News Tron coaster coming to the Magic Kingdom

[huwar18]

I think that is Naive...their marketing blitz they are sure to have for the 50th will ensure the parks are all packed... Remember, they spend more money on marketing than any attraction... I would love to see the complete marketing budget.

Haha..I completely forgot that it is opening during the 50th. So, I guess all parks will get crushed. I agree their marketing is unbelievable. However, Star Wars has a bigger normal following. I would assume this would have to factor into the equation.

 

[Bocabear]

Haha..I completely forgot that it is opening during the 50th. So, I guess all parks will get crushed. I agree their marketing is unbelievable. However, Star Wars has a bigger normal following. I would assume this would have to factor into the equation.

They could probaby cease all marketing for one year and save the hundreds of millions of dollars and not even see any sort of blip in their attendance...which could put a lot of money into their attractions budget...
Never mind they own ABC and can do a lot of marketing right through the network with on site tapings and special appearances and not really run into their actual marketing budget...

 

[huwar18]

During a tour I was on, I asked an operations manager in charge of wait times and ride ops and he told me they definitely manipulate wait times to both drive people towards and away certain attractions at certain times.

I mean it makes sense. Personally, I have experienced times when the stand-by lines were different than advertised. However, I usually chalked it up to the app being wrong or hitting the attraction during a time change.

 

[huwar18]

They could probaby cease all marketing for one year and save the hundreds of millions of dollars and not even see any sort of blip in their attendance...which would put a lot of money into their attractions budget...

Yeah, they could. Their marketing campaign could just be "Disney" and people would show up out of no where. Whoever was the head of marketing in the beginning of WDW deserves to be very rich (They probably are/were).

 

[marni1971]

I heard from others that Disney likes to pad the wait times on the boards and App. Do you think that is true? I forget who I heard that from. However, they said that they use it as sort of crowd control. Also, close to the closing of the park they sometimes put queue times higher to deter people from entering attraction. It sounded a little farfetched...but I could see Disney doing this .

The waiting times via the app aren’t as accurate as the old fashioned way of an experienced cast member seeing how far the lines ran back. A seasoned CM could call a wait time with 5 minutes accuracy.

 

[GlacierGlacier]

In most queues, there's a kiosk at the merge of FP+ and Standby lines. In some more modern queues (FoP, Frozen, SDD) this kiosk also displays both the real and "fake" wait times. For instance, on Frozen saw a real wait time of 27 minutes and a displayed time of 35.

I have to assume that the new system is reliant on detecting Magicbands, because I've only seen it on queues that don't use Red Cards.

Note: some CMs cover up the real wait time with a scrap of paper or a card.

 

[Dr.GrantSeeker]

I heard from others that Disney likes to pad the wait times on the boards and App. Do you think that is true? I forget who I heard that from. However, they said that they use it as sort of crowd control. Also, close to the closing of the park they sometimes put queue times higher to deter people from entering attraction. It sounded a little farfetched...but I could see Disney doing this .

I will say, I was just at DAK this past Saturday. The wait time for FoP was 105 minutes. I typically would never wait that long in line for any attraction, but knowing from these boards Disney may inflate wait time, I took a risk and hopped in line. I was on the ride in 65 minutes. Not sure how often this happens but was please with how long I actually ended up waiting.

 

[MisterPenguin]

By the way, some consider Frozen Ever After an E-Ticket.

Some consider TSMM an E too.

Only people who don't truly know what the terminology really means.

Alice in Wonderland ride was a D Ticket. Then a C Ticket. Then a B Ticket.

The DL train was an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket, Then a C Ticket.

DL's Rainbow Ridge Mine Train was an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket. Then an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket.

DL's Keel Boats and the Treehouse was C, then B, then C, then B.

Astro Jets were B then C then D. They must have really plussed that ride!!

Point being is that Ticket Level has always been loosey-goosey and Disney sometimes used Ticket Level to manipulate crowds, thus making any hard-and-fast rules more subjective than objective.

If Imagineering has a list of which rides they consider E/D/C... then they're keeping that to themselves along with what criteria they're using, which most certainly can not sync 100% with the historical tickets since they fluctuated over time.

Without input from the Imagineers with their list or criteria, guests can only deduce their own rules from the historical tickets. From a guest's perspective and experience, an E-Ticket level was highly correlated with being so impressive that it always had a long wait time. So, it's no wonder a guest would consider TSM or FEA an E-Ticket.

Let's get serious, if we were still using the Ticket system, TSM and FEA would be E-Tickets in order to reduce the lines, just like how they're in a higher tier on the FP system, even though, in a vacuum, they may have only been created at the D level.

 

[LSLS]

I will say, I was just at DAK this past Saturday. The wait time for FoP was 105 minutes. I typically would never wait that long in line for any attraction, but knowing from these boards Disney may inflate wait time, I took a risk and hopped in line. I was on the ride in 65 minutes. Not sure how often this happens but was please with how long I actually ended up waiting.

