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!

Quick Thoughts on October 2025

We’ll start with quick thoughts on October 2025 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.
After the “summer 2025” debuts. As of this update, three new pieces of entertainment are set for Summer 2025 debuts: the new Little Mermaid show at Hollywood Studios, the new villains show at Hollywood Studios, and the new nighttime parade at Magic Kingdom. Scheduling an October 2025 trip should allow you to catch these.

2025 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 9 - October 14. This is Columbus Day weekend, with Columbus Day itself being Monday, October 13. 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 Friday in 2025, so I’d expect the Not So Scary Halloween party to quickly sell out for that day, and Magic Kingdom might even see higher daytime crowds than we’d usually expect from a party day.

October 23 - October 26, 2025. 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 is hosted a new athletic event in October 2024—the Disney Season Kickoff Soccer Tournament, over Columbus Day weekend.

When 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.

The 2025 edition of the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon will be held October 23 - October 26. As discussed in the January post, race weekends tend to bring crowds down a bit. The half marathon weekends also shouldn’t significantly impact touring, though we admittedly have never paid much attention when we’ve visited during these weekends.

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 2025 hotel rate table at MouseSavers. Here’s a table showing how hotel prices at All Star Movies, Port Orleans Riverside, and Contemporary 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, and Contemporary:

Disney World October Deals and Discounts [2024 Information]

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. As of this update, a “fall” hotel offer ends October 3, 2024, and a new discount covers the later part of the year:

To make it all even sweeter, starting on June 27 you can save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resort hotels for stays most nights from Nov. 24 to Dec. 25, plus other savings for stays most Sunday to Thursday nights between Oct. 6 to Nov. 21. You can also get a free Park Hopper option added to your tickets when you upgrade to a Walt Disney Travel Company package that includes a non-discounted 4-day or longer date-based ticket.
-Disney Parks Blog

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.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Magic Kingdom) will be closed all month (and until 2026) for refurbishment.

Test Track (Epcot) closed for a large refurbishment / reimagining beginning June 17, 2024. Reopening is set for “Late 2025.” We take that to mean one of the last four months of the year. An October reopening is definitely a possibility.

“Summer 2025” will bring three new pieces of entertainment: a villains-themed show at Hollywood Studios, an updated Little Mermaid show at Hollywood Studios, and a nighttime parade, Disney Starlight, at Magic Kingdom. Specific dates for these have not yet been set, but they should be debuted by October unless they are delayed.

Work will be ongoing in Dinoland USA (Animal Kingdom), with TriceraTop Spin, Fossil Fun Games, Chester & Hester's Dinosaur Treasures having closed permanently in January.

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 Blizzard Beach will reopen on November 4, 2024. Typhoon Lagoon 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 ten times due to Hurricanes. Two closures were in August, six were in September, and two were in October, most recently in 2024. The closures ranged from 0.5 days to 2.5 days.

Two October closures in over 20 years isn’t huge, but we’ve seen September closures in 2017, 2019 and 2022, and October closures in 2016 and 2024. 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 Lightning Lane Guide and 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 Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.

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.

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