If you’re planning on visiting Disneyland anytime soon, be prepared to wait a lot longer in line. The “Happiest Place on Earth” feels more like the “Most Crowded Place on Earth” these days, and fans are now bracing for more park sell-outs and bigger crowds.
Demand for Disneyland has surged in recent weeks, fueled by a combination of discounted tickets and seasonal events. The unusually high attendance also comes as Disneyland has relaxed a number of restrictions, including lifting face covering requirements. Reservations are still required though, but that hasn’t stopped throngs of visitors from jamming the parks just about every day of the week.
“We were really surprised at how crowded it was for a random Tuesday,” longtime Disneyland fan Joanna Hofstetter told us, who visited the parks on March 1. “It feels like it’s way worse than it used to be. Some of the lines are ridiculously long and move very slowly compared to last year.”
Weekday Wait Times Soar
Just how bad are the lines? For a weekday in early March, wait times may have been high enough for some park-goers to do a double take. The average wait time at Disneyland on Wednesday peaked at 45 minutes by 3:00pm, according to the Disneyland Crowd Tracker. Popular attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Space Mountain reached wait times of well over one hour throughout the day. Over at Disney California Adventure, things weren’t any better. The average wait time there climbed to almost 60 minutes, as the lines for rides like Soarin’ Over California and Radiator Springs Racers stretched over two hours long at times.
Disneyland Average Wait Times (in minutes)
| 8a | 14 |
|---|---|
| 9a | 22 |
| 10a | 26 |
| 11a | 34 |
| 12p | 40 |
| 1p | 40 |
| 2p | 42 |
| 3p | 45 |
| 4p | 42 |
| 5p | 40 |
| 6p | 40 |
| 7p | 38 |
| 8p | 34 |
| 9p | 25 |
| 10p | 20 |
Source: Disneyland Crowd Tracker
For Disneyland veterans, it’s an unwelcome surprise — it’s not supposed to be this crowded this time of the year, especially during the week. Indeed, January through early March is traditionally considered the “off-season” at the Disneyland Resort, a period of brief reprieve from the crowds between the holidays and Spring Break. Disneyland is certainly no stranger to long lines, but unseasonably lengthy wait times is becoming more of the norm. Things were mostly manageable on weekdays earlier this year, but attendance picked up substantially by mid-February. Bigger crowds are now expected through April as schools get out of session for Spring Break, according to the Disneyland Crowd Calendar.
More Park Sell-Outs
On top of the long lines, high demand is also causing another headache for Disneyland fans: a lack of reservation availability. Reservations for both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are mostly sold out through the end of March. The reservation system has allowed park officials to better manage attendance, but it’s also caused a bit of a stir among the Disney faithful. Last November, reservations became notoriously hard to come by as demand swelled for the holiday season. Availability has improved since then, but the Spring Break season is now driving another reservation shortage.
Still, it’s not just seasonal demand that’s making Disneyland more crowded. A ticket promotion for local residents is also helping boost attendance — and making reservations even harder to grab. The Southern California Resident Weekday Ticket Offer allows SoCal residents to visit a park on three days (Monday through Friday) until May 26 for a discounted rate, which breaks down to about $67/day for admission. The promotion is proving to be a hit with locals, and it’s making a weekday trip to the parks not as quiet as it used to be.
It’s all by design for Disneyland. Since reopening, the parks have taken a new approach to reining in attendance. Disney is keeping sales of its revamped annual pass program Magic Key limited, and two tiers of the popular passes remain sold out. The new Genie+ and Lightning Lane services are also giving guests the ability to skip the lines of high-demand attractions for a fee. All of this, coupled with a strict reservation system, is helping Disneyland solve some of its overcrowding woes and maximize capacity heading into the summer season.
Before You Go…
Disneyland is looking to keep demand going as the parks kick into high gear for the summer. Nighttime spectaculars, including the Main Street Electrical Parade and World of Color, are set to return on April 22. Fantasmic! is also scheduled to return on May 28. So if you’re planning on going to Disneyland soon, here are some tips to help you get the most out of your visit:
1. Book a reservation early
This goes without saying, but now that we’re in the middle of the Spring Break season and with the summer just around the corner, reservations are going quickly again. Book at least four weeks in advance to secure a reservation on a desired date. Weekdays in March and mid-April (April 11-15 in particular) are the highest-demand dates right now as that’s when schools are on Spring Break.
2. Fridays and weekends are less crowded
Attendance on Fridays and weekends has been trending lower over the past couple of weeks. It’s mostly due to the ticket promotion not being valid on weekends, but higher-priced regular tickets and Magic Key blockout dates are also helping keep the crowds away. This trend may fade once things really pick up for Spring Break, but for now, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays have been better bets.
3. Arrive at the park early
The lines at Disneyland are by far the shortest in the morning, so get there at park opening if possible and get as much as you can done by noon. The average wait time at Disneyland before 11:00am is typically only 15-20 minutes, before spiking to 40+ minutes by 12:00pm. Don’t count on shorter lines in the late afternoon either, as crowds don’t tend to calm down until the evening (after 8:00pm).
