July 2025 has gotten off to a gradual begin at Walt Disney World. For the third 12 months in a row, July 4th vacation weekend crowd ranges had been “surprisingly” low, and wait occasions haven’t picked up a lot since. This shares information for the slowest days & weeks of all the 12 months, and discusses causes for shorter traces throughout what was once a peak interval.
There have been headlines suggesting this can be a “shock” or “surprising,” nevertheless it actually shouldn’t be. No weeks within the first half of July 2025 are on our Finest & Worst Weeks at Walt Disney World in 2025-2026. In our Information to Independence Day 2025 at Walt Disney World, we equally started by indicating that the vacation weekend is not really busy.
On the contrary, we said that it was a “near-certainty” that the vacation weekend wouldn’t be dangerous. That it merely wouldn’t evaluate to 2019 or earlier, again when the parks had been really busy. We nonetheless anticipated larger crowd ranges than the final two years by advantage of the July 4th falling on a Friday and Walt Disney World providing attractive reductions versus overly aggressive blockouts. As an alternative, the vacation and past have been even slower than anticipated…
Suffice to say, the slower begin to the primary half of July 2025 was foreseeable, however to not this extent. Final month, we lined a few of the causes for this dynamic in Why Summer season is the New Low Crowds Season at Disney World. I’m not going to rehash all of that, however those self same causes apply equally to Independence Day. Right here’s a listing of fast hits for individuals who need the rundown:
- Epic Universe (negligible affect)
- Worldwide Journey Pullback (1% to 1.5% affect)
- Financial Uncertainty (no affect)
- Starlight Delays (no affect)
- Shifting Schedules (main affect)
- Excessive Warmth & Humidity (reasonable to main affect)
- Shorter Park Hours (some affect)
- No Particular Occasions (some affect)
- Minimal Mitigation (some affect)
What this submit goes to deal with is simply how low wait occasions have been within the first half of July 2025. Then we’re going to supply a number of extra explanations as to why this month–particularly Independence Day–has gotten slower at Disney.
As earlier than, any concept that may be contradicted by larger crowds in the previous couple of months or the subsequent few months is off the desk. That means that larger costs, fewer perks, and the corporate’s repute don’t clarify the decrease summer season crowds pattern. Figured this was value a reminder as Walt Disney World simply launched October by means of December reductions.
Not solely are the brand new reductions usually worse than final 12 months, however availability is much more restricted. Occupancy doesn’t equal attendance, nevertheless it’s positive wanting prefer it’s going to be a robust vacation season. This isn’t to say Walt Disney World doesn’t have a pricing downside. It does as we’ve mentioned in numerous posts, together with Is Walt Disney World Too Costly for Center Class People? However pricing doesn’t clarify why summer season, particularly, continues to see its year-over-year wait occasions lower.
Anyway, let’s flip to the month-to-date wait occasions information for July 2025, courtesy of thrill-data (ditto the above stats)…
July 2025 Wait Occasions
July has been the slowest month of the 12 months so far, with a mean wait time of 27 minutes and 1/10 crowd degree. Previous to this month, the slowest month of the 12 months was final month, when June had a mean wait time of 31 minutes and a crowd degree of three/10. Within the final 12 months, the one slower months have been final September and October, which had been dragged down by hurricane scares.
The primary week of July has been the slowest of the year-to-date, with a 26 minute common and crowd degree of 1/10. This simply barely edged out mid-June (27 minutes, 1/10). The final week of June remains to be the busiest of summer season, and is unlikely to be surpassed within the second half of July and August 2025, primarily based on each present developments and previous precedent. These are about as near patterns as we get for summer season journey, and you may most likely anticipate one thing related in Summer season 2026.
As all the time, that’s an common, which nonetheless signifies that hour-plus waits (and even 90+ minutes!) are doable for the headliners at peak occasions. They’re simply offset by 5-10 minute waits for decrease profile points of interest. There have additionally been loads of days which have been busier than that common.
On the “larger” finish of the spectrum, July 8-10 had 30-32 minute waits for 3/10 to 4/10 crowd ranges. Against this, July 2-6 has been the slowest stretch of the month-to-date, with wait occasions bottoming out at 21 minutes (1/10 crowds) and by no means exceeding 26 minutes (on common) for that stretch. Sunday, July 6 has been the slowest day of all the 12 months to this point. (If historical past is any indication, it’ll be surpassed in mid-August.)
Not all parks had been equally uncrowded over Independence Day. As is all the time the case, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT overperformed. These two parks being busiest is especially unsurprising since they’re the one two with particular Fourth of July fireworks exhibits.
If something, wait occasions information from these two parks doesn’t inform the complete story of ‘seems like’ crowds as a result of persons are staking out prime spots for fireworks and simply usually having fun with the patriotic ambiance. This can be a story that’ll repeat itself over the approaching months at Magic Kingdom within the evenings as soon as Starlight debuts–large congestion alongside the parade route, however walk-on rides.
Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios had been gradual by any subjective or goal measure. Animal Kingdom had its lowest common wait time–23 minutes–of the 12 months on July 4, 2025. Hollywood Studios had a mean wait time of twenty-two minutes on each July 3 and July 6, which is extraordinarily low for DHS. It’s often the park with the best common wait occasions at Walt Disney World!
Not that it’s any shock at this level, however weekends are much less busy than weekdays. This can be a pattern that’s a number of years operating, however is amplified throughout summer season and minimized as soon as Social gathering Season begins. If we’re trend-lines, the drop from June to July 2025 has been the most important of all the 12 months up to now. June barely much less busy than Could, which was barely much less busy than April (one minute month-to-month decreases in each instances).
The drop-off from June to July at the moment stands at 4 minutes. That’s fairly important, nevertheless it most likely received’t final. Digging deeper into the info, final July began equally gradual–particularly as contrasted with June. Nevertheless, wait occasions elevated within the closing two weeks of the month, with the final week and into early August seeing a slight spike.
Final 12 months, July was 2 minutes slower than June and August was 2 minutes slower than July. That’s typical seasonality, and we must always anticipate a repeat of that. What we must always not anticipate is October to be the slowest month of the 12 months once more–that was depressed as a result of aforementioned hurricanes.
With wait occasions information out of the best way, let’s speak doable theories as to why July 2025 hasn’t been busy at Walt Disney World…
Residual DAS Affect
Disney overhauled Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) at Walt Disney World final 12 months, with modifications taking impact on Could 20, 2024. In response to the corporate, the modifications had been due largely to abuse, misuse, and proliferation of this system’s use–with issuances of DAS tripling from 2019 to final 12 months. (See Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) Modifications at Walt Disney World FAQ.)
We’ve written rather a lot in regards to the affect of the DAS modifications on wait occasions at Walt Disney World. Most lately simply final month in Is Lightning Lane Multi Go Nonetheless “Price It” at Disney World? Considered one of our details with this has been that standby traces are shorter and sooner transferring, with wait occasions being decrease year-over-year as a direct results of the DAS crackdown. Even when attendance is precisely the identical, crowd ranges (as mirrored in wait occasions) could be decrease than the identical dates final 12 months in consequence.
On condition that, I’m probably not positive how I missed this as a possible rationalization final time. In all probability as a result of it’s been nearly 14 months because the modifications?! Regardless, the prolonged DAS eligibility interval means year-over-year crowd comparisons are nonetheless displaying residual results of the DAS modifications in June and July; it received’t be till August that the DAS modifications are totally ‘labored by means of’ the system and never skewing YoY stats. That is nonetheless a giant one, albeit to not the identical extent because it was in Could or earlier.
