Daily Park Report: June 22, 2026

Animal Kingdom Was the Resort’s Quietest Park Monday While Hollywood Studios and EPCOT Held the Top

The number worth circling from Monday is Animal Kingdom’s 3/10. On a Juneteenth-weekend Monday with summer crowds in full swing, a 24.6-minute median is genuinely light for that park — well below its own 30-day norm. That alone reshuffled the usual order. The expected lineup runs Hollywood Studios, then Animal Kingdom, then Magic Kingdom, then EPCOT. Monday it ran Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom dead last. When the resort’s typically second-busiest gate becomes its calmest, that’s the day’s real planning story.

Weather wasn’t the culprit — Monday was mostly clear, 96 degrees, no rain on the board. This was a crowd-distribution story, not a storm story.

Park by Park

Animal Kingdom sat nearly a fifth below its baseline. The peak hit late morning around 11 AM at a 40-minute median, then the park drained fast through the heat of the afternoon — typical for a park with limited indoor relief on a 96-degree day. Expedition Everest stumbled twice, down for over an hour in the early morning and again for 88 minutes from 5:37 PM, which pulled one of the park’s two headliners offline during the evening wind-down. Wildlife Express Train doubled its usual posting to 10 minutes, a tiny number that only stands out because everything else was so quiet.

Hollywood Studios held the top spot at a 4/10, though a 33.8-minute median is actually just under its own norm — comfortable touring by Studios standards. The interesting wrinkle was the timing: the park peaked at 10 AM (40 minutes) and eased from there, the opposite of most parks. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is what bent the day. It went down at 4:25 PM and never came back, a closure that swallowed the entire evening. With Aerosmith out and Slinky Dog Dash also offline for an hour starting 7:34 PM, Toy Story Land and Sunset Boulevard guests had fewer marquee options exactly when touring usually peaks.

EPCOT quietly outdrew both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, landing at a 4/10 and running modestly above its 15-minute baseline. Nothing dramatic — an 11 AM peak near 25 minutes — but enough to slot it second. Test Track was the soft spot, down three full hours from 1:20 PM after an earlier morning hiccup, sending its would-be riders toward Guardians and the World Showcase pavilions.

Magic Kingdom was the easy ticket Monday. A 12.3-minute median is light even for a park with a low baseline, and the peak barely registered — 15 minutes at 1 PM. Walk-on classics were everywhere: Pirates at 10 minutes, the PeopleMover, Small World, Mad Tea Party, and Dumbo all hovering around 5. Space Mountain went down for over two hours starting 11:17 AM, and Winnie the Pooh had a rough day with three separate closures, but with waits this low the spillover was barely visible.

Downtime Report

Monday’s standout was Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster — offline from 4:25 PM through the rest of the night with no reopening, costing guests a headliner for the whole evening stretch. EPCOT’s Test Track was unavailable for three hours of prime afternoon, and Space Mountain was down more than two hours at midday. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was the day’s most persistent problem child, closing three times across the day for a combined two-plus hours. None of these pushed neighboring waits sharply higher, simply because demand was so soft to begin with — on a busier day, those same closures would have hurt much more.

Today’s Outlook — Tuesday, June 23

Monday’s call to lean toward a quiet Magic Kingdom landed well; the park came in even lighter than expected. Today is a different animal, though. Juneteenth-weekend travel, peak summer break, and the Ripken baseball families in town keep crowd pressure elevated, so don’t expect Monday’s softness to repeat. Plan for all four parks in the 5-7/10 range, with Hollywood Studios most likely toward the top.

Watch the morning sky: forecasts show roughly even odds of a shower from open through early afternoon before it clears to partly cloudy and 95 degrees. That argues for front-loading outdoor headliners early, then pivoting to indoor attractions — Living with the Land, Haunted Mansion, the Studios’ shows — if a band rolls through midday. If you want the lightest park, Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom are still your best early-day bets, but get rides done before the heat peaks.

This split-park dynamic is exactly what Lightning Brain detects — so you never waste touring hours at the crowded half. Now available at lightningbrain.app and on the App Store!