Disney World in 2024

By Dave Shute

DISNEY WORLD IN 2024

Some elements of the Disney World fan community continue to view the company with a degree of disquiet, dismayed by needless intrusion into controversies, astonishing price increases, and increasing complexity to managing a day in the parks.

On the other hand, in late September I accompanied a couple of six year old children for their first visit to the parks, and their experience was magical.

Their parents and grandparents had not been in the parks since the end of 2016, and they were astonished by the improvements at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and intrigued by and willing to be patient with what was going on at Epcot. The three best rides at Disney World—Flight of Passage, Rise of the Resistance, and Guardians of the Galaxy—have all opened since these folks last visited…

So while some repeat visitors may be dismayed, for first-time visitors and folks who have not been in a while, Disney World remains a marvelous, marvelous destination.

WHAT’S NEW AT DISNEY WORLD IN 2024

There’s no major new attractions opening in 2024, but a couple of significant re-dos are expected to open later in the year:

• At Magic Kingdom, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, a very promising re-do of the much-missed Splash Mountain, is expected to open in Frontierland in late 2024.
• At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the old Little Mermaid show never re-opened after COVID, and will be replaced in the fall of 2024 by The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure, promising new “set pieces, cutting-edge effects, and a bold new design.”

The post-COVID slimmed-down transformation of Epcot is largely complete, with just a few walls left to come down.

Epcot has added a good ride (Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure) and a great one (Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind), a promising new evening show, Luminous, and some minor elements of great charm, including night light show capabilities on the surface of Spaceship Earth and a walk through attraction much better than most expected it to be, Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana.

Finally, park reservations will no longer be required for those visiting after January 8, 2024 who have date-based tickets (most of you reading this will have date-based tickets).

DISNEY WORLD TICKET PRICING IN 2024

Disney World moved to date-based ticket pricing in 2018. After early January 2024, those with date-based tickets will no longer need reservations as well to enter a park.  For current 2024 Disney World ticket prices, see this.

DISNEY WORLD RESORT PRICING AND DEALS IN 2024

Disney World uses a combination of complicated and changing room pricing, and, on top of that, deals, to keep its resort hotel occupancy very high. Typically, rooms are more expensive—sometimes much more—during the more attractive times to go to Disney World.

Mousesavers.com has specific material on nightly prices in 2024 by hotel and within them room types here, and I have easier to use but much less detailed information on 2024 Disney World resort hotel seasonal prices here.

Several hotel deals have come out for early 2024, and more will follow. Find more on current Disney World deals here.

The simplest way to handle getting any deals that might be available is to make your initial booking through a travel agent, who will then–if a deal comes out for your dates–move heaven and earth to try to get you in to it.

DISNEY WORLD CROWDS IN 2024

Despite disquiet with Disney’s pricing, divisive choices, and operational changes, I expect the Disney World parks to continue to see substantial demand in 2024.

Moreover, a higher degree of resistance to taking kids out of school than before the pandemic will continue to particularly focus much of this demand into the traditional US school holidays.

I have a summary view of 2024 crowds at Disney World here.

Early January 2024 will be busy through the first full weekend, as lots of kids continue on holiday on break through January 3, 2024, and almost 40% are off through January 7. The rest of the month should be much better, with the Martin Luther King holiday weekend being the next worst dates in the month.

Presidents Day 2024, February 19 in 2024, is late in its possible range.  Moreover, in 2024, Presidents Day week does not overlap Mardi Gras week the way it did in 2023, so I expect crowds over the week to return to lousy, but not spectacularly bad, levels. (Tons of kids in the northeast have the whole week of Presidents Day off, and a much lesser number in a few southern states have breaks around Mardi Gras.)

Easter in 2024 will be early in its possible range, on March 31.  This will make crowds better in April and worse in March than in years with a later Easter. The patterns of spring breaks in 2024 show three particularly bad weeks, the weeks beginning 3/9, 3/23, and 3/30.

As you can see from the chart, the weeks beginning 3/2 and 4/6 are fine, and the weeks of 3/16 (especially the weekdays), 4/13, and 4/20 will also be OK.

Summer 2024 crowds I expect to return to the moderate levels in June and July and low levels in August that we saw immediately pre-COVID. There are no new attractions opening in late spring to drive summer attendance, and folks over the years have become wiser about avoiding the heat and humidity you’ll find in Orlando from late May through September.

Kids start getting out of school in substantial numbers on May 24, 2024, are more than half out by June 6, more than 80% out by June 12, and fully out of school by June 27, 2024. Thus, as in most years, early June will be better than July—as will be later August, with more than half of kids back in school by August 12, and 80% back in school by August 22.

Thanksgiving 2024, November 28, 2024, is as late in 2024 as it can possibly be.  This leaves one fewer good December holiday season week than in some years–only the weeks beginning 11/30 and 12/6 are good in 2024–but one more good early November weeks.

Christmas 2024 is on a Wednesday in 2024.  This means long holiday breaks are pretty tightly grouped from Saturday 12/21/24 through Sunday 1/5/2025.

The compression of holidays into these two weeks (see the chart above for 2023/2024 to see how such breaks can be spread over three weeks) means an even more crowded holiday season than is already common 12/21 through 1/5, with the peak horror being 12/24/24 through 1/1/25, when  both long breakers s and short breakers are out of school.

See the links for more on 2024 at Walt Disney World:

• 2024 Disney World crowd forecasts
• 2024 Disney World resort hotel price seasons
• 2024 Disney World ticket prices
• 2024 Disney World week rankings
• Deals and Discounts

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