Daily Park Report: September 24, 2026

Magic Kingdom Ran Nearly Empty Thursday as the Halloween Party Cleared the Decks

Magic Kingdom posted an 8.1-minute median on Thursday, September 24 — roughly half its 30-day norm and a solid two crowd levels below where the park usually idles. On a day when three Georgia school districts were on fall break and the resort was carrying elevated crowd pressure, one park emptied out while the rest ran warm. The reason is the same one that’s shaped this whole week: Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. When a park closes to day guests at 6:00 PM, fewer people buy day tickets for it, and the ones who would have go elsewhere.

Weather was a non-factor. Mostly cloudy skies, a high of 84°F, and a trace of rain that never disrupted touring. This was a crowd-distribution story, not a weather one.

Where the day actually happened

Start with Magic Kingdom, because it’s the outlier. At a 1/10 with a peak-hour median of just 10 minutes at 10:00 AM, this was about as light as the park gets. Space Mountain sat at 10 minutes, half its usual, and Pirates of the Caribbean and Astro Orbiter both ran at 5. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at 5 minutes is partly weather-sensitivity, but mostly it’s the party effect: guests who did come knew the clock was ticking toward that 6:00 PM close, so they walked onto headliners all morning. If you had a day ticket here Thursday, you won the week.

Hollywood Studios absorbed a good chunk of the displaced demand, climbing to a 6/10 with a 34.3-minute median — about 14% above its own baseline. The peak hit early, 45 minutes at 11:00 AM, which lines up with rope-drop crowds funneling toward Slinky Dog Dash and Rise of the Resistance before the afternoon spread things out. Still manageable for most guests, but this was the busiest park to navigate.

EPCOT ran a 4/10, a step above its usual 3, with Food & Wine Festival foot traffic doing its part. The 16.9-minute median stayed comfortable, though a couple of second-tier attractions ran hot: Journey Into Imagination With Figment and The Seas with Nemo & Friends both doubled to 10 minutes — festival guests ducking into air-conditioned, low-commitment rides between booths. Animal Kingdom stayed quiet at a 1/10, 15.8-minute median, essentially its normal self.

Downtime hit EPCOT hardest

EPCOT guests took the brunt of Thursday’s operational trouble. Frozen Ever After was offline twice — a long morning closure from just before 10:00 AM to past noon, then another 76-minute stretch in the evening — meaning a marquee Norway attraction was gone for chunks of both prime windows. Test Track went down for nearly two hours in the late afternoon starting at 4:00 PM, right when guests typically circle back to it. And a late-evening wave took out Spaceship Earth and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind near closing.

Over at Magic Kingdom, Space Mountain was unavailable for close to two hours in the afternoon, from 3:38 to 5:29 PM — though with the park already so light, the pain was minimal. Hollywood Studios lost Rise of the Resistance twice, including an 84-minute evening closure that pushed guests toward Fantasmic! and the evening lineup. Slinky Dog Dash also had a 70-minute early-morning hiccup before rope-drop crowds fully built.

Today’s forecast: Friday, September 25

Our engine calls Friday a mixed bag, and the scorecard from Thursday deserves a note first: we nailed Magic Kingdom (1/10, one minute off on wait) and got the best and avoid parks right, but we undershot both Hollywood Studios and EPCOT by 2-3 levels. The party’s suppression of Magic Kingdom is easy to model; the overflow into the other parks keeps running hotter than expected. We’re adjusting up.

Here’s the call for today:

• Hollywood Studios — 6/10, ~39 min. The avoid park. Ride Slinky and Rise at rope drop with early entry, or you’ll be waiting.
• EPCOT — 6/10, ~30 min. Food & Wine keeps it busy; hit World Discovery headliners early, then graze the booths.
• Animal Kingdom — 4/10, ~23 min. The comfortable middle ground if you want breathing room with real rides.
• Magic Kingdom — 1/10, ~16 min. The best park today — another Halloween Party night means another early close and another light daytime. Get in early, ride everything, and clear out before the 6:00 PM cutoff.

The play is simple: Magic Kingdom for a walk-on morning, or Animal Kingdom if you want a fuller day. Let the party crowds have Hollywood Studios and EPCOT.

Special events reshape the entire resort, and Thursday proved it — one park emptied while two ran hot. Lightning Brain’s event-aware modeling shows you exactly where to tour while party guests dominate elsewhere. Now available at lightningbrain.app and on the App Store!