DHS Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway confirmed

[Casper Gutman]

You know what’s “fair”? Lines are fair. No golden ticket line-jumping, no boarding groups. Lines. You wait in a nice queue and board after the person in front of you. No artificial stops and starts. Six-hour line? Don’t get in. It will fluctuate because there isn’t a billion-dollar system in place ensuring a constant level of misery. Or go to another line, because it will be shorter, because people are physically waiting in the six-hour line.

And if Disney doesn’t want people waiting in a six-hour line? Extend park hours to 1 or 2. Or increase capacity any way possible, with loads of street entertainment until new people-eating attractions can be opened.

This is a massive mess, and every inch of it is WDWs fault. And they have no interest in fixing it.

 

[No Name]

If I had to guess, it would either be for the function of A) Attempting to relieve Rise of a little bit of pressure, if they were to make you choose which Virtual Queue to enter, or B) For the function of getting guests out of whatever length queue they anticipate would form for Runaway Railway and back into the shops, restaurants, etc. where there's actually the potential to spend money.

Guests in line for rides aren't spending money - which was the original impetus for Fastpass. Never mind the fact that most guests use Fastpass as a means to get on more rides rather than spend more time parting with their dollars. Think of all the money I wouldn't have spent on food, drink, and gifts this Wednesday if I'd been stuck in a 5 hour line for Rise instead of floating around while we inch towards my Boarding Group.

This almost makes me wonder if that's what's driven the trend of shorter rides with lower capacity? You can design a ride that handles 3,000 people an hour, but then that's 3,000 more people that hour who aren't buying souvenirs. So if you design for lower capacity, you're pushing more people into the queue, which either self-regulates because guests think the line is too long, or it gets navigated with Fastpass and gives you that time back in the hopes that you find a store to browse with your extra time. Or a bar to hit up in the case of Epcot over the last 20 years.

But maybe my foil hat is too tight.

Just about every other amusement/theme park sells an option to skip the lines, which increases in value as the wait times increase. This could cause those companies to foolishly develop rides with alterior motives in regard to capacity. Thankfully Disney only offers a relatively small advantage to hotel guests, but if they have plans to introduce paid FP, they may foolishly find lower capacity beneficial. I don’t think making guests less happy for a quick buck is a good strategy though.

But regardless, it’s best to build attractions with high capacity, and then if they want to lower capacity, run half the ride or run it twice as slow or whatever. But they should give themselves that kind of flexibility.

 

[MisterPenguin]

No system is perfectly fair. From the previous BG debate used for RotR...

First-come-first-serve [just a Standby Line] has issues:

1. Where do you put the thousands of people showing up earlier and earlier to beat out one another? What if that crowd is keeping the gondola from being unloaded? If you hold them in the park... what do you do with several thousand people in the park and not open any attractions for them? You open early... oops.. no, that would mean not opening at the time as advertised, and that would by lying. And guests would just show up even earlier the next day.​

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2. 8-10 hour lines are fun to boast about, but they're a nightmare for guests... and for ops as they now have to manage that huge herd. Bathroom breaks, line-cutting and the ensuing fights, the need to get food and water to them so as not to have them pass out (for some folk).​

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3. You're basically saying, "Hey kids, this ain't for you. It's for the adult nerds who can set up a base camp for eight hours." One may not like the part of the mantra "more family friendly"... but that is a significant part of Disney's bread and butter. So, this system excludes families with kids. "First to the gate" is fair... for people hardy enough to endure it.​

I still think a lottery is the way to go...

I would think a lottery system in which every day you can put your group in for a chance "to board" seven days later with a portion set aside for resort guests that can put in for the lottery two days advance. If you "win" you receive a time to show up. Winners blacked out from winning again for a month.

Resort guest have access to the seven day and two day lotteries. Locals have access to the seven day lottery year round.

Not totally perfect, but very fair.

No problem of gate rushers trying to beat everyone else so they can ride. No promises to be broken about opening time. No need to open early unexpectedly. No system of "to the hardy go the spoils."

Indeed, this.

When you have more people wanting to ride it than it can handle, then there will be people who can't ride it. And no matter what system you use to determine who those losers will be, they will think the system unfair.

There is no perfectly fair way to handle this. Only systems that favor one group over another based on reasons for favoring those groups. The groups that get left out will argue that your priorities are wrong. And thus... no perfectly fair system that everyone will be happy with.

And, as @DarkMetroid567 mentioned, the system in place is to favor Operations. They schedule a known amount of guests that they presume they can handle, and if they can't, they get comped. Then they schedule a known amount of guests that they may not get to and call them "backup". If they don't get to them or only a part of them, they don't have to comp them because they're "backup."

