Off-season has arrived again at Walt Disney World! This wait times report covers ride & daily data for August 2025 at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom, plus predictions, my on-the-ground observations, and what to expect for September and beyond.
To recap, Walt Disney World has not been busy for the last few months. It’s been a slow summer at Orlando’s theme parks, as we discuss at length in Why Summer is the New Low Crowds Season at Disney World. That offers our theories for the summer slowdown, as well as why it’s not really all that surprising and is a trend first observed in 2016-2018, then again the last two years.
Nevertheless, the summer slowdown has been more pronounced than even we anticipated. But two things are certain: that summer has not been particularly crowded at Walt Disney World, and that in a normal year, August and September would be even less busy than June and July. It’s not that the slow summer is ending–it’s that off-season is starting and wait times are on the precipice of dropping to their lowest levels of the year.
One thing to note is that the Walt Disney Company recently reported its quarterly earnings and the first half of summer was very strong in terms of guest spending and hotel occupancy. What’s more interesting for our purposes is that attendance was mostly unchanged year-over-year. It’s not as if last summer was particularly strong, crowd-wise, but we’ve nevertheless seen wait times trend downwards over the last three months, and as compared to last year.
This is a good time to explain that crowd levels actually measure posted wait times for attractions, not the density of people packed into the parks. As we’ve stated elsewhere, our theory for lower wait times/crowd levels despite mostly flat attendance is decreased Lightning Lane utilization. (See Is Lightning Lane Multi Pass Still “Worth It” at Disney World?)
In a nutshell, standby lines are shorter and faster moving, leading to lower wait times. Even if attendance is exactly the same, crowd levels would be lower given this dynamic. Almost across the board, wait times are down by a few minutes year-over-year, which means crowds are 1-2 levels below comparable dates last year.
With that background out of the way, let’s take a look at August crowds. As always, all graphs and wait time stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
We’ll start with the monthly numbers for Walt Disney World as a whole, dating all the way back to 2019.
Monthly crowd levels climbed from last October through this March, and then have been on a steady decline since. This is completely consistent with last year, and comparable to most other years, too. The biggest change we’ve seen emerge is that May has been busier than June or July, when it used to be the shoulder season slowdown. That still happens relative to spring break, but then crowds just keep dropping for summer.
July was the slowest full month of 2025 thus far, with an average wait time of 30 minutes and 2/10 crowd level. The second-slowest full month of the year was June, which had an average wait time of 31 minutes and a crowd level of 3/10. In the last 12 months, the only slower months have been last September and October, which had hurricane scares.
With only a few days left, August 2025 will soon take the crown as the slowest month of the year, with a 28 minute average wait time and 1/10 crowd level. As of right now, those numbers are identical with last August. However, there are still a few days to go and wait times are trending downward, so it’s possible the average ends up being 27 minutes. Regardless, September will (spoiler alert) still probably beat August, just as it did last year.
Prior to Central Florida schools going back into session mid-month, August was on par with July for wait times. The end of July actually finished strong, thanks to “last hurrah” summer trips.
The last few weeks went downhill fast; the average wait time across all attractions at Walt Disney World is currently 24 minutes this week. That’s the slowest week of 2025 thus far, followed by two weeks ago, which ties the week around Independence Day for the second-slowest week of 2025. If you look at the far left, you can see even slower days last September. There’s every reason to expect a repeat of that next month.
As always, that is an average, which still means that hour-plus waits (or even 120+ minutes, as we’ve spotted on a few occasions) are possible for the headliners at peak times. They’re just offset by 5-10 minute waits for lower profile attractions. There have also been plenty of days that have been busier than that average.
Looking at the daily data for the last year, it should be fairly easy to spot a lull around mid-June (Father’s Day weekend), then a slight spike at the end of June, followed by another lull for the Independence Day holiday weekend, and another spike at the end of last month.
From our August 2025 Crowd Calendar: “As more and more school districts go back into session, August crowd levels should decrease. This will be most noticeable beginning August 11, 2025, which is when both Orange County Public Schools and Osceola County Public Schools start their first day of classes.”
As it turns out, Sunday, August 10th was the day with the big drop-off. Frankly, we should’ve known better. We perpetually point out how Sundays are slower and Mondays are busier; it also stands to reason that local families would’ve gone out for fun on Saturday before getting ready to resume school on Sunday. Something to note for next year.
For park by park analysis, we’ll start with Magic Kingdom.
We’re less than two weeks into Party Season, but already can see the “Porcupine Pattern” emerge that’s typical of crowd levels this time of year. In case you’ve ignored all of our advice and ramblings about busy vs. slow days in MK this time of year, the highs are non-party days.
On the days when the park closes at 6 pm, Magic Kingdom has regularly been having 1/10 or 2/10 days since the start of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. This is something we’ve discussed at length, most notably in Best & Worst 2025 Crowd Days at Magic Kingdom.
