Wait times

Queen of the WDW Scene

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
ok you do not know the vaccines are coming out Monday!!! YAY!
Where are you getting your info?
I can tell you that in NYS we are getting 170,000 doses and that's not even enough for the first wave of priority people like nursing home residents, staff, and essential hospital staff. Heck now EMS is complaining saying they are at the bottom of the list even though really they are just in the second wave of first priority. After all health care/essential workers get it then they are rolling out by age in the community starting with oldest and working down.
Someone like me isn't getting this vaccine for a number of months!
 

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
I do think they will survive, that's not what I'm saying...........

What I'm saying is they are giving less and less every year to their park/hotel guests (and i have read that on a lot of forums, especially here). The parks are becoming less and less of a % of their business (as evidenced by yesterdays investor day, Disney+ getting all the new $ invested into it and the stock up 10% today to new all time highs despite DL, Paris not being open and the other parks suffering for almost a year)

WDW is a tourist destination with over 36,000 hotel rooms (and growing). Those hotel guests are their main source of income for WDW (hotel sales lead to food, merch, park ticket sales). They have stated repeatedly throughout the pandemic that they need their hotel guests back. They have taken away all of the free perks............If they want to continue to charge a premium for those guests, they need to incentivize them or else risk lower occupancy rates, resulting in less profits and a slower recovery to get back to normal and hiring back all those people they had to let go.

Have you seen their hotel prices lately? I got a room at the Yacht Club for my upcoming Feb trip for $268/night. That is usually what they charge for French Quarter. I don't think that there is anything that they can do to get more people there now. The one's that have no problem going, are going. The ones that are waiting for the pandemic to be over, are still not going to go to WDW, no matter what incentives they offer.
 

Trackmaster

Well-Known Member
Do you really believe that Disney could not survive if it got rid of FP? This idea that one type of particular guest is what keeps WDW afloat is ridiculous.
For every person who would only visit because of FP there is another that suddenly finds a visit more appealing because they don't need to read forums or guidebooks on which FP to book and when. You would see an increase in one month out bookings. And I would wager, a park enthusiasts like yourself, would still end up going.

I think that virtual queuing systems like Fast Pass at DLR, Universal's Virtual Line, Tapu Tapu, and Fast Pass Plus at WDW are all a "grow the pie" system that does make the median experience better... if implemented appropriately. Clearly, FP+ at WDW is riddled with errors and loopholes, and just serves to help the experienced ones (like me and others on this message board) mostly, helps others some, and screws over others. A better system could grow the pie, and I just frankly think that WDW growing forward is impossible with stand-by only. They just need to think of a system that isn't as "beatable" and helps all guests equally instead of throwing in a lot of arbitrary quirks, rules, and exceptions that you can learn, and use to beat it. I mean, it doesn't matter what you do, whatever system they create I'll be able to beat... eventually at least... but I think they should at least do what they can to make it more egalitarian. I understand that people are paying a lot of money, and spending 90% of your day in awful, never moving lines for 4 minute rides isn't exactly most people's idea of "vacay mode." Hence the need to allow people to wait outside the line and come back when its time for them to ride.

WDW is a tourist destination with over 36,000 hotel rooms (and growing). Those hotel guests are their main source of income for WDW (hotel sales lead to food, merch, park ticket sales). They have stated repeatedly throughout the pandemic that they need their hotel guests back. They have taken away all of the free perks............If they want to continue to charge a premium for those guests, they need to incentivize them or else risk lower occupancy rates, resulting in less profits and a slower recovery to get back to normal and hiring back all those people they had to let go.

You might not realize it, but the reward for staying onsite now (since they gutted EMH and the 60 day window for FP+) is the reservation system. APholders gnash teeth and complain about not being able to roll out of bed and go to the parks on the weekends when they want. But when you're attached to a hotel, you have no problem getting what you want. Frankly, you don't have much of a problem if you're just willing to buy tickets. Remember, there's no limitation on what you can reserve when its attached to a hotel, so you can even book as far out as you want. Unless you wait to the last day or two for a very busy day, you'll get your pick of parks.

