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

[Lora Baines Bradley]

Also, if you're not at the park at exactly rope drop, you can forget about riding any marquee attraction.

this is incredibly inaccurate from my experience during the week. I went to AK during the week and got there around 1. I rode Everest 5 times, Dinosaur 3, FOP + NRJ. They closed at 6.

Went to MK during the week and got there around 11. We rode 7DMT, Pooh, BTMR, POTC, Space, and HM while still being able to walk and enjoy the park.

 

[dizneycrazy09]

this is incredibly inaccurate from my experience during the week. I went to AK during the week and got there around 1. I rode Everest 5 times, Dinosaur 3, FOP + NRJ. They closed at 6.

Went to MK during the week and got there around 11. We rode 7DMT, Pooh, BTMR, POTC, Space, and HM while still being able to walk and enjoy the park.

But when was this? Things drastically changed from September to now in terms of overall crowds.

 

[monothingie]

this is incredibly inaccurate from my experience during the week. I went to AK during the week and got there around 1. I rode Everest 5 times, Dinosaur 3, FOP + NRJ. They closed at 6.

Went to MK during the week and got there around 11. We rode 7DMT, Pooh, BTMR, POTC, Space, and HM while still being able to walk and enjoy the park.

Was this last week or 2 months ago?

 

[YodaMan]

This confuses me. Can someone please tell me if the way I’m thinking is wrong...

Redistributing a line (or multiple lines) because of overcrowding is just moving people to other, also unruly lines creating further issues with overcrowding elsewhere, making physical distancing nearly impossible. Is there something I’m missing in this?

You are basically correct, with the exception being that some lines are better controlled than others. They pretty much want every line contained in the queue and not spilling out into the main thoroughfares. A queue like Jungle Cruise is tiny, but something like Mermaid is massive. I think the goal is to keep lines contained, and “force” people into the more spacious queues. Giving out VQ for Jungle but not Mermaid would keep the Jungle line short and contained and people would instead spend their time waiting in the Mermaid queue which has plenty of extra space.

 

[Lora Baines Bradley]

But when was this? Things drastically changed from September to now in terms of overall crowds.

Was this last week or 2 months ago?

I was at MK Sept 22nd and AK October 2nd. So not super recently, but within the last month. My AP expired and I’m still debating on renewing.

 

[rodserling27]

When they reopened, WDW said they would not be using FP+ so that they could use the dedicated FP queues to space people out. However, after two trips during the pandemic, I did not see a single dedicated FP queue area being used. This could EASILY fix the overflow problems on many attractions: space mountain, splash, big thunder, Everest, Tower, RnRC...why add this virtual nonsense? Seems like it just causes headaches for Rise of Resistance already. (Although admittedly, I have never had a problem getting on Rise of the Resistance.)

 

[techgeek]

This confuses me. Can someone please tell me if the way I’m thinking is wrong...

Redistributing a line (or multiple lines) because of overcrowding is just moving people to other, also unruly lines creating further issues with overcrowding elsewhere, making physical distancing nearly impossible. Is there something I’m missing in this?

My only thought on that is that with a socially distanced line, that it really doesn’t take that many people in line for it to become visually quite long. Taking Smugglers Run as an example, the standby queue when completely filled per-covid held at least an hour... probably over 1500 people packed together.

Today that same line can be walked in 20 minutes. With reduced ride capacity. There can’t be more then a few hundred people actually in the same queue space, which distributed over the rest of the park is manageable.

 

[dizneycrazy09]

My only thought on that is that with a socially distanced line, that it really doesn’t take that many people in line for it to become visually quite long. Taking Smugglers Run as an example, the standby queue when completely filled per-covid held at least an hour... probably over 1500 people packed together.

Today that same line can be walked in 20 minutes. With reduced ride capacity. There can’t be more then a few hundred people actually in the same queue space, which distributed over the rest of the park is manageable.

See this makes sense to me if one or two lines were having issues with spilling out into walkways, but it’s literally EVERY line. Even adding another three or four dozen parties to already long lines with social distancing measures in place, you’ve now got the same problem but with more attractions.

 

[monothingie]

I was at MK Sept 22nd and AK October 2nd. So not super recently, but within the last month. My AP expired and I’m still debating on renewing.

Based on crowd trackers it seems that since the first full week of October, crowds levels have more than doubled. (Level 2 and 3 became 4 and 6). It peaked the previous weekend for Columbus days, but even this past weekend it was much higher than in the past several months.

 

[monothingie]

My only thought on that is that with a socially distanced line, that it really doesn’t take that many people in line for it to become visually quite long. Taking Smugglers Run as an example, the standby queue when completely filled per-covid held at least an hour... probably over 1500 people packed together.

Today that same line can be walked in 20 minutes. With reduced ride capacity. There can’t be more then a few hundred people actually in the same queue space, which distributed over the rest of the park is manageable.

