This past weekend saw the opening of the new Toy Story Land at Disney's Hollywood Studios and while the crowds there were absolutely nuts, it wasn't all bad news. While people at Hollywood Studios were waiting hours just to get into the land, never mind get on one of the rides, the massive crowd there meant that the Magic Kingdom, the busiest theme park in the world, was unusually quiet. One Disney fan posted the wait time sign for Peter Pan's Flight, a ride that traditionally has a 90 minute to two hour wait time, which had almost no wait at all on Toy Story Land's opening weekend.
The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World is the most visited theme park on the planet Earth and while it certainly has its slower times of the year, that term is mostly relative. It's rare to find the popular rides without significant wait times, especially on a weekend, and yet, on Saturday one fan posted pictures to the DISboards Facebook group showing wait times of 10 minutes or less for popular attractions like Peter Pan's Flight and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Clearly, everybody who was on their Walt Disney World vacation this weekend was over at Disney's Hollywood Studios waiting in line for the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster and the Alien Swirling Saucers. If you didn't feel a need to be part of the opening weekend festivities, however, then you had the opportunity to take advantage of a very rare treat with the Magic Kingdom being as close to empty as the place gets.
While It's A Small World isn't the most popular attraction in the park, it was sending half-empty boats off the dock, which is unheard of.
If you were hoping that the crowds would remain lopsided, it seems that window has already closed. The wait for Slinky Dog Dash as of this writing is 120 minutes, a half hour less than the wait for Avatar Flights of Passage over at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The five hour wait time from the weekend is now down from "insane" to the normal degree of standing in line that you expect when you go to Walt Disney World.
Of course, what happened over the weekend is a preview of what is to come. In a little over a year Star Wars Galaxy's Edge will be opening at Disney's Hollywood Studios as well and when that happens we can expect the crowds to be even crazier. Perhaps the trick, however, is to go to Walt Disney World when Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opens, but just go everywhere that isn't the new land.
Image Courtesy WDWNews.com/Disney