In a sense, the park reservation in practice isn't a capacity limiter, its just something to keep non-hotel AP guests out of the parks, except for when its convenient to Disney. I'm not even really trying to sound judgmental. They have to do what they have to do. It makes sense to me that when you pay $600 to go to the park for free all year that you wouldn't have better access that somebody who pays $1,000's for a few days. And really, as long as you take your AP and attach it to a hotel, you can go whenever you want as well.
 

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
Many rides, such as Toy Story Mania!, regularly have actual wait times that are roughly 1/3rd of the posted.

A few rides, such as 7DMT, have actuals that are pretty close to the posted.
I’ve had multiple days of Toy Story saying 45min and literally walking on.

It‘s probably driven by how the ride is managed.
 

Trackmaster

Well-Known Member
I’ve had multiple days of Toy Story saying 45min and literally walking on.

It‘s probably driven by how the ride is managed.

Cast Members have mentioned that a lot of what drives those waits is how hard the Fast Pass hits. While I assume that it should be pretty predictable as to which rides people will reliably cash their FP+ in vs. which rides won't even give out their allotment, maybe when they calculate the wait times, they don't do a great job of factoring which rides tend to get clobbered for with FP+. I find that very high to believe that they were overlook this, but I also can't imagine TSM being a very hot FP+, especially back when it was a tier 1. And believe it or not, despite how competitive some FP+'s are, Disney does actually have capacity for even more FP+ for the popular rides, and are tighter with the less popular rides.
 

Queen of the WDW Scene

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Cast Members have mentioned that a lot of what drives those waits is how hard the Fast Pass hits. While I assume that it should be pretty predictable as to which rides people will reliably cash their FP+ in vs. which rides won't even give out their allotment, maybe when they calculate the wait times, they don't do a great job of factoring which rides tend to get clobbered for with FP+. I find that very high to believe that they were overlook this, but I also can't imagine TSM being a very hot FP+, especially back when it was a tier 1. And believe it or not, despite how competitive some FP+'s are, Disney does actually have capacity for even more FP+ for the popular rides, and are tighter with the less popular rides.

I'm someone that loves FP+ but I agree its flawed.
I think the windows need to be much more narrowed down or at least not have a grace period (of course there will always be exceptions).
I think too many guests cash in at the same time which makes the SB longer plus makes FP+ much longer than it should be. There's times I've waited longer in the FP+ line vs those waiting in the regular line. This has happened with Soarin', TT, and TSM to me.
 

TTLUTS

Active Member
Original Poster
I'm someone that loves FP+ but I agree its flawed.
I think the windows need to be much more narrowed down or at least not have a grace period (of course there will always be exceptions).
I think too many guests cash in at the same time which makes the SB longer plus makes FP+ much longer than it should be. There's times I've waited longer in the FP+ line vs those waiting in the regular line. This has happened with Soarin', TT, and TSM to me.
I think the problem is they give it out to too many people........Everyone gets 3 FP's............resort guests should get 3, and everyone else 1 at a time (unlimited but can only book another one after each one is used) ......That would drastically improve wait times by cutting FP numbers in half
 

Marden

Active Member
I doubt the data exists anywhere for obvious reasons, but I would love to examine wait times from the 80s and 90s (and yes, I get it, totally different eras).
 

EngineerMom

Active Member
FastPass+ is a system conceived and implemented to enable Disney to give people less.
I disagree.
The first trip we took with FP/EMH back in 2006 my DH hated FP! Then we got used to it. Since we understood it we would go to a park and get to do what we wanted to. We RARELY had to skip a ride we wanted to do. THEN we would hop to a second park.

We love Disney but these days we REALLY appreciate that Universal gives benefits to THEIR hotel guests and ONLY their hotel guests unless you pay for it! As Disney has continued to build hotels I think they are NUTS if they don't give some benefits to their hotel guest and ONLY their hotel guests (Don't include other hotels that are right in the area. MAYBE I would give an exception to the Swan/Dolphin but I would even question that.)

The reservation system earlier is not enough of a benefit. PLUS we were debating a trip last minute trip and studios was booked for hotel guests and open for AP folks. They are allocating to categories not just saying X number and filling it first with hotel guests.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
I disagree.
The first trip we took with FP/EMH back in 2006 my DH hated FP! Then we got used to it. Since we understood it we would go to a park and get to do what we wanted to. We RARELY had to skip a ride we wanted to do. THEN we would hop to a second park.
Whether or not you like the system and can make it work for you is not really relevant to why the system was created and what it hoped to achieve.
 

