For over a year, we’ve been raising ‘red flags’ in our updated 2023 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar about last week due to the confluence of holidays, special events, and school breaks. In this wait times report, we’ll see how those predictions compared to reality, covering what we got right and wrong.
Going into last week, expectations were incredibly high. In addition to the flagging that week for a while, we had a standalone post at the start of this year warning that the the Worst Week of Winter is Coming at Walt Disney World. Our forecast called for last week to be the busiest week of the first quarter and said it could be one of the 5 worst weeks of 2023–right up there with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and the peak of spring break.
That timeframe we identified for these colossal crowds was approximately February 17 to February 26, 2023. This particular week and the weekends around it were expected to be very bad due to Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras once again coinciding. The last time that happened, all 4 parks hit capacity, park hours were extended at the last minute, and the parks experienced peak crowd levels.
Despite the two holidays not coinciding last year, it was a very similar story. The week of Presidents’ Day was still one of the worst weeks of the year–right up there with the peak of Spring Break, and Thanksgiving. It was surpassed by Christmas and New Year’s Eve by a pretty wide margin, with far higher wait times than the low to moderate weeks before it in January and February.
In particular, the Wednesday after Presidents’ Day was the busiest day of the year for months after, “thanks” to a 10/10 crowd level and average wait time of 61 minutes. It was not dethroned until the Monday of Thanksgiving finally surpassed it, with a 64 minute wait. During winter break after Christmas, many other days ended up having similar 61+ minute average waits. But for several months, no week was worse than that of Presidents’ Day.
Compounding the crowds this year, there were several cheerleading events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports on both weekends bookending the holiday and the 2023 Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend. That meant more school breaks due to both Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day happening simultaneously, plus those sporting events drawing even more guests to Walt Disney World.
At least in part, we already have an idea of how crowds played out at Walt Disney World over the holiday week. As discussed in Genie+ Sold Out for the First Two Times Ever at Walt Disney World, the paid FastPass service stopped sales on Presidents’ Day and the Sunday prior to it, with the paid FastPass service selling out between noon and 2 pm those days. This was despite it reaching its record price point on both–$29 per person, before tax.
On Tuesday, the price of Genie+ dropped back down to $22 per person (pre-tax) and the paid FastPass service did not sell out. It stayed at that price point through Friday, and then dropped even further to $20 for the weekend. Genie+ prices are usually a strong indicator of internal attendance forecasts by Walt Disney World.
As a result of this, you might be inclined to assume that Walt Disney World was less busy on Tuesday. However, that was not the case according to wait time data. Across the entirety of Walt Disney World, the average wait time was 56-57 minutes on Saturday through Monday–the holiday weekend days when Genie+ was $29 per person.
Tuesday ended up being the busiest day of the holiday week, when the average wait time across Walt Disney World was 61 minutes. Sound familiar? It’s essentially a repeat of last year, right down to the same exact wait time. The only difference is that the peak occurred on Tuesday instead of Wednesday this year, but there’s not really any significance in that.
What’s more interesting is what happened the rest of the week, and for that, we’ll turn to posted wait time data. As always, all graphs and stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
Let’s start with the monthly average. Up front, we need to acknowledge that August through October 2021 are still really skewing this. If you don’t recall, those are when mask rules were reinstated and Delta spiked, causing massive cancellations. At this point, those have zero bearing on current crowds, and those months ‘falling off’ the chart will help reset crowd levels based on actual current trends.
In any case, January/February 2022 to January/February 2023 is an apples to apples comparison. This January was much worse than last year, whereas this February has been slightly better than last year. The average wait time this month has been 42 minutes, versus 45 minutes last February. Let’s drill down a bit further to see when weeks and days are skewing the data…
For January, it’s unsurprisingly the beginning of the year. We ‘warned’ of this before it happened, but haven’t really touched on the aftermath of winter break post-New Year’s Eve. In any case, you can plainly see that week is the worst of the year thus far, with higher average wait times than both the week of New Year’s Eve and this past week. That alone makes the titular headline in our last post wrong.
In fact, last week was “only” a 9/10 on the crowd calendar based on these wait times, which puts it (roughly) on par with Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or the post-NYE week (which is actually both the worst week of winter and of the last 500 days). We already know there were several 10/10 days during the last couple of weeks, so let’s drill down further to see why the weekly average was only 9/10…
Above is a look at daily crowd levels based upon posted wait times thus far in 2023. As previously mentioned, the highest bar on the right is the Tuesday after Presidents’ Day. That’s a 10/10, and so are the Saturday through Monday before it, and the Wednesday after it.
What’s really skewing the data is the days following that. In particular, yesterday was only a 1/10! This is actually not totally unprecedented, but the degree to the dropoff is a bit staggering. Normally, the day of major runDisney events sees lower wait times–it’s an observable trend that happens with each event (take a look at January 8, the lowest bar among reds and oranges) and has for years. However, I’ve never seen it drop all the way to 1/10 during an otherwise crowded week. That’s a new one to me!
It’s a similar scenario prior to the start of the holiday weekend, when crowd levels were in the 2/10 to 5/10 range. That part is no surprise; we didn’t expect (or predict) that days before 2/17 would be busy. So that week having its average dragged down was to be expected. But I never expected that to occur with the tail-end of the week of Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras, especially heading into a runDisney event weekend that should’ve helped offset those heading home from holiday break on Thursday through Saturday.
I don’t think the individual parks really add much to help understand what happened, but here those are anyway:
The crowd dynamics are pretty consistent across the board. Wait times spiked leading into and out of Presidents’ Day, but fizzled out toward the end of that week, falling from moderately high on Thursday and Friday to flat-out light levels on Sunday.
