Good news! The Crowds Capybara (aka “Bay Lake Beatrice”) saw her shadow, predicting six or so weeks of low wait times at Walt Disney World. With Spring Break in the rearview mirror and summer is still another month-plus away, this is a good forecast by the rodent–as we’re entering “Shoulder Season.”
This crowd report shares wait times data, which dates ended up being the worst of the season, and our on-the-ground observations about congestion and lines. Plus, predictions on attendance levels next month and throughout Summer 2025, as well as how the opening week and months of Epic Universe at Universal Orlando could impact Walt Disney World.
We’ll start by taking a look back at the last month-plus of Spring Break season at Walt Disney World. Specifically, we’ll look at what our Spring Break 2025 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World got right and wrong with its predictions, and just how bad Easter ended up being.
The good news is that the broad contours of the forecast ended up being accurate. Our prediction was twin peaks of heavy crowds the week of Orange County’s recess and another almost a month later leading up to Easter, with somewhat of a valley in early April. We were overly aggressive predicting the start of Spring Break, but crowds were heavy starting March 17-29 and again April 12-19. In both cases, peak crowds started a couple days after our forecast window and ended 1-2 earlier.
Equally notable were the lower points. March 30 through April 11 saw low to moderate crowds, pretty similar to what we’d expect during the upcoming Shoulder Season. That’s what a late Easter causes–a later second spike in Spring Break crowds, and also quasi-Shoulder Season in between.
Save for some Spring Break stragglers, ‘Shoulder Season’ has more or less already arrived at this point. We don’t expect another high crowds week until October 2025, and even above-average weeks are going to be few and far between for the next several months.
As always, what’s covered in these “crowd” reports is actually posted wait time data that’s pulled from My Disney Experience and compiled into graphs for tracking and comparing various days, weeks, months, and years. A lot can be gleaned from posted wait times, but it’s not necessarily conclusive of in-park congestion or crowds.
If you want to understand more about these reports and crowd calendars, their strengths and limitations, or addressing misconceptions about crowds, see our list of the “Top” 10 Ways Walt Disney World Fans Are Wrong About Crowds. That’s worth reading if you want a better understanding of WDW attendance patterns, feels like crowds vs. wait times, and a few fairly easy ways to “beat” the crowds.
In short, wait times are an imperfect measure of Walt Disney World’s raw attendance or crowds. Before going deeper into the discussion of crowds, let’s dig into the data and look at Walt Disney World wait times. As always, all graphs and stats are courtesy of thrill-data.com:
We’ll start with the monthly numbers for Walt Disney World as a whole.
Since the lows of last September and October, Walt Disney World has gotten progressively. That might seem like good news for the parks themselves, until you contrast the numbers with the same months on a year-over-year basis. December 2023 through March 2024 were incredibly strong, leading us to question whether we were seeing a reverberation of revenge travel at Walt Disney World.
That didn’t last. Crowds fell each month starting in April, bottoming out during the fall off-season (October was something of an anomaly due to hurricanes). Crowds have risen since, but to nowhere near the same degree as the previous holiday season and winter. Spring Break is a very similar story–wait times are down noticeably on a year-over-year basis for the last two months.
Last year, the average for March was a 40 minute wait time or 7/10 crowd level. March 2025 saw a 36 minute average for 5/10 crowds. April was actually identical both years: 34 minute waits for 4/10 crowd levels. These comparisons aren’t apples to apples since Easter was in March last year, meaning we’d expect April 2025 to be busier. Also, the month is not over yet, and the slowest days are still ahead. Meaning that even with Easter, April 2025 could end up being slower than last year.
Speaking of which, above is a look at the weekly crowd levels. The 6 bars on the far right are what we’ll be looking at. The last bar is the current week (through April 27, 2025) and shows the Shoulder Season slowdown already in progress. Prior to that is Easter, which is always the peak week of Spring Break.
The previous two weeks are the aforementioned ‘valley’ in early April 2025 after Southern school districts went on recess but prior to Easter week crowds heating up. As you’ll see in the daily numbers, those yellow bars somewhat overstate crowd levels during those weeks.
The two bars before that were when Orange County and other school districts in Florida (not to mention the rest of the US) went on break. Note that none of these weeks were 10/10 crowd levels. The first two weeks, in mid-to-late March, were 6/10 levels. Easter was “only” 8/10, which may seem heavy–but that was the slowest Easter week we’ve seen since 2021.
Zooming in more, we come to the resort-wide daily numbers for Walt Disney World.
The week leading up to Easter was unsurprisingly busy, with a bit of a lull (comparatively) for the holiday weekend itself. No huge surprise there, as crowds heading home before the weekend has increasingly become the trend. This is driven by a number of factors, but mostly higher prices.
We also want to draw your attention to the few green bars between the peak weeks of Spring Break. Those are 1/10 to 3/10 crowd levels the last two days of March and first week of April 2025. That was a great time to visit (I speak from experience!) and is worth remembering for the next time Easter is so late. So file that info away until 2028, I guess.
