It’s a slow Fourth of July at Walt Disney World for the second year in a row, and it looks like Disney may have forecasted as much – shortening typical holiday period park hours and not decorating as much as they have in the past.
We’ve already covered some of the cutbacks in hours, not only from the initial Fourth of July entertainment schedule announcement but also in relation to years past when Magic Kingdom would be open until midnight or later.
While visiting Magic Kingdom this morning, we also noticed that Disney has scaled back on some of the patriotic decor. Typically, bunting is installed along the full length of Main Street USA. This year, it is only installed in Town Square. Not groundbreaking by any means, but when details matter, details should matter.
Here’s a look at some before/after photos from 2023 versus what Main Street USA looked like this year.
In terms of crowd levels, here’s a look at a graph from thrill-data, a wait time tracking website, showing that this year’s wait time averages at Walt Disney World (bold black line) are below average and tracking to be some of the lowest waits of the past decade. This continues a trend that we noticed last year as well.
Magic Kingdom will still present the stunning “Disney’s Celebrate America! A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky” fireworks show, and EPCOT will have the concussive “The Heartbeat of Freedom” tag following Luminous.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
This has been this way since they started projections on the Main Street facades.
The “before” photos are from last year, 2023. Main Street USA projections began in 2021
Bundting is not expensive. It’s Disney’s way of giving guests the middle finger for not going, by cheaping out on those who did go. There is already so much badwill now between Disney and guests due to outrageous pricing, so Disney thought they would exacerbate it by cutting more. They are oblivious to their guests. It’s mind blowing. They can’t be that dumb!!!
I worked Disney Attractions for 9 years. They are not dumb, they just believe that they really do have pixie dust magic
This is great news. The parks were too crowded before. Now they’re raising the prices and people are going to have to cut back. Good.
We are here at Disney World for the week of the 4th and we are doing no parks. It’s just become way too expensive.
It’s too hot. I went twice last year. March and Sept and it was packed. Summers like in Universal is getting less packed on summers. Even Hhn was empty in Oct compared to Sept.
The crowds are down because they have block out dates for the FL annual passholders and all passholders of a certain level. Top tier has all access butb it’s pricey. The same thing happened Memorial Day. It is hot but it’s a great time for everyone else to go with less crowds.
Sure, but blockout dates for Annual Passes are nothing new
I welcome less crowds and higher prices. This isn’t a budget friendly vacation so I would stop expecting that.
Thanks for putting together such an informative article on how Disney has been scaling back on not just park hours but also the iconic patriotic decorations throughout Main Street during what has traditionally been one of the busiest times of the year. It was also the case in 2022, during the height of the Resort’s 50th anniversary celebration, that Disney decorated just Town Square rather than throughout Main Street for the summer season.