Credit: elisfkc2, FlickrWalt Disney World Resort guests faced incredibly long wait times during New Year’s Eve, with one attraction approaching four hours.
Walt Disney World rang in New Year’s Eve 2025 under an overwhelming surge of crowds, with wait times reaching extreme levels well before midday. By 11 a.m. on December 31, guests were already facing multi-hour queues across the resort, as headline attractions like Test Track approached 195 minutes and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind hovered around 170 minutes.
The parks were operating at full throttle with DJs, dance parties, and special nighttime entertainment, but the celebratory atmosphere came at a cost. With hours still remaining before midnight, conditions continued to intensify as more guests poured into the parks to close out the year.
The crowd pressure extended across the entire resort. Magic Kingdom experienced massive waits for marquee attractions such as TRON Lightcycle / Run and Space Mountain, while EPCOT dominated the list of longest lines throughout the day. Even Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which closed earlier and did not offer New Year’s Eve–specific festivities, saw elevated wait times as guests dispersed across the Disney World property.
For those who chose to brave the parks, careful planning and paid line-skipping options proved essential, while the scenes that unfolded served as a clear reminder that New Year’s Eve remained one of the most demanding days of the year to visit Walt Disney World.
However, now that New Year’s Eve is over and guests have officially headed into 2026, new data has come to light that is rather shocking.
As explained by WDWMagic, some of the longer wait times mentioned above–such as the initial 170-minute queue for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at EPCOT–reached even greater heights. During the holiday, Cosmic Rewind actually hit 225 minutes at its highest point. That’s three hours and 45 minutes.
To put this into perspective, guests waiting in line could, if they wanted to, have watched the entirety of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) while waiting in line. The movie–the longest of the trilogy–comes in at 150 minutes, meaning guests lining up to join the Guardians in the World Discovery attraction could have watched the whole film and still had time left over.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) are 122 minutes and 137 minutes, respectively, meaning these could have also been enjoyed while waiting in line. And for those thinking that guests could bypass the standby line with the Lightning Lane Single Pass offering, availability ran out by 8:27 a.m., per Thrill Data.
The lengthy wait, paired with the unavailability of the pricey Lightning Lane passes, feeds into this current notion that, despite criticisms against Disney parks for its rising costs and changes, guests will continue to show up to the parks in droves.
As the latest earnings call revealed, while attendance may have slipped, revenue increased due to fewer guests spending more money. The question remains, though, when will guests say enough is enough and opt to vacation somewhere cheaper and, potentially, less stressful?
How do you feel about guests waiting this long for an attraction? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!