Anna and Elsa five hour wait!

[j2thomason]

We arrived at Epcot today with four things on our to-do list. FP for Test Track at 9:30, see Anna and Elsa, candlelight processional lunch at Biergarten & candlelight processional at 5:30. After we finished at TT we hurried over to get in line to meet Anna & Elsa, only to find out that if we stayed we would be in the 3:00 line! Which meant giving up our lunch and seating for the candlelight processional. I tried to call Disney dining to reschedule our meal and got a very unhelpful cast member who finally hung up on me. She sounded like she was about 70 and couldn't communicate very well. That was after I had waited for 10 minutes on hold to just get to her and she put me on hold after getting every piece of information about me except a blood sample. This day is not what we were hoping it would at Epcot. Not a magical day at all We will try to meet them again tomorrow, which means we will have to dump all of our fast passes for Animal Kingdom. If Disney is going to promote a movie out the wazoo, a movie we saw five times already, they should put the characters in more than one park and offer more times to meet them. Or make it a FP option. Sorry for the rant, but this has really thrown a kink on our day

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

I am crossing my fingers that DD9 will NOT find out that they are in the park when we go in February. There is NO way we are standing in line for that kind of time. Crazy

 

[mialovesariel]

The more I keep reading about the long waits for Anna and Elsa the more worried I am getting. We will be there first week of Feb...have reservations at BBB in the morning. I've planned to take my DD's Anna and Elsa dresses in our luggage and surprise them on the morning of BBB. We have dinner ressies at akerhaus. Was hoping my Two DD's would get to meet Anna and Elsa on the day they are all pretty from BBB and in their dresses. But from what I'm reading it just doesn't look like its gonna happen. My wish is they will get a FP+ to meet them....

 

[summermac]

No character is worth a 5 hour wait. Holy crap!

 

[*NikkiBell*]

Keep in mind that this is the BUSIEST week at WDW for the entire year. Expect lines like this until about a week after New Year's Day. They will calm down afterwards.

 

[AliceandAriel]

Keep in mind that this is the BUSIEST week at WDW for the entire year. Expect lines like this until about a week after New Year's Day. They will calm down afterwards.

I expect Anna and Elsa's wait times to dip under the 2hr. mark by February. Hopefully even hit 1hr.!

 

[Violet Parr]

There were two hour waits the first 2.5 weeks of December, when crowds were relatively low. I can only imagine at max crowd levels, the waits would be as long as what you encountered.

As much as we wanted to meet them, we figured our daily vacation cost at Disney (including all travel, resort, tickets, food, souveniers, tips, etc) to be over $10,000 ($17,000 if we had booked through Disney instead of renting DVC points for our VWL stay.) That's about $1250 per day. (Even a $5000 vacation would be $625 per day on an 8 day trip.)

My point is, waiting 2-5 hours to meet Anna and Elsa would have valued at approximately $350-650 if averaging for a 10-hour park day. As much as we would have liked to meet them, we told our kids that we felt there were better uses of our time and money. They agreed, and we took them to peek at Anna and Elsa through the window. That was enough of a thrill and we moved on and did many other things with those hours.

I'm not suggesting that you skip it, but figure out what it is worth to you and how much it is *costing* you in terms of time and money spent.

Just a thought!

VP

 

[Soccer and Swim Mom]

Wow

 

[*NikkiBell*]

I think we also need to consider the fact that Frozen literally just came out and is one of the biggest films right now. That is going to add to the length of the lines. For those there now though, that really isn't any consolation. Perhaps going at rope drop and straight to the line is the best strategy until the holiday crowds disperse?

 

[Violet Parr]

Also, keep in mind that because of the long wait times, interaction will be extremely brief. What we saw through the window, kids were being ushered through very quickly for a quick photo and then ushered along. Nothing like the interaction we had with other characters that same week.

VP

There were two hour waits the first 2.5 weeks of December, when crowds were relatively low. I can only imagine at max crowd levels, the waits would be as long as what you encountered.

As much as we wanted to meet them, we figured our daily vacation cost at Disney (including all travel, resort, tickets, food, souveniers, tips, etc) to be over $10,000 ($17,000 if we had booked through Disney instead of renting DVC points for our VWL stay.) That's about $1250 per day. (Even a $5000 vacation would be $625 per day on an 8 day trip.)

My point is, waiting 2-5 hours to meet Anna and Elsa would have valued at approximately $350-650 if averaging for a 10-hour park day. As much as we would have liked to meet them, we told our kids that we felt there were better uses of our time and money. They agreed, and we took them to peek at Anna and Elsa through the window. That was enough of a thrill and we moved on and did many other things with those hours.

I'm not suggesting that you skip it, but figure out what it is worth to you and how much it is *costing* you in terms of time and money spent.

Just a thought!

VP

 

[AmyB2006]

Sounds like they should make it a Tier 1 FP+!!

 

[Violet Parr]

To be honest, I didn't think they looked as great as I expected. Elsa looked like Elsa, but Anna looked not quite right, and my kids agreed. When that happens, it does take away some of the magic. Usually the face characters are so spot on, my husband and I have joked that Disney pays for plastic surgery for them to look like their characters.