For those wondering how Walt Disney World’s wait times compare to Universal Orlando, the trend is about the same, just from a lower baseline. As Comcast has reported on countless earnings calls over the last year, they’ve seen a sharp slowdown in the post pent-up demand era–worse than Walt Disney World.
To that point, Comcast just reported its earnings for the first three months of the year on April 24, 2025, and attendance dropped at Universal’s theme parks in the United States. Comcast reported that theme parks revenue was down 5.2% year-over-year, to $1.876 billion. The company attributed the decline in part due to January’s wildfires, which forced the temporary closure of Universal Studios Hollywood. Adjusted EBITDA in the theme parks segment also was down for the quarter by 32.1% year-over-year.
While the wildfires unquestionably played a role, there’s also this interesting trend of both Comcast and Disney attributing decreases to externalities. The trend-line is also down at Universal Orlando, so this is not just a matter of the wildfires. In Universal’s defense, there is almost certainly a ‘calm before the storm’ with people postponing visits prior to the opening of Epic Universe.
But we’re also expecting the first few months of Epic Universe to underperform expectations, with softer bookings than originally anticipated. We’ll have a more in-depth look at this soon, but just to be clear, it’s not cause for long-term concern or a sign of disinterest in Epic Universe. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon with major new openings, and Universal should almost certainly see a boost in the coming quarter thanks to Epic Universe. That’s kind of a given, though, when adding a new theme park to the mix.
It’s also worth pointing out that the single biggest explanation for the year-over-year drop in wait times at Walt Disney World is the major changes to its queueing policies in late May 2024. Wait times haven’t been as high since, even on comparably congested days. And as a reminder, all of the above measures are of posted standby wait times, which act as a proxy for crowds–they absolutely do not congestion.
We explained why Walt Disney World is seeing lower wait times across the board in Here’s Why Standby Lines and Lightning Lanes Are Moving Faster at Walt Disney World and have discussed it elsewhere. That’s really worth reading if you want to understand the growing disconnect between ‘feels like’ crowds and wait times.
The bottom line is that the DAS changes and, to a lesser extent, switch from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass are having a significant impact. It should go without saying that there are controversies, downsides, and unfortunate realities to the above. But the improvement to the flow of lines–standby and Lightning Lanes–as well as lower wait times is also undeniable.
Turning to on-the-ground observations, I’ve spent a lot of time at Walt Disney World since the start of Spring Break season. This included Orange County’s Spring Break, the peak week of Easter, and the lowest level week in between at the beginning of April.
As a general matter, I was pleasantly surprised by crowds. My most negative experience came with trying to use the Skyliner from Art of Animation to do Early Entry at EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. As usual, mornings were pretty rough at DHS during busier dates (anything 5/10 or above). Not exactly a new development, though. Unsurprisingly, I also encountered high demand for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind during comprehensive field testing. (Results of that are still coming soon!)
My most positive experiences all came at Magic Kingdom. (Well, Animal Kingdom was also fine, but that’s to be expected.) There were several days and nights at Magic Kingdom that were much better than expected, and the experience really benefited from the 11 p.m. park hours extensions (although those were rarer than last year). In general, I almost always perceived lower crowds at Magic Kingdom than the actual crowd levels reflected. That’s a nice feeling, and one that often isn’t the case at Magic Kingdom. (Granted, I avoided Happily Ever After, so I never experienced that exodus.)
Most interestingly, my perception of Easter crowds was much better than expected. Honestly, I never would’ve guessed that week had 8/10 crowd levels while visiting the parks. I was fully prepared to do a write-up about an unexpectedly slow Easter week based on my on-the-ground experience, and was surprised that the levels were actually 8/10. Part of that was getting lucky (or rather, choosing correctly) my park visits each day, but crowds felt fairly moderate.
If anything, I would’ve guessed that mid-March was worse than Easter week based on my own observations. Both were unquestionably busier than last year’s late summer/early fall off-season, but they didn’t feel as bad as the worst weeks of winter. It probably helped that the weather felt incredibly comfortable by spring standards, and that can make up for a lot. I’ll happily take a 6/10 day with pleasant temperatures than a 1/10 day with triple-digit “feels like” heat and humidity.
Point being, wait times often don’t tell the full story of crowds at Walt Disney World. And conversely, anecdotal experiences of crowds and congestion are variable, which is why they’re unreliable. Others who visited during Easter week might ‘sound off’ in the comments with horror stories about just how busy it was. That doesn’t make either of us wrong–we just had different experiences. Walt Disney World is a big place; it happens.
Looking forward, Walt Disney World is now out of the woods with the worst of Spring Break. We’ll have another update to our 2025 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars very soon, but the bottom line is that there are very few ‘red flag’ dates in the coming months.
