When to go
Walt Disney World in December
The short answer
December at Walt Disney World averages a high of 73°F and tops 90°F on 0% of days. Some rain falls on 34% of days, but only 8% get a quarter inch or more, the driest of the year.
Should you go to Walt Disney World in December?
The widest spread of any month on the calendar. The first two weeks of December are among the best value of the year — the entire Christmas overlay, every show, every decoration, and crowds well below the annual average. The last week is the busiest of the year, at the highest prices of the year.
These are the same park, the same decorations and the same shows, three weeks apart. No other month offers so large a reward for moving the dates.
How December divides up
| When | Demand | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The first two weeks | Quiet | Full Christmas programming with no school holiday yet. Disney Tourist Blog names 7–13 December as the quietest window of the month. |
| Roughly the 15th to the 17th | Moderate | The last of the low-demand days before schools break up. |
| 18–25 December | Peak | Christmas week. Schools are out nationally and rates are in the top season. |
| 26–31 December | Peak | Typically the single busiest week of the year, with parks reaching capacity and phased closing on the heaviest days. |
These are not crowd levels. We do not publish a crowd index, because we do not have the years of wait data an honest one needs. The label describes the strength of the demand drivers named in the last column — school holidays, race weekends, ticketed party nights and rate seasons — every one of which you can check against a calendar. Where a busyness ranking is another publication’s judgment, it is attributed to them by name.
How long the queues actually are in December
On Queue-Times’ crowd index, December now runs at 47.1%, which makes it the 5th busiest of the twelve months for queueing. Before 2020 the same month ran at 72.5% — 25 points higher.
| Park | Crowd level, December |
|---|---|
| Magic Kingdom | 45% |
| EPCOT | 60% |
| Hollywood Studios | 38% |
| Animal Kingdom | 45.5% |
The parks do not agree in December. EPCOT runs at 60% against a four-park average of 47.1% — 13 points busier than the month as a whole. Booking a park day on the headline figure would get this one wrong.
This is queue length, not attendance. Crowd level is Queue-Times’ own index, built primarily from posted wait times, where 0% is the quietest day in their record since 2014 and 100% the busiest. Disney reported attendance up 3% in the quarter to June 2026 while average waits fell — reopened rides, new parades pulling people out of queues, longer hours and less Lightning Lane inventory all shorten a line without removing anyone from the park. A low number here means you will queue less. It does not mean the walkways will be empty.
What the weather is actually like
- Average high
- 73°F
- Average low
- 57°F
- Days over 90°F
- 0%
- Days with any rain
- 34%
- Days with ¼ inch or more
- 8%
- Typical day’s rain
- 0.00 in
- Hottest ever recorded
- 85°F
- Coldest ever recorded
- 31°F
How that compares with the rest of the year
3rd most comfortable of twelve, against 83% in November. high between 70 and 85°F
9th highest of twelve, against 43% in July. the ones that end an afternoon
12th highest of twelve, against 47% in August. a quarter inch or more, not a passing shower
From 372 December days on record, 2014–2025. The two rain figures differ because most Florida rain is a short shower, and a month described only by “days with rain” sounds far worse than it is.
What a room costs in December
| Tier | Cheapest night | Dearest night | Rate seasons this month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value resort · Pop Century | $262 · Winter | $396 · Holiday | 4 |
| Moderate resort · Caribbean Beach | $397 · Winter | $515 · Holiday | 4 |
| Deluxe resort · Grand Floridian | $989 · Winter | $1,350 · Holiday | 4 |
Rack rates for a standard room, including 12.5% tax, as published on 2026-09-07 — MouseSavers 2026 rate chart — Pop Century season dates and rates. The gap between the two columns is the reason to care which week you book: within one month the same room can change price more than it does between tiers.
What’s on in December
What’s actually running in December
Everything. The Festival of the Holidays runs at EPCOT to the end of the month — 30 December in 2026 — with the Candlelight Processional most evenings. Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party runs at Magic Kingdom on select nights to 22 December. Every park has a Christmas overlay, the resorts have their own displays, and the gingerbread installations at the Grand Floridian and the Beach Club are worth a trip on their own.
After the last Very Merry party on 22 December, Magic Kingdom stops closing early — so the busiest week of the year is also the one with the longest Magic Kingdom evenings.
Who December is right for
Anyone who wants Christmas at Walt Disney World and has any flexibility at all. The first fortnight of December is the single clearest example on this site of the same product at a very different price.
And who should pick another month
Anyone crowd-averse who has to travel between Christmas and New Year. That week is not a normal busy week — parks reach capacity and stop admitting guests, and there is no touring strategy that fixes it.
The mistake people make booking December
Assuming the decorations are only up for Christmas week. They go up in early November and stay to the first days of January. Almost everyone paying peak December prices for "the Christmas experience" could have had the identical experience three weeks earlier for substantially less.
Sources
- Disney Tourist Blog — best and worst weeks to visit Walt Disney World (week-by-week busiest and quietest windows and the reason given for each) — reported by · checked
- Resorts Gal — EPCOT festival dates for 2026 and 2027, with the date Disney announced each one and which 2027 dates are still unannounced — reported by · checked
- Disney Parks Blog — Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party 2026 dates and details — Disney official · checked
- Queue-Times — per-park wait time statistics for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, 2014 to date (average crowd level by month, by day of the week and by event type; crowd level is their index, 0% the quietest day in their record and 100% the busiest, derived primarily from posted wait times) — reported by · checked
- Disney Tourist Blog — wait times are down but attendance is up at Disney World, and how both can be true (Disney reported Q3 2026 attendance up 3% against falling average waits; reopened attractions, new entertainment drawing guests out of queues, longer park hours and reduced Lightning Lane inventory after the 2024 DAS changes) — reported by · checked
- Disney Tourist Blog — should you visit Disney World in summer 2026 (independent corroboration that summer has not been peak season since 2016, that September was the slowest full month of 2025 with August second and July third, and that January and February have spiked) — reported by · checked
What this page is built from, and what it isn’t yet
- Weather: 4,400 days of daily records for Walt Disney World, 2014-09-03 to 2026-09-19, from the Open-Meteo archive (CC BY 4.0).
- Park hours and events: our own ingestion of Disney’s published schedule, twice daily.
- Crowds: we log every ride every five minutes from two independent sources, and hold 1,756,800 observations across 19 days. That is not yet enough to describe a month, so this page does not pretend to. It will, and nothing here needs rewriting when it does.