Altering Journey Preferences
The economic system is one thing that inevitably comes up within the feedback to posts like this, and we beforehand identified how Disney’s CFO stated they should be “good about pricing,” particularly on the decrease finish of the market the place customers are “feeling stress.” In consequence, the corporate has held pricing regular and even provided extra reductions, whereas concentrating worth will increase amongst premium packages or throughout high-demand dates.
Past that, it’s been the case for some time that not each American is experiencing the identical economic system. There are conflicting statistics which have befuddled economists with regards to strong shopper spending, which they’ve simply kind of hand waved away as YOLO spending, or attributed to customers saying one factor however behaving in a different way.
None of that basically issues right here, as there’s key information that tells a reasonably conclusive story. The TSA reported screening almost 3.1 million vacationers on Sunday, June 22, marking the one busiest day within the company’s historical past. June 27 and June 29 now rank because the seventh and eighth busiest days respectively in TSA historical past, pushing 2025 to say six of the company’s high 10 busiest days on document. Quantity didn’t decelerate over Independence Day, because the TSA screened an estimated 18.5 million passengers over the vacation interval.
The underside line is that no matter points may exist with the U.S. economic system, the American shopper remains to be spending freely and going locations for summer season trip. It’s actually not impacting journey as a complete, though it may have an effect on what customers are doing as soon as arriving at their locations. (MCO’s quantity really is down year-over-year, however nonetheless effectively above 2019–however the airport added a brand new terminal, so it’s not precisely apples to apples.)
One strategy to reconcile all of that is altering journey preferences. This was touched upon within the feedback to the earlier submit in regards to the summer season slowdown, however bears emphasizing right here. It’s possible that People in larger earnings brackets are avoiding theme parks in the course of the hotter months as a result of they’re much less pleasing and there’s larger consciousness of this.
In different phrases, even aggressive reductions aren’t sufficient to entice the higher center class and above to go to Walt Disney World in the course of the summer season, as a result of pricing isn’t what’s retaining them away within the first place. Not solely this, however extra mobility and alternate options have made cruises and worldwide journeys extra well-liked amongst prosperous People.
On the different finish of the spectrum, there’s the good outdoor. We stay comparatively near the seaside, and our Independence Day weekend traditions are doing Disneyland and one of many seaside cities. Visitors and congestion has gotten progressively worse in these places, to the purpose that over-tourism is changing into an extremely scorching subject amongst locals. This July is busier than I’ve ever seen it on the seaside, and I’d’ve stated the identical factor about final 12 months.
Though we don’t have firsthand expertise with state and U.S. Nationwide Parks this summer season, I’ve heard related tales there amongst pals–with greater crowds and extra competitors for park reservations (hardly distinctive to Walt Disney World–you want a reservation to see bushes now, too!)
It’s unclear to me whether or not that is American customers “buying and selling down” for cheaper summer season holidays, or just a matter of individuals going the place it’s cooler. We did Disneyland and the seaside on back-to-back days, and the coast was about 10 levels cooler than the parks–and Disneyland isn’t almost as scorching as Walt Disney World.
Annual Go Blockouts
As you may recall, this pattern actually began in 2023 when early July was downright useless at Walt Disney World. It was such a scorching subject that it drew a proof from CEO Bob Iger, who attributed the slowness to an exhaustion of pent-up demand in Florida as a complete and unseasonably dangerous climate. He wasn’t incorrect…however he additionally wasn’t utterly appropriate.
The large “downside” was that Walt Disney World obtained overly-aggressive with ticket blockouts, with each most Annual Passholders and those that bought low cost Florida resident tickets and others prevented from visiting the parks over Independence Day. We all know these are the first causes for the slowdown then, as a result of the exhaustion of pent-up demand and scorching summer season climate weren’t simply confined to these particular dates when crowd ranges plummeted–they had been throughout the board dynamics.
We’ve since drawn consideration to Annual Go blockouts as a predictor of crowds on a number of events. Mainly, every time each the Pixie Go and the Pirate Go–two reasonably priced admission choices for locals–are blocked out, you’ll be able to anticipate native turnout to be depressed. And after the blockouts elevate, there’s often localized (get it?) pent-up demand. The large distinction between summer season and different occasions of 12 months when this occurs is that there are sometimes sufficient out-of-state vacationers to offset the blockouts throughout peak vacation weeks. Not a lot in the summertime.
Our robust suspicion is that there’s a disproportionate variety of Pirate and Pixie Mud Annual Passes in circulation, largely as a result of they’re the most affordable choices. On the very least, larger visitor-volume locals usually tend to have these APs, in order that they skew crowds greater than the opposite passes. Walt Disney World doesn’t launch statistical breakdowns of its AP inhabitants, so that is solely concept.
Nevertheless, it’s additionally corroborated by crowds. At any time when these passes are blocked out past their regular weekends, it exhibits up in wait occasions information. We’ve additionally seen this forward of huge spring break blockouts, as locals flood the parks earlier than and after their blockout intervals versus the ‘peak’ week of spring break, which is blocked.
There are numerous different examples like this, with a rush of locals “getting their Disney repair” earlier than a blockout after which decrease crowds throughout it. It additionally occurs yearly in January when the blockouts elevate, and occurred final 12 months for Labor Day. This rationalization is well-supported by three years of information of Independence Day, which is why crowds had been a lot decrease July 2-6, 2025. Although TSA information exhibits that to be a peak journey time, it wasn’t sufficient to offset overly aggressive blockouts of locals.
Finally, my robust suspicion is that the final issue–Annual Passes–is the result determinative one with regards to July 2-6, 2025 having unprecedentedly low crowd ranges. That if you happen to took the precise vacationer attendance of Independence Day weekend and added the common Annual Passholder attendance for this summer season, the quantity would come out wanting pretty near regular Summer season 2025 days at Walt Disney World.
However once more, “regular” by Summer season 2025 requirements remains to be a shadow of what issues had been like earlier than 2016. Even after that, Independence Day continued to be very busy at Walt Disney World for at the least a few years. It was not a peak season vacation like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Yr’s Eve, and many others., nevertheless it additionally wasn’t reasonable–like Memorial Day or Labor Day. It additionally doesn’t clarify why different dates this month–equivalent to July 12, 2025–have had ~26 minute common wait occasions and 1/10 crowd ranges.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not there’s a bounce-back in crowds in direction of the tip of this month and in early August. Often, there’s a second spike on the finish of July, which we’ve attributed to ‘final hurrah’ summer season vacationers taking journeys earlier than faculty goes again into session. That’s prone to occur, however our expectation remains to be that July 2025 can be slower than June, and August 2025 can be slower than July. September and October are the large wildcards–the latter is nearly sure to see a year-over-year bounceback, however September may as soon as once more reclaim the crown because the slowest month of the 12 months.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study accommodations on our Walt Disney World Motels Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To economize on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every little thing you should know!
Your Ideas
Why do you assume month-to-date July 2025 crowds at Walt Disney World have been below-average? Have been you within the parks over Independence Day or within the week-plus since? What has been your expertise with wait occasions and congestion? Any observations about attendance developments in the course of the fall months that observe this summer season dip? Listening to your suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions beneath within the feedback!