I'm not saying that wait times are an accurate reflection of the level of crowds, but we've seen for example the SDD end of line picture into Animation Courtyard with a 70 minute wait time. 70 minutes was fairly normal pre-covid.

 

[LastoneOn]

This confuses me. Can someone please tell me if the way I’m thinking is wrong...

Redistributing a line (or multiple lines) because of overcrowding is just moving people to other, also unruly lines creating further issues with overcrowding elsewhere, making physical distancing nearly impossible. Is there something I’m missing in this?

We'll all be able to experience the shopping experience while we wait. There isn't much of the street entertainment experience left to experience, but there will be a few other attractions we can wait in line for to experience, primarily in Tomorrowland at MK. However we won't be able to experience the table service dining experience unless we've got an ADR or want to wait in line for quick serve experience. Even at the table service experience we'll be waiting in line because our ADRs are just approximate times and we probably don't have them anyway because we were not expecting to be eating at the same time we were experiencing the E Ticket attraction we've gotten in virtual queue for, and in any event we had no idea when we'd actually be able to get in the queue, if ever, that day, so we probably didn't make an ADRs 6 months ago for that day.

We will be able to experience the wandering around waiting looking for a place to sit down experience, a lot.

So I guess all in all, you're right: we're going to in line someplace just not the line we'd really like. Its the 21st century Disney experience.

 

[Unbanshee]

I had another DHS “E-Ticket” hinted to me about adding VQ yesterday, but Smuggler’s Run would not have been my guess. Sure the queue gets a little unwieldy in the morning, but it usually gets under control by noon at the latest.

IMO, a really interesting test would be to put everything in DHS on VQ except for one or two things (like Star Tours and Mania) with one queue allowed at a time.

Runaway would make sense given it has the longest posted wait times this month, on average

Longest Attraction Wait Times at Disney World (October 2020)

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[durangojim]

I had another DHS “E-Ticket” hinted to me about adding VQ yesterday, but Smuggler’s Run would not have been my guess. Sure the queue gets a little unwieldy in the morning, but it usually gets under control by noon at the latest.

IMO, a really interesting test would be to put everything in DHS on VQ except for one or two things (like Star Tours and Mania) with one queue allowed at a time.

I think if you only had one queue at a time you could potentially have people only riding 1-2 rides per day. If that was the case I think FP+ would just be better if they let you still choose 3 rides and didn't have standby queues for any of the rides.

 

[mikejs78]

I'm not saying that wait times are an accurate reflection of the level of crowds, but we've seen for example the SDD end of line picture into Animation Courtyard with a 70 minute wait time. 70 minutes was fairly normal pre-covid.

Sure, although they aren't filling the ride vehicles to capacity either... It's hard to get an accurate picture of things because of that...

 

[mikejs78]

I think if you only had one queue at a time you could potentially have people only riding 1-2 rides per day. If that was the case I think FP+ would just be better.

I'm surprised they're not using FP+ again.. That's a whole side of the queue that now is practically unused...

 

[cmwade77]

I'm confused, if they are still operating at "25%" operating capacity, why is overcrowding now a problem? (even though they've had several "sell outs" previously which have not come close to matching the current crowd levels in the parks)


If only they had this pass that would allow fast access to rides for people who have made reservation for the ride ahead of time to perhaps make queue utilization more efficient.

My guess is they are using 25% of what the fire department considers max capacity for the parks and given the number of shows, character meet and greets and such that are closed, the reality is the number should be much, much lower. These things all normally eat up the crowds, but without them, the crowds are all going to attractions, making it feel much more crowded. Add in reduced capacity on the rides and it is an issue.

 

[cmwade77]

I'm surprised they're not using FP+ again.. That's a whole side of the queue that now is practically unused...

I suspect they are concerned about what it would do to guests that need a DAS, get guest recovery, etc. and trying to figure out the best way to balance the crowds on that side with reduced capacity.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

I guess the question is, when they were operating in August and there were sell out days, were they capping everything at 25% then? Because when those days sold out, the crowds were no where near what they are on a non-sellout day today.

Or was Chapek just BS ing people?

Or have they cut capacity of attractions which has lowered throughput and increased wait times?

Chapek BS ing people? Come on now.

 

[YodaMan]

My guess is they are using 25% of what the fire department considers max capacity for the parks and given the number of shows, character meet and greets and such that are closed, the reality is the number should be much, much lower. These things all normally eat up the crowds, but without them, the crowds are all going to attractions, making it feel much more crowded. Add in reduced capacity on the rides and it is an issue.

The number for Studios is definitely not 25% of the fire department capacity but is much closer to 25% of the capacity for the shows/attractions that are currently available

 

[HauntedPirate]

I'm surprised they're not using FP+ again.. That's a whole side of the queue that now is practically unused...

CM’s cost money, and Disney can’t afford more than the bare minimum right now, don’t cha know? Who cares about meaningless buzzwords like “guest experience” when we’re talking about Chapek making large shareholders happy??