This information to October 2024 at Walt Disney World affords a free crowd calendar masking when to go to & keep away from, greatest climate, new attraction openings & closures, Halloween, Epcot’s Meals & Wine Competition, and extra. We additionally cowl what’s taking place at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. (Up to date September 25, 2024.)
October is when fall crowds begin accelerating as a result of it being the primary month of Halloween, faculty fall breaks, plus conventions and different group occasions. This makes it a stark distinction to September. Regardless of this, it’s nonetheless a superb time to go to because of the climate, festivities, and new sights, leisure, and nighttime spectaculars all debuting.
Within the not-too-distant previous, October was a “greatest stored secret” when it got here to the very best months to go to Walt Disney World. Temperate climate, low crowds, worth season pricing, and seasonal occasions all made it a superb time to go to. This ceased to be the case a couple of decade in the past, as October turned a favourite month to go to for a lot of WDW followers.
Suffice to say, October crowds have ballooned at Walt Disney World lately. This is because of a mixture of the key getting out, folks suspending summer time holidays for higher pricing, extra faculties having longer fall breaks, Walt Disney World doing extra conference enterprise, and different components. Now, October is one in every of Walt Disney World’s busier months.
We advocate using our 1-Day Disney Park Itineraries & Touring Plans to benefit from your October expertise at Walt Disney World. These will show you how to keep away from the crowds, however extra importantly, prevent time ready in line (since crowds and wait instances should not the identical).
October Climate at WDW
Climate at Walt Disney World continues to enhance in October, with temperatures cooling even farther from September, humidity dropping, and the tail finish of hurricane and storm season concluding. Afternoon showers and torrential downpours are nonetheless doable, as is basically scorching and actually cool climate, so bear in mind to pack for a variety of climate circumstances.
You possibly can view day-by-day temperature and climate forecasts plus historic averages for Walt Disney World climate in October right here. As you’ll be able to see, common highs are nonetheless within the 80s daily of the month, so it’s not that a lot cooler…though these 60 diploma lows could make an enormous distinction.
October Particular Occasions
Walt Disney World’s anniversary is on October 1; Magic Kingdom opened on this date in 1971. Ditto EPCOT, besides on October 1, 1982. In earlier years, each have celebrated milestone anniversaries or celebrations beginning on this date. That’s not the case in 2024–October 1 is a reasonably inconsequential date the subsequent few years.
Additionally throughout October is the guts of the 2024 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering ‘season’ at Magic Kingdom. This difficult ticket occasion has a ton of dates in October 2024, with Magic Kingdom closing early for MNSSHP roughly 3-4 nights per week. As mentioned under, this actually throws a monkey wrench into attendance dynamics.
Magic Kingdom opens and closes earlier on Halloween get together days. As mentioned under, this causes curler coaster crowd circumstances within the park that may appear counterintuitive. The most effective issues you are able to do when planning is working round these occasions, as that’ll prevent extra time than the rest.
Epcot’s Worldwide Meals & Wine Competition will even kick into excessive gear throughout the month of October. Take a look at our Epcot’s Worldwide Meals & Wine Competition Information for extra ideas and methods for this occasion.
October is likely one of the greater months of the yr for particular occasions at Walt Disney World. Nevertheless, except for those we’ve already talked about, most gained’t be of curiosity to anybody studying this. Whereas not pertinent as a ‘factor to do,’ these occasions (principally main conventions hosted on the Crescent Lake Space Resorts and Coronado Springs) do have an effect on park attendance and crowds.
OCTOBER REFURBISHMENTS & NEW ATTRACTIONS
By way of sights, seek the advice of our Walt Disney World Refurbishment Schedule to see what’s scheduled for October. Due it being a busy month, there usually should not lots of attraction closures throughout October at Walt Disney World.
The largest journey that’s at the moment closed is Check Observe, which is being reimagined. A reopening date has not but been introduced, nevertheless it’s already confirmed to be closed for the rest of this yr. We’re anticipating it to reopen for Spring Break 2025 on the absolute earliest and someday subsequent summer time on the newest.