Despite that, we could claim this as a victory, as crowds did hit 10/10 for several consecutive days during what was expected to be the heart of the holiday break. I’d hazard a guess that most people visiting last week felt the parks were quite crowded.
Personally, I’m more focused on what we got wrong. For one thing, the prediction was “worst week” and not “series of 10/10 days.” My expectation was that the entire week would at least be on par with last year, especially given the timing of Mardi Gras. The fact that it wasn’t is surprising. (Honestly, I expected most days last week to be high 10/10 days, not normal ones almost on the cusp of 9/10.)
I’m also wondering why there was such a sharp drop-off leading into (and out of) Princess Half Marathon Weekend. This does not align with what happened last year, and is a bit perplexing as a result. Did more runDisney participants come down for the race but not visit the parks? Did people cut their holiday breaks short and head home early?
For those inclined to think that Universal Orlando pulled people away from Walt Disney World…don’t. Crowd levels were 9/10 or 10/10 there Saturday through Tuesday, but similarly dropped off after that. In general, Universal has had a relatively quiet winter.
As we discussed in our last crowd report, Universal’s parks are once again closely following seasonal attendance trends and tourism data for Central Florida. For a couple of years, conventional wisdom was that Universal gained market share on Walt Disney World among Floridians as they’ve catered to locals more aggressively and actually sell Annual Passes. Based on everything we saw, that was true between Summer 2020 and 2021. It appears to have stopped being the case at the beginning of last year, though.
With that said, it’s tough to fully explain the lower wait times (relatively speaking) late last week and over the weekend at Walt Disney World. In particular, wait times falling as the Princess Half crowd arrived is pretty perplexing. Perhaps it is a matter of runDisney diehards no longer having Annual Passholders and not wanting to pay for multi-day tickets. Airfare and hotel costs might’ve pushed non-runners on holiday break to leave earlier.
It’s also possible that weather is the primary explanation, with little change in ‘behavior’ on the part of runDisney participants. Much of the United States experienced extreme weather late last week and into the weekend, with snowstorms across the country from Maine to Southern California. Many areas that didn’t experience snow instead were treated to rain and hail. This resulted in thousands of flight cancellations every day starting Thursday–and double or triple the number of delays. That probably played a significant role, too.
Setting all of that aside, one thing that I do think is really fascinating is the difference between the first week of January (the actual worst week of winter) and last week. Since 2019, the first week has been getting busier and busier due to Osceola and Orange County schools being out of session (and a growing number of locals), plus the lifting of Annual Pass blockouts, plus Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend in the last 4 years or so. It was really bad in early 2020 (especially at DHS, where many locals were experiencing Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance for the first time), but 2023 is the busiest that week has ever been–by far.
It’s impossible to “untangle” the various variables impacting crowds in early January, but the explosion of the local population is the one thing that has changed during that time. Additionally, the 2023 Florida Resident Ticket Deal for Walt Disney World was NOT offered then (but was offered this past week). This suggests to me that a lot of locals are still Annual Passholders, getting in when sales reopened and not letting their passes lapse since.
I would guess that this is an “underappreciated” demographic, especially on sites like this one where we hear complaints from aggrieved Annual Passholders who aren’t renewing and also from those new locals who are unable to purchase new passes. Meanwhile, there are probably plenty of local APs who are doing their thing, visiting the parks, without voicing their opinions online.
Given the Walt Disney World wait time data and how it doesn’t always track with Universal or MCO’s traveler volume, it’s probably safe to say that Walt Disney World has a very healthy number of Annual Passholders in Florida. (That would also partially explain why AP sales haven’t resumed, despite restarting in California.)
Ultimately, it was still a (mostly) very busy week at Walt Disney World. Anyone who hasn’t visited the parks during winter in the last 4 years–or didn’t realize Mardi Gras is a big holiday break for some school districts–was probably blown away by the high wait times. Several consecutive 10/10 days is not exactly uncrowded, after all.
Nevertheless, Walt Disney World wait times were not as high as we anticipated, nor were crowds elevated for the entire duration of dates were predicted. For the most part, this was not bad forecasting–we had historical precedent and wait time data to go by, making those predictions almost obvious. (The one exception was Sunday–based on recent runDisney events, we should’ve had that as a moderate day. Even that would’ve been wrong since it was only 1/10!)
If anything, this should reinforce the reality that there are no “sure things” in Walt Disney World crowd predictions. Weather (both locally and across the country), flight cancellations, average airfare and hotel costs, and other variables all can throw a monkey wrench into things.
It would be wise for everyone to keep that in mind when reading and relying upon our Spring Break 2023 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World. We’re fairly confident in those predictions, but nothing is ever 100% certain. And as always, savvy strategy is going to beat picking the “right” dates 9 times out of 10.
On a positive forward-looking note, the crowds that Walt Disney World saw over the weekend should be a sneak peek of what’s in store for the next two weeks. Very few major school districts have breaks in late February or early March, there are no major events on the calendar, and it’s not really a popular time for getaways to Florida. All things considered, it should be a really good time to visit Walt Disney World. That won’t last long, as spring break kicks off in full force starting March 10, 2023.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Did you visit Walt Disney World during Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day 2023? What did you think of the crowds? Any parks, times of day, or days of the week noticeably worse than the others? Did you find the past few days to be noticeably less busy than the first half of the week or previous weekend? If you’ve visited in past weeks before/after Mardi Gras, did you notice a big difference in crowd levels? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our crowd report? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