Again, crowd levels are a measure of posted wait times for rides. Feels like crowds and congestion are a totally different story. I can speak to this from personal experience, as there’s already been a noticeable uptick for Starlight and Happily Ever After, neither of which post wait times.
Above are the specific ride averages for Magic Kingdom.
Only one ride hit 60 minutes this month: TRON Lightcycle Run. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train being below an hour is interesting.
Note that the gap between Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Peter Pan’s Flight is not all that significant, suggesting that starting with the latter and then knocking out secondary Fantasyland dark rides might be the best play during Early Entry.
Animal Kingdom had an up and down summer, but fairly consistently over-performed prior to school going back into session.
Honestly, I’m a bit surprised by this; my expectation was that Animal Kingdom would get hit hard by the double whammy of its own ride closures and Epic Universe opening. Perhaps that’ll still happen as Epic Universe scales up.
It’s also possible that Animal Kingdom was the big winner of the 3-Park Magic Ticket. It’s impossible to know just how that sold, but my guess is pretty well. Walt Disney World pushed it hard, and that seems to have worked. In my anecdotal experience, Animal Kingdom felt busier than last summer.
For the entire month, Avatar Flight of Passage is the only attraction that averaged a wait time over an hour in August. It is interesting that DINOSAUR was only barely above 20 minutes, even as the countdown to extinction is on. (I must’ve gotten really unlucky with DINOSAUR, as I usually encountered ~45 minute waits during my visits.)
Except on the very worst days of the year, Animal Kingdom is far and away the park at Walt Disney World where the crowds are the most “beatable.” So long as you arrive early or late, you absolutely do not need to buy Lightning Lane Multi Pass here.
If you’re going all out and have an unlimited budget, you may disagree. To each their own, I suppose. On the plus side, most guests do agree with us, which is why there aren’t tiers at Animal Kingdom and why it’s the cheapest park for LLMP and why it has the best inventory. You might want to think about all of that–and the why of that–before buying.
EPCOT wait times are the most interesting.
We always point out that EPCOT is the locals’ park, and Floridians are more likely to visit for festivals and atmosphere than rides. (If they don’t do rides, they don’t impact crowd levels–even if they do increase congestion or lines for food booths!) Locals are also more likely than tourists to cancel park plans at the last minute if the weather is bad–and it has been a hot and rainy month.
As a result of all this, wait times often don’t tell the full story at EPCOT. During Festival Season, the feels like crowds are almost always worse than wait times. To the point that you could swear it was an 8/10 day when wait times were only at 3/10. This summer, it was pretty much the opposite. World Showcase felt empty (or as close to “empty” as Walt Disney World gets) on days that were statistically higher. That’s almost certainly driven by tourists.
A lot of this was fueled by Test Track 3.0. I’m not surprised the ‘new car smell’ hasn’t worn off the reimagined Test Track just yet; that’ll probably take over a year if going by past precedent. However, I am very surprised that it’s the #1 wait time in EPCOT for the first full month after it reopened.
Beating Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is a huge accomplishment. I hope this keeps up! Both because I’d personally prefer to do Cosmic Rewind, but more importantly, because ride reimaginings giving EPCOT a shot in the arm could be just what Walt Disney World needs to see the value in these investments. Test Track 3.0 was paid for with Chevy Bucks, but perhaps Disney will open up the checkbook and finally greenlight one of the perpetual walk-ons towards the bottom of the list.
Also notable here is that average wait times for Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure dipped below an hour in August.
Finally, there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
As always, this is the park with the highest average wait times in all of Walt Disney World, owing to its disproportionate number of headliners coupled with stage shows that post no wait times at all (and thus do not drag down averages). Disney’s Hollywood Studios didn’t see much of a summer slowdown, which could be attributable to the two new stage shows and other offerings. I’ve been surprised by the lines for the Little Mermaid ~ A Musical Adventure, and even Disney Villains Unfairly Ever After playing to packed houses much of the time.
There were days into August when DHS had average wait times of 40+ minutes and 7/10 crowd levels. On some of those same dates, Magic Kingdom was 20-21 minutes and 1/10. That’s a massive difference over the course of a day. Crowds have largely dropped since school went back into session, but even during my most recent visit to DHS just last week, it still felt busy. As we’ve been emphasizing for a while now, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the #1 park for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. It dethroned Magic Kingdom a while ago, and this should pretty clearly illustrate why.
Above are ride-by-ride wait times for Disney’s Hollywood Studios last month. Only Slinky Dog Dash and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance above an hour, but several not too far behind.
