Increased Wait Times?

[Rubberburner]

I've noticed the wait times at all if the parks creeping up since the start of Labor Day weekend.

For anybody who has been to the parks in the last week, how has the experience been?

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I was there the week prior. Everything about a 15 minute wait on average. You had some 5's and some 30's (7DMT), a few 20's Thunder.
In some of the conversations I had with CM's they did expect it to get busier on Labor Day Weekend and the few days after. We'll see how long it lasts.

 

[Tori]

Weekends are a lot more crowded. Week days are still nice and slow.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Weekends are a lot more crowded. Week days are still nice and slow.

Because the locals are “trained” to return after Labor Day when the evil Yankee is gone...

...which would make sense except it completely doesn’t in the current world

 

[Chef Mickey]

I’ve been here the entire time since Sept 3. The wait times are fake for the most part. Routinely, 45 minute waits are actually 10-15. Pirates was posted at 45 and we walked on and had our own boat.

Labor Day was slightly more crowded at Hollywood Studios, but the last week or so has been somewhat slow, comparable to the first week of reopen, slightly more.

I will say today (sept 12) at AK, crowds are returning to somewhat of a normal feel. It will happen, but people are worried about planes I think...not so much coming to Disney.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I’ve been here the entire time since Sept 3. The wait times are fake for the most part. Routinely, 45 minute waits are actually 10-15. Pirates was posted at 45 and we walked on and had our own boat.

Labor Day was slightly more crowded at Hollywood Studios, but the last week or so has been somewhat slow, comparable to the first week of reopen, slightly more.

I will say today (sept 12) at AK, crowds are returning to somewhat of a normal feel. It will happen, but people are worried about planes I think...not so much coming to Disney.

I'll go with exaggerated. Don't know about a 45 being a 10 routinely though. I will say the 10 minutes at Soarin' is because that's about how long it took to walk through an empty queue an actually get to the point I fastened the belt.

 

[Figments Friend]

A few folks recently have mentioned that the posted wait times are in many cases not always as they appear to be.
A Attraction showing up as a '40 minute wait' often ends up being a 10 or 15 minute wait in reality.
Not in every case...but it does happen.
I've been reading several recent trip reports elsewhere over the last couple of days and many people mention this having happened during their visit over the last week or so.

It's been discussed in other threads over the years about how the Parks sometimes purposely mispost the wait times to control Guest flow.

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[UNCgolf]

It's been discussed in other threads over the years about how the Parks sometimes purposely mispost the wait times to control Guest flow.

I don't know why everyone doesn't realize this/don't believe it. The wait times are almost always inflated year round.

It's typically only by 10-15 minutes, but it's partially a guest satisfaction tactic (airlines do something similar). If you say it's a 60 minute wait and a person only has to wait 45, they are going to be much happier than if the wait time says 45 and they wait 60. It's a simple way to head off some potential complaints.

 

[The4mousekeeters]

We were there over Labor Day weekend (MK and HS) and we found that the wait times posted were often much longer than the actual time in line.
I also wonder, with the distancing protocols, if it’s hard for them to accurately place wait times on a line that does not look or move like normal.

 

[Twirlnhurl]

Social distancing requires a larger wait time buffer than normal in order to ensure that the posted wait time is never less than the real wait time.

For example, on Runaway Railway, it is my understanding that someone in a party of 1 will have a vehicle to themselves. That means the number of people served by each vehicle is going to be between 1 and 8, when it normally would serve between 7 and 8 with a skilled grouper.

Since the distribution of group sizes in line is variable, and the range of the possible vehicle capacities is wider, the possible wait times for X number of people in line has a wider distributio. Therefore, the posted wait times needs to be higher than the average wait time for X number of people in line.

I think that makes sense.

 

[winnie1421]

We were at EPCOT yesterday. The crowds were very light, but many places closed. The only wait was for Frozen which had been "temporarily unavailable" the first four hours of the day .