If you’re traveling to Disney World or Universal Orlando in 2025, it’s likely that you’ll fly into Orlando International Airport (MCO).

This is one of the busiest airports in the world, which means that it can often be stressful to make it to your gate in time if you haven’t given yourself enough room to deal with potential delays. If you haven’t decided yet when you want to fly in and out, these are some dates you may want to avoid, based on previous data the airport released earlier this year.
Memorial Day
If you’re thinking of traveling during the summertime, you may want to avoid traveling close to Memorial Day Weekend, which lands on May 26th, 2025. Based on data from 2024, the busiest days to travel for this holiday was May 23rd through 28th. (We know the graph below says 2023 in some places — we believe this was an accidental mistake from MCO!)

So this year, to fall on a similar timeline, the busiest days to travel during this time of year will fall between Thursday, May 22nd and Tuesday, May 27th.
Labor Day
If you’re looking to travel closer to the end of the summer around Labor Day, the busiest days to travel around this time of year in 2024 was August 29th through September 3rd.

To avoid these crowds in 2025, you’ll want to avoid traveling from Thursday, August 28th through Wednesday, September 3rd.
Thanksgiving
Unlike the holidays above, kids in school and many adults at work often get the whole week off for Thanksgiving, so there’s a longer period of travel you’ll want to avoid, if you can help it. This year, the busiest days to travel landed on November 22nd through December 3rd.

To avoid this chaos this year, we recommend avoiding travel from November 21st through November 30th.
Christmas & New Years
The busiest time of year by far to travel in and out of this airport, and nearly any airport, for that matter, is the Christmas and New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day season. In 2024, the busiest days to travel (so far) have been December 20th through January 5th.

Therefore, in 2025, the dates to avoid traveling are Friday, December 19th through Sunday, January 4th.

If you are traveling during these dates, don’t worry! You can still have a very successful flying experience by following MCO’s 3-2-1 rule — arrive to the airport three hours early, be at the security checkpoint two hours early, and be at your gate one hour in advance of the boarding door closing.

Be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for all of the latest travel tips and tricks!
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When are you planning to travel to Orlando in 2025? Tell us in the comments!
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