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Credit: Frank Phillips, FlickrFor yet another year, Magic Kingdom Park failed to draw the crowd levels guests would expect for a holiday weekend at Walt Disney World Resort. This comes after years of reporting on declining Central Florida Disney Park attendance during the once-busy summer holidays, including Labor Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July.
For decades, every crowd calendar has warned Disney Park guests to avoid holiday weekends like the plague. After all, who wouldn’t take advantage of an extra day off work or school to spend time at the Most Magical Place on Earth?
But for the last few years, Magic Kingdom Park, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park haven’t drawn the holiday weekend crowds they once did. Spring break, Thanksgiving week, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve are as crowded as ever. It’s the summer holiday weekends that just aren’t drawing Disney Park guests.
Walt Disney World Resort has introduced several summer discounts to draw visitors, from theme park ticket packages to lower Disney Resort hotel room prices. But whether it’s the summer heat or the increasingly tense political environment in Florida, something is keeping theme park fans away.
On Monday, September 1 (Labor Day), Magic Kingdom Park saw some of the lowest attraction wait times it has seen all summer–let alone on holiday weekends past. By mid-afternoon, some of the most surprising attractions in the five-to ten-minute tier were Pirates of the Caribbean and Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater. Both often boast a 45-to-60-minute wait.
Space Mountain was just a ten-minute wait, while the Haunted Mansion was listed at 13 minutes (which usually means the attraction is a walk-on). Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Peter Pan’s Flight only had 20-minute lines, which is particularly shocking for the latter, which often has an hour+ wait due to its low capacity and popularity with families.
Not a single attraction at Magic Kingdom Park had an hour-long wait by mid-afternoon on Labor Day. TRON Lightcycle / Run only had a 30-minute wait, while Seven Dwarfs Mine Train had just a 40-minute wait–the same as the character meet-and-greets at Pete’s Silly Sideshow.
The low Labor Day crowd levels at Magic Kingdom Park might mark a concerning trend for the travel industry, but they made for a perfect day for families who did spend the holiday at Walt Disney World Resort. X (formerly known as Twitter) user @FFChalupaBatman shared this post detailing just how much their family managed to accomplish in just four hours at the Magic Kingdom on Monday:
I just went to Magic Kingdom on Labor Day with 3 kids.
In less than 4 hours we rode 8 attractions, met Cinderella, Belle, and Mickey Mouse
I spent $4.50 (not counting gas)
Follow me for more tips & tricks 🤣
Did you visit Walt Disney World Resort this Labor Day weekend? Share your experience with Inside the Magic in the comments!