When Brown visited Disney’s Epcot theme park during that stretch, she says she walked onto the Spaceship Earth attraction without waiting. Jaime Brown, a speech pathologist and Walt Disney World annual pass holder who lives in Celebration, Fla., visited the resort three times during the Independence Day week, hitting all four of the resort’s parks. parks in the second half of the year, partly due to the end of Disney World’s 50th anniversary celebration. Speaking during the company’s May earnings call, former Disney finance chief Christine McCarthy said the company anticipated lower demand for the U.S. Longer wait times can also reflect operational issues like broken-down rides. Testa says wait times rose in the following days.ĭisney and other theme-park companies can adjust posted wait times for rides to steer visitors toward or away from areas within parks.

“It’s something that nobody would have predicted-just unfathomable,' says Len Testa, a computer scientist who runs Touring Plans. The average posted wait time at the Magic Kingdom park in Florida-which has a special fireworks display on July 4-was 27 minutes this year for the holiday, down from 31 minutes in 2022 and 47 minutes in 2019, the Touring Plans analysis shows.

Industry analysts say shorter wait times generally correlate with smaller crowds.Īt Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park in Central Florida, home to the blockbuster Star Wars attractions, July 4 was the third-slowest day in the past year, according to Touring Plans, which analyzed the wait times that Disney parks post on their mobile apps. Park visitors in recent weeks have had significantly lower wait times to get on rides, according to data from Touring Plans, a company that tracks wait times at major amusement parks, including Disney World and Disneyland in California. Disney declined to comment on recent attendance. Revenue from its parks division has long been a bright spot for the company, buoying overall earnings. Travel advisers and industry analysts say the slowdown is the latest sign that Disney’s recent price hikes and changes to park operations have soured some families on visiting the Most Magical Place on Earth.ĭisney faces a unique set of challenges right now, from streaming losses to executive succession to a political and legal fight with Florida Gov.

Disney magic kingdom app updates