Credit: Inside the MagicAt Walt Disney World, we are seeing major crowds surge through the theme parks this week, and unless you want to be in the middle of a human sandwich, it may be best to keep out and avoid the mega crowds.
During this spring break season, we have seen relatively moderate crowds, considering how many kids were out of school. Typically, guests flood the Disney parks during this time, but we could see photos and videos of midday Magic Kingdom relatively empty in front of Cinderella Castle. Even rides that typically have lengthy waits, like Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, often hovered around the 30-minute mark.
That was until this final week of March hit.
While it is only Tuesday, the parks have hit a crowd surge that some guests would not be able to handle, just yesterday we saw wait times hit an astounding 220 minutes for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and prices for Disney Genie+ have been hitting a 2024 all-time high for multiple days at a time, costing as much as $39 per person.
Today, all five options for Disney Genie+, meaning Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and the park hopper option, have all sold out within minutes of all four parks opening. Yesterday, all passes also sold out, but not at the speed in which we have seen today.
Initially, when the service was rolled out, Disney said that they would never run out of Disney Genie+, “There will be no limit on the ability to buy the Disney Genie+ add-on; however, Genie+ selections will “run out” throughout the day, much like FastPass+ selections did.” The fact that we are seeing a multi-day sell out shows that Disney is experiencing unprecedented crowds, even after the parks have hiked up the price of tickets, hotels, and Disney Genie+.
Aside from the fact that it is still the spring break season, this upcoming weekend is Easter, and holidays are always a popular time for guests to visit the parks. Plus, Easter tends to give kids and workers four days off, with the Friday holiday being Good Friday and Monday being Easter Monday — and an extra long weekend is a great way to go to Disney for a longer period of time without wasting more vacation days or taking kids out of school.
At the time of this article’s publishing, wait times are hovering over two hours for popular attractions like Avatar Flight of Passage, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Slinky Dog Dash, Rise of the Resistance, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Na’vi River Journey, Frozen Ever After, and more. At Animal Kingdom, both Kilimanjaro Safaris and Kali River Rapids, two of the more popular rides, are temporarily closed, which is likely causing the other rides to sit at higher wait times due to the influx of guests.
As Orlando International Airport stated, “The region’s largest airport expects to see 7.6 million passengers during the 44-day period that stretches from Feb. 23-April 7, depending on school schedules. That would be an 11% increase from the prior year’s total, which had been projected at 7.3 million.”
“This growth is actually a continuation of what we saw in 2023,” Kevin Thibault, CEO of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, said in a prepared statement. “For the year, we shattered all passenger records with more than 57.7 million travelers.” On March 16, the airport hit its busiest day on record but has been struggling with hundreds of flight delays each day and dozens of flight cancelations.
Would you visit Disney World during the Easter holiday weekend?