In this post, we discuss visiting Disney World in October. We cover weather, crowds, holidays, events, refurbishments, and anything else you’d like to know if you were planning a visit to Walt Disney World Resort now that the school year is going, temperatures are dropping, and Halloween is here! Read on to learn all about visiting Walt Disney World in October!
Related Posts
If you’re considering a visit in the next two years, our Disney World Two-Year Outlook focuses on when to time your visit in light of major changes around the resort. It’s less focused on details like prices, crowds, and weather and more about the can’t-miss things like new attractions. Our Disney World Planning Guide and 80+ Tips for Planning Your Walt Disney World vacation discuss all aspects of planning your Disney World vacation.
If you’re primarily interested in starting your analysis with price, you’ll want read our post on the cheapest times to visit Disney World, though that topic gets a lot of discussion here, too.
Here are the other month-by-month posts:
Disney World In October (you are here)
If you’ve read our other month-by-month posts, you might notice similarities between this post and some of those. For example, the weather in July and August is basically the same, so our weather sections in those posts are basically the same.
Quick Thoughts on October 2024
We’ll start with quick thoughts on October 2023 before we dive into details like pricing, holidays, events, weather, and so on.
Below average crowds, average prices, good weather. With kids in school most of the month, crowds during October (the holiday weekend excepted) tend to be pretty low. Combined with the good weather (post-summer) and average prices, this is one of the best times to visit if you can fit it into your schedule.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure should be open. The Splash Mountain replacement is currently slated for a “summer 2024” debut.
2024 October NOTABLE DATES IN DISNEY WORLD
We’ll talk more specifically about crowds and events below, but we like to start with some dates to flag. If you’re thinking about these dates for your visit, keep in mind that normal rules might not apply.
October 10 - October 15. This is Columbus Day weekend, with Columbus Day itself being Monday, October 14. Columbus Day is the first major holiday following the end of summer vacation (marked by Labor Day) and the busiest weekend of the month.
October 31. October 31 is Halloween. Halloween is a Thursday in 2024, so unlikely to draw any significant crowds.
October 31 - November 3, 2024. Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon weekend. The first day is the expo, which shouldn’t impact activities around Walt Disney World too much.
Disney World Crowds In October
Our position on Walt Disney World crowd calendars is that people often put too much weight into them, but that’s it’s still good to know general trends as well as specific events that impact crowds. Outside a Columbus Day bump, October Disney World crowds are among the lowest of the year, the month usually being only slightly busier than September.
October is a little further from the start of the school year than September, meaning parents are a little more willing to take kids out of school. Columbus Day weekend in particular usually offers the first chance for kids to take a vacation during the school year.
October also marks a significant change in Disney World’s weather, as temperatures drop and the parks are actually a pleasure to be in through the middle of the day.
While these factors make October more popular than September, they don’t bring enormous crowds. Crowds are typically very low leading up to Columbus Day before spiking for the holiday. They then taper off heading into the next holiday, November’s Veterans Day.
If you must see a crowd calendar, the one we trust most is over at WDW Prep School.
Disney World Events In October
Columbus Day—the second Monday of October—and its surrounding days (Friday through Tuesday) are the most notable part of October. Columbus Day weekend tends to see high crowds, it’s sort of June crowds with October weather.
ESPN Wide World of Sports rarely hosts athletic events in October, as fall sports are still mid-season.
If a Columbus Day weekend sports tournament is held, it can bring increased crowds. These events typically bring increased child and teenage crowds to the value resorts, particularly All Star Sports. Of course, as a holiday weekend you can expect increased family crowds in any case.
At Epcot, October is the core of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. You can see the Epcot Festival Calendar here.
Food and Wine is a popular festival…and some of the negative rumors you’ve heard are true. We personally try to avoid Epcot on weekends during Food and Wine because the crowds and their behavior just aren’t our style. These increased crowds are mostly locals, though. These don’t bring much of a bump to the other parks, and they often don’t bring significantly longer wait times for rides, either.