July 2025 has gotten off to a gradual begin at Walt Disney World. For the third 12 months in a row, July 4th vacation weekend crowd ranges had been “surprisingly” low, and wait occasions haven’t picked up a lot since. This shares information for the slowest days & weeks of all the 12 months, and discusses causes for shorter traces throughout what was once a peak interval.
There have been headlines suggesting this can be a “shock” or “surprising,” nevertheless it actually shouldn’t be. No weeks within the first half of July 2025 are on our Finest & Worst Weeks at Walt Disney World in 2025-2026. In our Information to Independence Day 2025 at Walt Disney World, we equally started by indicating that the vacation weekend is not really busy.
On the contrary, we said that it was a “near-certainty” that the vacation weekend wouldn’t be dangerous. That it merely wouldn’t evaluate to 2019 or earlier, again when the parks had been really busy. We nonetheless anticipated larger crowd ranges than the final two years by advantage of the July 4th falling on a Friday and Walt Disney World providing attractive reductions versus overly aggressive blockouts. As an alternative, the vacation and past have been even slower than anticipated…
Suffice to say, the slower begin to the primary half of July 2025 was foreseeable, however to not this extent. Final month, we lined a few of the causes for this dynamic in Why Summer season is the New Low Crowds Season at Disney World. I’m not going to rehash all of that, however those self same causes apply equally to Independence Day. Right here’s a listing of fast hits for individuals who need the rundown:
- Epic Universe (negligible affect)
- Worldwide Journey Pullback (1% to 1.5% affect)
- Financial Uncertainty (no affect)
- Starlight Delays (no affect)
- Shifting Schedules (main affect)
- Excessive Warmth & Humidity (reasonable to main affect)
- Shorter Park Hours (some affect)
- No Particular Occasions (some affect)
- Minimal Mitigation (some affect)
What this submit goes to deal with is simply how low wait occasions have been within the first half of July 2025. Then we’re going to supply a number of extra explanations as to why this month–particularly Independence Day–has gotten slower at Disney.
As earlier than, any concept that may be contradicted by larger crowds in the previous couple of months or the subsequent few months is off the desk. That means that larger costs, fewer perks, and the corporate’s repute don’t clarify the decrease summer season crowds pattern. Figured this was value a reminder as Walt Disney World simply launched October by means of December reductions.
Not solely are the brand new reductions usually worse than final 12 months, however availability is much more restricted. Occupancy doesn’t equal attendance, nevertheless it’s positive wanting prefer it’s going to be a robust vacation season. This isn’t to say Walt Disney World doesn’t have a pricing downside. It does as we’ve mentioned in numerous posts, together with Is Walt Disney World Too Costly for Center Class People? However pricing doesn’t clarify why summer season, particularly, continues to see its year-over-year wait occasions lower.
Anyway, let’s flip to the month-to-date wait occasions information for July 2025, courtesy of thrill-data (ditto the above stats)…
July 2025 Wait Occasions
July has been the slowest month of the 12 months so far, with a mean wait time of 27 minutes and 1/10 crowd degree. Previous to this month, the slowest month of the 12 months was final month, when June had a mean wait time of 31 minutes and a crowd degree of three/10. Within the final 12 months, the one slower months have been final September and October, which had been dragged down by hurricane scares.
The primary week of July has been the slowest of the year-to-date, with a 26 minute common and crowd degree of 1/10. This simply barely edged out mid-June (27 minutes, 1/10). The final week of June remains to be the busiest of summer season, and is unlikely to be surpassed within the second half of July and August 2025, primarily based on each present developments and previous precedent. These are about as near patterns as we get for summer season journey, and you may most likely anticipate one thing related in Summer season 2026.
As all the time, that’s an common, which nonetheless signifies that hour-plus waits (and even 90+ minutes!) are doable for the headliners at peak occasions. They’re simply offset by 5-10 minute waits for decrease profile points of interest. There have additionally been loads of days which have been busier than that common.
On the “larger” finish of the spectrum, July 8-10 had 30-32 minute waits for 3/10 to 4/10 crowd ranges. Against this, July 2-6 has been the slowest stretch of the month-to-date, with wait occasions bottoming out at 21 minutes (1/10 crowds) and by no means exceeding 26 minutes (on common) for that stretch. Sunday, July 6 has been the slowest day of all the 12 months to this point. (If historical past is any indication, it’ll be surpassed in mid-August.)
Not all parks had been equally uncrowded over Independence Day. As is all the time the case, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT overperformed. These two parks being busiest is especially unsurprising since they’re the one two with particular Fourth of July fireworks exhibits.
If something, wait occasions information from these two parks doesn’t inform the complete story of ‘seems like’ crowds as a result of persons are staking out prime spots for fireworks and simply usually having fun with the patriotic ambiance. This can be a story that’ll repeat itself over the approaching months at Magic Kingdom within the evenings as soon as Starlight debuts–large congestion alongside the parade route, however walk-on rides.
Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios had been gradual by any subjective or goal measure. Animal Kingdom had its lowest common wait time–23 minutes–of the 12 months on July 4, 2025. Hollywood Studios had a mean wait time of twenty-two minutes on each July 3 and July 6, which is extraordinarily low for DHS. It’s often the park with the best common wait occasions at Walt Disney World!
Not that it’s any shock at this level, however weekends are much less busy than weekdays. This can be a pattern that’s a number of years operating, however is amplified throughout summer season and minimized as soon as Social gathering Season begins. If we’re trend-lines, the drop from June to July 2025 has been the most important of all the 12 months up to now. June barely much less busy than Could, which was barely much less busy than April (one minute month-to-month decreases in each instances).
The drop-off from June to July at the moment stands at 4 minutes. That’s fairly important, nevertheless it most likely received’t final. Digging deeper into the info, final July began equally gradual–particularly as contrasted with June. Nevertheless, wait occasions elevated within the closing two weeks of the month, with the final week and into early August seeing a slight spike.
Final 12 months, July was 2 minutes slower than June and August was 2 minutes slower than July. That’s typical seasonality, and we must always anticipate a repeat of that. What we must always not anticipate is October to be the slowest month of the 12 months once more–that was depressed as a result of aforementioned hurricanes.
With wait occasions information out of the best way, let’s speak doable theories as to why July 2025 hasn’t been busy at Walt Disney World…
Residual DAS Affect
Disney overhauled Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) at Walt Disney World final 12 months, with modifications taking impact on Could 20, 2024. In response to the corporate, the modifications had been due largely to abuse, misuse, and proliferation of this system’s use–with issuances of DAS tripling from 2019 to final 12 months. (See Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) Modifications at Walt Disney World FAQ.)
We’ve written rather a lot in regards to the affect of the DAS modifications on wait occasions at Walt Disney World. Most lately simply final month in Is Lightning Lane Multi Go Nonetheless “Price It” at Disney World? Considered one of our details with this has been that standby traces are shorter and sooner transferring, with wait occasions being decrease year-over-year as a direct results of the DAS crackdown. Even when attendance is precisely the identical, crowd ranges (as mirrored in wait occasions) could be decrease than the identical dates final 12 months in consequence.
On condition that, I’m probably not positive how I missed this as a possible rationalization final time. In all probability as a result of it’s been nearly 14 months because the modifications?! Regardless, the prolonged DAS eligibility interval means year-over-year crowd comparisons are nonetheless displaying residual results of the DAS modifications in June and July; it received’t be till August that the DAS modifications are totally ‘labored by means of’ the system and never skewing YoY stats. That is nonetheless a giant one, albeit to not the identical extent because it was in Could or earlier.