It’ll be interesting to see whether those continue falling. Might September be the month of sub-60 minute waits on everything at Walt Disney World?! Our guess is probably not. DHS seems like the de facto destination for guests on party days at Magic Kingdom, and Walt Disney World keeps extending the closing time for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, suggesting higher internal attendance projections.
Perhaps the most notable thing that’ll happen next month from a crowds perspective is the closing of Star Wars Launch Bay. That will have zero impact on feels like crowds, but there are currently 3 “attractions” in that building that post (low) wait times. Losing those could artificially boost the overall average of DHS. This should once again illustrate that crowd levels are highly imperfect. Crowds won’t actually change…but it might appear that they have!
In the nearer term, our expectation is that wait times continue falling. As discussed in the latest update to the September 2025 Crowd Calendar, this is the best month of the year to visit from a wait times perspective. Literally the entire month sees below average attendance.
There’s really no bad time to visit as far as the September 2025 crowd calendar goes. It’s safe to say that the second half of the month will be busier than the first half. However, “busier” is a relative term, as even those should be really light compared to the peak weeks in October, November, and December.
As always, Labor Day is not a major holiday from the perspective of Walt Disney World crowds. To the contrary, there are several reasons why we actually like Labor Day weekend from a subjective or holistic perspective, including the start of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, Extended Evening Hours at DHS, Destination D23, and more. See One of 2025’s Best Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World Just Got Better! for a full rundown of reasons why we’d recommend the window around Labor Day.
What’s more difficult to predict is when attendance will bottom out.
Our expectation is that September 2-12, 2025 will see the lowest crowds of the month, entire year, and quite possibly the lowest levels in several years. For reference, it was roughly this timeframe last year that had the lowest average posted wait times since October 2021. And it just barely was above those numbers.
If there’s even a slight year-over-year drop, these could end up being the lowest crowd levels since 2020. I wouldn’t necessarily bet on wait times being down year-over-year, as last year’s low lows are really difficult to beat. But the first half of September is consistently uncrowded, so it is possible.
Weather will probably be a bigger factor than anything else–extreme heat, rain, or a possible hurricane scare factor more than past precedent when dealing with such a low baseline. Conversely, unseasonably cool weather and clear days would be enough to entice locals to visit and boost the numbers. It’s also not as if dates after September 12th are bad–far from it. There’s just usually a gradual decrease as the various ticket deals start winding down.
Regardless, September is one of the last bastions of the off-season at Walt Disney World. This has been consistently true even as attendance has spiked during other previously off-season months.
Whereas other off-season months have gotten busier, September has stayed the same–and (knock on wood) always should remain that way due to school schedules and less desirable weather. Feels like crowds will certainly increase with the end of Diet EPCOT and fewer evenings to see Starlight, but wait times for attractions should continue their steady decline until later in the month.
What’ll be really interesting to see is what happens with October 2025. It should see a year-over-year increase in crowd levels, as last year was low due to the aforementioned hurricane scares. But we’re not convinced October is still a truly “bad” month as was the case for several years. Fall break will certainly be busy, but it’s possible that group events are now avoiding Walt Disney World in the fall. We shall see.
Ultimately, our expectation is that lower attendance continues throughout most of September 2025. Even with a towards the end of the month as ticket deals expire and early fall breaks begin, it’s a near-certainty that September will be the least busy month of the entire year. If savor low crowds and don’t mind the heat or a hurricane scare, you really should visit in September. That’s especially true if you can go during the first half of the month.
As we’ve said before, this absolutely will not last. Low attendance in September is not the start of a trend due to price increases, boycotts, or whatever else. The crowds will return in October and won’t let up–at least, not consistently–until January 2026. Even then, winter is no longer the off-season and we’re going to start getting messages pretty soon from worried guests about hotels that are fully booked in the first two months of 2026.
So please don’t read into this what isn’t there, namely that Walt Disney World is “doomed” or “in trouble” due to lower crowd levels. That isn’t remotely true. What we’re seeing already, and what’s going to accelerate in the coming weeks is purely seasonal, and happens year-in and year-out with crowds bottoming out soon. September is the sleepy slow season at Walt Disney World, and has been for decades. This is not a five-alarm fire, or any level of alarm, for that matter.
Our expectation is that the arrival of fall crowds in “full force” coincides with Columbus Day weekend. It likely won’t let up much after that. Signs point to the last three months of the year being busy, so if you only care about numbers–and not weather or Christmas–the next month is the time to visit Walt Disney World. On the plus side, if you do care about those things, there are a handful of other slow windows amidst the peak weeks that are identified in Best & Worst Weeks to Visit Disney World in 2025, 2026 & 2027.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on August crowds at Walt Disney World? Predictions for the rest of the month or fall off-season? If you’ve visited within the last month, what did you think of wait times? Have you done Magic Kingdom during the day of a MNSSHP night? What about posted vs. actual wait times? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our report? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
