Data Report • Summer 2026

US Theme Park Wait Time Benchmark: Summer 2026

Name: US Theme Park Wait Time Benchmark — Summer 2026
Creator: Thoosie
Published: 2026-07-03
Keywords: theme park wait times, crowd data, amusement park benchmark, wait time ranking

📅 Published July 3, 2026 📊 Thoosie Research 📌 Data: June 3 – July 3, 2026

48M+Data readings

52Parks tracked

15 minUpdate interval

Executive Summary

Thoosie collected 48 million wait time readings across 52 US theme parks between June 3 and July 3, 2026 — the first full month of peak summer season. This report ranks parks by average in-queue wait time across all open rides.

The headline finding: Universal Epic Universe — open just over a year — led every park in the US at 41.9 minutes average wait, nearly 2× the national median. The park recorded peak waits of 270 minutes on its busiest days. Cedar Point generated the most raw data (556K readings) while Knott's Berry Farm produced 478K readings, making both the most statistically robust parks in this study.

Top 10 Busiest Parks — Summer 2026

Ranked by 30-day average wait time across all tracked rides. Readings cover June 3–July 3, 2026 only.

Park	Avg Wait	Peak Wait	Readings
1 Universal Epic Universe NEW '25Hottest	41.9 min	270 min	116,607
2 Walt Disney World — Hollywood Studios	33.0 min	160 min	117,978
3 Universal Studios Hollywood	30.2 min	150 min	124,116
4 Knott's Berry Farm	29.4 min	180 min	478,369
5 SeaWorld Orlando	28.6 min	120 min	59,294
6 Walt Disney World — Epcot	28.2 min	140 min	140,759
7 Disney California Adventure	25.7 min	240 min	200,905
8 Walt Disney World — Animal Kingdom	24.7 min	180 min	76,536
9 Cedar Point	24.3 min	180 min	556,394
10 Silver Dollar City	22.4 min	180 min	156,196

Readings: total data points collected for each park during the study period. Higher readings = more statistically reliable averages.

Key Findings

1Universal Epic Universe rewrites the top of the chart. Opened in May 2025, Epic Universe generated a 41.9 min average — 27% higher than the next-busiest park and more than 1.8× the national 30-day median of 23 minutes.
2Universal properties run consistently hotter than Disney. Universal's two California and Florida locations averaged 35.0 min across the study period vs. 27.4 min across the four Walt Disney World parks tracked.
3Cedar Point leads in raw data density. With 556K readings in 30 days — nearly 5 times the data volume of SeaWorld Orlando — Cedar Point is the most comprehensively tracked regional park in the US. Its 24.3 min average is among the highest for non-gate parks.
4Weekday morning arrivals before 10am averaged under 10 minutes system-wide. Across all parks tracked, rides open before 10am showed a 9.2 minute average — less than a quarter of peak-afternoon waits. The single highest-value window across all parks.
5Disney California Adventure recorded a 240-minute peak — the highest Disney peak in this study — consistent with Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout data from prior seasons. Single-ride outliers drive park averages on specific days more than overall attendance.

Methodology

Data source: Thoosie's proprietary real-time wait time network, which aggregates live ride wait times from 52 US theme parks updated every 15 minutes. Data is collected from publicly available park-provided feeds and direct measurement systems.

Study period: June 3 – July 3, 2026 (31 days). This covers the onset of peak US summer season.

Methodology: Average wait time is calculated as the mean of all ride-level wait readings during the study period where the ride was reported as open and wait_minutes > 0. Peak wait is the single highest valid reading recorded for any ride at that park during the period. Readings with values ≥ 999 minutes are excluded as sentinel values.

Sample size: 48,193,331 readings across 52 parks. Sample sizes vary significantly by park (Cedar Point: 556,394 vs. SeaWorld Orlando: 59,294) which affects statistical reliability for smaller samples.

Citation: "US Theme Park Wait Time Benchmark: Summer 2026." Thoosie, July 2026. thoosie.app/wait-time-benchmark-2026

Media & Research Use

This data is free to use in articles, reports, and research with attribution to Thoosie. For the full dataset (CSV), fact-checking inquiries, or park-level breakdowns, contact our press team.

press@thoosie.app

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