Rumor Disney may be about to expand the use of virtual queue boarding groups at Walt Disney World

[MisterPenguin]

That's mainly the effect of not having FP slowing the standby down.

Pfft.

It's standby that slows down the FP+ lines!!

 

[larryz]

You need to go to the Disneyland Resort in California for the experience you seek.
Whenever it reopens.

One can literally just walk in the front gate and do whatever they wish on a whim without being 'forced' to reserve and plan everything six months in advance like today's visitors to WDW are 'required' to do.

Go, and experience the joy of freedom again!
Enjoy the 'Disneyland Difference'!



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Only if one times it correctly. Your mileage will vary Thursday thru Sunday and on national holidays.

 

[havoc315]

I think the demand for disney is fundamentally on another planet from uni.

Nonsense. This isn't a subjective question of which has more international popularity. It's an objective calculation of the actual number of people in the park, the actual number of people who want to ride a given ride.
You really think the demand for Jungle Cruise is "on another planet" from the demand for Universal Rides?

Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure have roughly the same historical annual attendance as Disney Hollywood Studios and slightly higher attendance than Disney California Adventure.

 

[M:SpilotISTC12]

In theory no it should be the same liklihood as current operations. If the ride is walk-on then no queue is there, virtual or otherwise.
If the queue gets so long that it is spilling into the walkway, then they operate a virtual queue and you return after the wait time has elapsted, if you would have been waiting 90 minutes in line you come back in 90 minutes.

The ability to ride as much as you want is currently limited by the length of the line which is determined by the capacity versus the popularity.

When I see boarding groups I see the RotR situation which is not ideal. Virtual queue is fine especially with your logic of queues going into walk ways. I’m under the impression that it’s more of a “boarding group” situation and not a “virtual queue”.

 

[Lirael]

Cant they integrate the now unused FP+ queues as part of the regular queue to keep the social distancing up without spilling out of the ride.

It feels like money pinching schemes. Rather then work hard to use the FP+ space, might as well implement VQ instead and hope people will spend the non queue time buying stuff

 

[Jon81uk]

When I see boarding groups I see the RotR situation which is not ideal. Virtual queue is fine especially with your logic of queues going into walk ways. I’m under the impression that it’s more of a “boarding group” situation and not a “virtual queue”.

they are the same thing. The issue with Rise of the Resistance is the capacity versus the popularity. The ride is popular and due to breakdowns the capacity is very low.

 

[Jon81uk]

Cant they integrate the now unused FP+ queues as part of the regular queue to keep the social distancing up without spilling out of the ride.

It feels like money pinching schemes. Rather then work hard to use the FP+ space, might as well implement VQ instead and hope people will spend the non queue time buying stuff

As has already been said, in most cases the FP queues are being used for accesibility access pass returns, parent swap returns and similar.

Also in the majority of cases there isn't much FP queue to route people through and it doesn't go anywhere that will sensibly help. A lot of FP queues go straight to the boarding point in one direction, so you can't use it to snake people out and back again.

 

[M:SpilotISTC12]

they are the same thing. The issue with Rise of the Resistance is the capacity versus the popularity. The ride is popular and due to breakdowns the capacity is very low.

They aren’t the same thing. When rise is slow you can’t just walk up and queue. Boarding group is all the time and only way to ride.

 

[Jon81uk]

They aren’t the same thing. When rise is slow you can’t just walk up and queue. Boarding group is all the time and only way to ride.

because it is never slow.

The boarding group and the virtual queue system are pretty much the same.
But RotR is an exception because it has incredibly limited capacity, breaks down a lot and is popular. I'm sure if they were in a position to release more groups, as in everyone who got one has now been able to ride then they would. The issue is they have barely got the ride to deliver that and offer the ability for everyone who currently is in the virtual queue to ride.
If it was a physical standby queue its like having to stop the queue taking more people as the wait time is longer than the park hours.

 

[M:SpilotISTC12]

Ok I’ll even play it under your scenario. If that’s how it is for one ride, what is stopping the same thing from happening to space mountain at magic kingdom? There are many rides that have long busy queues all day. So now Disney is setting the same precedent with Rise to other major attractions. What is going to keep the same Rise scenario from spreading to other attractions?

 

[Jon81uk]

Ok I’ll even play it under your scenario. If that’s how it is for one ride, what is stopping the same thing from happening to space mountain at magic kingdom? There are many rides that have long busy queues all day. So now Disney is setting the same precedent with Rise to other major attractions. What is going to keep the same Rise scenario from spreading to other attractions?

Higher capacity and lower popularity.

Also I don't think Space Mountain is getting a wait time longer than a few hours.

Look at how Universal is using virtual queues.

 

[ppete1975]

I kinda agree.
Maybe they should do things the old fashioned way, wanna ride it? Wait in the line. If you really want to ride it, you wait 2 hours. If you don't then don't. Something is wrong that we reward people that are fastest on their phones(what do elderly visitors do, my mother would be lost,).
If the ride can't handle a decent percentage of park visitors throughout the day, maybe it's just not an appropriate ride for an amusement park or the amusement park is letting in too many guests.

i also wonder if people that usually wouldnt ride every day make it a habit to try to get a pass. Im thinking AP. i also wonder if people get them and never use them, either leaving the park before their time or just seeing if they can get one.

 

[M:SpilotISTC12]

Higher capacity and lower popularity.

Also I don't think Space Mountain is getting a wait time longer than a few hours.

Look at how Universal is using virtual queues.

Rides that will have it will be popular so that point is moot. And with a cast member layoff you think every ride will be running at it’s highest capacity?