At this point, it’s basically just what’s currently on the ESPN Wide World of Sports calendar. The next couple of weekends, there are Cheerleading Championships, Cheerleading Worlds and Dance Worlds, and the Summit events for the same. All of those events occur the next couple of weeks and could cause a slight bounce-back in terms of crowds.
These are major dance and cheerleading competitions that boost attendance at the parks and occupancy at the hotels, usually the All Stars and Coronado Springs. However, the impact on crowd levels in the parks isn’t significant as a whole–and tends to be overblown based on anecdotal experiences, which can be quite bad. (Meaning that you could think they’re a huge negative if you’re stuck in line for Haunted Mansion behind a group of 100 cheerleaders…or you might never see a single participant during a weeklong trip.)
Aside from those cheer and dance events, which are worth bringing to your attention but not you fretting over, the good news is that it’s Shoulder Season. This is the period between two heavier seasons. I guess that’s because the shoulders are below the “peak” of the body, or the head. In which case, perhaps we should start referring to September as butt-season? It has a certain understated stupidity to it.
Anyway, Walt Disney World’s attendance patterns are largely dictated by school breaks. As a result of this, far fewer guests in Disney’s core demo visit shortly after or before a major break. One major break just occurred, and another doesn’t start for another month-plus.
Last year’s Shoulder Season ran from roughly April 15 until the Friday before Memorial Day. Every single week in May of last year saw below average crowds (including those coinciding with cheer and dance events), with the three weeks leading up to Memorial Day being the slowest and having 2/10 to 3/10 crowd levels. Crowds rebounded the last week but were still slightly below average.
It’s impossible to say with any degree of confidence whether the 2025 Shoulder Season will be slower than last year. I’m inclined to predict that it will. Last year, Walt Disney World got aggressive in releasing deals to prevent a collapse in crowds (as happened in May 2023). For each of the last two years, discounts have been released along a similar timeframe, and with comparable quality/quantity for this time of year.
Given that, and the fact that crowd levels have been down pretty much across the board once adjusted for Easter, it seems safe to predict a slower Shoulder Season than last year. There’s also the reality that absolutely nothing that counts as a major draw to Walt Disney World is debuting between now and Memorial Day.
Accordingly, we’d probably expect to see more 1/10 to 3/10 days than last year, and fewer 4/10 and 5/10 days. It probably won’t be a dramatic difference, but it might be enough that we can call May 2025 the off-season as opposed to Shoulder Season.
Looking forward, the opening of Epic Universe is May 22, 2025. Typically, the Thursday before Memorial Day is often when crowds start to pick up, which is why Universal Orlando chose to open Epic Universe on that day. As far as how the opening of Epic Universe will impact crowds at Walt Disney World, it’s difficult to say–there’s not exactly a ton of precedent for how new competing theme parks alter attendance at Walt Disney World.
One thing to note is that paid previews of Epic Universe have been underway for about a week, and have thus far had zero impact on Walt Disney World attendance. Granted, they were announced last minute and the eligibility pool is limited (for now), but thus far, these haven’t even been a blip on the radar for EPCOT and Animal Kingdom (the two parks most likely to be impacted).
Our best guess is that opening weekend of Epic Universe will be slower than a normal Memorial Day weekend at Walt Disney World, as Universal sucks up all the oxygen in the room. Many locals have purchased tickets and booked hotel stays for Epic Universe that weekend, and tourists are unsurprisingly doing likewise. This dynamic will exist throughout the summer, but it’ll be most pronounced through Monday, May 26, 2025.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, we don’t anticipate much of a noticeable impact on Walt Disney World attendance or wait times throughout Summer 2025 due to Epic Universe, save for at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom. We do expect lower crowds than last year–and it’s not like Summer 2024 was busy in the first place–but that mostly has to do with economic uncertainty and plummeting international travel.
The worst impact of that will coincide with the opening of Epic Universe, but correlation does not equal causation. (It won’t stop many fans wanting to see Disney “fail” from drawing the conclusion.) It also doesn’t help that Walt Disney World doesn’t have any blockbuster new additions opening in Summer 2025. The only big thing is Starlight Night Parade, and there’s no opening date for that yet, meaning it’s looking increasingly like a July debut. That’ll boost nighttime crowds in Magic Kingdom, but is unlikely to move the needle on posted wait times at attractions or non-local attendance.
We shall see, though. Perhaps Bay Lake Beatrice is wrong and crowds will pick up in mid-May and stay elevated all summer long. Or maybe it’s not just six slower weeks, but more like 6 slower months. Crowd Capybaras are about as reliable as crowd calendars these days, so it could go either way. It’ll be an interesting saga to watch unfold, and our best guess based on the increased sense of urgency with discounts is that this is going to be a prolonged period of low to moderate attendance.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you visiting Walt Disney World during Shoulder Season between Spring Break and Summer 2025? Have you visited in the past during the month of May? Were you in the parks over the past couple weeks? If you visited during Easter week, what was your perception of crowds? Pleasantly surprised or did you find it to be incredibly busy? Thoughts on the impact of Epic Universe? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!