I don't think WDW knows how to accurately predict wait times absent FP+.
They certainly aren't handing out the Red Tracker chits anymore.
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Rumor 40% Capacity Soon? What if I Told You That We’re Already There
- Thread starter The Visionary Soul
- Start date
They certainly aren't handing out the Red Tracker chits anymore.
GymLeaderPhil
Well-Known Member
While this fluctuates based on what’s operating and how many cast members are working, after the Fantasyland expansion the Magic Kingdom maximum capacity is much closer to Epcot’s theoretical capacity now. Despite the wide open walkways/plazas/parking and seasonal festival activities, there have been subtractions due to closed pavilions/attractions. Reductions in exhibitors at Innoventions and cutting of entertainment too. Epcot in its heyday had a ton of people eating entertainment and rides.
This will likely change in Epcot’s favor once they open their slate of upcoming attractions.
The wait times are now predominately monitored remotely by cameras hidden throughout the queues. Industrial engineers have measured and tested over many years to the point where it’s possible to visually determine the wait time based on where the end of the line is. This also takes into account attractions that may or may not be operating with their full capacity, dispatching ratio, etc.
Since COVID 19 requires social distancing and with FastPass unavailable, all of that detailed line measurement science went out the window.
Additionally, once a queue extend outside of the main entrance and structured chains/barriers into walkways it’s up to the cast member holding the sign at the end of the line to make a determination. There’s no communication between that cast member at end of the line and the team that updates the digital displays/My Disney Experience.
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
Do they use any magic band data for line movement speed?
lentesta
Premium Member
They did. The problems are that socially-distanced lines extend well past where they've placed the RFID readers; and that nobody has any experience visually estimating wait times based on these kinds of lines.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
No need to point that out to me. We're here for that reason. Kids started school again today...remotely from Kissimmee.
Furiated
Well-Known Member
This makes total sense as to why wait times weren't accurate as they started to reopen. But now that they've had the extreme extended lines for months, shouldn't they have it figured out a little better by now?
Magic Feather
Well-Known Member
They have gotten a handle on actual wait times. Inflation reason vary from ride to ride, but the general reason is to discourage people from joining the queue at certain times. For instance, MMRR’s new extended queue holds about 50 min worth of people, but when it starts to go beyond that, they will spike it to ~90 to discourage people from entering. Almost any ride that uses up most of its queue space does this.
Quoted for emphasis. Lines at most big attractions now extend into areas well beyond queue areas. Frozen queue started in the Outpost, wound through China, and then into Norway, finally. Space Mountain queue started near the exit of tomorrowland Speedway, wound around the stage and through the old smoking area, in addition to weaving around in the entire plaza between the entrance and the bathrooms. Slinky Dog queue started in Animation Courtyard. MFSR queue started at the spot where Galaxy Edge and Toy Story Land come together, and actually went backstage (very bad show, but still interesting).
My experience is that posted wait times are in the ballpark, but not what I would call accurate. More often the actual wait time was 5-10 minutes less, but sometimes it was more.
I visited in August, October and this week. The extended queues they are using now are far beyond what was needed in October, and several queues are being routed in very different ways than they previously were. For MFSR, I heard cast member remarking that the queue had be rerouted that morning.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
This is an actual photo from Chapeks office where he is directing one of his interns to choose the next move for the Disney company to make.
Not sure how you got a hold of this.... let’s hope you don’t get in trouble for posting it!!!
lentesta
Premium Member
For key rides like Big Thunder, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Expedition Everest, recent posted wait times are roughly double the actual waits. So a posted wait of 60 is an actual of 30.
Furiated
Well-Known Member
That's true. But it seems like some they just extended further. Like the one that stuck out during my trip in Sept was TSM. The line extended out of TSL back to the bathrooms by the old entrance. Line looked massive and was posted at 45 min. I timed it, and it only took me 14 min to get on the ride. I see that now the line is the same but also extended into the Municiberg area. So you'd think, Disney should know that the line going as far back as the bathrooms is closer to 15 min than 45 min, and then just tack on a few more min when you extend into Municiberg.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
Disney can never get the wait times right. It’s great to see a 45 min posted wait time was only 14 min! It seems Disney intentionally over states wait times which is good! You have a less than expected wait and folks who look at the posted wait may also decide to not get in the queue, also good!
GymLeaderPhil
Well-Known Member
It’s also common for the numbers to artificially be raised during normal park operating hours closing before party nights for the same reason.
RememberWhen
Well-Known Member
Is that because they are trying to direct people elsewhere or because they really don’t know how long the line is?
matt9112
Well-Known Member
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
And if you don’t go there, unfortunately just about everything else also has long lines. You can only see MuppetVision so many times. And I say that as someone who loves him some MuppetVision. I think I laugh more watching it than I did when I was 7...
lentesta
Premium Member
I think it's a mix. In EPCOT, I think the wait times are inflated to discourage people from going inside pavilions.
Here's Soarin' from Monday as an example. Black dots are posted waits; green dots are actuals.
When posted waits are 30 to 45 and actual waits are 3 to 18, for hours on end, that's systemic. It looks like a theater closed around 5 p.m., leading to a spike in wait times.
In other instances, it's probably just that it's hard to estimate. Here's Big Thunder from Monday:
I mean, the posted wait goes from 50 to 115 to 50 between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., and then 45-115-45 between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. That's either an operational issue or two different people with two different methods of visually estimating wait times. It's almost certainly not physically possible to observe a large enough crowd swing for that to be natural.
Magic Feather
Well-Known Member
Studios is in an especially weird spot because it just doesn’t have enough space. They really need to stop increasing its capacity.
Going from North to South, Tower’s been getting increasingly unreliable (it’s been running on half capacity so frequently how it’s not even funny), but at full cap it’s currently established extended queue lasts about 80 min.
RnRc’s recent downtime didn’t help anything, but for the most part it’s been one of the park’s best case scenarios, with its max line being just shy of an hour.
MMRR was already addressed.
TSM has the blessing of Pixar Place to fill queue (still tops out at ~30-40 min.
Slinky, when stretched to Animation Courtyard, is usually just over one hour.
Aliens can’t get higher than 20 min before they cap the line to let it die down.
Falcon’s extended queue plan is absolutely crazy (it can go all the way to Grand Ave), but even that is only about 90-100 min. (By TSL is just over 1 hr).
Finally, Star Tours is 30 minutes once it’s on Grand Ave.
They are just in a really bad situation, and DAK also struggles with Kilimanjaro and Everest (their actual queues even when using FotLK and Nemo, respectively), not being able to hold more than 30 min.