 

[Jon81uk]

Rides that will have it will be popular so that point is moot. And with a cast member layoff you think every ride will be running at it’s highest capacity?

In which case your very original point about wanting to re-ride with zero wait is moot anyway as if popular rides are not being run at high enough capacity there will be waits.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

i also wonder if people that usually wouldnt ride every day make it a habit to try to get a pass. Im thinking AP. i also wonder if people get them and never use them, either leaving the park before their time or just seeing if they can get one.

It's just not what a vacation is about to me. It becomes work. I much prefer Disneyland's approach of not having to do fast passes ahead of time.
Disney wants you to be there all day, buying their food and drinks.
You are right about the AP thing, an easy and fair way to fix this would be that if you get a boarding group you can't get another for 7 days.

 

[peoplemover]

I took for granted how dead the parks were in July. Hollywood studios is packed today.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Ok I’ll even play it under your scenario. If that’s how it is for one ride, what is stopping the same thing from happening to space mountain at magic kingdom? There are many rides that have long busy queues all day. So now Disney is setting the same precedent with Rise to other major attractions. What is going to keep the same Rise scenario from spreading to other attractions?

Boarding Groups are a virtual queue. What you’re arguing about is implementation, not a different thing. There are different strategies to reduce the sort of instantaneous utilization seen with Rise of the Resistance. The first would be one already seen, breaking up capacity and offering it in chunks throughout the day. A more lottery based system could also be used. Another requires more attractions, but it would be the old FastPass rule of not allowing anyone to hold more than one virtual pass at a time, so people have to chose between Space Mountain and something else. But yes, Disney could easily mess it up and make other attractions the same sort of ridiculous scramble based on device and connectivity.

 

[Jon81uk]

not allowing anyone to hold more than one virtual pass at a time

I really hope if they do need to add more virtual queues they add this rule. It should be a replacement for the physical line, therefore you can only hold one at a time. Maybe make RotR the exception, but for everything else you should only have one at a time. So at most you could have a RotR reservation, a Falcon return time and be in the physical line for something else.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

i also wonder if people get them and never use them, either leaving the park before their time or just seeing if they can get one.

I’ve done that. I had hoped to be called before i wanted to hop to Epcot to see the broadway concert.

I would have preferred to just get in line that morning and ride it or hop over over after the broadway concert and jump in line at park closing like I did with avatar after it’s opening.

 

[havoc315]

Boarding Groups are a virtual queue. What you’re arguing about is implementation, not a different thing. There are different strategies to reduce the sort of instantaneous utilization seen with Rise of the Resistance. The first would be one already seen, breaking up capacity and offering it in chunks throughout the day. A more lottery based system could also be used. Another requires more attractions, but it would be the old FastPass rule of not allowing anyone to hold more than one virtual pass at a time, so people have to chose between Space Mountain and something else. But yes, Disney could easily mess it up and make other attractions the same sort of ridiculous scramble based on device and connectivity.

Fastpasses-- especially the old fashioned fastpasses were a virtual queue.
With pre-smart phone technology, the best way to move along a virtual queue was to assign times. You could estimate the number of people who could ride in a given hour, and then distribute fastpasses accordingly.

This had a bit of inefficiency -- if a ride went down for a period of time, it messed up fastpasses. If you had lots of people not returning to use their fastpasses (for example, it started to rain), then you had ridership going to waste and could have given out more times.

With smart phone technology, it's easy to use virtual queue that doesn't come with a precise time. Whether you call it boarding groups. Or simply watch your phone to see when your time is coming nearer. Thus, if the ride goes down or has to get through a particularly heavy crowd, then your ride-time can be pushed back later. If ridership is suddenly very light, you may be called back for your ride a little earlier.

But yes - Disney could screw things up. Virtual queues, including FP+, comes with the danger of letting people effectively be in 2 lines at once. And if you don't limit the number of VQ spots a person can hold, they may end up in more and more lines at the same time.

Universal Volcano Bay has this problem when they opened (not sure if they have corrected it) -- With every ride as a virtual queue, people had very little to do while waiting for their return times. So even the return lines for the virtual queue became unbelievably long.

We've seen the issue with FP+ ... letting EVERYONE has THREE fastpasses -- effectively putting them in 3 lines at once, has made regular standby lines extra long everywhere. And it's required them to essentially create fake fastpasses -- Fastpasses for attractions that truly have no need for a virtual queue system. Forcing you to use your FP for things like the Beauty and Beast show at DHS.

Any effective VQ system has to be limited. If it gets expanded to lots of attractions, there have to be limits such as only being able to hold 1 VQ spot at a time (like the old days of paper fastpass or the current Maxpass system).

If Disney is smart, they can modernize fastpass in a way that boosts their profitability while also making for a better guest experience.
Imagine 2 types of "fastpasses" --- A limited number of "advanced Fastpasses" --maybe solely for onsite guests. (1 per day for value guests, 2 per day for moderate guests, 3 per day for deluxe guests). These work much like regular FP+.
But these limits would really limit the number of FPs being given out in advance.
Then, generally just on E-ticket rides -- make them FP-only. With availability of "same day FPs" -- Basically, virtual queues.
And for non-E-ticket, high capacity attractions, go back to making them standby only.

I believe such a system could dramatically reduce wait times for everyone in exchange for limiting the number of E-ticket attractions you can really get done in a day. Would increase profitability as it would be a strong incentive to book onsite and to upsell to higher resort categories. And I believe people would be happier if they got to experience 2-3 E-ticket attractions in a day with minimal standing in line, then if they got to experience 4-5, with 60+ minute lines at most of them.