Daily Park Report: January 31, 2026

DINOSAUR Roared to 75-Minute Waits While Magic Kingdom Sat Nearly Empty

Animal Kingdom's DINOSAUR posted a 75-minute average wait yesterday—triple its typical 25 minutes—while Magic Kingdom recorded a 14-minute median, 29% below its 30-day average. Saturday delivered one of the sharpest park-to-park contrasts we've measured this winter, with Hollywood Studios running heavy at 7/10 and three other parks sitting comfortably at 4/10.

Cloudy skies and a 63-degree high kept things cool but dry, and two concurrent events—the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts and the National School Spirit Championships—reshaped where guests chose to spend their day.

Hollywood Studios: The Saturday Crush

Hollywood Studios was the clear crowd magnet, hitting a 7/10 with a 42.9-minute median wait. The peak landed at 11 AM with a 55-minute median, which is where the Rise of the Resistance story gets interesting. Rise went down at 8:38 AM and stayed offline until 11:47 AM—a 189-minute outage spanning the entire morning rope drop window. Guests who planned their day around an early Rise boarding instead dispersed across the park, inflating waits everywhere else. When Rise finally came back online, pent-up demand drove it to a 120-minute average, nearly two and a half times its typical 50 minutes. Toy Story Mania added to the pressure with its own 63-minute midday closure, leaving Toy Story Land guests with limited options during the lunch rush.

Animal Kingdom: The Quiet Surge

Animal Kingdom's 31.9-minute median sits in comfortable 4/10 territory, but that number masks a 27.6% jump over its 30-day average of 25 minutes. DINOSAUR was the main event, tripling to 75 minutes and creating a genuine bottleneck in DinoLand U.S.A. The Wildlife Express Train also tripled from its usual 5 minutes to 15—a sign that families were spreading deeper into the park than usual. The School Spirit Championships drove incremental volume here, and with an 11 AM peak matching Hollywood Studios, guests arrived early and toured aggressively through midday.

Magic Kingdom: Ghost Town Saturday

A 14.2-minute median on a Saturday is remarkable. Magic Kingdom dropped 29% below its 30-day average, and the data shows why: the park was hammered by operational issues. Haunted Mansion went down for 72 minutes in the morning. Pirates of the Caribbean closed twice, totaling nearly two hours of lost capacity. Mickey's PhilharMagic was offline for over two hours across two incidents. Peter Pan's Flight, Winnie the Pooh, and Country Bear Musical Jamboree all had closures. When that many attractions go dark, word spreads fast—and guests pivoted to other parks. Tiana's Bayou Adventure at 5 minutes (80% below its typical 25) reflects the cold weather keeping riders off a water ride, which is expected behavior for a 63-degree day. But the across-the-board deflation in waits—PeopleMover at 5, Prince Charming Regal Carrousel at 5, Tomorrowland Speedway at 10—points to genuinely thin crowds, not just seasonal patterns.

EPCOT: Festival Crowds Browse, Not Ride

EPCOT posted a 16.7-minute median at 4/10, just 11% above average. The Festival of the Arts is in full swing, but the data continues to show that festival guests prioritize food booths and gallery exhibits over attraction queues. Living with the Land doubled to 20 minutes as guests used it as a seated break between festival stops. Figment tripled to 15 minutes—its location near festival activity likely funneled curious walkers into the queue. Gran Fiesta Tour doubled to 10 minutes for similar reasons. Test Track's 108-minute afternoon outage (2:41–4:29 PM) removed EPCOT's highest-capacity thrill ride during a key window, but the park absorbed it without visible spillover into other queues.

Downtime Impact

Yesterday was operationally rough across the resort. Magic Kingdom bore the worst of it with six attractions logging significant closures. The cascading morning outages—Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and PhilharMagic all down before 10 AM—effectively removed three major-capacity attractions simultaneously. Families arriving at rope drop found a diminished lineup, and many appear to have left for Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom, contributing to those parks' above-average numbers. At Hollywood Studios, the Rise of the Resistance morning outage created a ripple effect that defined the park's entire day: compressed demand, inflated afternoon waits, and a 120-minute peak that persisted well after the ride reopened.

Today's Outlook: Sunday, February 1

Today brings a dramatic weather shift. The high drops to 46 degrees with a low near 24—a 17-degree swing from yesterday's high. Clear skies will make it feel pleasant in the sun but bitter in the shade, especially during morning and evening hours. Expect water rides to be functionally walk-on all day.

The Festival of the Arts and School Spirit Championships continue, so EPCOT and Animal Kingdom will carry similar event-driven volume. The strategic play today: Magic Kingdom. Yesterday's operational struggles were anomalous, not structural, and cold-weather Sundays historically thin out the park further. If yesterday's 14-minute median felt empty, today could approach ghost-town levels. Hollywood Studios carries risk—it ran heavy yesterday without unusual event pressure, and weekend momentum tends to sustain Saturday-to-Sunday. Arrive early if that's your target, or plan for longer waits.

Bundle up, prioritize indoor attractions during the coldest hours, and consider Magic Kingdom as your primary park while crowds cluster elsewhere.

See the Patterns Before You Park Hop

Yesterday's stark four-park split—one park surging while another sat empty—is exactly the kind of dynamic that changes your touring strategy. Lightning Brain tracks these cross-park patterns in real time so you can pivot before the crowds do. Now available at lightningbrain.app and on the App Store!