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Many Disney World fans who frequent the parks with any kind of regularity have long been interested in the history of the Central Florida theme Park Resort and relish the idea of being among the first to hear about new attractions and experiences coming to the parks. No sort of news and information, however, seems to excite a diehard Disney World fanatic like park statistics.
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The massive tank inside the Seas with Nemo and Friends pavilion at EPCOT boasts an impressive 5.7 million gallons of salt water. The entire resort covers some 25,000 acres. More than 3 million annuals are planted by Disney World’s horticulture Cast Members around the Walt Disney World Resort each year. Nearly 300,000 pounds of laundry is washed every single day at the parks, and close to 2 million turkey legs are purchased and devoured by hungry, nostalgic Disney World Guests every year.
Yeah, we know.
Diehard fans, though, love talking about real parks statistics–those stats that reveal what Guests are doing with their time and their money while visiting the parks. But Disney doesn’t make it easy for them because transparency with numbers is not the top priority on Disney World’s to-do list.
During The Walt Disney Company’s quarterly earnings calls every three months, C-level execs are only too happy to share performance numbers with Wall Street’s finest–but they’ll only go so far. When it comes to Disney Parks revenue, the company shares its earnings within the Parks, Experiences, and Products division, but they draw the line at revealing how those billions are divided across Disney’s domestic and international theme parks. In a general setting, even the most sold-out Disney Parks fans will never know just how much money Magic Kingdom pulls in a day.
Credit: Becky Burkett
In addition to that, Disney never publishes attendance numbers, leaving fans to find their inner investigative archaeologist and go out to dig for the info themselves. And thanks to those who do, some of those exciting statistics have finally been deciphered and shared.
How Many People Visit Disney World Every Year?
Before the pandemic, the Walt Disney World Resort welcomed more than 50 million Guests through its gates annually. Almost 21 million of those Guests visited Magic Kingdom, making it the single most-visited theme park on planet Earth. That number has been significantly lower since the pandemic, but much of that difference can be attributed to Disney’s new Park Pass Reservation System, which serves as a means of crowd control in the parks.
Credit: Reuters
In 2020, because of a nearly four-month closure at Disney World in response to the growing coronavirus global pandemic–as well as uber-restrictive park capacity limits once the theme parks reopened in mid-July–the Walt Disney World Resort as a whole welcomed 80% fewer Guests than in in the previous year. In 2019, Magic Kingdom saw a total attendance of 20.96 million Guests, but in 2020, that number was just short of 7 million Guests. In 2021, the first full year following the beginning of the pandemic, Magic Kingdom and Mickey opened the gates for 12.69 million Guests.
Credit: Luxe Recess
Additionally (no pun intended), Magic Kingdom sees an average of 57,000 Guests every day of the year, though the pandemic closures affected this number. Between 2014 and 2019, Disney World saw an annual increase in the number of Guests visiting of 2.3%. EPCOT, Disney World’s second park, is often thought of as the park to skip when Guests only have three days to spend at Disney World, but in 2019, the park saw a 4.2% increase in the number of Guests in attendance as compared with the previous year, which could be indicative that EPCOT is better received by Guests in recent years.
And that could be a direct result of the addition of new, interactive, and immersive attractions and experiences, such as Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and, of course, Guardians of the Galaxy: COSMIC REWIND.
In 2018, Disney’s Animal Kingdom enjoyed the largest increase in the number of visitors of any Disney theme park anywhere in the world, with a 9.86% increase compared to 2017.
How Much Money Do Guests Spend at the Parks?
One-day park tickets cost between $109 and $159 per person, depending on the park and the date. In 2019, the average cost per one-day ticket at Disney World was $132.43. In addition to purchasing Park tickets, Guests spent an average of $69.30 per person on souvenir merchandise to commemorate their time in the parks. And since we’re discussing per diem spending, it’s important to note that more than 50% of Guests visiting the Walt Disney World stay for five to seven nights.
Other Interesting Stats
Here are a few more interesting statistics about Disney World–and more importantly–Disney World Guests:
- Guests snap an average of 120 photos per day at the parks in Central Florida.
- Nearly half of all U. S. households with children under the age of 18 have visited a Disney theme park at least once.
- While enjoying the parks, Disney World Guests drink a lot of soda. In fact, more than 50 million Coca-Cola products are sold at the Walt Disney World Resort every year.
- The majority of Disney World Guests are families with children (under 18). Adults visiting the parks without children make up 30% of the visitors who take a trip to Disney World each year. And nearly 20% of the Guests who visit the parks annually hail from a country outside the United States.