They use a virtual electronic lottery system by having everyone slam a server all at the same time. Again, this is for Ops, because at DHS, people were showing up earlier and earlier to win the lottery, and they had to stop that before they wound up opening at 3 AM.

 

[Casper Gutman]

No system is perfectly fair. From the previous BG debate used for RotR...

Lines fluctuate during the day if you don’t go to great lengths to prevent that - which Disney has. And huge lines are a sign of bad, bad park design - SWL needed a bunch of high capacity people eaters, MMRR plus GMR, and new live shows, and that has been obvious for YEARS.

 

[TTA94]

Not to start this debate but one solution is paid FPS. I’m sure it’s coming either way and only a matter of time. The only way I can see it working is if 1. The “free” option remains as is and 2. For the paid option the price will need to be steep to keep from selling out each day and allowing those willing to pay the opportunity to ride the new attractions at any time of the day you want and last minute. The question is how much would the FPS need to be to keep from selling out each day? But yet not a completely absurd and unaffordable amount? The issue is many guests, especially those on once in a lifetime vacations, will gladly pay a large amount to get on the new attractions.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Not to start this debate but one solution is paid FPS. I’m sure it’s coming either way and only a matter of time. The only way I can see it working is if 1. The “free” option remains as is and 2. For the paid option the price will need to be steep to keep from selling out each day and allowing those willing to pay the opportunity to ride the new attractions at any time of the day you want and last minute. The question is how much would the FPS need to be to keep from selling out each day? But yet not a completely absurd and unaffordable amount? The issue is many guests, especially those on once in a lifetime vacations, will gladly pay a large amount to get on the new attractions.

And what if you have more people willing to pay than the ride can handle? Have it become an auction?

 

[DisneyDaver]

The only way I can see it working is if 1. The “free” option remains as is

There are lots of ways to make paid FP work and many of them don't involve keeping the "free" option as is.

 

[Parker in NYC]

And what if you have more people willing to pay than the ride can handle? Have it become an auction?

Not to mention, the stability of the ride will mean a whole lot more to those who have paid for a premium FastPass. “Oops, sorry! Here’s a pass for tomorrow.” And so it goes.

 

[Casper Gutman]

And what if you have more people willing to pay than the ride can handle? Have it become an auction?

As I’ve said before, if FP must exist, eliminate the free version and make the paid level expensive enough that it’s a Golden-Oaks-level luxury. Disney gets a big upcharge but the impact on most guests is minimal.

 

[marni1971]

@marni1971

Will Mickey be the last full on ride through attraction added to DHS prior to the 50th anniversary? Or will the Black Box project sneak in there?

I don’t think the black box project has been approved yet. Of course I may be wrong.

 

[peter11435]

Well, someone who arrives at 6:15 WILL have an advantage over someone who gets there at 6:59. They'll be through the tapstiles before 7:00.

I said somewhere who enters the park at 6:59 has an equal chance. This isn’t that hard. As long as you are in the park before 7 you have an equal opportunity.

 

[peter11435]

And if Disney doesn’t want people waiting in a six-hour line? Extend park hours to 1 or 2. Or increase capacity any way possible, with loads of street entertainment until new people-eating attractions can be opened.

This is a massive mess, and every inch of it is WDWs fault. And they have no interest in fixing it.

Extending the park hours won’t reduce the length of the line. It will increase the number of guests who get to rise but it will do nothing to reduce or eliminate that 6 hour line. Increasing capacity around the park with other entertaining or even new attractions will do nothing to reduce the number of people who want to ride Rise of the Resistance.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Extending the park hours won’t reduce the length of the line. It will increase the number of guests who get to rise but it will do nothing to reduce or eliminate that 6 hour line. Increasing capacity around the park with other entertaining or even new attractions will do nothing to reduce the number of people who want to ride Rise of the Resistance.

Letting more people ride the big new attraction is kind of the point. Putting that aside, longer hours will spread the crowd over a longer period, which would likely reduce lines overall. Without the artificial leveling of fast pass, it will also allow more time for the line length to fluctuate, allowing those who don’t want to wait in the longest line of the day a chance to line up at times when the line would be shorter, such as during fireworks, parades, or near closing time.

More attractions, particularly if they are the kind of SW-themed people-eaters that should have been built, would take some of the attention and crowd pressure off of Rise - this was the initial plan with MMRR, after all.

Most importantly, if people have to physically wait in line for attractions, other areas - and other lines - become less crowded.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

It's amazing how many people here think that a random family is going to stand in a 6 hour line for one ride one month after it opened. We're past that period.

 

[DisneyCane]

Letting more people ride the big new attraction is kind of the point. Putting that aside, longer hours will spread the crowd over a longer period, which would likely reduce lines overall. Without the artificial leveling of fast pass, it will also allow more time for the line length to fluctuate, allowing those who don’t want to wait in the longest line of the day a chance to line up at times when the line would be shorter, such as during fireworks, parades, or near closing time.