"El Gran Magnifico"

Bring Me A Shrubbery
Premium Member
Do you really believe that Disney could not survive if it got rid of FP?

Not - Not Survive. But Why wait in a 45 Minute line if you can buy a Mickey Pretzel or a Churro or a .25 bottle of soda for $4.25 and join the line 30 minutes in? The purpose of FP is not so you can get on the ride quicker. It's for the 15-20 minutes your hovering around the ride waiting for the "Magic" time to get into the line. A lot of disposable income gets "disposed of" in those 15-20 minutes.
 

Goofnut1980

Well-Known Member
So I just got home from a week and a half at the parks. Let me say. Disney was clean. But the guests with mask issues was out of this world. So many under their nose. The entire week I only counted 4 CMs in yellow watching people. I thought Disney had a team of people for that role. We even went by an entire group of CMs/Managers and not one mentioned a thing to the guy with the mask down around his chin drinking his beer.

The parks were really busy. There were so many places that bottle-necked and people were elbow to elbow. It was actually pretty ridiculous. Almost every day the parks were "sold" out but talking to CMs they said the weekends are much busier. Which means they are going over the 35%.

Mobile order drives me absolutely NUTS. It would take 15 minutes on average to get your food after saying you were there. Which is NOT how it worked in September when we were there. It was always 2-3 mins for your food. Pecos Bills, the amount of people just chillin waiting on their food outside the door was insane.

Guests in lines for attractions were really bad at keeping to the lines on the ground. I did like not having FP+ however. The lines did move quite nicely. But the wait times were pretty high. We did notice they were posted about 10 minutes higher than the wait would be each time we would "time it". Overall we had a great time. Epcot was stupid busy last night for people wanting food in World Showcase.

Disney clearly needs to stop the pity party and bring back some CMs because the ones working were in overdrive. They are making money. Open the restaurants, quick service locations and shops. Even friends that are CMs say it is crazy how busy it is.

Oh yea.. Avoid Disney Springs unless you are ok being less than 2 feet from people. I am not here complaining, I had a great trip, but if you are all about social distancing, don't go to Disney right now. I am only providing my observations.
 

Club Cooloholic

Well-Known Member
Not - Not Survive. But Why wait in a 45 Minute line if you can buy a Mickey Pretzel or a Churro or a .25 bottle of soda for $4.25 and join the line 30 minutes in? The purpose of FP is not so you can get on the ride quicker. It's for the 15-20 minutes your hovering around the ride waiting for the "Magic" time to get into the line. A lot of disposable income gets "disposed of" in those 15-20 minutes.
This hits it on the head. Heck, when we went to ride ROTR, there always groups of people just standing around the entrance to it. I don't know if they were just waiting for their boarding number to be called or what but I found it strange, since the app will tell you exactly when you can go and there is no rush to get there.
 

SJG

New Member
Remember, when DeSantos released those guidelines many months ago where they talked about "Theme park capacity" that really had no effect on how Disney was operating, and a ton of people got into bad thinking habits from this. There was no percentage placed on ride capacity/rider throughput, that was just based on the make-up of the ride and how the Covid procedures effected the ride.

Its even completely comical that anybody ever thought that the "50% capacity" that Florida mentioned had anything to do with what was going on at Disney. People would seriously show up to a park with an empty parking lot, empty hotels, and were lapping Flight of Passage without a line thinking "Well I guess this is what 50% capacity looks like."

There never was a 50% capacity. Disney just trying to keep AP holders out at all costs. You could go no problem if you were attached to a hotel or bought a ticket.

And right now, Florida doesn't care. We're on our own. There are literally no Covid restrictions imposed by DeSantos, and has an executive order preventing counties and cities from doing anything. Everything is voluntary from businesses. Everything Disney is doing now is voluntary, and it still does not come anywhere close to 50% of capacity. Disney at 100% of capacity is pretty ridiculously high. That pretty much means that you can't move on the midways, forget about actually getting on anything.


