What Will Disney World Crowds Look Like for the Rest of 2020?

With Disney World facing an unprecedented closure with an uncertain opening timeline, many questions have been raised as to how this could affect the parks moving forward. Here at AllEars, one of our most frequently asked questions has been how crowd levels will look for typically quieter times of the year, considering the amount of people that will be rebooking their cancelled trips from the spring.

What will happen to the normally quieter times of the year with everyone looking to rebook? For the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on the fall season, or the months of September, October, and November.

How Could Crowd Levels Look for Fall 2020?

How Many People Will Be Looking to Rebook?

While we know there will be SOME level of impact on the fall, let’s take a closer look at the factors at play. First, we can assume that MANY families will be looking to rebook their cancelled trips from March and April. These cancelled trips fell during spring break and Easter season, which is often a crowded time of the year for Disney. So, we know that there was probably a high volume of trips that were cancelled.

Disney recently announced a special offer exclusive to guests with cancelled reservations. In a nutshell, if a guest had a reservation for arrival between March 16th and May 31st, they would be eligible to rebook for most arrival dates between June 1st through September 30th. This offer includes hotel, theme park tickets, and the sweet icing on top of the cake, free dining. Guests must book by May 31st to take advantage of this offer.

This could potentially make an impact on crowd levels once the parks reopen, particularly over the summer. Disney’s free dining offer is incredibly popular, and because of that, guests with cancelled reservations may choose to visit Disney through the summer and early fall as opposed to October onward. Note that this offer does extend through September in terms of arrival dates, so we may see higher-than-usual crowds during that usually quieter month as well.

Click here to read more about the special offer for reservations affected by the closures!

Are There Reservations That WON’T Be Rebooked?

Out of these cancelled reservations, however, we can assume that not everyone will be able to rebook. With the financial and economic uncertainty this crisis has created, some parties may not be able to afford rebooking and instead may use their refunded payments for other expenses. There could also be a percentage of groups that may or may not feel safe traveling so soon after this crisis has subsided.

So, while we expect many will rebook, we can also expect that not EVERYONE will rebook. This is a fluid situation that no one fully understands the scope of at this time, and hopefully we’ll know more in the coming months.

Who Else May Be Looking to Visit in the Fall?

There are the Annual Passholders that are blocked out through the summer months like those with Silver Passes. At this time, Disney has not lifted any blockout dates from the schedule, so as of now, any Annual Passholder with summer blockout dates will still not be able to visit Disney World during those dates.

With that in mind, we could potentially see a large group of people that have been blocked out since March looking to return to Disney World as soon as the summer season blockout is over.

Click here to read about updates to Annual Passes during the closures

Do 2019 and 2021 Offer Any Clues?

Let’s also look at last year’s crowds as an indicator for what Disney may be facing come fall time. Keep in mind, however, that Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019, which had an impact on the number of guests who visited Disney World last year. Last spring, however, Galaxy’s Edge was not yet open in Disney World.

Also remember that next year, 2021, will mark Disney World’s 50th Anniversary. Because of this, many have speculated that 2021 was already shaping up to be a much busier year than 2020. It’s hard to say if these closures will change the speculation, but it’s possible that those with cancelled trips will choose to forego 2020 and instead rebook for 2021.

Another factor to consider are people who perhaps were not considering a trip to Disney World in 2020, but if a good deal appears in the coming months, they may reconsider. Disney will want to recover from the closures as quickly as possible, which may come in the form of enticing people to visit in 2020 as opposed to 2021. Recently, Disney extended their Sun & Fun Discount through August 31st, but it is still a little soon in the year for fall discounts to be announced.

Click here to read about what Disney has planned for their 50th anniversary!

What Can Past Crowd Levels Indicate?

While we can speculate about how crowds could look, perhaps the best indicator for predicting crowd levels would be too look at some actual estimations from previous years.

For starters, according to Themed Entertainment Association, Magic Kingdom alone saw over 20.8 million guests in 2018. If we did the simple but very rough math of diving that number into twelve months, that’s an average of 1.7 million guests per month. Let’s assume, based on Disney’s free dining offer, that the parks reopen on June 1st — that would be a closure of approximately two and a half months. That’s roughly 4.3 million guests who had plans to visit the Magic Kingdom between March 16th and May 31st that are now looking to rebook. And again, remember that the spring break and Easter seasons typically have above-average crowds for the year, so it may be safe to assume that number is even higher.

Will Disney Actually Welcome in ALL of Those People?

Regardless of what the numbers or the speculation tells us, the remainder of 2020 probably won’t be “business as usual” for Disney World. When the parks eventually reopen, there may be measures in place to control crowd levels, with former CEO Bob Iger hinting that the parks could implement measures such as temperature screenings. This could potentially include capping park capacity at lower levels than usual, filling hotels at lower amounts, or taking fewer dining reservations or walk ups to keep their restaurants at lower capacities.

Additionally, an important factor to consider is the amount of international guests. According to Barron’s, typically 18% to 22% of guests each year are coming from outside of the US, and with travel restrictions for the remainder of the year currently uncertain, this large percentage could be lower than normal.

But, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind for the rest of 2020 and possibly beyond is that this is the most unprecedented event Disney has ever faced. Moving forward, Disney World will be rebounding from something it has quite literally never experienced before.

At this time it is hard to predict what consumer spending will look like, how many families can afford to travel, what Disney will allow in terms of crowds, and frankly, what will change or look different in the months ahead! Like we mentioned before, however, we can say with certainty that the crowd levels for the rest of 2020 WILL be impacted by these closures, and only time will tell in what way. We will continue to keep you updated as we learn more about a reopening date for Disney World, along with what procedures will be in place when the parks do reopen.

Were you previously not considering a visit to Disney World in 2020, but have since reconsidered? Or vice-versa? Let us know in the comments!

 

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