Along with that, Jungle Cruise is closed for the primary half of October 2024. On a few optimistic notes, Nation Bear Musical Jamboree and Rock ‘n’ Curler Coaster have each reopened after prolonged downtime. Moreover, the deliberate year-long closure of Huge Thunder Mountain Railroad that was slated to start final month has been pushed off till 2025.
Furthermore, not one of the huge initiatives introduced at D23 will begin till someday in 2025. See Building & Openings Timelines for New Lands, Rides & Additions at Disney World for those who care when these will get began–however the backside line is that they gained’t be taking place in October 2024.
The 2 latest main sights at Walt Disney World are each in Magic Kingdom, with Tiana’s Bayou Journey now open as of this summer time! That is the reimagining of Splash Mountain, and tells the story of “The Princess and the Frog” after the occasions of the film. As mentioned in Tiana’s Bayou Journey Trip Assessment: Failure, Flawed or Improbable?, the attraction is a combined bag.
Should you’re visiting in October 2024, there are two different issues it is best to learn about Tiana’s Bayou Journey. The primary is that it makes use of a digital queue…for now. See The way to Trip Tiana’s Bayou Journey for every part it is advisable to learn about its (lack of) standby line, Lightning Lane, and digital queue.
The massive obstacle to ditching the digital queue and switching to standby is downtime and reliability points. As mentioned in You May Have Issues Using Tiana’s Bayou Journey at Magic Kingdom, the reimagined journey is having troubles proper now and incessantly has a number of hours of downtime per day. It most likely gained’t drop the digital queue till it’s working extra constantly, with out frequent breakdowns. It appears unlikely that’ll occur by September, however who is aware of.
Then there’s TRON Lightcycle Run, which is the latest brand-new (not reimagined) main attraction at Walt Disney World. This curler coaster simply dropped its digital queue final month, so now you can journey through a standby line. We extremely advocate doing it very first thing within the morning or late at night time, as TRON instructions lengthy traces.
Bouncing again to EPCOT, there’s a bunch of different new stuff there. This contains World Celebration, CommuniCore Corridor, Moana’s Journey of Water, and Luminous: Symphony of Us–all of which debuted inside the final yr. That’s nonetheless fairly new within the grand scheme of issues! There’s additionally Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, House 220 Restaurant, Remy’s Ratatouille Journey, and a bunch of different stuff.
For an summary of what else is on the horizon, see What’s New & Subsequent at Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025. (The reply is “nothing else” in October 2024.)
OCTOBER 2024 DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR
There’s no color-coded crowd calendar for Walt Disney World on the high of this part as a result of that may be reductionist and of minimal accuracy for October. It wouldn’t provide the full image of Walt Disney World attendance traits or what to anticipate this fall.
Walt Disney World doesn’t launch official attendance numbers, so crowd calendars use issues like faculty schedules, airport visitors statistics, resort pricing & occupancy, and so forth., as proxies for crowds. For years, this method labored and made crowd calendars dependable. Walt Disney World attendance adopted an identifiable sample that tracked with the aforementioned proxies.
For the previous few years, wait instances have now not reliably mirror precise crowds because of the aforementioned manipulation. We are able to nonetheless forecast attendance, however not the ensuing wait instances. That is just like the distinction between the precise temperature and the “seems like” temperature, however with crowds. The “seems like” crowds are probably what you care about most, however Walt Disney World crowd calendars don’t all the time get these proper. With that stated, listed below are our crowd calendar predictions for the very best and worst weeks at Walt Disney World in October…
October 2024 is prone to see average and above crowds all through the whole lot of the month. There can be “much less busy” and “extra busy” instances inside the month, however low crowd days are unlikely. It’ll be considerably busier than September 2024, which is often the slowest month of all the yr.
In a standard yr, October would get progressively busier over the course of the month, beginning at low-to-moderate ranges within the first week, spiking throughout the second, and remaining elevated by the center of the month. Bigger crowds in October are as a result of conventions and different group occasions, fall breaks for varied faculty districts, and different particular occasions. Briefly, October 2024 can be a distinction to September.