At Magic Kingdom, October will have several Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party dates, that party having kicked off in August and continuing until Halloween on October 31 (and sometimes into the first few days of November).
Disney World Prices In October
Disney World’s hotel and ticket prices vary throughout the year. For a more comprehensive look for pricing throughout the year, check out our post on the cheapest time of the calendar year to visit Walt Disney World. You can also visit the 2024 hotel rate table at MouseSavers. Here’s a table showing how hotel prices at All Star Movies, Port Orleans Riverside, Wilderness Lodge, and Yacht Club fluctuate throughout the year:
October is a roughly average month, with the value resorts—more popular with family travelers whose kids are in school at this time—below average pricing most of the month.
Prices fluctuate a bit during the month. There are basically bumps around Columbus Day and Halloween, though the moderate and value resorts actually trend relatively flat or downward much of the month. Here’s a graph of pricing within the month at All Star Movies, Port Orleans Riverside, Wilderness Lodge, and Yacht Club:
Disney World October Deals and Discounts
Free dining is typically finished up sometime in October, and the month is a mixed bag for discounts. Discounts of 10% to 25% are common, but you’ll also see more blackout dates that the preceding months.
Discounts will vary by hotel, room type, and availability. You can see current Disney World offers here. If nothing is available yet, you might also want to check out historical Disney World discount information here.
Refurbishments & New Constructions
September and October typically see a few refurbishments as crowds have dropped a little and Disney needs to prepare for the holiday crowd surge coming at the end of November. You will want to check our Walt Disney World construction / refurbishment calendar for the latest.
Test Track (Epcot) will close for a large refurbishment / reimagining beginning June 17. A reopening date has not yet been yet. The last major reimagining of Test Track took 8 months.
Water Park Operations
Disney World has two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, neither of which is open the entire year. After some years of uncertainty, the schedule has seemingly settled down so that each year we have:
Typhoon Lagoon opens / Blizzard Beach closes mid-March
Blizzard Beach opens / Typhoon Lagoon closes early November
This schedule is subject to change (and Disney only announces specific dates about a month in advance, in any case). Most recently, Disney confirmed that Typhoon Lagoon will reopen on March 17, 2024. Blizzard Beach will begin its annual refurbishment closure on that same day. This means we expect Typhoon Lagoon will be the only water park open for the entirety of October.
Disney World Weather In October
October marks a shift in weather, with coolers times finally upon us. The average high is “only” 85F (29C), and the average low is 65F (18C) (low enough for long sleeves!).
Rain has also let up, with only around seven days of rain in the month (comparable to the rest of the year, outside summer). Hurricanes remain a small risk to your travel planning, particularly early in the month. We have a post that talks more broadly about weather at Walt Disney World.
Hurricanes
October is the tail end of hurricane season. Since 1985, the Walt Disney World parks have had to close nine times due to Hurricanes. Two closures were in August, six were in September, and one was in October. The closures ranged from 0.5 days to 2.5 days.
One October closures in over 20 years isn’t huge, but we’ve seen September closures in 2017, 2019 and 2022, and an October closure in 2016. It’s something to be aware of.
Typically the hurricane won’t be a safety issue for you, and it shouldn’t have significant financial implications.
On the safety front, hurricanes are predicted in advance, and Orlando is relatively inland on Florida. The weather might not be safe enough for theme parks to operate, but the structures at Walt Disney World will rarely be significantly threatened.
But there are several reasons you still don’t want to be in Walt Disney World during a hurricane. First of all, it probably isn’t as safe as, say, your home not during a hurricane. There is also very little to do if parks and restaurants are closed—you’ll be eating very simple meals for a few days and maybe enjoying some lobby activities.
You don’t get refunded if you don’t leave the resorts. Our last August/September trip was cut short by a hurricane and it was an easy decision for us to leave because we had been planning to stay at Wilderness Lodge. We didn’t want to pay $500 / night to sit in a room and eat boxed lunches.