Altering Journey Preferences
The economic system is one thing that inevitably comes up within the feedback to posts like this, and we beforehand identified how Disney’s CFO stated they should be “good about pricing,” particularly on the decrease finish of the market the place customers are “feeling stress.” In consequence, the corporate has held pricing regular and even provided extra reductions, whereas concentrating worth will increase amongst premium packages or throughout high-demand dates.
Past that, it’s been the case for some time that not each American is experiencing the identical economic system. There are conflicting statistics which have befuddled economists with regards to strong shopper spending, which they’ve simply kind of hand waved away as YOLO spending, or attributed to customers saying one factor however behaving in a different way.
None of that basically issues right here, as there’s key information that tells a reasonably conclusive story. The TSA reported screening almost 3.1 million vacationers on Sunday, June 22, marking the one busiest day within the company’s historical past. June 27 and June 29 now rank because the seventh and eighth busiest days respectively in TSA historical past, pushing 2025 to say six of the company’s high 10 busiest days on document. Quantity didn’t decelerate over Independence Day, because the TSA screened an estimated 18.5 million passengers over the vacation interval.
The underside line is that no matter points may exist with the U.S. economic system, the American shopper remains to be spending freely and going locations for summer season trip. It’s actually not impacting journey as a complete, though it may have an effect on what customers are doing as soon as arriving at their locations. (MCO’s quantity really is down year-over-year, however nonetheless effectively above 2019–however the airport added a brand new terminal, so it’s not precisely apples to apples.)
One strategy to reconcile all of that is altering journey preferences. This was touched upon within the feedback to the earlier submit in regards to the summer season slowdown, however bears emphasizing right here. It’s possible that People in larger earnings brackets are avoiding theme parks in the course of the hotter months as a result of they’re much less pleasing and there’s larger consciousness of this.
In different phrases, even aggressive reductions aren’t sufficient to entice the higher center class and above to go to Walt Disney World in the course of the summer season, as a result of pricing isn’t what’s retaining them away within the first place. Not solely this, however extra mobility and alternate options have made cruises and worldwide journeys extra well-liked amongst prosperous People.
On the different finish of the spectrum, there’s the good outdoor. We stay comparatively near the seaside, and our Independence Day weekend traditions are doing Disneyland and one of many seaside cities. Visitors and congestion has gotten progressively worse in these places, to the purpose that over-tourism is changing into an extremely scorching subject amongst locals. This July is busier than I’ve ever seen it on the seaside, and I’d’ve stated the identical factor about final 12 months.
Though we don’t have firsthand expertise with state and U.S. Nationwide Parks this summer season, I’ve heard related tales there amongst pals–with greater crowds and extra competitors for park reservations (hardly distinctive to Walt Disney World–you want a reservation to see bushes now, too!)
It’s unclear to me whether or not that is American customers “buying and selling down” for cheaper summer season holidays, or just a matter of individuals going the place it’s cooler. We did Disneyland and the seaside on back-to-back days, and the coast was about 10 levels cooler than the parks–and Disneyland isn’t almost as scorching as Walt Disney World.
Annual Go Blockouts
As you may recall, this pattern actually began in 2023 when early July was downright useless at Walt Disney World. It was such a scorching subject that it drew a proof from CEO Bob Iger, who attributed the slowness to an exhaustion of pent-up demand in Florida as a complete and unseasonably dangerous climate. He wasn’t incorrect…however he additionally wasn’t utterly appropriate.
The large “downside” was that Walt Disney World obtained overly-aggressive with ticket blockouts, with each most Annual Passholders and those that bought low cost Florida resident tickets and others prevented from visiting the parks over Independence Day. We all know these are the first causes for the slowdown then, as a result of the exhaustion of pent-up demand and scorching summer season climate weren’t simply confined to these particular dates when crowd ranges plummeted–they had been throughout the board dynamics.
We’ve since drawn consideration to Annual Go blockouts as a predictor of crowds on a number of events. Mainly, every time each the Pixie Go and the Pirate Go–two reasonably priced admission choices for locals–are blocked out, you’ll be able to anticipate native turnout to be depressed. And after the blockouts elevate, there’s often localized (get it?) pent-up demand. The large distinction between summer season and different occasions of 12 months when this occurs is that there are sometimes sufficient out-of-state vacationers to offset the blockouts throughout peak vacation weeks. Not a lot in the summertime.
Our robust suspicion is that there’s a disproportionate variety of Pirate and Pixie Mud Annual Passes in circulation, largely as a result of they’re the most affordable choices. On the very least, larger visitor-volume locals usually tend to have these APs, in order that they skew crowds greater than the opposite passes. Walt Disney World doesn’t launch statistical breakdowns of its AP inhabitants, so that is solely concept.
Nevertheless, it’s additionally corroborated by crowds. At any time when these passes are blocked out past their regular weekends, it exhibits up in wait occasions information. We’ve additionally seen this forward of huge spring break blockouts, as locals flood the parks earlier than and after their blockout intervals versus the ‘peak’ week of spring break, which is blocked.
There are numerous different examples like this, with a rush of locals “getting their Disney repair” earlier than a blockout after which decrease crowds throughout it. It additionally occurs yearly in January when the blockouts elevate, and occurred final 12 months for Labor Day. This rationalization is well-supported by three years of information of Independence Day, which is why crowds had been a lot decrease July 2-6, 2025. Although TSA information exhibits that to be a peak journey time, it wasn’t sufficient to offset overly aggressive blockouts of locals.
Finally, my robust suspicion is that the final issue–Annual Passes–is the result determinative one with regards to July 2-6, 2025 having unprecedentedly low crowd ranges. That if you happen to took the precise vacationer attendance of Independence Day weekend and added the common Annual Passholder attendance for this summer season, the quantity would come out wanting pretty near regular Summer season 2025 days at Walt Disney World.
However once more, “regular” by Summer season 2025 requirements remains to be a shadow of what issues had been like earlier than 2016. Even after that, Independence Day continued to be very busy at Walt Disney World for at the least a few years. It was not a peak season vacation like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Yr’s Eve, and many others., nevertheless it additionally wasn’t reasonable–like Memorial Day or Labor Day. It additionally doesn’t clarify why different dates this month–equivalent to July 12, 2025–have had ~26 minute common wait occasions and 1/10 crowd ranges.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not there’s a bounce-back in crowds in direction of the tip of this month and in early August. Often, there’s a second spike on the finish of July, which we’ve attributed to ‘final hurrah’ summer season vacationers taking journeys earlier than faculty goes again into session. That’s prone to occur, however our expectation remains to be that July 2025 can be slower than June, and August 2025 can be slower than July. September and October are the large wildcards–the latter is nearly sure to see a year-over-year bounceback, however September may as soon as once more reclaim the crown because the slowest month of the 12 months.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study accommodations on our Walt Disney World Motels Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To economize on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every little thing you should know!
Your Ideas
Why do you assume month-to-date July 2025 crowds at Walt Disney World have been below-average? Have been you within the parks over Independence Day or within the week-plus since? What has been your expertise with wait occasions and congestion? Any observations about attendance developments in the course of the fall months that observe this summer season dip? Listening to your suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions beneath within the feedback!