With that stated, October usually doesn’t begin out too badly. In truth, it’s widespread for the primary few days of October to be much less busy than late September, which happens as a result of offers expiring and better date-based costs in the beginning of the month. As such, we’d count on October 1-5, 2024 being comparatively sluggish. Barely lighter crowd ranges than late September, all because of the expiration of ticket offers (with nothing to exchange them).
That gained’t final lengthy. October 6-10, 2024 nonetheless gained’t be unhealthy, however crowd ranges ought to begin to ramp up as fall breaks draw nearer. Should you’re there each October 10 and 11, it’ll probably really feel like an on-switch for crowds was flipped in a single day. It’ll solely worsen from there, as extra faculties are off for his or her breaks.
The center of October can be very busy as a result of Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day on October 14, 2024. This all the time catches guests unexpectedly as folks assume it’s not a significant vacation–however it’s in the case of Walt Disney World journeys. Final yr, this marked the worst crowds at Walt Disney World since Easter. We’d count on a repeat of that in October 2024.
Accordingly, October 11 by October 19, 2024 would be the busiest week-plus of fall break at Walt Disney World and one of many the ten worst ‘weeks’ of the yr. Count on every day crowd ranges of seven/10 to 10/10 at each park throughout this date vary, with 8/10 and 9/10 being the commonest crowd ranges if final yr is any indication. (It’s doable that October 17-19 gained’t be fairly that unhealthy.)
Largely, this is because of that week being a standard one for fall breaks. Many faculties have days off throughout the subsequent two weeks, resulting in above common attendance in the course of the October crowd calendar. Nevertheless, the 2 weeks that comply with usually aren’t as unhealthy, although main faculty districts (together with these in South Florida) usually have breaks.
If we had to decide on a time to go to in October 2024, it’d be October 20-31, 2024. In truth, that made our listing of the 10 Greatest and 10 Worst Weeks to Go to Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025. These dates positively gained’t be uncrowded and even have low crowds in absolute phrases, nevertheless it’s often a superb window within the month of October.
Then there’s Halloween on October 31, 2024 to finish the month; this isn’t a horrible vacation from a crowds perspective since nobody has it off work or faculty. However coupled with early November 2024 occasions, such because the Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend that weekend, it’ll probably be worse than the sooner days in that timeframe.
In a standard yr, few days are 10/10 on the numerical October 2024 crowd calendar. Fairly, most days are within the 7/10 or 8/10 vary. Nevertheless, it gained’t really feel like many days are “solely” 7/10 on the group calendar for those who get unfortunate.
The opposite drawback with October is that there are curler coaster crowds all through the day and never all parks are equally busy. That is primarily as a result of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering at Magic Kingdom and the Epcot Meals & Wine Competition.
Talking of which, we’d advocate avoiding Mondays at Magic Kingdom all through October. They’re prone to be the busiest days of the month. Extra crimson flag dates for Magic Kingdom are October 2, 5, 9, 16, 19, and 26.
On Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering (MNSSHP) nights, Magic Kingdom closes to common ticket holders at 6 pm. Consequently, the park is much less busy throughout the day time hours on dates when MNSSHP is held, and extra busy on non-party days. This may appear counter-intuitive, nevertheless it’s as a result of the get together is separately-ticketed.
We’d strongly advocate visiting Magic Kingdom throughout the day on Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering nights, after which bouncing to a different park at round 4 pm. Animal Kingdom will all the time be your only option for lower-crowd evenings throughout the fall.
Sometimes, the most important influence is felt nearer to Halloween, which means it’s worst in October. We’ve reported on this phenomenon at size, seeing this play out each single day of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering season, as mentioned in Greatest & Worst Days to Do Magic Kingdom in 2024. (Should you’re questioning why among the dates above are crimson flags for Magic Kingdom, that publish explains it.)
Final yr, Halloween get together days have ranged from 1/10 to three/10 on the group calendar.
In October 2024, our expectation is that MNSSHP days will comply with that very same sample, and be round 2/10 to 4/10 in Magic Kingdom. Whereas that’s increased than in August or September, it’s price noting that nonparty days will even be a lot busier in Magic Kingdom. If something, the unfold between wait instances on MNSSHP days versus non-party days will develop.
