Observations from the Last Week

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
  • Most of the unnecessary Fastpass+ attractions did not generate long waits that I could see (things like The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Spaceship Earth, etc).
    • The exception has been at the Magic Kingdom where Pirates and The Haunted Mansion are still drawing longer than normal waits. Pirates especially is downright puzzling, I'm beginning to subscribe @flynnibus theory that capacity has changed at the attraction.
    • Buzz Lightyear has had longer than expected wait times - I speculate that this is because it's one of the Quick Picks defaults
  • Wait times at Soarin', Test Track, Toy Story and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster seemed to have returned to normal thanks to the tiers. The problem is that the best attractions in Tier 2 seem to see spikes in wait times as a result (Tower of Terror & Mission: SPACE). I would love to see if @lentesta has seen any spikes in any attractions (the two that I mentioned and Buzz Lightyear)
  • I had the Test Track ride from hell tonight. My wife and I went single rider and were in two separate cars. After getting a good laugh at the South American gentleman sitting next to me that was legitimately puzzled by the lack of a full seatbelt (he took the lap belt and somehow got it over his shoulder and buckled), the ride began. There had been announcements saying that the wait was going to be longer than expected due to some technical issues, but that's pretty much par for the course for Test Track. For those familiar with the attraction, when there is an issue, there's a hard emergency stop and the car "creeps" to the next zone. I don't know if that's always the case in all areas of the attraction, but that's what we experienced and what I had heard before.
    • I had 7 hard emergency stops, and we crept through the first two tests.
    • I spent the Responsiveness (cornering) and Power (outdoor portion) bracing myself for a hard stop. Even at the low speeds in the first test it ran the risk of giving someone whiplash.
    • I went up to a CM at the end of the attraction and he gave a stock response, apologizing for the poor ride. I wasn't satisfied with this and moved onto another cast member nearby and that cast member explicitly said that they need manager approval to shut down the attraction. I told him it wasn't safe and they were going to hurt someone. Show issues aside, they were knowingly putting guests in a situation where they could experience whiplash
    • At the end of the night I stopped in guest services and voiced the same issues. The guest services CM did seem concerned, but did not ask for my name or contact information. In short, I felt unsafe on the attraction, and I've never felt unsafe in the 31 years I've been visiting Disney Parks.
  • Service at the Cantina in Mexico is awful. I knew this from a previous trip, but someone told me to go back. The food is good, but the service is atrocious.
    • We had a large group and it was broken up into 4 separate orders. Person 1 orders his food, gets it rather quickly (after dropping his soda, they give him a replacement). I'm person #2 and I put in my order for myself and my wife.
      • The cashier prints out 3 receipts. I'm not sure what the first receipt is, but the 2nd receipt is the one that I sign. This was stapled to the 1st receipt and placed in a plastic accordion folder that people use for couponing or other organizing of paper (I actually use one to organize Disney Park Maps).
      • She then hand writes our order number on the receipt and gives it to me (the order # is already on the receipt).
    • Group #3 and #4 order their food and receive their food.
    • Group #3 is my sister and her drink was supposed to be in a salted glass and light ice. They take a new glass, salt it, pour the drink into the new glass holding back some of the ice. They then pour in a bit more of the drink. This was in lieu of making a new drink.
    • After Order #4 gets their food I ask where my food is
    • A group that wasn't ours receives their food
    • I get my food 17 minutes after ordering.
  • 'Ohana is still awesome, please don't "fix" it.
  • I was very pleased with Sci-Fi. I have long criticized their menu and food quality but I was very satisfied with my meal. I actually got a steak.
  • The Paroon Shark Catfish exhibit was dry, does anyone know what's going on here?
  • Cosmic Rays has the liquid cheese from Pecos Bill, how long has that been the case?
  • Can we bring back the Chicken wrap to Pecos?
  • The last time I saw Enchanted Tales with Belle was during testing, the show has improved significantly (as to be expected). The kids got a kick out of it.
  • Rapunzel spent a long time interacting with my friend's daughter, I'm just kicking myself for not having my camera.
  • I got a 9:45 AM paper Fastpass for Toy Story Mania, I was impressed with myself.
  • We saw the Single Rider line for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster shut off because it matched the Standby wait time. I speculate this is a function of the Tiers causing guests to choose either RnRC or Toy Story
  • The Single Rider Line for Expedition Everest was shut off today when the attraction had a 30 minute wait. We didn't get an explanation, but we speculated it was because they were training a new grouper and didn't want to add that component in yet.
  • The Frozen Lemonade Slush seems to be slowly disappearing. It was available at TriloBites Snacks and KRNR Rock Station but is now no longer available at either location. It's still available at the Discover Island Kiosk and the Hey Howdy Hey Take Away
  • Disney's Lost and Found: 2, My nephew: 0
  • It's possible that our attempts to confuse a younger member of our party by giving her a golf ball on Soarin' backfired.
  • Toto in the Great Movie Ride is more spastic than Sigourney Weaver
  • This year's Disney Dollars have the Disney Mountains on them, they look pretty good.
  • Camp Minnie Mickey has been removed from the Animal Kingdom maps
  • The Frozen Meet and Greet was in the 2 1/2 -3 hour range in Monday. Wouldn't it make more sense to put popular new characters into a character meet and greet at a restaurant to drive up demand at a struggling locale?
 

wdwgreek

Well-Known Member
Neat Update Thanks! I'd be interested to see if they crunch the numbers to balance out the tiers more effectively, by switching attraction combo's or individual attraction fast pass number capacity? I noticed the pirates thing in the fall! However I am not familiar with @flynnibus 's theory. How can capacity change? The boats still have the same capacity each?
 