July 2025 has gotten off to a gradual begin at Walt Disney World. For the third 12 months in a row, July 4th vacation weekend crowd ranges had been “surprisingly” low, and wait occasions haven’t picked up a lot since. This shares information for the slowest days & weeks of all the 12 months, and discusses causes for shorter traces throughout what was once a peak interval.
There have been headlines suggesting this can be a “shock” or “surprising,” nevertheless it actually shouldn’t be. No weeks within the first half of July 2025 are on our Finest & Worst Weeks at Walt Disney World in 2025-2026. In our Information to Independence Day 2025 at Walt Disney World, we equally started by indicating that the vacation weekend is not really busy.
On the contrary, we said that it was a “near-certainty” that the vacation weekend wouldn’t be dangerous. That it merely wouldn’t evaluate to 2019 or earlier, again when the parks had been really busy. We nonetheless anticipated larger crowd ranges than the final two years by advantage of the July 4th falling on a Friday and Walt Disney World providing attractive reductions versus overly aggressive blockouts. As an alternative, the vacation and past have been even slower than anticipated…
Suffice to say, the slower begin to the primary half of July 2025 was foreseeable, however to not this extent. Final month, we lined a few of the causes for this dynamic in Why Summer season is the New Low Crowds Season at Disney World. I’m not going to rehash all of that, however those self same causes apply equally to Independence Day. Right here’s a listing of fast hits for individuals who need the rundown:
- Epic Universe (negligible affect)
- Worldwide Journey Pullback (1% to 1.5% affect)
- Financial Uncertainty (no affect)
- Starlight Delays (no affect)
- Shifting Schedules (main affect)
- Excessive Warmth & Humidity (reasonable to main affect)
- Shorter Park Hours (some affect)
- No Particular Occasions (some affect)
- Minimal Mitigation (some affect)
What this submit goes to deal with is simply how low wait occasions have been within the first half of July 2025. Then we’re going to supply a number of extra explanations as to why this month–particularly Independence Day–has gotten slower at Disney.
As earlier than, any concept that may be contradicted by larger crowds in the previous couple of months or the subsequent few months is off the desk. That means that larger costs, fewer perks, and the corporate’s repute don’t clarify the decrease summer season crowds pattern. Figured this was value a reminder as Walt Disney World simply launched October by means of December reductions.
Not solely are the brand new reductions usually worse than final 12 months, however availability is much more restricted. Occupancy doesn’t equal attendance, nevertheless it’s positive wanting prefer it’s going to be a robust vacation season. This isn’t to say Walt Disney World doesn’t have a pricing downside. It does as we’ve mentioned in numerous posts, together with Is Walt Disney World Too Costly for Center Class People? However pricing doesn’t clarify why summer season, particularly, continues to see its year-over-year wait occasions lower.
Anyway, let’s flip to the month-to-date wait occasions information for July 2025, courtesy of thrill-data (ditto the above stats)…
July 2025 Wait Occasions
July has been the slowest month of the 12 months so far, with a mean wait time of 27 minutes and 1/10 crowd degree. Previous to this month, the slowest month of the 12 months was final month, when June had a mean wait time of 31 minutes and a crowd degree of three/10. Within the final 12 months, the one slower months have been final September and October, which had been dragged down by hurricane scares.
The primary week of July has been the slowest of the year-to-date, with a 26 minute common and crowd degree of 1/10. This simply barely edged out mid-June (27 minutes, 1/10). The final week of June remains to be the busiest of summer season, and is unlikely to be surpassed within the second half of July and August 2025, primarily based on each present developments and previous precedent. These are about as near patterns as we get for summer season journey, and you may most likely anticipate one thing related in Summer season 2026.
As all the time, that’s an common, which nonetheless signifies that hour-plus waits (and even 90+ minutes!) are doable for the headliners at peak occasions. They’re simply offset by 5-10 minute waits for decrease profile points of interest. There have additionally been loads of days which have been busier than that common.
On the “larger” finish of the spectrum, July 8-10 had 30-32 minute waits for 3/10 to 4/10 crowd ranges. Against this, July 2-6 has been the slowest stretch of the month-to-date, with wait occasions bottoming out at 21 minutes (1/10 crowds) and by no means exceeding 26 minutes (on common) for that stretch. Sunday, July 6 has been the slowest day of all the 12 months to this point. (If historical past is any indication, it’ll be surpassed in mid-August.)
Not all parks had been equally uncrowded over Independence Day. As is all the time the case, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT overperformed. These two parks being busiest is especially unsurprising since they’re the one two with particular Fourth of July fireworks exhibits.
If something, wait occasions information from these two parks doesn’t inform the complete story of ‘seems like’ crowds as a result of persons are staking out prime spots for fireworks and simply usually having fun with the patriotic ambiance. This can be a story that’ll repeat itself over the approaching months at Magic Kingdom within the evenings as soon as Starlight debuts–large congestion alongside the parade route, however walk-on rides.
Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios had been gradual by any subjective or goal measure. Animal Kingdom had its lowest common wait time–23 minutes–of the 12 months on July 4, 2025. Hollywood Studios had a mean wait time of twenty-two minutes on each July 3 and July 6, which is extraordinarily low for DHS. It’s often the park with the best common wait occasions at Walt Disney World!
Not that it’s any shock at this level, however weekends are much less busy than weekdays. This can be a pattern that’s a number of years operating, however is amplified throughout summer season and minimized as soon as Social gathering Season begins. If we’re trend-lines, the drop from June to July 2025 has been the most important of all the 12 months up to now. June barely much less busy than Could, which was barely much less busy than April (one minute month-to-month decreases in each instances).
The drop-off from June to July at the moment stands at 4 minutes. That’s fairly important, nevertheless it most likely received’t final. Digging deeper into the info, final July began equally gradual–particularly as contrasted with June. Nevertheless, wait occasions elevated within the closing two weeks of the month, with the final week and into early August seeing a slight spike.
Final 12 months, July was 2 minutes slower than June and August was 2 minutes slower than July. That’s typical seasonality, and we must always anticipate a repeat of that. What we must always not anticipate is October to be the slowest month of the 12 months once more–that was depressed as a result of aforementioned hurricanes.
With wait occasions information out of the best way, let’s speak doable theories as to why July 2025 hasn’t been busy at Walt Disney World…
Residual DAS Affect
Disney overhauled Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) at Walt Disney World final 12 months, with modifications taking impact on Could 20, 2024. In response to the corporate, the modifications had been due largely to abuse, misuse, and proliferation of this system’s use–with issuances of DAS tripling from 2019 to final 12 months. (See Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) Modifications at Walt Disney World FAQ.)
We’ve written rather a lot in regards to the affect of the DAS modifications on wait occasions at Walt Disney World. Most lately simply final month in Is Lightning Lane Multi Go Nonetheless “Price It” at Disney World? Considered one of our details with this has been that standby traces are shorter and sooner transferring, with wait occasions being decrease year-over-year as a direct results of the DAS crackdown. Even when attendance is precisely the identical, crowd ranges (as mirrored in wait occasions) could be decrease than the identical dates final 12 months in consequence.
On condition that, I’m probably not positive how I missed this as a possible rationalization final time. In all probability as a result of it’s been nearly 14 months because the modifications?! Regardless, the prolonged DAS eligibility interval means year-over-year crowd comparisons are nonetheless displaying residual results of the DAS modifications in June and July; it received’t be till August that the DAS modifications are totally ‘labored by means of’ the system and never skewing YoY stats. That is nonetheless a giant one, albeit to not the identical extent because it was in Could or earlier.
