The Best Day Of The Week To Visit Disneyland & Disney California Adventure

Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We’ll use the same methodology for Disneyland and DCA, with the same data and statistical tests for confidence in our results:

Using 1.4 million wait times from popular attractions
During the busiest time of the day since that’s when crowds are highest
After Disneyland changed its DAS eligibility rules on June 18, 2024
Taking into account the effects of DCA’s Halloween parties and Disneyland’s winter holiday events

The Disneyland Resort is the mirror image of Walt Disney World in that most visitors come from within around 100 miles of Anaheim, California but most visitors to Walt Disney World do not. The figures most often cited are that Disneyland’s 80% locals and 20% tourists, while Walt Disney World is 20% locals and 80% tourists. So one of the things we should check is if that shows up in the data.
The Best Days of the Week to Visit Disneyland Year-Round
We’ll start by looking at weekday patterns throughout the entire year. Here’s a chart showing the average posted wait time at Disneyland’s popular attractions during peak hours:

And here’s the matrix that compares each day of the week to every other day:

Across an entire year, it looks like:

Friday and Sunday have the lowest average waits at around 29.5 minutes
Wednesday and Thursday are next at about 30.5 minutes per ride
Tuesday’s waits are around 32 minutes
Saturday’s waits average just over 33 minutes per attraction
Monday has the highest average waits at around 34 minutes each

It’s not a surprise that Saturday’s a busy day for Disneyland, since it’s also got some of the longest waits at each of Walt Disney World’s four parks.
One interesting point here is that Monday’s also the day of week with the longest wait times at the Magic Kingdom. We said that the Magic Kingdom, being the world’s most popular theme park, might operate on a different set of guest preferences than any other Walt Disney World theme park.
Disneyland is a close second, with both parks seeing over 17 million estimated guests in 2024. For context, the third most-visited theme park in the US in 2024 was EPCOT at around 12 million guests. That means Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom host 40% more guests per year than the #3 domestic park. It totally makes sense that tourists would make special plans to visit Disneyland regardless of the day of week.
Best Day of the Week to Visit Disneyland From August through December
Disney California Adventure’s hosts the popular Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween party from August through October. Most of those party days are on just three days of the week:

Disneyland does seasonal overlays at iconic attractions like Haunted Mansion and It’s a Small World. Haunted Mansion’s Nightmare Before Christmas re-theming typically starts around the third week of August and runs through the first week of January. Small World’s re-theming runs from the middle of November through sometime around the middle of January. Those overlays operate every day, so crowd patterns shouldn’t be affected. Let’s check the numbers to be sure.
Here’s the chart showing Disneyland’s crowd levels by day of week for the months of August through December:

And here’s the matrix:

Here’s the ranking of those weekdays for August through December:

Wednesday has the lowest waits at around 27.5 minutes
Friday’s next at ~28 minutes
Sunday’s waits are just over 29 minutes
Tuesday and Thursday’s waits are around 30.5 minutes
Saturday’s waits average around 32 minutes
And Monday’s still the day with the longest waits – around 34.5 minutes per ride

It’s possible that Wednesday’s low waits at Disneyland are due to guests visting DCA on the day between Tuesday’s and Thursday’s Halloween parties. We’ll look at that when we run DCA’s numbers later in this post.
Best Day of the Week to Visit Disneyland From January through July
Next we’ll look at Disneyland wait times for the first seven months of the year, without the effects of Halloween or Christmas parties.
Here’s the chart of Disneyland’s wait times by day of week for those months:

and here’s the matrix:

Right from the start we can see big differences based on time of year:

Sunday has the lowest waits at just under 30 minutes per ride
Friday’s waits average just over 30 minutes
Thursday averages just under 31 minutes
Wednesday’s the clear middle of the chart at around 32.5 minutes
Tuesday and Monday average around a minute more at 33.5 minutes
And Saturday’s average waits are right at 34 minutes per attraction

While Wednesday’s the best day of week to visit Disneyland in the fall, it’s just average for the first seven months of the year. Sunday and Friday continue to be good days to visit, and that seems to effect the whole-year results as well.
Let’s look at Disney California Adventure next.
The Best Days of the Week to Visit Disney California Adventure Year-round
Here’s the chart showing the average wait times by day of week throughout the year for Disney California Adventure:

And here’s the matrix:

There seem to be four groups for these seven days:

Thursday and Friday have the lowest average waits at just over 42 minutes
Wednesday and Monday are next at around 45 minutes per ride
Sunday and Tuesday waits are just over 46 minutes
And Saturday’s waits average 50 minutes per attraction

An 8-minute difference between Thursday (and Friday) and Saturday is substantial. Assuming you visit 15 attractions in DCA, that’s a two-hour difference in waits in line over the course of a day.
Next let’s analyze how DCA’s seasonal parties affect the days of the week.
Best Day of the Week to Visit Disney California Adventure From August through December
As noted above, DCA’s popular Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween party runs from August through October on (mostly just) three days of the week:

Here’s our chart of average wait times at DCA for just August through December:

and here’s the matrix:

Here’s the rankings of DCA’s day of the week, from lowest to highest average wait times during late summer, fall, and early winter:

Thursday (lowest)
Friday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Sunday
Saturday
Monday (highest)

It’s predictable that Thursday’s got the lowest wait times when DCA runs its Halloween parties – we see similar things at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World around its Halloween party schedule. But DCA also runs those parties on Tuesday and Sunday and those two days have average wait times instead of low wait times. Sunday you could kind of rationalize because it’s a weekend. But Tuesday seems a bit unexpected.
It looks like Monday’s shaping up to be the day to avoid going to either Disneyland Resort park. Let’s see if that trend continues for DCA in the months of January through July.
Best Day of the Week to Visit Disney California Adventure From January to July
Here’s DCA’s chart for the first 7 months of the year:

and here’s the matrix:

Well there goes that theory: Monday and Friday are the best days of the week to visit DCA from January through July. I hate it when ugly data slays a beautiful hypothesis.
Tuesday and Saturday are the days of the week DCA has the longest average posted wait times for those months. So the one thing we can take away from this analysis is that Saturday’s got long lines at both Disneyland Resort parks at almost any time of year.
Wrapping Up
Here’s a couple of handy chart that summarizes what we’ve found. Perfect for t-shirts in the parks:

And for Disney California Adventure:

Next week’s (and last) blog post in this series looks at the best days of the week to visit Universal Orlando’s theme parks. In the meantime, leave a comment below with any questions or comments. Thanks for reading this far!

Related Posts