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Neat Update Thanks! I'd be interested to see if they crunch the numbers to balance out the tiers more effectively, by switching attraction combo's or individual attraction fast pass number capacity? I noticed the pirates thing in the fall! However I am not familiar with @flynnibus 's theory. How can capacity change? The boats still have the same capacity each?
I would assume they could theoretically alter the capacity by circulating fewer boats through the ride.
 

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Just saw Tom Staggs, Bruce Vaughn, Eric Jacobson and Kathy Mangum go into the Plaza Restaurant with 10-15 others.
 

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RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Any word on pass holders?
Asked and not answered.

Also, old keys to the world card worked in the legacy FP machines, but yesterday, the passes my sister had from 2004 stopped working. It doesn't really matter much at this point, but interesting nonetheless.
 

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
The exception has been at the Magic Kingdom where Pirates and The Haunted Mansion are still drawing longer than normal waits. Pirates especially is downright puzzling, I'm beginning to subscribe @flynnibus theory that capacity has changed at the attraction.
The below is a repost from a thread now locked. Please note the part I bolded.

Using data from touringplans.com, I compared Standby wait times from December 2012 with December 2013.

There were a few huge swings for individual attractions but, overall, wait times were up only 3.2%. Eliminate Dinosaur (up 56%), Kali (up 44%), and Jungle Cruise (up 31%) and cumulative wait times for the remaining attractions tracked by touringplans.com were flat.

The two I’m most interested in are POTC and HM. These attractions do not offer FP, only FP+, which means only onsite guests can select them currently. So far, their wait times are up only a minute or two.

This is an important point to ponder. With only onsite guests receiving access to FP+ and with MK offering so many FP+ options, it appears onsite guests have been making FP+ selections that save the most time. So far, these guests have been pretty smart with their FP+ selections. It doesn’t appear they’ve been selecting POTC or HM in significant numbers.

However, there’s only so much FP+ capacity available on Peter Pan, Pooh, or the 3 mountains. Once onsite guests use their FP+ selections to gobble up a lot of the capacity for these attractions, comparatively little will remain for offsite guests.

Once offsite guests have access to FP+ at MK, are they going to look elsewhere to make their FP+ selections? Will POTC and HM standby lines grow?

After FP+ is available to everyone at MK, I’ll wait for a month of data to accumulate and then post additional results.

Note that this comparison looks only at wait times, not attendance. The Disney earnings call will be in about a month. Usually, Iger or Rasulo provide some high-level guidance concerning attendance. We’ll have to wait to hear what they say in order to better appreciate what this comparison means.
 

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The below is a repost from a thread now locked. Please note the part I bolded.

Using data from touringplans.com, I compared Standby wait times from December 2012 with December 2013.

There were a few huge swings for individual attractions but, overall, wait times were up only 3.2%. Eliminate Dinosaur (up 56%), Kali (up 44%), and Jungle Cruise (up 31%) and cumulative wait times for the remaining attractions tracked by touringplans.com were flat.

The two I’m most interested in are POTC and HM. These attractions do not offer FP, only FP+, which means only onsite guests can select them currently. So far, their wait times are up only a minute or two.

This is an important point to ponder. With only onsite guests receiving access to FP+ and with MK offering so many FP+ options, it appears onsite guests have been making FP+ selections that save the most time. So far, these guests have been pretty smart with their FP+ selections. It doesn’t appear they’ve been selecting POTC or HM in significant numbers.

However, there’s only so much FP+ capacity available on Peter Pan, Pooh, or the 3 mountains. Once onsite guests use their FP+ selections to gobble up a lot of the capacity for these attractions, comparatively little will remain for offsite guests.

Once offsite guests have access to FP+ at MK, are they going to look elsewhere to make their FP+ selections? Will POTC and HM standby lines grow?

After FP+ is available to everyone at MK, I’ll wait for a month of data to accumulate and then post additional results.

Note that this comparison looks only at wait times, not attendance. The Disney earnings call will be in about a month. Usually, Iger or Rasulo provide some high-level guidance concerning attendance. We’ll have to wait to hear what they say in order to better appreciate what this comparison means.
The other theory that hasn't really been mentioned here is that each guest is riding more rides. Is there a way to check that?
 

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
RE: The Paroon shark catfish, all the exhibits around the tree of life are going to be redone over the next few years, including scaffolding on the tree itself. Expect a lot of work on Discovery Island to get ready for the overall changes to the park the next few years.
Thanks for the info.

I also checked out Spice Road Table last night. It was good, but it didn't blow me away. I'd definitely go back, but I'd be interested to see how high the demand is. It's smaller than anticipated with a max capacity of 92 in the covered section and 72 indoors. It also has a walk up bar that's different from the relocated Oasis Slushies stand.
 

JerseyDad

Well-Known Member
  • Service at the Cantina in Mexico is awful. I knew this from a previous trip, but someone told me to go back. The food is good, but the service is atrocious.

....sometimes that's a good thing. I placed a "large" order for food once ...all told ...we had 7 people to cover in the order. By the time they finished handing over the food to me ...there were 3 frozen margaritas on my trays ...that I didn't order (I think they are like $9 bucks apiece) ...nor was I intending to pay for due to the lengthy wait. (btw ...if you ever get free booze ...take a sip out of it asap ...then they can't say ..."ooopps ...I need that back")
 

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