I experienced more extreme on 7DMT a few months back. It said 110 minutes, but looking at the line, thought it might be off so we tried it. We were off the ride in 25 minutes. Group behind us had a red card, and the time INCREASED to 120 when we got off. I know it's been covered a lot, but there is an awful lot of anecdotal evidence that they are artificially increasing wait times.

 

[danlb_2000]

Seeing this photo made my day. Glad to see some work starting on this project!

Work has been going on for this project for a while now.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

In my experience, the wait times on the WDW app have been more accurate than those on the DL app.

 

[Rodan75]

In my experience, the wait times on the WDW app have been more accurate than those on the DL app.

The only time I've seen an issue with the WDW wait times on the App is if another ride nearby closes down unexpectedly causing a surge. Those same issues happened when the wait time signs were manually updated. Folks are just falling into a nostalgia trap.

Queueing is queueing the same issues are at play manually vs automation.

 

[ElBendro]

I heard from others that Disney likes to pad the wait times on the boards and App. Do you think that is true? I forget who I heard that from. However, they said that they use it as sort of crowd control. Also, close to the closing of the park they sometimes put queue times higher to deter people from entering attraction. It sounded a little farfetched...but I could see Disney doing this .

Yes. When they were still using the area around TSMM to launch the fireworks for Star Wars and they had to close the area at 7 pm they would inflate the wait times to the 180-200 min mark so they could close the ride up quickly. In the 30/60min window before 7pm, TSMM was maybe a 20 min wait at most.

 

[George]

Alice in Wonderland ride was a D Ticket. Then a C Ticket. Then a B Ticket.

The DL train was an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket, Then a C Ticket.

DL's Rainbow Ridge Mine Train was an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket. Then an E Ticket. Then a D Ticket.

DL's Keel Boats and the Treehouse was C, then B, then C, then B.

Astro Jets were B then C then D. They must have really plussed that ride!!

Point being is that Ticket Level has always been loosey-goosey and Disney sometimes used Ticket Level to manipulate crowds, thus making any hard-and-fast rules more subjective than objective.

If Imagineering has a list of which rides they consider E/D/C... then they're keeping that to themselves along with what criteria they're using, which most certainly can not sync 100% with the historical tickets since they fluctuated over time.

Without input from the Imagineers with their list or criteria, guests can only deduce their own rules from the historical tickets. From a guest's perspective and experience, an E-Ticket level was highly correlated with being so impressive that it always had a long wait time. So, it's no wonder a guest would consider TSM or FEA an E-Ticket.

Let's get serious, if we were still using the Ticket system, TSM and FEA would be E-Tickets in order to reduce the lines, just like how they're in a higher tier on the FP system, even though, in a vacuum, they may have only been created at the D level.

Whatevs. I've quit trying to use my ticket books. Cheap say they won't work anymore.

I mean it makes sense. Personally, I have experienced times when the stand-by lines were different than advertised. However, I usually chalked it up to the app being wrong or hitting the attraction during a time change.

Correct. This is why I always try and be in line for the fall time change. I feel like I've gained an hour. In fact, if the wait was less than an hour, it's kind of like winning a temporal lottery. I won't even risk standing in line in the spring.

e on 7DMT a few months back. It said 110 minutes, but looking at the line, thought it might be off so we tried it. We were off the ride in 25 minutes. Group behind us had a red card, and the time INCREASED to 120 when we got off. I know it's been covered a lot, but there is an awful lot of anecdotal evidence that they are artificially increasing wait times.

One of the most common ways that wait times are inflated is to have "line locals" queue up. As many as 37,000 Orlandoians can earn up to $4.23 an hour for merely standing in queues to inflate wait times. The other way this is done is to "slip a Mickey" to everyone in line. You wake up and Boom! you've waited an extra 75 minutes and Mr. Memory isn't helping you out at all.

 

[geekza]

The other way this is done is to "slip a Mickey" to everyone in line. You wake up and Boom! you've waited an extra 75 minutes and Mr. Memory isn't helping you out at all.

 

[AEfx]

In most queues, there's a kiosk at the merge of FP+ and Standby lines. In some more modern queues (FoP, Frozen, SDD) this kiosk also displays both the real and "fake" wait times. For instance, on Frozen saw a real wait time of 27 minutes and a displayed time of 35.

I have to assume that the new system is reliant on detecting Magicbands, because I've only seen it on queues that don't use Red Cards.

Note: some CMs cover up the real wait time with a scrap of paper or a card.

I kinda get that from a FOTL standpoint- as well as why CM's might want to avoid the questions surrounding it. I understand the overestimation by a few minutes - it accounts for the unexpected, like the possibility of having a longer wait for someone who needs more time boarding, etc. - and a small buffer.

It's the weird "twice as long" stuff I find suspect...

 

[MaximumEd]

We always assume posted wait times are 25-30% overinflated. Some spur of the moment timing I’ve done on more than one trip backs that up.

 

[rle4lunch]

bump

 

[Horizons '83]

bump

Why? There clearly is no new news to report on this attraction.

 

[flyerjab]

Walking from the Poly to the Grand and noticed this to the left of Space Mountain. Should I assume the crane is at the Tron construction site? I didn’t notice anyone else report it.