New Africa Layout Causing Dangerous Traffic Flow Issues

[castlecake2.0]

At some point in the last few months Festival of the Lion King moved their stroller parking area to directly across from the entrance. It looks like this was done to use the former stroller parking area as overflow queue for Kilimanjaro Safaris. Which for some reason is more often than not snaking through the entire land blocking multiple entrances/exits to buildings and clogging walkways. The issue is heightened when FOLK has a showdump. The crowded path grinds to a halt as the exiting guests all converge on the makeshift stroller area and clog up the area. Double whammy is when there are performances happening on the harambe stage. Africa needs guest flow help ASAP before someone gets hurt.

 

[JoeCamel]

At some point in the last few months Festival of the Lion King moved their stroller parking area to directly across from the entrance. It looks like this was done to use the former stroller parking area as overflow queue for Kilimanjaro Safaris. Which for some reason is more often than not snaking through the entire land blocking multiple entrances/exits to buildings and clogging walkways. The issue is heightened when FOLK has a showdump. The crowded path grinds to a halt as the exiting guests all converge on the makeshift stroller area and clog up the area. Double whammy is when there are performances happening on the harambe stage. Africa needs guest flow help ASAP before someone gets hurt.View attachment 608805View attachment 608806

Look at all those smiling faces having fun

 

[flynnibus]

if this is photos of grave concern... over 'dangerous' conditions.. uhh wow. Not so much

I get it's annoying when people are moving in different directions and you can't get a continuous flow.. but that's not really condensed at all.

 

[castlecake2.0]

if this is photos of grave concern... over 'dangerous' conditions.. uhh wow. Not so much

I get it's annoying when people are moving in different directions and you can't get a continuous flow.. but that's not really condensed at all.

This was once the crowd cleared (more trying to show the area in question, I admit I didn’t get photo/video of the height of it ((as I was too busy trying to push people’s strollers out of the path to allow people through)) ).It was gridlocked. When an entire trough fare comes to a standstill and no one can move it is dangerous. I watched it happen three show dumps in a row today.

 

[gerarar]

I was there today. It was a mess around 2pm. Didn't stick around since I was passing thru the area to head out for a park hop to HS.

 

[Stevek]

The only issue I really noticed a couple weeks ago was the very long line for safari…though it didn’t take that long to get through it.

 

[ToTBellHop]

if this is photos of grave concern... over 'dangerous' conditions.. uhh wow. Not so much

I get it's annoying when people are moving in different directions and you can't get a continuous flow.. but that's not really condensed at all.

A non-negative number of guests have DIED due to this mayhem!!11

 

[castlecake2.0]

A non-negative number of guests have DIED due to this mayhem!!11

I didn’t say people were dying I said it was dangerous, which it is, when a large through fare becomes blocked and guests cannot move. Picture small world/pan corridor during peek periods but without any cast in position to guide crowd flow.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I didn’t say people were dying I said it was dangerous, which it is, when a large through fare becomes blocked and guests cannot move. Picture small world/pan corridor during peek periods but without any cast in position to guide crowd flow.

It is supposed to be reminiscent of a group of migrating wildebeests and I applaud Disney for giving Disney this experience. The Magic lives!

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

The question that comes to my mind is...

Why is the the Kilimanjaro Safaris queue getting so long that it necessitated this?

Does it have something to do with Genie+? Or is it just the high attendance (but weren't the park reservations supposed to prevent extreme-crowding days)?

 

[Touchdown]

The question that comes to my mind is...

Why is the the Kilimanjaro Safaris queue getting so long that it necessitated this?

Does it have something to do with Genie+? Or is it just the high attendance (but weren't the park reservations supposed to prevent extreme-crowding days)?

My guess is that KS had a very high FP+ level and very high FP+ uptake which makes sense. I think it’s safe to say that everyone who walks through the gate at AK wants to ride (and will ride exactly once) the Safari. FP+ previously dispersed the crowd evenly across the operating day (the standby line was almost always quite short.). However while the line is never truely long (I waited in the overflow queue and the wait and ride (which had a rhino jam so the ride was probably 20 of those min) took 44 min. The problem is the queue without overflow holds only 30 min size line. Now demand spikes midday like any headliner causing issues.

 

[Magic Feather]

The biggest issue with safaris at the moment is that it stops operating around 5.

Also, as much as I love live entertainment and we need more of it back, the Harambe stage should have been removed or relocated (by Harambe Market) years ago.

 

[networkpro]

There are a few areas that the stage could be relocated to without impact to back of house operations such as the area to the Northwest of the Harambe Market or to the Southeast. Having the stage in the center, right next to the restroom entrance wasnt too well thought out.

 

[ToTBellHop]

The biggest issue with safaris at the moment is that it stops operating around 5.

Also, as much as I love live entertainment and we need more of it back, the Harambe stage should have been removed or relocated (by Harambe Market) years ago.

5 is early but the evening safaris sucked. Sunset is pretty, though…do they cut off the line at 5 or do they cut it off earlier? If you got in line at 4:45, that would be a pretty safari.

 

[doctornick]

5 is early but the evening safaris sucked. Sunset is pretty, though…do they cut off the line at 5 or do they cut it off earlier? If you got in line at 4:45, that would be a pretty safari.

I thought the evening safaris were not as good as during the day, but still interesting. I'd rather see the ride running after dark than not being available at all.

 

[Whippet Mom]

At some point in the last few months Festival of the Lion King moved their stroller parking area to directly across from the entrance. It looks like this was done to use the former stroller parking area as overflow queue for Kilimanjaro Safaris. Which for some reason is more often than not snaking through the entire land blocking multiple entrances/exits to buildings and clogging walkways. The issue is heightened when FOLK has a showdump. The crowded path grinds to a halt as the exiting guests all converge on the makeshift stroller area and clog up the area. Double whammy is when there are performances happening on the harambe stage. Africa needs guest flow help ASAP before someone gets hurt.View attachment 608805View attachment 608806

What really sucks is when they decide to move your ECV to a different location than where you parked it and it takes your caregiver a half hour to find it. It was parked where they took me to park it yet moved in to a totally different location..

 

[dreday3]

I thought the evening safaris were not as good as during the day, but still interesting. I'd rather see the ride running after dark than not being available at all.

I would love to try an evening safari.

This past trip we had the best safari we've ever had! We boarded around 9 am. The animals were so active! Like, actually running around instead of sitting perfectly still. We had to pause as a rhino just walked right across our path. It was amazing, it was as if he didn't even notice we were there, felt like we could touch him.
The lions were up and about and we heard the male lion roar!

And the pygmy goats...so cute.

 

[Touchdown]

What really sucks is when they decide to move your ECV to a different location than where you parked it and it takes your caregiver a half hour to find it. It was parked where they took me to park it yet moved in to a totally different location..

You need a clear identifier on the kart. Make it stand out.

 

[BillyGr]

I thought the evening safaris were not as good as during the day, but still interesting. I'd rather see the ride running after dark than not being available at all.

One would suspect that most of the animals are not nocturnal, so one wouldn't see much after dark. It might also be a danger to the animals, if they were suddenly startled by vehicles during their sleeping time.

Of course, it is harder that a busy time of year (holidays) falls during the shortest daylight time of year as well for this part of the world.

 

[RSoxNo1]

The biggest issue with safaris at the moment is that it stops operating around 5.

Also, as much as I love live entertainment and we need more of it back, the Harambe stage should have been removed or relocated (by Harambe Market) years ago.

I think the Standby queue problem is very solveable. There are areas where the path can be extended w/switchbacks. It shouldn't take more than a day or two.