The January wait time distribution at Magic Kingdom makes more sense given the fact that attendance was basically flat from 2015 to 2016 to 2017. According to the Themed Entertainment Association, about 42,000 fewer people visited Magic Kingdom in 2017 than 2015.

So what’s the deal with Animal Kingdom’s rising wait times, particularly considering the fact that they’re not rising as much or as fast at the other Parks? I think there’s two main culprits.

The first is increased FastPass+ utilization.

If you’re staying on-site, you should receive the following email 60 days before your arrival date, inviting you to book your FastPass+ experiences in advance:

This sort of correspondence isn’t new, but Disney’s communication about FastPass+ has ramped up significantly in recent years. All of the wait times in our discussion are during the FastPass+ era, which is important since certain attractions weren’t on the legacy paper FASTPASS system or paper FASTPASSes wouldn’t be distributed unless crowds were expected to be particularly high. Within a month of the deployment of MyMagic+ in early 2014, Disney saw a 40% increase in FastPass+ utilization over legacy paper FASTPASS. Still, less than half of the people that visited a Disney theme park had booked FastPass+ in advance throughout 2015. Now, more than 90% of visitors staying on-site have booked FastPass+ in advance of their visit across what will be 30,000+ on-site resort rooms by the end of this year. Back in 2015, less than a quarter of day guests had booked FastPass+ in advance. Now, that number is well over half.

As we know, between 50% and 80% of an attraction’s capacity goes to those with FastPass+ priority. The more FastPass+ returners there are, the longer the wait time will be, even if the same number of people are waiting in standby. With more people than ever using FastPass+, virtually every experience at every ride will be secured by guests in advance. If you have theme park tickets attached to your account, pull up what FastPass+ are available for the following day.

As I type this up this post at 4pm on Sunday February 24th, here’s what isn’t available at Animal Kingdom for four people the following day, on February 25th:

A couple of these aren’t surprising. Flight of Passage, with its limited capacity and incredible popularity, is typically unavailable fewer than 60 days out. But there is “literally” no availability for DINOSAUR or Kilimanjaro Safaris, two attractions with monster capacities.

Here’s a look at what is still available:

Expedition Everest sees availability, but not until well into the evening. Even the likes of Festival of the Lion King has distributed all of its FastPass+ experiences for its 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm shows. And from when these screenshots were taken, we’re still 19 hours away from the Park opening on the 25th, which means a lot more people are going to get on here and book the remaining experiences.

The second culprit behind the long wait times…and hear me out here…is the long wait times. I know. Just hold on a second.

As we know, Flight of Passage wait times take off immediately at Park open.

Larger: Here.

Here’s our Flight of Passage wait time chart from a few days ago, when we discussed rope drop strategies for those heading to Pandora first thing. At regular Park open, or 9am, the posted wait exceeds a two-hour average. An hour later, at 10am, the average wait exceeds three hours. While these wait times are probably exaggerated, even if we subtract 45 minutes from both, those getting in line for Flight of Passage right at regular Park open won’t be on their way to another attraction until after 10:45am. That represents an 82-minute wait and a 25-minute experience time. Those getting in line at 10am won’t be on their way until after 12pm. All of these people – literally thousands in number – will be standing inside Animal Kingdom at 11am and 12pm having “literally” done nothing outside of one ride in Pandora. If they want to ride Kilimanjaro Safaris, DINOSAUR, Expedition Everest, Primeval Whirl, TriceraTop Spin, etc. then they’re either going to have to join the longest standby lines of the day and make them even longer, or use FastPass+ and bypass those waiting in standby, increasing the wait times for everyone in the slow boat.

Prior to Pandora’s opening, someone that arrived at 9am might wait ten minutes for Safaris. After, they might wait 20 minutes for Everest, 20 minutes for DINOSAUR, 20 minutes for Primeval Whirl, and 10 minutes for TriceraTop Spin and be done with the majority of the rides at Animal Kingdom before lunch, without even using FastPass. Today, the person that waits two hours for Flight of Passage at Park open would wait 60 minutes for Safaris, 60 minutes for Everest, 60 minutes for DINOSAUR, 40 minutes for Primeval Whirl and…10 minutes for TriceraTop Spin because they’re arriving at these attractions later in the day when wait times have already peaked.

The above blurb is taken from a post back in December 2011 and notes how easy it was to get a DINOSAUR paper FASTPASS with the minimum lead time of 40 minutes.

paper fastpass. what a ridiculous time.

having to collect everyone’s tickets. running from ride to ride never knowing if there would be fastpasses left or what the return time would be. pockets full of paper. designating a meeting place nobody could find

2012. kind of miss it. pic.twitter.com/sPtoX6ZFCI

— josh (@easywdw) February 24, 2019

Weren’t those the days?