Altering Journey Preferences
The economic system is one thing that inevitably comes up within the feedback to posts like this, and we beforehand identified how Disney’s CFO stated they should be “good about pricing,” particularly on the decrease finish of the market the place customers are “feeling stress.” In consequence, the corporate has held pricing regular and even provided extra reductions, whereas concentrating worth will increase amongst premium packages or throughout high-demand dates.
Past that, it’s been the case for some time that not each American is experiencing the identical economic system. There are conflicting statistics which have befuddled economists with regards to strong shopper spending, which they’ve simply kind of hand waved away as YOLO spending, or attributed to customers saying one factor however behaving in a different way.
None of that basically issues right here, as there’s key information that tells a reasonably conclusive story. The TSA reported screening almost 3.1 million vacationers on Sunday, June 22, marking the one busiest day within the company’s historical past. June 27 and June 29 now rank because the seventh and eighth busiest days respectively in TSA historical past, pushing 2025 to say six of the company’s high 10 busiest days on document. Quantity didn’t decelerate over Independence Day, because the TSA screened an estimated 18.5 million passengers over the vacation interval.
The underside line is that no matter points may exist with the U.S. economic system, the American shopper remains to be spending freely and going locations for summer season trip. It’s actually not impacting journey as a complete, though it may have an effect on what customers are doing as soon as arriving at their locations. (MCO’s quantity really is down year-over-year, however nonetheless effectively above 2019–however the airport added a brand new terminal, so it’s not precisely apples to apples.)
One strategy to reconcile all of that is altering journey preferences. This was touched upon within the feedback to the earlier submit in regards to the summer season slowdown, however bears emphasizing right here. It’s possible that People in larger earnings brackets are avoiding theme parks in the course of the hotter months as a result of they’re much less pleasing and there’s larger consciousness of this.
In different phrases, even aggressive reductions aren’t sufficient to entice the higher center class and above to go to Walt Disney World in the course of the summer season, as a result of pricing isn’t what’s retaining them away within the first place. Not solely this, however extra mobility and alternate options have made cruises and worldwide journeys extra well-liked amongst prosperous People.
On the different finish of the spectrum, there’s the good outdoor. We stay comparatively near the seaside, and our Independence Day weekend traditions are doing Disneyland and one of many seaside cities. Visitors and congestion has gotten progressively worse in these places, to the purpose that over-tourism is changing into an extremely scorching subject amongst locals. This July is busier than I’ve ever seen it on the seaside, and I’d’ve stated the identical factor about final 12 months.
Though we don’t have firsthand expertise with state and U.S. Nationwide Parks this summer season, I’ve heard related tales there amongst pals–with greater crowds and extra competitors for park reservations (hardly distinctive to Walt Disney World–you want a reservation to see bushes now, too!)
It’s unclear to me whether or not that is American customers “buying and selling down” for cheaper summer season holidays, or just a matter of individuals going the place it’s cooler. We did Disneyland and the seaside on back-to-back days, and the coast was about 10 levels cooler than the parks–and Disneyland isn’t almost as scorching as Walt Disney World.
Annual Go Blockouts
As you may recall, this pattern actually began in 2023 when early July was downright useless at Walt Disney World. It was such a scorching subject that it drew a proof from CEO Bob Iger, who attributed the slowness to an exhaustion of pent-up demand in Florida as a complete and unseasonably dangerous climate. He wasn’t incorrect…however he additionally wasn’t utterly appropriate.
The large “downside” was that Walt Disney World obtained overly-aggressive with ticket blockouts, with each most Annual Passholders and those that bought low cost Florida resident tickets and others prevented from visiting the parks over Independence Day. We all know these are the first causes for the slowdown then, as a result of the exhaustion of pent-up demand and scorching summer season climate weren’t simply confined to these particular dates when crowd ranges plummeted–they had been throughout the board dynamics.
We’ve since drawn consideration to Annual Go blockouts as a predictor of crowds on a number of events. Mainly, every time each the Pixie Go and the Pirate Go–two reasonably priced admission choices for locals–are blocked out, you’ll be able to anticipate native turnout to be depressed. And after the blockouts elevate, there’s often localized (get it?) pent-up demand. The large distinction between summer season and different occasions of 12 months when this occurs is that there are sometimes sufficient out-of-state vacationers to offset the blockouts throughout peak vacation weeks. Not a lot in the summertime.
Our robust suspicion is that there’s a disproportionate variety of Pirate and Pixie Mud Annual Passes in circulation, largely as a result of they’re the most affordable choices. On the very least, larger visitor-volume locals usually tend to have these APs, in order that they skew crowds greater than the opposite passes. Walt Disney World doesn’t launch statistical breakdowns of its AP inhabitants, so that is solely concept.
Nevertheless, it’s additionally corroborated by crowds. At any time when these passes are blocked out past their regular weekends, it exhibits up in wait occasions information. We’ve additionally seen this forward of huge spring break blockouts, as locals flood the parks earlier than and after their blockout intervals versus the ‘peak’ week of spring break, which is blocked.
There are numerous different examples like this, with a rush of locals “getting their Disney repair” earlier than a blockout after which decrease crowds throughout it. It additionally occurs yearly in January when the blockouts elevate, and occurred final 12 months for Labor Day. This rationalization is well-supported by three years of information of Independence Day, which is why crowds had been a lot decrease July 2-6, 2025. Although TSA information exhibits that to be a peak journey time, it wasn’t sufficient to offset overly aggressive blockouts of locals.
Finally, my robust suspicion is that the final issue–Annual Passes–is the result determinative one with regards to July 2-6, 2025 having unprecedentedly low crowd ranges. That if you happen to took the precise vacationer attendance of Independence Day weekend and added the common Annual Passholder attendance for this summer season, the quantity would come out wanting pretty near regular Summer season 2025 days at Walt Disney World.
However once more, “regular” by Summer season 2025 requirements remains to be a shadow of what issues had been like earlier than 2016. Even after that, Independence Day continued to be very busy at Walt Disney World for at the least a few years. It was not a peak season vacation like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Yr’s Eve, and many others., nevertheless it additionally wasn’t reasonable–like Memorial Day or Labor Day. It additionally doesn’t clarify why different dates this month–equivalent to July 12, 2025–have had ~26 minute common wait occasions and 1/10 crowd ranges.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not there’s a bounce-back in crowds in direction of the tip of this month and in early August. Often, there’s a second spike on the finish of July, which we’ve attributed to ‘final hurrah’ summer season vacationers taking journeys earlier than faculty goes again into session. That’s prone to occur, however our expectation remains to be that July 2025 can be slower than June, and August 2025 can be slower than July. September and October are the large wildcards–the latter is nearly sure to see a year-over-year bounceback, however September may as soon as once more reclaim the crown because the slowest month of the 12 months.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study accommodations on our Walt Disney World Motels Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To economize on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every little thing you should know!
Your Ideas
Why do you assume month-to-date July 2025 crowds at Walt Disney World have been below-average? Have been you within the parks over Independence Day or within the week-plus since? What has been your expertise with wait occasions and congestion? Any observations about attendance developments in the course of the fall months that observe this summer season dip? Listening to your suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions beneath within the feedback!