The other big reason to leave Walt Disney World is that inland Florida is an escape for coastal Floridians during the hurricane. Generally, they need the room (and the boxed lunches) more than you do.
On the financial front, Disney and airlines tends to do a good job of making sure people aren’t financially ruined escaping a hurricane. Airlines tend to be worse—when our trip was cut short by the hurricane, but our flight was too far in the future to be covered by the airline’s change policies. You might look into some form of travel insurance for this, but read the terms carefully.
When our trip was cut short, we had booked (as we almost always do) through our travel agent, Lauren Quirk. Lauren handled all our cancellations and refunds, which allowed us to focus on our (reduced) time on vacation.
Heat
October is more or less out of the “awful” range of summer temperatures, but if you’re visiting early in the month you might still want to keep the heat factor in mind (if not, skip this section).
The heat and humidity make mid afternoons unbearable. There are two aspects of this to consider. First, take note of the health risks and be prepared for them. Read up on heatstroke and dehydration.
You can stay hydrated at Disney World easily. There are plenty of drinking fountains, and any quick service restaurant will happily provide you a free cup of water. There are also water bottle refilling stations in all four parks.
The second part of this analysis is how heat will impact your touring strategy. There are a few things to keep in mind.
Rope drop (the start of your day) and Lightning Lanes are more important in the heat because you really don’t want to find yourself standing in an outdoor queue at 2PM. At that hour, you want to either be inside or seated in the shade at an outdoor show.
If you have to wait in line, you prefer to do it at an attraction with a mostly inside queue. Space Mountain, Toy Story Mania, Soarin’, and DINOSAUR are probably the best options in each park.
If you’re staying hydrated (you should be), don’t get into line for a ride with a two-hour wait without confirming with a Cast Member that there’s a restroom in the queue.
Our places to escape the Disney World crowds post might be of interest, because many of those places are also shaded and indoors.
All About Rain
We don’t let rain forecasts bother us at Disney World anymore. We prepare for rain—bringing the right shoes and maybe a poncho—but we don’t plan trips around it. Even in months with less rain, you’ll see short spurts of it, and the occasional downpour.
We were at Fort Wilderness during a severe thunderstorm that kept us inside all day (though people who braved the parks got tremendously short waits). This was the relatively dry month of February.
We also were on hand for the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party of 2019, which had almost every show rained out. This was in the relatively dry month of November.
September / October / November
As a closing note, let’s compare October to its neighboring months.
Should I Visit Disney World In September or October?
Except for Columbus Day weekend, October is a better time to visit than September. Crowds are comparable, though October is slightly busier as parents are a little more willing to squeeze in a long weekend in October than in September.
October weather in Florida is markedly better than September, with summer heat abating and hurricane risk dropping greatly (still some risk, though).
Should I visit Disney World In October or November?
If you’re ambivalent about the Christmas celebrations, October is the easy pick here. The weather is slightly better in November, but November—with two major holidays and the debut of holiday festivities—is a mess on the calendar.
Thanksgiving and Veterans Day keep crowds ebbing and flowing, and the precise timing of those crowds will always be hard to predict. Will some days in November have very low crowds? Definitely. Can you time predict those as easily are you can predict slightly low crowds in most of October? No way. Take October, it’s more predictable.
If you allow Christmas celebrations to enter the equation, it gets more complicated. So far, we’ve had success visiting right at the start of the holiday celebrations (typically around November 8).
You might face slightly higher crowds around Veterans Day (November 11), but as long as you avoid Thanksgiving week you shouldn’t see awful crowds. On balance, if you’re interested in holiday celebrations, November is tricky to time but worth it.
Should I visit Walt Disney World In October?
October is arguably the best month to visit Walt Disney World. Crowds are mostly stable, with only one major holiday bringing a slight bump. The weather, while still not perfect, is markedly better than the summer months. Plus, you’ll have Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party as a good option if you’re looking for something different.
Have you visiting Walt Disney World in October? What did you think?
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Genie+ and Lightning Lane strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Animal Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, and Hollywood Studios Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.