Daily Park Report: February 23, 2026

EPCOT Hit 9/10 on a Monday — And It Wasn't Even the Busiest Park Story

Yesterday told two very different tales. EPCOT climbed to a packed 9/10 with 28-minute median waits — 42% above its 30-day average — while Animal Kingdom sat at a breezy 3/10 just a few miles away. That's not a typo. On the same Monday afternoon, guests at EPCOT faced 45-minute median waits at 11 AM while Animal Kingdom peaked at 35 minutes and cleared out to 10-minute waits by 4 PM.

The Festival of the Arts drove that EPCOT surge, but not in the way you might expect. The headliners weren't the problem — it was the low-capacity attractions. The Seas with Nemo & Friends posted 30-minute waits, six times its typical 5-minute baseline. Gran Fiesta Tour tripled to 15 minutes. These aren't thrill rides; they're climate-controlled respites between food booths. When festival crowds want somewhere to sit down and digest, they pile into dark rides.

Hollywood Studios: Heavy All Day Long

Hollywood Studios ran an 8/10 with 44-minute median waits, roughly 10% above average. The park hit its stride at 11 AM with 55-minute medians and never really let up — waits stayed above 50 minutes from noon through 4 PM before tapering into the evening.

Rise of the Resistance went down twice: once mid-morning for 40 minutes and again from 4:50 to 6:00 PM. That evening closure came right as families were wrapping up dinner and looking for one more headliner. Slinky Dog Dash also dropped out for nearly an hour in the morning. When two of your three biggest capacity-eaters are offline during the same operational day, you feel it in the queue times elsewhere — though the data shows waits stayed relatively steady rather than spiking dramatically during these windows.

EPCOT: Festival Crowds Without Festival Patience

That 9/10 rating reflects genuine crowding. Spaceship Earth hit 25-minute waits, nearly double its baseline. Living with the Land pushed to 30 minutes. Journey Into Imagination sat at 25. These are attractions that typically absorb overflow — when they're all running 15+ minutes above normal, the entire World Celebration and World Nature corridor feels congested.

Frozen Ever After compounded the problem by going down for three hours starting at 8:40 AM. That's the park's biggest Lightning Lane draw offline through the late-morning peak. Norway pavilion crowds had nowhere to go, and neighboring attractions absorbed the spillover. By the time Frozen reopened at 11:40, the damage was done — the whole park was running hot.

Animal Kingdom: The Monday Surprise

While EPCOT and Hollywood Studios ran heavy, Animal Kingdom posted a 3/10 — actually 18% below its 30-day average. The park cleared out dramatically after lunch, dropping from 35-minute median waits at noon to just 10 minutes by 4 PM.

This is a classic post-holiday-weekend pattern. Families who extended their President's Day trips departed Monday morning, and Animal Kingdom's later opening time (relative to EPCOT) meant departure-day guests skipped it entirely. The guests who did show up had the run of the place by afternoon.

Magic Kingdom: Moderate With a Cold-Weather Twist

Magic Kingdom landed at 5/10 with 17-minute median waits — about 16% below average. The most notable data point: Tiana's Bayou Adventure averaged just 5 minutes, roughly 85% below its typical 35-minute wait. With morning temperatures in the low 40s, guests weren't lining up to get soaked. PeopleMover also ran light at 5 minutes, while "it's a small world" pushed to 25 minutes as families sought indoor, dry attractions.

The After Hours event that evening had no impact on daytime operations — that's how After Hours works. Day guests toured normally; the late-night event simply added extra hours after the regular 9 PM close.

Downtime Report

Frozen Ever After's three-hour morning outage was yesterday's most consequential closure. With EPCOT already running packed, losing Norway's anchor attraction through peak hours left festival guests with fewer options to escape the pavilion walkways. Test Track also went down briefly at 4:40 PM for 25 minutes — short enough to avoid major disruption but long enough to strand guests who'd been waiting.

At Hollywood Studios, the twin Rise of the Resistance closures totaled nearly two hours of lost capacity. Slinky Dog's 55-minute morning outage overlapped with the first Rise closure, creating a rough 9-10 AM window where two major attractions were simultaneously unavailable.

Today's Outlook: Tuesday Cooldown

Yesterday's predictions missed badly — we didn't have forecasts for most parks and undershot EPCOT by 2 levels. The post-holiday exodus we expected happened at Animal Kingdom but nowhere else.

Today should see genuine cooling. Temperatures start at 33°F and peak at only 54°F — the coldest day of the week. Expect Magic Kingdom in the 4-5/10 range as water rides stay quiet. Hollywood Studios should drop to 6-7/10 without the Monday holiday holdovers. EPCOT will likely moderate to 6-8/10; the Festival of the Arts continues, but weekday festival crowds trend lighter than Monday-after-a-holiday crowds.

Animal Kingdom is your best bet today. A 3-4/10 day with comfortable touring conditions and no major events. If you want to ride Avatar Flight of Passage without Lightning Lane, this is your window.

Bottom line: Layer up for the morning chill, hit Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom early, and save EPCOT for late afternoon when festival crowds thin out.

Track the Patterns That Matter

A 9/10 EPCOT next to a 3/10 Animal Kingdom — on the same day — shows exactly why park-by-park data matters. Lightning Brain identifies these splits in real time so you're never stuck in the crowded half. Now available at lightningbrain.app and on the App Store!