Sunday January 29, 2017
Predicted 4-Park Crowd Level: 7.
Sum of Predicted 4-Park Average Wait Times: 144 minutes.
Actual 4-Park Crowd Level: 1.
Sum of Actual 4-Park Average Wait Times: 81 minutes.
Weather: High of 55 and low of 45. A very cold day in Orlando with rain in the morning.
Seeing wildly lower actual wait times will happen from time to time as weather keeps a ton of people away from the Parks. You might remember from the post for the 28th that we were expecting the sum of the average wait times to be 143 minutes and got 142 minutes. And back at the end of the Wait Times Recap from the 24th, I mention “it looks like cool weather and rain will keep a lot of people away, pushing wait times and crowds lower” over the weekend. That’s what happened today though the weather was predicted to be a lot worse than it ended up being. Skies were clear for much of the afternoon and evening.
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The 13-minute average at Animal Kingdom will be among the lowest of the year with the day prior coming in at 35 minutes.
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Back to 19 minutes at Epcot compared to the 32 we were expecting. Test Track is closed for about four hours in the morning due to the weather, while indoor attractions like Soarin’ do see decent waits during the late morning and afternoon.
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Below average waits continue at Hollywood Studios though indoor attraction priorities do see standby waits that are longer than most people will want to wait for the majority of the day.
Larger: http://www.easywdw.com/reports13/magic_kingdom_waits_january_29_2017.jpg
People typically avoid Magic Kingdom the most when weather is expected to be poor and that’s what’s going on here with the incredibly low overall average wait. Throughout the year, we’re almost never going to see a wait this low outside days with tornado/hurricane warnings and perhaps a day with long hours in early Septembet.
As is typical, wait times end up being incredibly short when few people go to the Parks in poor weather. As far as the accuracy of the crowd calendar, I could revise the numbers down a day or two before rain/cold/wind are expected, but it wouldn’t do any of us much good. If you can put up with the rain and cold, put on some ratty clothes and ponchos and you can enjoy the major attractions with minimal waits when the majority of people stay home.
Hopefully Monday is less embarrassing.