Daily Park Report: June 23, 2026

Hollywood Studios Ran Light on Paper, But Its Headliners Told a Rougher Story

Tuesday was a tale of two Hollywood Studios. The park’s median landed at a comfortable 4/10, just under its 30-day norm — but that tidy number hides a brutal day for the park’s two biggest rides. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster never opened, sitting idle from before park open until 8:27 PM. Rise of the Resistance dropped offline at 4:56 PM and stayed down through the evening. If you showed up Tuesday expecting to ride both, you didn’t. That’s the kind of day where the crowd-level summary and the on-the-ground experience diverge hard.

Weather wasn’t the culprit — it was a mostly clear, 97-degree afternoon with zero rain. These were mechanical, and they reshaped touring inside the park. With Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster dark all day, Slinky Dog Dash absorbed the demand and climbed to a 100-minute average, well above its already-steep 60-minute baseline, even though it also went down twice itself. The park peaked at noon (42.5-minute median), earlier than usual, as guests piled into whatever was actually running.

The Rest of the Resort

The bigger structural surprise was the park ordering. Tuesday ran Hollywood Studios, then EPCOT, then Magic Kingdom, then Animal Kingdom — a reshuffle from the usual shape, and a continuation of a theme we’ve now flagged several days running: Animal Kingdom keeps landing as the resort’s quietest park. At 23.8 minutes median and a 3/10, it sat a full level under its own norm. The catch is that its number was deflated partly by its own downtime — Expedition Everest was offline from before open until almost 1 PM, which is why the surviving Everest waits spiked to 40 minutes once it returned. Kilimanjaro Safaris, meanwhile, ran a breezy 15 minutes against a typical 25, the kind of comfortable touring you want on a 97-degree day. The Wildlife Express Train tripled to 15 minutes — odd for a transport ride, and a sign guests were spreading toward Rafiki’s Planet Watch to dodge the heat.

EPCOT quietly outdrew Magic Kingdom, finishing at 16.9 minutes — about 13% above its baseline and good for a 4/10. Nothing dramatic, just steady summer demand with guests using indoor rides as cool-down stops. Spaceship Earth and Figment both ran light at well under their norms, so the climate-control crowd was clearly hunting elsewhere.

Magic Kingdom was the model of a routine day: 14.7 minutes median, right in line with its 30-day average, peaking at 7 PM as the evening parade-and-fireworks crowd built. Under the Sea was the lone standout, running 25 minutes against a typical 10 — an unusual Fantasyland bottleneck for an otherwise walk-on attraction. The PeopleMover and Dumbo, by contrast, were near-empty at 5 minutes each.

Downtime Report

Tuesday’s pain was concentrated at Hollywood Studios. Losing Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster for the entire operating day plus Rise of the Resistance for the whole evening left guests leaning on Slinky Dog and Tower of Terror, and you can see that pressure in Slinky’s inflated waits. Over at Animal Kingdom, the long Everest morning closure pushed riders toward the safari and the train. Magic Kingdom had a scattered afternoon — Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, and two separate Pirates of the Caribbean stops — but each was short enough to absorb. EPCOT saw a cluster of brief evening hiccups around 5–7 PM, none long enough to derail a plan.

Today’s Prediction

Wednesday brings ELEVATED crowd pressure — summer travel is peaking and the Ripken youth baseball families are in the resort. Expect every park firmly in the busy range, with Hollywood Studios in the 5-7/10 band (Disney After Hours runs tonight, but that’s a late-evening add-on and won’t lighten your daytime lines), Magic Kingdom and EPCOT in the 5-6/10 range, and Animal Kingdom 5-6/10 — I’d bet against another sub-baseline AK day now that Everest should be back to full operation. Weather is a touch friendlier, topping out near 93 with only a marginal morning rain chance that should burn off by midday. Strategy: rope-drop Hollywood Studios and knock out Slinky Dog and Rise early, because if Tuesday’s reliability carries over, the afternoon is when the headliners get shaky. At Animal Kingdom, ride Everest first thing rather than gambling on the morning closure repeating.

Two headliners down for most of a day is exactly the kind of operational surprise that wrecks a touring plan — and exactly what Lightning Brain’s live status feeds are built to catch before you walk in. We’re thrilled to announce Lightning Brain is now on the iOS App Store! Get it at lightningbrain.app and on the App Store!