Given what we know, why don’t we see such a large increase in posted waits at Magic Kingdom over the same time period? It may have something to do with the attractions that we have to work with. At Animal Kingdom, our numbers take into account:

  1. DINOSAUR
  2. Expedition Everest
  3. Kilimanjaro Safaris
  4. Primeval Whirl
  5. TriceraTop Spin

At Magic Kingdom, we take the following into account:

  1. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
  2. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
  3. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
  4. Haunted Mansion
  5. It’s a small world
  6. Jungle Cruise
  7. Mad Tea Party
  8. Peter Pan’s Flight
  9. Pirates of the Caribbean
  10. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
  11. Space Mountain
  12. Splash Mountain
  13. The Barnstormer
  14. The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
  15. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  16. Tomorrowland Speedway
  17. Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid

Part of that is due to necessity. In 2015, Animal Kingdom didn’t have any other attractions that posted wait times other than It’s Tough To Be A Bug and the Adventurers Outpost Mickey and Minnie meet.

That brings us to our third probable culprit. Back in 2015, relatively few people would be booking Primeval Whirl and DINOSAUR FastPass+ given the fact that other, more-sought-after attractions remained available. Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris enjoy monster capacities, so they usually distribute over a thousand FastPass+ experiences per hour. With fewer people booking FastPass+, as they were back in 2015 and 2016, it was more likely that higher-priority attractions would be available and in turn, be booked by those looking. FastPass+ tends to have a trickle down effect. You might check FastPass+ availability at Hollywood Studios and look for Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. If those aren’t available, you may settle for Star Tours and Toy Story Mania. If those aren’t available, you might move down to Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and Fantasmic.

Back in 2015 and 2016, that trickle down effect caused fewer people to book what had been historically lower-priority attractions. People didn’t book FastPass+ for Primeval Whirl and DINOSAUR because Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris were available. With fewer people using FP+, more capacity went to standby, and standby waits were lower.

At Magic Kingdom, our average wait takes into account 17 rides, a number of which are top tier attractions that would have distributed at or near the maximum number of FastPass+ even with fewer people booking. Attendance also comes into play as Magic Kingdom averaged just about twice as many guests as Animal Kingdom per day in 2015. So a ride like Big Thunder Mountain, even if it has the same hourly capacity as Expedition Everest, is going to distribute more Fastpass+ experiences given the fact that twice as many people are in the Park looking for FastPass+. If FastPass+ for Space Mountain were largely unavailable in 2015, then an increase in the number of people booking FastPass+ isn’t going to have as substantial of an effect. There’s still going to be no availability. With a similar number of people willing to get in line when the wait is posted at 120 minutes whether it’s 2015 or 2019, standby waits don’t have as much room to increase.

While we probably can’t explain the wait time increases at Animal Kingdom as thoroughly as we would like, the fact remains that they continue to be reality. It’s hard to imagine another 20% increase year-over-year, but that may be exactly what we see, particularly with Galaxy’s Edge opening later this year.

As always, we’ll do the best with what we’ve got.

Last modified: February 24, 2019 Filed Under: Blog

Comments

  1. Rich says

    February 24, 2019 at 9:08 pm

    I’m with you on the trickle down effect in AK. As I was in the standby line at Primeval Whirl ( I know, I know) at 10am watching a fairly steady stream of FastPass users go by, I thought what a sad state of affairs that you’re using that FastPass at that time, but I guess you take what you can get.

    Reply
  2. Tim says

    February 24, 2019 at 10:53 pm

    As I sit here reading this drinking my rum and coke pretending I’m a pirate I wonder if anyone else really puts this much thought into wait times as you do. While others do offer great insights into character greetings because of contacts they may have on the inside NO ONE offers this much thought on why Disney is so much “busier” than it used to be. I screwed up my first trip in 2013 and had no idea what “paper” Fastpass even consisted of let alone what a touring plan was. Through the advice that Josh has provided I now know better. The only thing missing from this post is Josh’s wonderful sarcastic humor….and an updated crowd calendar (as promised on twitter!) so I know what park to go to each day on my next trip in June! Thanks for all you do Josh. Seriously love how you want to truly understand the why, not just report “Disney News”.

    Reply
  3. Scott says

    February 25, 2019 at 9:27 am

    Yet another great post, thank you for that. Last September (20th to be exact) you posted “Walt Disney World Crowds Continue to Shift Away from the Summer” with about a year and a half of data by day from 2017 to first half of 2018. Is there any chance you please to continue this and post it? As a numbers dork, I would really like to see it. Thank you very much for the pain and suffering you put yourself through for the rest of us.

    Reply
  4. Chris says

    February 25, 2019 at 9:37 am

    Disney really ruined a good thing with the paper FPs. Those really were the days.

    My kid even laments about it.

    Reply
    • jeffg4 says

      February 25, 2019 at 1:27 pm

      Agreed – as Josh mentioned, it all comes down to the fact there are more people utilizing FP+ because Disney tells them they can book in advance. In the old days of paper FP, I can’t tell you how many people weren’t maximizing its use by knowing the rules, thought you had to pay for it, or weren’t aware of it all together.

