Skip to Content

Best Rides Out of the Heat at Disney World

By: Author Heather Thomas

Posted on

Best Rides Out of the Heat at Disney World

Visiting Disney World is magical, but let’s be honest—Florida’s heat and humidity can sometimes feel like you’re walking through a sauna, and the result is less than pleasant.

Don’t let the sun turn your dream vacation into a sweaty ordeal. Fortunately, Disney World has plenty of attractions where you can spend some time cooling off.

Here are our top picks for attractions and rides at Walt Disney World that will get you out of the sun and into the AC:

Looking for other ways to stay cool in the parks? Check out our BEST tips for staying cool at Disney World post, where you’ll find lots more tips for beating the heat at Disney World.

Which attractions are best for escaping the heat?

Our criteria for the best attractions to escape the heat include those with:

  1. Typically short wait times
  2. Indoor or covered queues, and
  3. Includes attractions that provide a generous amount of time in air-conditioned (or in the case of some shows, completely shaded) comfort

Not every park has an equal number of rides that fit that criteria, unfortunately.

Epcot is probably one of the easiest parks to find places where you can escape to get out of the heat – including entire pavilions where you’ll have multiple things to do without going outside.

Magic Kingdom is relatively easy to find places to pop into because there are simply so many attractions here. But because this park is also the most popular, you sometimes have to battle indoor queues that push outdoors and into the sun and crowds that can make things difficult to navigate.

Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, however, are a bit more difficult. There aren’t as many attractions overall in these 2 parks, and while there are some queues which have fantastic indoor portions (Rise of the Resistance, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Toy Story Mania), the overall wait for those rides can be excessively long.

With that in mind, here’s what you can find in each park:

Magic Kingdom

In just about every land, you’ll find at least 1 attraction that will be a fairly decent option for getting out of the sun:

Frontierland

Adventureland

Liberty Square

Fantasyland

Tomorrowland

Epcot

Epcot is HUGE, and what we like about it is that there are a couple of pavilions conveniently located near each other where you can spend entire afternoons in the air conditioning and out of the heat and rain.

Land Pavilion (World Nature): Located in World Nature, the Land Pavilion is a giant building that houses 3 attractions (Soarin’, Living with the Land, and Awesome Planet) and 2 restaurants, Sunshine Seasons, which is Quick Service and Garden Grill, which is Table Service.

Land pavilion

The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion: Also located in World Nature, the Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion is home to a giant 5.7 million gallon aquarium (there’s a complimentary scavenger hunt that you can pick up a booklet for inside the building), plus 2 kid-friendly attractions: The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk with Crush. You’ll also find Coral Reef, which is a Table Service restaurant connected to one side of the building (you have to exit the main building to enter the restaurant).

The seas with Nemo and Friends sign

If the forecast looks to be especially hot (or rainy!) and you know your traveling companions will need to avoid the heat as much as possible, these 2 pavilions are located close together and when combined with a meal, could easily provide you with several hours worth of entertainment.

In addition to those 2 pavilions, Epcot also has a bunch of “play areas” located at the exits of attractions which can be a great spot to cool off, plus you’ll find several galleries and exhibits in the World Showcase that are sort of hidden and usually relatively quiet.

Here are our favorites:

World Celebration

World Discovery

  • Test Track exit – N/A (Indoor play area, enter through exit of Test Track)
  • Advanced Training Lab – N/A (Indoor play area at the exit of Mission: SPACE)

World Nature – Land Pavilion (This pavilion is entirely indoors)

World Nature – The Seas Pavilion (This pavilion is entirely indoors)

World Showcase

  • MEXICO Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros – 7 mins (Indoor queue)
  • NORWAY Stave Church Gallery – N/A (Indoor exhibit, can just walk right in)
  • CHINA Reflections of China – 14 mins (Indoor queue)
  • AMERICA The American Adventure – 29 mins (Indoor queue)
  • JAPAN Bijutsu-kan Gallery – N/A (Indoor exhibit, can just walk right in)
  • MOROCCO Gallery of Arts and History – N/A (Indoor exhibit, can just walk right in)
  • FRANCE Beauty and the Beast: Sing-Along – 15 mins (Indoor queue)
  • FRANCE Impressions de France – 18 mins (Indoor queue)
  • CANADA Canada: Far and Wide – 15 mins (Indoor queue)

Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios is a bit trickier when it comes to finding places to quickly and easily escape the heat.

There are limited indoor Quick Service dining options, and the easiest attractions to use as respite from the sun or rain have unprotected queues OR queues that often stretch outdoors into the sun.

elsa and anna in the frozen sing-along at hollywood studios

But, the good thing is that even though most of the shows here are still outdoors, they are covered and last quite a nice stretch, which means you’ll have a longer period of time to sit and rest in the shade (even if you can’t be in the AC).

Sunset Boulevard

Echo Lake

Animation Courtyard

Grand Avenue

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is the most difficult park to find easy-to-access attractions that can get you out of the sun. The same things that make this park beautiful (lush greenery and plentiful trees) are what up the humidity and block the breeze, which can really make it feel as if you are literally roasting.

standby and lighting lane entrances for it's tough to be a bug

Our best advice is that if you need to get out of the sun, mobile order at a Quick Service location (Pizzafari is a good choice) or plan ahead and book a Table Service meal for midday.

Otherwise, take advantage of the places to sit in the shade, or check out one of the attractions below.

Dinoland U.S.A.

Discovery Island

****************

What’s your favorite way to stay cool in the parks? Did we leave anything off? Let us know in the comments!