Are you planning on visiting Disneyland soon? How long have the lines been? Is it more or less crowded than before? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
It was definitely awful March 1st and 2nd. I was really irritated. We had to buy the genie Plus or we weren’t going to get on anything. We have annual passes at least, but I am definitely rethinking renewing them.
Genie Plus is a must
We got here May 10th. Today is a Saturday. My seven-year-old son had a meltdown by 12 this afternoon so we’re cooling off at the hotel. After waiting two hours to ride the cars ride at 89 degrees outside how can anyone blame him. We tried to high tail it to cars land as soon as we got there at 8am. Unfortunately, most of the crowd had the same idea. It was a big disappointment for him and he didn’t know how to handle that. It makes me wonder if Disneyland is letting too many guests in. I thought that the reservations and higher prices would slow guests down. I don’t notice any crowd decrease from the last time I went when my little guy was in a stroller. What’s also frustrating is that the rides seem to break down more frequently. For example, three popular rides were broken down at the same time two days ago at Disneyland. The Matterhorn, Buzz Lightyear, and Star Wars. My favorite frustration is watching the guests with lightning passes move past us without much of a wait. I felt like we were the last class citizens on the Titanic Thursday when after a more than hour wait for a supposed 45 estimated wait time, we waited 30 more minutes inside the building while the lightning line moved continuously. I was sitting on the floor for a lot of the wait because the line hardly moved. After getting close, the ride closed down. The employee spoke directly to the lightning customers and then guided them to the exit. Not until their entire line was guided to the exit did they address us last class citizens. If there was a fire in the building they’d be ok to let us burn. I’m supposing that’s how they’re trained to treat us so it’s not their fault. I’m not a Disney fan.
I am 100% with you. I am no longer a Disney fan! Well, at least at Disneyland that is. I just got back from there from a week trip in September this year. We didn’t do Genie+, nor will I throw more money at Disney for an item that was free with your tickets before they renamed it from FastPass to Genie+ and now charge you for it. We were able to get on just about every ride we wanted to, but Radiator Springs Racers was not a ride that we were able to get on. The wait time was posted at 50 minutes when we jumped in line. The Genie+ takes priority over standby, and I understand that, but as more and more people get tired of waiting in the line, they purchase the Genie+ to bypass the line. The more people that do it, the longer the standby lines get. We waited for 1 hour and 40 minutes before they finally told us that the ride was broken down and going to take at least 1 hour to reopen. What a joke! They didn’t seem to care at all about those that don’t have the Genie+ at all. As far as the people that do have the Genie+ they get a pass to return to the ride when it opens back up, but if you were in the standby line you get absolutely nothing but a virtual middle finger from Disney.
I have been watching the Reservation Calendar at openings. I noticed that every single day that we were going there seemed to be reservations available. By 3 PM, every single day, looking at the reservation calendar, all reservations were gone by then. I have a firm belief that what is happening is that Southern Californians that get their $300 Magic Key that doesn’t have any blackout days on it but they can only hold 2 days at a time, will check about the time their kids get out of school to see if reservations are available and if there are they snag them up. About 3:30ish time the lines started to really get long and would jump from 30 min average wait to 60 min average wait and the walking areas between the lands within Disneyland would now become really hard to move around, but it was nice up until that part of it. Maybe parents are thinking that Disneyland is now a great place to babysit your kids for the afternoon and evenings? I don’t know, but I did not renew my Magic Key for that reason as Disneyland in my opinion is absolutely horrible now.
We were just at Disneyland and California Adventure last week (October 2022) and the Car’s ride line was 3 hrs long. Needless to say we did not wait. All of the lines were ridiculously long, wait times90 minutes to 120 minutes. We waited 90 minutes to get on the Haunted Mansion. Later that day we saw it was a 2 hr wait for that ride. It was hard to even move around in the park let alone enjoy anything about it becasue we were to busy trying to get on the rides that we wanted to get on and waiting in 60 to 90 misute lines. I used to love Disneyland. It was my favorite vaction place. We went almost every year when my kids were young, between 1996 and 2016. But sadly after this experience I don’t know if I ever will go back. We were told that October is not a good time to come becasue of the Halloween activites and also because they are HEAVILY promoting Halloween at Disneyland (we used to always go in October becasue crowds were lighter) We were at Disneyland for 13 hrs and went on 8 rides. At California Adventure the next day and it was so bad we made it on 3 rides in 6 hrs and then left. Also, paying extra for the Genie+ app is a joke. We used it for 3 rides and then due to blackouts on rides and wanting us to pay extra ($25.00) to get on certain rides and then the rides you really want to use it on we would have to wait until 9:00 or 10:00 at night to use the lightning pass (which also had huge lines) we did not bother paying for it our second day. What a joke. I am sad and disappointed in what Disneyland has become. I bet Walt would be too. My recommendation is go to Universal Studios instead if you want to actually go on rides and have time to enjoy all of the other things a park has to offer.