The holiday season is always busy at Walt Disney World. Today starts a series of posts that will take place throughout the holiday season and will look at current wait times in the World. For each post I’ve included a hard-to-see image (click on the image to view it full-size) and a link to a PDF. Let’s take a look at Magic Kingdom wait times for the week of November 17 – 23.
November 17th
Park Hours: 9am – 7pm
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Most Recommended
Some of the data looks weird after 7pm because the Magic Kingdom was closed to the public for a private event held by the IAAPA Attractions Expo. We see that the Fantasyland and Storybook Circus attractions closed around 5pm and re-opened during the event starting around 7pm. Both Space and Splash Mountain showed an actual wait time of less than 10 minutes for the majority of the afternoon.
November 18th
Park Hours: 9am – 10pm
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Not Recommended
We saw an actual wait time for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train of over 90 minutes for the second day in a row. Both posted and actual averages were higher than Monday. Lower temperatures drove down wait times for Splash Mountain. It averaged an actual wait of only 4 minutes for the day!
November 19th
Park Hours: 9am – 10pm
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Tentatively Recommended
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train passed the 100 minute actual wait mark after the a flood of guests got in line following the Festival of Fantasy parade. The best time to get rides in still remains the first and last hours of the day. The theme of cold weather keeping Splash Mountain wait times down continued today. The popularity of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at rope drop kept actual wait times for Space Mountain below 10 minutes until 11:30am.
November 20th
Park Hours: 9am – 7pm
EMH: 1 hour before open
MVMCP
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Tentatively Recommended
The first of back-to-back MVMCP saw wait times start to drop off around 6:15pm. If Jack Skellington is an important photo for you, he generally starts meeting around this time. I would recommend getting in line for him straight after entering the park around 4pm. The average wait times during the morning EMH was similar to wait times during the evening party. While wait times are always lower during the hard-ticketed events, we see a small drop during Holiday Wishes.
November 21st
Park Hours: 8am – 7pm
MVMCP
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Most Recommended
The second MVMCP in as many nights saw wait times start to drop off around 6pm. The average actual wait throughout the entire party stayed at 10 minutes or lower. The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train remains the most popular ride during the party with actual wait times near 30 minutes! As the temperature rose, so did the wait times for Splash Mountain.
November 22nd
Park Hours: 8am – 12am
EMH: 2 hours after close
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Not Recommended
With an EMH of two hours after a midnight park close, guests saw wait times similar to MVMCP levels. We visited for an hour or so to check out the new Peter Pan queue, and our wait during Wishes matched the data here. The prediction by Josh at EasyWDW was spot on for today. We saw higher wait times than during the earlier parts of the week. Splash Mountain returned to it’s normal, long waits, after going down for about an hour and a half during lunch. We also saw long waits for Peter Pan’s Flight. That could be, in part, due to the new queue opening. Given that there was a 2 hour EMH at the end of the night, it seemed that most guests stayed away from the Magic Kingdom before lunch. Next time you want to spend a half day in the Magic Kingdom, look for an EMH at the end of the night and go for rope drop!
November 23rd
Park Hours: 8am – 12am
EasyWDW crowd prediction: Highly Recommended
Guests took advantage of the extra hour of time in the morning, with Peter Pan’s Flight, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Winnie the Pooh being the most popular. The new queue at Peter Pan’s Flight seemingly added to the average wait time of 47 minutes throughout the day.
Looking for access to live wait times (including actual waits)? Visit DisneyWaitTimes.com on your desktop, tablet, and mobile phone!
For this breakdown, I have included the EasyWDW prediction for the day. It’s free and the easiest for me to access. Josh does a great job predicting crowds. You can visit his November predictions here.
I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into wait times last week at the Magic Kingdom! Check back tomorrow for a look at wait times at Hollywood Studios.
[…] times for the week of November 17 – 23. If you missed our first post you can check out our Magic Kingdom wait time breakdown here. Let’s dive into Hollywood Studios wait times. (Click on photos to display full […]