July 2025 has gotten off to a gradual begin at Walt Disney World. For the third 12 months in a row, July 4th vacation weekend crowd ranges had been “surprisingly” low, and wait occasions haven’t picked up a lot since. This shares information for the slowest days & weeks of all the 12 months, and discusses causes for shorter traces throughout what was once a peak interval.
There have been headlines suggesting this can be a “shock” or “surprising,” nevertheless it actually shouldn’t be. No weeks within the first half of July 2025 are on our Finest & Worst Weeks at Walt Disney World in 2025-2026. In our Information to Independence Day 2025 at Walt Disney World, we equally started by indicating that the vacation weekend is not really busy.
On the contrary, we said that it was a “near-certainty” that the vacation weekend wouldn’t be dangerous. That it merely wouldn’t evaluate to 2019 or earlier, again when the parks had been really busy. We nonetheless anticipated larger crowd ranges than the final two years by advantage of the July 4th falling on a Friday and Walt Disney World providing attractive reductions versus overly aggressive blockouts. As an alternative, the vacation and past have been even slower than anticipated…
Suffice to say, the slower begin to the primary half of July 2025 was foreseeable, however to not this extent. Final month, we lined a few of the causes for this dynamic in Why Summer season is the New Low Crowds Season at Disney World. I’m not going to rehash all of that, however those self same causes apply equally to Independence Day. Right here’s a listing of fast hits for individuals who need the rundown:
- Epic Universe (negligible affect)
- Worldwide Journey Pullback (1% to 1.5% affect)
- Financial Uncertainty (no affect)
- Starlight Delays (no affect)
- Shifting Schedules (main affect)
- Excessive Warmth & Humidity (reasonable to main affect)
- Shorter Park Hours (some affect)
- No Particular Occasions (some affect)
- Minimal Mitigation (some affect)
What this submit goes to deal with is simply how low wait occasions have been within the first half of July 2025. Then we’re going to supply a number of extra explanations as to why this month–particularly Independence Day–has gotten slower at Disney.
As earlier than, any concept that may be contradicted by larger crowds in the previous couple of months or the subsequent few months is off the desk. That means that larger costs, fewer perks, and the corporate’s repute don’t clarify the decrease summer season crowds pattern. Figured this was value a reminder as Walt Disney World simply launched October by means of December reductions.
Not solely are the brand new reductions usually worse than final 12 months, however availability is much more restricted. Occupancy doesn’t equal attendance, nevertheless it’s positive wanting prefer it’s going to be a robust vacation season. This isn’t to say Walt Disney World doesn’t have a pricing downside. It does as we’ve mentioned in numerous posts, together with Is Walt Disney World Too Costly for Center Class People? However pricing doesn’t clarify why summer season, particularly, continues to see its year-over-year wait occasions lower.
Anyway, let’s flip to the month-to-date wait occasions information for July 2025, courtesy of thrill-data (ditto the above stats)…
July 2025 Wait Occasions
July has been the slowest month of the 12 months so far, with a mean wait time of 27 minutes and 1/10 crowd degree. Previous to this month, the slowest month of the 12 months was final month, when June had a mean wait time of 31 minutes and a crowd degree of three/10. Within the final 12 months, the one slower months have been final September and October, which had been dragged down by hurricane scares.
The primary week of July has been the slowest of the year-to-date, with a 26 minute common and crowd degree of 1/10. This simply barely edged out mid-June (27 minutes, 1/10). The final week of June remains to be the busiest of summer season, and is unlikely to be surpassed within the second half of July and August 2025, primarily based on each present developments and previous precedent. These are about as near patterns as we get for summer season journey, and you may most likely anticipate one thing related in Summer season 2026.
As all the time, that’s an common, which nonetheless signifies that hour-plus waits (and even 90+ minutes!) are doable for the headliners at peak occasions. They’re simply offset by 5-10 minute waits for decrease profile points of interest. There have additionally been loads of days which have been busier than that common.
On the “larger” finish of the spectrum, July 8-10 had 30-32 minute waits for 3/10 to 4/10 crowd ranges. Against this, July 2-6 has been the slowest stretch of the month-to-date, with wait occasions bottoming out at 21 minutes (1/10 crowds) and by no means exceeding 26 minutes (on common) for that stretch. Sunday, July 6 has been the slowest day of all the 12 months to this point. (If historical past is any indication, it’ll be surpassed in mid-August.)
Not all parks had been equally uncrowded over Independence Day. As is all the time the case, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT overperformed. These two parks being busiest is especially unsurprising since they’re the one two with particular Fourth of July fireworks exhibits.
If something, wait occasions information from these two parks doesn’t inform the complete story of ‘seems like’ crowds as a result of persons are staking out prime spots for fireworks and simply usually having fun with the patriotic ambiance. This can be a story that’ll repeat itself over the approaching months at Magic Kingdom within the evenings as soon as Starlight debuts–large congestion alongside the parade route, however walk-on rides.
Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios had been gradual by any subjective or goal measure. Animal Kingdom had its lowest common wait time–23 minutes–of the 12 months on July 4, 2025. Hollywood Studios had a mean wait time of twenty-two minutes on each July 3 and July 6, which is extraordinarily low for DHS. It’s often the park with the best common wait occasions at Walt Disney World!
Not that it’s any shock at this level, however weekends are much less busy than weekdays. This can be a pattern that’s a number of years operating, however is amplified throughout summer season and minimized as soon as Social gathering Season begins. If we’re trend-lines, the drop from June to July 2025 has been the most important of all the 12 months up to now. June barely much less busy than Could, which was barely much less busy than April (one minute month-to-month decreases in each instances).
The drop-off from June to July at the moment stands at 4 minutes. That’s fairly important, nevertheless it most likely received’t final. Digging deeper into the info, final July began equally gradual–particularly as contrasted with June. Nevertheless, wait occasions elevated within the closing two weeks of the month, with the final week and into early August seeing a slight spike.
Final 12 months, July was 2 minutes slower than June and August was 2 minutes slower than July. That’s typical seasonality, and we must always anticipate a repeat of that. What we must always not anticipate is October to be the slowest month of the 12 months once more–that was depressed as a result of aforementioned hurricanes.
With wait occasions information out of the best way, let’s speak doable theories as to why July 2025 hasn’t been busy at Walt Disney World…
Residual DAS Affect
Disney overhauled Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) at Walt Disney World final 12 months, with modifications taking impact on Could 20, 2024. In response to the corporate, the modifications had been due largely to abuse, misuse, and proliferation of this system’s use–with issuances of DAS tripling from 2019 to final 12 months. (See Incapacity Entry Service (DAS) Modifications at Walt Disney World FAQ.)
We’ve written rather a lot in regards to the affect of the DAS modifications on wait occasions at Walt Disney World. Most lately simply final month in Is Lightning Lane Multi Go Nonetheless “Price It” at Disney World? Considered one of our details with this has been that standby traces are shorter and sooner transferring, with wait occasions being decrease year-over-year as a direct results of the DAS crackdown. Even when attendance is precisely the identical, crowd ranges (as mirrored in wait occasions) could be decrease than the identical dates final 12 months in consequence.
On condition that, I’m probably not positive how I missed this as a possible rationalization final time. In all probability as a result of it’s been nearly 14 months because the modifications?! Regardless, the prolonged DAS eligibility interval means year-over-year crowd comparisons are nonetheless displaying residual results of the DAS modifications in June and July; it received’t be till August that the DAS modifications are totally ‘labored by means of’ the system and never skewing YoY stats. That is nonetheless a giant one, albeit to not the identical extent because it was in Could or earlier.