Though Magic Kingdom closes earlier to common visitors on MNSSHP days, it additionally often opens earlier. This can be a large benefit, as lined in Photograph Report & Technique: Magic Kingdom Early Entry at 7:30 am on Social gathering Days.
Epcot can be considerably extra busy on weekends in the case of ‘seems like’ crowds, particularly when Florida faculties like UCF have away soccer video games. Though this doesn’t influence attraction wait instances, it does negatively influence ambiance. There are occasions when World Showcase can have a frat get together vibe on weekends, which is just disagreeable.
Epcot’s attendance can be lightest on weekdays earlier than 4 pm, with crowds rising after work as locals prove to graze on the Meals & Wine cubicles. Epcot is a significantly better expertise Mondays by Thursdays. Saturday and Sunday must be averted if in any respect doable.
Animal Kingdom will all the time be your only option for lower-crowd evenings throughout the fall. So far this Social gathering Season, Disney’s Hollywood Studios has been an amazing choice on non-MNSSHP days. We’re additionally huge followers of Park Hopping there for the second half of the day, catching Fantasmic or doing headliners with considerably shorter traces.
As mentioned in Greatest & Worst Days of the Week to Do All Parks at Walt Disney World (and elsewhere), weekends have been ‘wonky’ at Walt Disney World these days, and far slower than the historic norm. Nevertheless, we’ve been extremely skeptical that this pattern would proceed for October by December.
Then there’s Disney Springs, the Crescent Lake resorts, and different excessive profile eating places and bars at Walt Disney World, all of that are busier within the evenings throughout October. This is because of a surge in conference enterprise, which peaks this month. Remember to make ADRs for any fantastic eating exterior the parks, and bear in mind that you simply’ll encounter heavier crowds in Disney Springs.
The above a number of paragraphs underscore why we don’t actually take care of conventional color-coded or numerical Walt Disney World crowd calendars. Not one of the above traits could possibly be adequately conveyed by a easy graphic, and it’d be simple to grow to be pissed off if we merely had an October 2024 crowd calendar with a ton of seven/10 or 8/10 days.
As an alternative, we’ve defined the how and why of October crowd circulation, and now you’ll be able to plan accordingly. When you’ll nonetheless encounter congestion and lengthy waits, by zigging when others zag, it is best to keep away from the worst of October’s crowds. This strategic park hopping recommendation is invaluable, and extra helpful than a numerical October crowd calendar.
OCTOBER PRICING & DISCOUNTS
In addition to the occasions, October is a superb month to go to by way of what you’ll pay to go to. Single day ticket costs are solely within the Worth or Common seasons, which implies decrease costs there. This doesn’t do you a lot good for those who’re shopping for multi-day tickets, however these costs additionally are usually common or under, as effectively.
There are additionally often respectable room-only low cost affords, and we usually choose this low cost to the favored Free Disney Eating Plan promotion (which blocks out all the month of October, anyway). Should you’re reserving a room-only low cost, you’ll be able to determine for your self which resort could be greatest by studying our Walt Disney World Lodge Critiques.
General, October is a combined bag. There are nice occasions and the climate is beginning to get nicer, however there was a surge in crowds the previous few Octobers, and we’d count on that pattern to proceed. Nonetheless, we actually like October, and if it ever returns to being a standard month crowd-wise, it’d be amongst our absolute favourite instances to go to Walt Disney World. In truth, if you may get previous the crowds, October continues to be a reasonably good month to go to. The climate is enhancing, and the seasonal occasions are in full swing.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Find out about resorts on our Walt Disney World Accommodations Critiques web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Critiques. To save cash on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets publish. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys publish takes a novel have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Trip Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the very best place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every part it is advisable to know!
Your Ideas
Are you a fan of visiting Walt Disney World in October? Are you excited for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Social gathering, Epcot’s Meals & Wine Competition, and every part new at Walt Disney World? Or would you like nothing particular or new, however decrease crowds? Have you ever skilled the heavier October crowds the final a number of years? Which month do you want to go to WDW? Listening to your suggestions about your experiences is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions under within the feedback!