To be honest these parks are still pretty uncrowded. I think that the throughput of the rides is just so gutted by Covid, and the fact that there's little entertainment outside of the rides that make the rides so jammed up. I also think that two years ago, nobody thought twice about being on a bumper to bumper theme park midway, but now when you see any crowd of people, you (legitimately) fear for your life. So the crowds just have a psychological factor behind them.
My husband and I are APs and we first went back in August and we felt really safe, low crowds, extremely short lines, we loved it. So we went back every few weeks until the first of November. It was a nightmare, lines so long all we could really do was walk around. It felt very unsafe. We were afraid to take off our masks to eat. So we left the park & went to the WDW McDonald's and back to the park. The big deal with park hopping is stupid. We need fast passes when we go back (after we get vaccines) and even though we could go every day to WDW, right now there is no appeal!
 

StarshipDisney

Well-Known Member
FP+ has always worked very well for us so I like it and hope it comes back. Went to Universal in 2019 and had their Maxpass and had some very long waits. Also despise the Universal mandatory locker system...that system is awful and greatly takes away from enjoying the best rides. I guess at least they don't charge for the mandatory lockers like SeaWorld does.

To each their own but I'll take Disney over Universal any day. Please bring back FP+.
 

Trackmaster

Well-Known Member
My husband and I are APs and we first went back in August and we felt really safe, low crowds, extremely short lines, we loved it. So we went back every few weeks until the first of November. It was a nightmare, lines so long all we could really do was walk around. It felt very unsafe. We were afraid to take off our masks to eat. So we left the park & went to the WDW McDonald's and back to the park. The big deal with park hopping is stupid. We need fast passes when we go back (after we get vaccines) and even though we could go every day to WDW, right now there is no appeal!

Yeah, July and August was paradise. DHS was still hit pretty hard, but the other three parks were great. I was lapping FoP and being sent through the shortcut for re-rides like a brutal hurricane had just passed through. I think it was just the result of Disney being very tight with AP reservations, and out of state tourism being almost non-existent. Once the lines starting getting bad I just decided to pull my ADHD and get DAS access. Maybe just trying racking your brain and seeing if anybody in your party has anything that qualifies as a disability? They're pretty lenient. Being able to kill time on the midways instead of a brutal standby line is incredibly clutch.
 

Trackmaster

Well-Known Member
FP+ has always worked very well for us so I like it and hope it comes back. Went to Universal in 2019 and had their Maxpass and had some very long waits. Also despise the Universal mandatory locker system...that system is awful and greatly takes away from enjoying the best rides. I guess at least they don't charge for the mandatory lockers like SeaWorld does.

To each their own but I'll take Disney over Universal any day. Please bring back FP+.

You're calling the Express at USF/IOA the MaxPass? So you call it something that's not even in the same chain... and not even used in the park in the same state...? MaxPass is Disneyland bro.
 

StarshipDisney

Well-Known Member
You're calling the Express at USF/IOA the MaxPass? So you call it something that's not even in the same chain... and not even used in the park in the same state...? MaxPass is Disneyland bro.

Sorry if I got the name wrong. We stayed at Portofino Bay and whatever they had was included in the package. Regardless of name, we still did not think well of the Universal system.
 

Ldno

Well-Known Member
This hits it on the head. Heck, when we went to ride ROTR, there always groups of people just standing around the entrance to it. I don't know if they were just waiting for their boarding number to be called or what but I found it strange, since the app will tell you exactly when you can go and there is no rush to get there.
I take advantage of this even if I get called I ride another ride, smugglers run or slinky dog dash, because I have an hour to get back to ride which is A guarantee, people don’t really know how to manage their time at the parks, especially when time is gold.

To the OP don’t freak out at the long lines and long wait times, believe 85% of them are half the wait and even then you are always moving and always on the go you can’t even catch your breath.

Having said that the only accurate queues were the carousel, mad tea cup, mickey and minnies broke down on me while I was waiting so of course it was an issue but still, I did a lot more than I would had done with Fastpass + it’s liberating to not stress about planning this trip, having said that also think of your upcoming trip and go in with the Maxpass mentality and you will do and see everything because it works exactly the same way the queues are short despite the posted wait times, yes frozen ever after was all the way in middle of china but after 20 minutes we boarded the ships and got on so there’s that Despite the 55 minute app posted wait Which is literally what you would had waited With a fast pass reservation anyways lol
 

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