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Disney testing Virtual Queues at its Walt Disney World water parks
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
RandomPrincess
Keep Moving Forward
Universal announced a little while back they would be using virtual Queues at their new water park too.
CJR
Well-Known Member
I'm not surprised by this, but it's pretty interesting to me.
Will you have to go all the way up the mountain at BB to get added to the queue and wouldn't that just make all the lines longer for the other slides to get back down? I doubt too many people would walk down the mountain. Makes much more sense to hand them out at the chairlift entrance below.
I also wonder how the parks will handle the influx of people at the other attractions. VB is designed for the virtual queue where TL and BB are not. It'll be interesting to see how the wave pools and lazy rivers handle the added stress during peak times.
Will you have to go all the way up the mountain at BB to get added to the queue and wouldn't that just make all the lines longer for the other slides to get back down? I doubt too many people would walk down the mountain. Makes much more sense to hand them out at the chairlift entrance below.
I also wonder how the parks will handle the influx of people at the other attractions. VB is designed for the virtual queue where TL and BB are not. It'll be interesting to see how the wave pools and lazy rivers handle the added stress during peak times.
Coaster Lover
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I wonder if part of the closing of Shark Reef was to build some high capacity water play area in that area (one of those big multi-level structures with the dumping buckets and the water spraying everywhere where there really isn't any sort of line). Something like that (on a large enough scale) could absorb a good number of guests who would have otherwise been standing in lines.
rushtest4echo
Well-Known Member
Surprised it took 3 replies to get there.
As CJR said, this will no doubt severely tax the non-queue stuff at the Disney water parks. Unless they plan on adding a second lazy river and a second wave pool to the parks (which wouldn't be a bad idea AT ALL), those things are going to get crushed. They already reach capacity on hot days at both the Disney water parks and I have a feeling that this will do what Fastpass did to the theme parks- lower the in-park capacity by quite a bit. I'd expect to see the "in park" attendance allowance to be adjusted downwards, though maybe having a Volcano Bay in the area will help offset demand (though it's really just a replacement for the other park which had similar capacity on the other side of the street to be honest).
This might be a blessing in disguise for people who want to see expansion and "innovation" at the Disney water parks. If they plan on doing this, they're inevitably going to need to add a lot more capacity to the parks by way of both slides and lazy rivers/wave pools and even food offerings. Maybe this will expose the need for those things.
Chape19714
Well-Known Member
This is interesting to say the least....Volcano Bay seems to have expansive public areas like loungers, lazy rivers, wave pools, etc. for people to enjoy while "waiting". Without increased capacity in these areas, this system can't work. It will either greatly increase all the other wait times, or overcrowd the public areas. Or worse, both.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
The funny thing about this is the Volcano Bay Tapu Tapu actually notifies you when your slot is coming up. So Disney is behind the curve as usual these days
rushtest4echo
Well-Known Member
Or lower their daily capacity, which is what happened at Disneyland and the Tokyo Parks when fastpass was rolled out.
NYwdwfan
Well-Known Member
Our local waterpark has had this for years. You get a wristband and there are electronic boards all over the park telling you the wait times at all of the rides in the park. You scan your band and can pick ONE to queue. You can then do whatever until your queue time comes up. Seems like it would be pretty easy to implement this sort of system. I wonder why they would be opting for a pager type device.
rushtest4echo
Well-Known Member
"Innovation"
Water "Theme" Park
Your facts do not concern the marketing dept at Orlando's water parks, nor do they concern some of the posters around here.
Personally, I'd like to just have a few kiosks at the base of each Disney water park in strategic areas where I can tap my magic band to reserve a return time even if they do or/don't eliminate standby queues. Add the requisite terminals at the top of the mountains and you're good to go. No need to be paged when the slide is ready, just come back between 2:15 and 3:15 thanks. No need to go beyond that.
Universal can stay "ahead of the curve" on this one. I'll just take my return time thanks.
Chape19714
Well-Known Member
HIGHLY doubt that will happen. Waterparks run on such low capacity to begin with. In order for this to work, it would have to cut a significant number from capacity. Works for a theme park, but not a waterpark.
rushtest4echo
Well-Known Member
Well actually it didn't work for Disneyland either, and their fastpass disaster continues to bear fruit to this day (which will soon get much worse). But I don't believe the water parks are much of a revenue driver for Disney. People are entering via heavily discounted tickets that are mostly "add on" and they often don't spend more than half a day there. There's hardly any food/merch offerings compared to the parks or even the hotels. Reducing in park capacity from say 10,000 (I believe the parks are around there) to 8,000 will probably lead to the parks filling up for a few more days a year than they do right now. Whether or not the people inside will be comfortable is another matter, but Disney's never really been concerned with guest comfort relating to capacity before, why start now? 
MrHappy
Well-Known Member
I'm hoping that the Water parks were picked as a testing ground given that they're not as high profile as attractions in one of the big 4. As we discussed in the SWL Thread, I'm was asking Martin if the buzzer/Dumbo type concept would happen in one of the new attractions. It seems like a good opty where you'd walk through a shortened queue line to a certain point, where you can then pickup a buzzer and be deposited in a Star Wars-like museum and (kid/adult) play area, then when buzzed, you get back in an even shorter line to get ready to ride. So I'm not going to get too hung up in the "water park" details as I hope this is just a quick avenue to test certain operations for the more important roll out at major attractions.
deeevo
Well-Known Member
Yes, I read a pretty good description on how it will work and it will make FP+ look like pulling a number at the Publix deli.
CJR
Well-Known Member
I would love to see something like that happen, but I'm not going to hold my breath either. I actually have a feeling it'll just become more beach area, if they actually don't let it sit there and rot.
Keep in mind, that also only helps TL. BB is the park that will have the most issues with its much smaller wavepool and higher dependence of the virtual queue.
disney4life2008
Well-Known Member
LOL I am sorry this a clear copy cat!
peter11435
Well-Known Member
Umm. You could say the exact same thing about what Universal is doing. Universal didn't invent the idea of a virtual queue.
What they've implemented at Jimmy Fallon is cool but it's basically an exact copy of what Disney tested over half a decade ago at Rock'n Roller coaster.