      Reply
  5. EGuy says

    February 25, 2019 at 10:38 am

    Any chance you’ve got an updated version of your super wait time chart that includes January 2019?

    (you know – https://i2.wp.com/easywdw.com/reports16/disney_world_wait_times_2017_2018_final.jpg)

    I wonder if we need a new way to measure crowd level beyond just wait times… Maybe some kind of day-of fastpass availability metric?

    Reply
  6. Mike says

    February 25, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    I agree the huge draw from Pandora increased wait times all across Animal Kingdom. Wasn’t that obvious without all the charts and discussion?

    Reply
    • sunrise089 says

      February 25, 2019 at 7:36 pm

      So according to you Pandora drove the 40%+ wait increase from Jan 2015 to Jan 2017 despite not being open. Impressive!

      Since the charts and discussion are absolutely needed to help figure out that puzzle maybe hold off on the snark.

      Reply
  7. John says

    February 25, 2019 at 6:06 pm

    Put me down for missing the paper FPs. We had it down to a science back in the 2000s. It seemed like we could do 10x more back in the summers then, even when navigating around the rampant South American Tour Groups. I’m not waiting in line for anything for more than 15 minutes, so when we eventually get to the point where I can’t even book a FP at the 30 day window anymore, I’m done going. I’m thinking that should be by about December 2019, when Star Wars opens.

    Reply
  8. Beth says

    February 26, 2019 at 6:14 am

    If memory serves, last year January was an anomalie. Josh, do you think that’s the case again, or that the whole year will be way up?

    Reply
  9. Karra says

    February 26, 2019 at 2:25 pm

    This is why I love your site so much. In depth, thoughtful, analysis backed by data. Don’t get me wrong, I love the snark and the reviews, but THIS is what makes you the best.

    Reply
  10. Jeff says

    February 27, 2019 at 12:18 am

    Paper fastpasses really sucked.
    The need to arrive early & backtrack was ridiculous.
    I knew how to take full advantage of them, and still do at DLR. But hate it.
    People who complain they miss them are foolish clowns. Period.

    Reply
  11. Jack says

    February 27, 2019 at 8:06 am

    I know there is no way to prove this unless you have data on not just park attendance but what time people entered the parks. But, my observation from several visits over the years, and especially the last few years, is that more people than ever before are arriving earlier and entering the parks right at opening. This is based mainly on the hordes that surround us when we arrive 45-60 minutes before official opening.

    It makes sense that as more people become aware of FP+ and take the time to book them, they also become aware of the advantages of arriving early. And that causes wait times at all attractions to build up faster in the mornings than they did even in the first few years of FP+.

    Reply
  12. JC says

    March 1, 2019 at 7:36 am

    So the paper fastpasses were inconvenient, but it was a far, far better system. Why? Because the only attractions that had them were the ones that needed them. Now they all do, and it unnecessarily extends wait times throughout the park. Here is why: previously they did not have FP for fast loading attractions like omnimovers such as Haunted Mansion and Spaceship Earth or fast loading rides like Pirates. Load times were around 30 minutes even on high capacity days. Now there are FP+ on all, so those lines get bogged down stopping the standby for those attractions. You now see Haunted Mansion with 45-60 minute wait, and yes, that causes trickle down elsewhere. What they should do is only have FP+ for high demand and select seating areas or scrap that system entirely. It has made it where you have to preplan your entire vacation, and people that visit Disneyland know you accomplish twice or three times as much with their system.

    Reply
  13. Covi says

    March 7, 2019 at 9:38 am

    Gone are the days of our 21 rides on E.E. in one day (2011). I am glad I got my fix in then and my kids are actually into all aspects of the park not just rides. Wish I had a ton of Disney stock LOL!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Did you know I'm the co-author of the highest rated Disney World guidebook of all time (of all time)? Click the book above to check it out on Amazon

  Cheat Sheets   Crowd Calendars   Live Wait Times   Dining   Attractions
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Forums

Recent Posts

  • Closing Down the Holidays at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
  • A Quick Holiday Jaunt to Disney’s Animal Kingdom
  • A Quick Holiday Goodbye to Epcot with Updated Construction
  • Walt Disney World Christmas Crowds About What You Would Expect Given Capacity Constraints
  • Walt Disney World Starts Filling Every Row on Attractions Among the Heaviest Christmas Crowds of the Year

Copyright © 2021 easyWDW.com. All Rights Reserved. Site by Turkmandu. easyWDW.com is not affiliated with, authorized or endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with, The Walt Disney Company, Disney Enterprises, Inc., or any of their affiliates. As to Disney artwork/properties: © Disney. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are proprietary to Disney Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiary, affiliated and related companies, as the case may be. For official Disney information, visit http://www.disneyworld.com

View Privacy Policy here: https://www.easywdw.com/easy/about/privacy-policy/
  • Home
  • Site Map