More attractions, particularly if they are the kind of SW-themed people-eaters that should have been built, would take some of the attention and crowd pressure off of Rise - this was the initial plan with MMRR, after all.

Most importantly, if people have to physically wait in line for attractions, other areas - and other lines - become less crowded.

Agree about physical waits making some rides less crowded. However, that problem "could" be solved with a lot more C/D tickets added and only having FP on E tickets.

For example, at MK, before FP the lines for both SMs would be very long but there were plenty of rides that had under 30 minute waits BECAUSE so many people were on line for the E tickets. If you virtual queue the E tickets then more people will be on the other lines.

If you invest in having 50% more C/Ds and only have virtual queues on the Es you get the best of both worlds. When they added SDMT, had they kept Scary Adventure but without FP, it would have led to overall better guest experience.

Now, the root of the problem is E tickets without enough capacity for everyone in attendance on a given day that wants to ride to physically be able to. Someone could plan a trip specifically to ride ROTR and not be guaranteed to able to unless they get to the park at 5AM which isn't exactly what I'd consider a vacation.

The real solution is much higher capacity rides or raise prices enough to actually reduce attendance. Like double the admission cost. If they go to a paid FP or a big benefit to staying at premium resorts they would effectively be doing that anyway. People staying at a value resort and only paying the base price will either not get to ride anything popular or spend the whole day on line to ride 3 attractions.

In my opinion it would be better to really raise prices to the point that it will lower attendance at least 30% so that everyone who pays to enter can ride everything with reasonable waits.

Of course, while lowering attendance at higher prices would be good for the parks (profit and guest experience), it would be bad for resort revenue and leasing rates at Disney Springs etc.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Tests should be going underway but so far I haven't seen any spilled beans. I've lost my main contact sadly

 

[JustInTime]

Cars Land (without RSR as we know it) would’ve helped, but that’s a moot point since we got TSL instead. Indy Land - for want of a better name - would have had an E. But I dare say even more would have been needed. Tangled replacing Mermaid was one option earlier in the last decade. They still had the troublesome Monster and Superstar theatres, which although troublesome could have been turned into huge potential with the right concept. And of course MMRR could have added capacity to the park had it been executed to its full potential.

Maybe they should have dusted off the Movieland and Rogers plans too. Add more physical space.

Is mermaid staying around for the foreseeable future? It’s so dated

 

[peter11435]

Letting more people ride the big new attraction is kind of the point. Putting that aside, longer hours will spread the crowd over a longer period, which would likely reduce lines overall. Without the artificial leveling of fast pass, it will also allow more time for the line length to fluctuate, allowing those who don’t want to wait in the longest line of the day a chance to line up at times when the line would be shorter, such as during fireworks, parades, or near closing time.

More attractions, particularly if they are the kind of SW-themed people-eaters that should have been built, would take some of the attention and crowd pressure off of Rise - this was the initial plan with MMRR, after all.

Most importantly, if people have to physically wait in line for attractions, other areas - and other lines - become less crowded.

This would be true if extending hours would allow capacity to meet demand. But it wouldn’t. The attraction would still only be able to physically handle half of the guests wishing to ride. You would also now be complicating operations by not providing adequate time for overnight maintenance.

Additinal attractions are great and very much needed. However it would do nothing to reduce the number of people wishing to ride Rise. Which is and would continue to be significantly higher than the number of guests the ride can actually accommodate.

When March rolls around DHS will be a better park with RR. But guests aren’t going ride RR and be satisfied that they didn’t ride Rise. They will want to do them both.

 

[Jones14]

I don't disagree that the ride is too short, but what's there isn't underbuilt from a layers of detail standpoint. I would look at something like Frozen Ever After as being underbuilt intra scene.

And yet, I’d argue Frozen Ever After is a more successful and engaging attraction. All the detail in the world can’t save you if there’s not also good pacing and solid storytelling to go along with it.

 

[larryz]

I said somewhere who enters the park at 6:59 has an equal chance. This isn’t that hard. As long as you are in the park before 7 you have an equal opportunity.

What isn't hard is distinguishing between "arrival" and "tap-in," events which can be several minutes apart.

You didn't say "enters the park"... you said "gets their." People have to "get their" early enough to tram in from their car, clear security and tap in before 7:00 am. Someone reading your post might misconstrue you to mean it's OK to "get their" (meaning arrival in parking) at 6:59 and still get a good boarding group despite the 20 or so minutes it takes to get to the tapstiles.

Moral of the story:
You can't parse other peoples' posts to the Nth degree and then get all bent out of shape when someone does it to you.