Altering Journey Preferences
The economic system is one thing that inevitably comes up within the feedback to posts like this, and we beforehand identified how Disney’s CFO stated they should be “good about pricing,” particularly on the decrease finish of the market the place customers are “feeling stress.” In consequence, the corporate has held pricing regular and even provided extra reductions, whereas concentrating worth will increase amongst premium packages or throughout high-demand dates.
Past that, it’s been the case for some time that not each American is experiencing the identical economic system. There are conflicting statistics which have befuddled economists with regards to strong shopper spending, which they’ve simply kind of hand waved away as YOLO spending, or attributed to customers saying one factor however behaving in a different way.
None of that basically issues right here, as there’s key information that tells a reasonably conclusive story. The TSA reported screening almost 3.1 million vacationers on Sunday, June 22, marking the one busiest day within the company’s historical past. June 27 and June 29 now rank because the seventh and eighth busiest days respectively in TSA historical past, pushing 2025 to say six of the company’s high 10 busiest days on document. Quantity didn’t decelerate over Independence Day, because the TSA screened an estimated 18.5 million passengers over the vacation interval.
The underside line is that no matter points may exist with the U.S. economic system, the American shopper remains to be spending freely and going locations for summer season trip. It’s actually not impacting journey as a complete, though it may have an effect on what customers are doing as soon as arriving at their locations. (MCO’s quantity really is down year-over-year, however nonetheless effectively above 2019–however the airport added a brand new terminal, so it’s not precisely apples to apples.)
One strategy to reconcile all of that is altering journey preferences. This was touched upon within the feedback to the earlier submit in regards to the summer season slowdown, however bears emphasizing right here. It’s possible that People in larger earnings brackets are avoiding theme parks in the course of the hotter months as a result of they’re much less pleasing and there’s larger consciousness of this.
In different phrases, even aggressive reductions aren’t sufficient to entice the higher center class and above to go to Walt Disney World in the course of the summer season, as a result of pricing isn’t what’s retaining them away within the first place. Not solely this, however extra mobility and alternate options have made cruises and worldwide journeys extra well-liked amongst prosperous People.
On the different finish of the spectrum, there’s the good outdoor. We stay comparatively near the seaside, and our Independence Day weekend traditions are doing Disneyland and one of many seaside cities. Visitors and congestion has gotten progressively worse in these places, to the purpose that over-tourism is changing into an extremely scorching subject amongst locals. This July is busier than I’ve ever seen it on the seaside, and I’d’ve stated the identical factor about final 12 months.
Though we don’t have firsthand expertise with state and U.S. Nationwide Parks this summer season, I’ve heard related tales there amongst pals–with greater crowds and extra competitors for park reservations (hardly distinctive to Walt Disney World–you want a reservation to see bushes now, too!)
It’s unclear to me whether or not that is American customers “buying and selling down” for cheaper summer season holidays, or just a matter of individuals going the place it’s cooler. We did Disneyland and the seaside on back-to-back days, and the coast was about 10 levels cooler than the parks–and Disneyland isn’t almost as scorching as Walt Disney World.
Annual Go Blockouts
As you may recall, this pattern actually began in 2023 when early July was downright useless at Walt Disney World. It was such a scorching subject that it drew a proof from CEO Bob Iger, who attributed the slowness to an exhaustion of pent-up demand in Florida as a complete and unseasonably dangerous climate. He wasn’t incorrect…however he additionally wasn’t utterly appropriate.
The large “downside” was that Walt Disney World obtained overly-aggressive with ticket blockouts, with each most Annual Passholders and those that bought low cost Florida resident tickets and others prevented from visiting the parks over Independence Day. We all know these are the first causes for the slowdown then, as a result of the exhaustion of pent-up demand and scorching summer season climate weren’t simply confined to these particular dates when crowd ranges plummeted–they had been throughout the board dynamics.
We’ve since drawn consideration to Annual Go blockouts as a predictor of crowds on a number of events. Mainly, every time each the Pixie Go and the Pirate Go–two reasonably priced admission choices for locals–are blocked out, you’ll be able to anticipate native turnout to be depressed. And after the blockouts elevate, there’s often localized (get it?) pent-up demand. The large distinction between summer season and different occasions of 12 months when this occurs is that there are sometimes sufficient out-of-state vacationers to offset the blockouts throughout peak vacation weeks. Not a lot in the summertime.
Our robust suspicion is that there’s a disproportionate variety of Pirate and Pixie Mud Annual Passes in circulation, largely as a result of they’re the most affordable choices. On the very least, larger visitor-volume locals usually tend to have these APs, in order that they skew crowds greater than the opposite passes. Walt Disney World doesn’t launch statistical breakdowns of its AP inhabitants, so that is solely concept.
Nevertheless, it’s additionally corroborated by crowds. At any time when these passes are blocked out past their regular weekends, it exhibits up in wait occasions information. We’ve additionally seen this forward of huge spring break blockouts, as locals flood the parks earlier than and after their blockout intervals versus the ‘peak’ week of spring break, which is blocked.
There are numerous different examples like this, with a rush of locals “getting their Disney repair” earlier than a blockout after which decrease crowds throughout it. It additionally occurs yearly in January when the blockouts elevate, and occurred final 12 months for Labor Day. This rationalization is well-supported by three years of information of Independence Day, which is why crowds had been a lot decrease July 2-6, 2025. Although TSA information exhibits that to be a peak journey time, it wasn’t sufficient to offset overly aggressive blockouts of locals.
Finally, my robust suspicion is that the final issue–Annual Passes–is the result determinative one with regards to July 2-6, 2025 having unprecedentedly low crowd ranges. That if you happen to took the precise vacationer attendance of Independence Day weekend and added the common Annual Passholder attendance for this summer season, the quantity would come out wanting pretty near regular Summer season 2025 days at Walt Disney World.
However once more, “regular” by Summer season 2025 requirements remains to be a shadow of what issues had been like earlier than 2016. Even after that, Independence Day continued to be very busy at Walt Disney World for at the least a few years. It was not a peak season vacation like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Yr’s Eve, and many others., nevertheless it additionally wasn’t reasonable–like Memorial Day or Labor Day. It additionally doesn’t clarify why different dates this month–equivalent to July 12, 2025–have had ~26 minute common wait occasions and 1/10 crowd ranges.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not there’s a bounce-back in crowds in direction of the tip of this month and in early August. Often, there’s a second spike on the finish of July, which we’ve attributed to ‘final hurrah’ summer season vacationers taking journeys earlier than faculty goes again into session. That’s prone to occur, however our expectation remains to be that July 2025 can be slower than June, and August 2025 can be slower than July. September and October are the large wildcards–the latter is nearly sure to see a year-over-year bounceback, however September may as soon as once more reclaim the crown because the slowest month of the 12 months.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study accommodations on our Walt Disney World Motels Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To economize on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every little thing you should know!
Your Ideas
Why do you assume month-to-date July 2025 crowds at Walt Disney World have been below-average? Have been you within the parks over Independence Day or within the week-plus since? What has been your expertise with wait occasions and congestion? Any observations about attendance developments in the course of the fall months that observe this summer season dip? Listening to your suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions beneath within the feedback!