Not that that is any consolation, but from my view, I would have been annoyed to wait two hours to find that Anna didn't look like Anna and we only got a picture, with no interaction.

VP

 

[fabulousfive]

We waited and had great interaction the first week in December. It was worth the wait as it was a highlight of the trip. If that's what your kids want to do, go for it. We had a blast!

 

[dsneygirl]

Also, keep in mind that because of the long wait times, interaction will be extremely brief. What we saw through the window, kids were being ushered through very quickly for a quick photo and then ushered along. Nothing like the interaction we had with other characters that same week.

VP

i found the opposite. We waited 2 hours the 7th of Dec (DH and I traded off) and we had lots of time for photos and autographs. They even signed an extra autograph for my son's teacher's DDs.

I am not surprised at all to see 5 hours on one of the busiest days of the year at all.

 

[disnut8]

We arrived at Epcot today with four things on our to-do list. FP for Test Track at 9:30, see Anna and Elsa, candlelight processional lunch at Biergarten & candlelight processional at 5:30. After we finished at TT we hurried over to get in line to meet Anna & Elsa, only to find out that if we stayed we would be in the 3:00 line! Which meant giving up our lunch and seating for the candlelight processional. I tried to call Disney dining to reschedule our meal and got a very unhelpful cast member who finally hung up on me. She sounded like she was about 70 and couldn't communicate very well. That was after I had waited for 10 minutes on hold to just get to her and she put me on hold after getting every piece of information about me except a blood sample. This day is not what we were hoping it would at Epcot. Not a magical day at all We will try to meet them again tomorrow, which means we will have to dump all of our fast passes for Animal Kingdom. If Disney is going to promote a movie out the wazoo, a movie we saw five times already, they should put the characters in more than one park and offer more times to meet them. Or make it a FP option. Sorry for the rant, but this has really thrown a kink on our day

I disagree with this option and probably because I'm remembering the Disney Parks parade on Christmas Day. Anyone notice that the recording (yes, I know it was a recording) did not show the same characters at different parks? How could Mickey and Minnie be in Florida and also in California? The hosts even referred to Darth Vadar being at Disneyland last year but Disney World this year. And Santa was only shown at Disneyland. Yes, we all know he was both places but the parade showing never indicated that.

And that is the magic of Disney. How can you have characters appear at different parks during the day? You would have to make sure certain travel times were in appearance as well. If it takes two hours to get from Epcot to Animal Kingdom, then you can't have a character appear in Epcot at 1:00 PM and the same character in Animal Kingdom at 1:15. That's just an example to don't throw things down my throat about which characters appear where but then again, do that since certain characters are only at certain parks.

And I should have led off with this but I'm 51 years old, my only son is married and living in another state with two kids of his own. So my days of meeting characters is long gone. I'd rather have Disney continue what they do with characters long into the future rather than have one child disallusioned.

 

[kmb584]

 

[jtowntoflorida]

And that is the magic of Disney. How can you have characters appear at different parks during the day? You would have to make sure certain travel times were in appearance as well. If it takes two hours to get from Epcot to Animal Kingdom, then you can't have a character appear in Epcot at 1:00 PM and the same character in Animal Kingdom at 1:15. That's just an example to don't throw things down my throat about which characters appear where but then again, do that since certain characters are only at certain parks.

They already have characters that meet at different parks at the same time (off the top of my head, I can think of Snow White, Alice, Aurora, Cinderella, Jasmine, Winnie the Pooh, and of course the Fab Five). I don't know why it would have to be any different for Anna and Elsa. The fact is a guest can only be in one place at one time, so they're not going to know if the same character is meeting in a different park, or even a different location in the same park.

Elsa and Anna are enormously popular and they really should respond to that by putting them in some other park. It would be a great boon to Animal Kingdom, though I realize there's no place where they really fit with the current park structure.

 

[sethschroeder]

This is why they need characters roaming the grounds. You could see 5000 people crowding around these two characters like a rock concert. Maybe they throw them above their heads and carry them off to the boardwalk bandstand for a picture or two.

All joking beside that is a crazy amount of time to wait for a character. They need to look to have a FP+ system for this instead of having people wait that long.

 

[caralyn817]

Oh my! I have a very big Anna fan here and by no means will she or I be waiting for 5 hours. She's three and sometimes can't even handle longer than 30 minutes. Hopefully, the wait time will die down by the time we go in March. Fingers crossed!

 

[surferdave]

I disagree with this option and probably because I'm remembering the Disney Parks parade on Christmas Day. Anyone notice that the recording (yes, I know it was a recording) did not show the same characters at different parks? How could Mickey and Minnie be in Florida and also in California? The hosts even referred to Darth Vadar being at Disneyland last year but Disney World this year. And Santa was only shown at Disneyland. Yes, we all know he was both places but the parade showing never indicated that.

And that is the magic of Disney. How can you have characters appear at different parks during the day? You would have to make sure certain travel times were in appearance as well. If it takes two hours to get from Epcot to Animal Kingdom, then you can't have a character appear in Epcot at 1:00 PM and the same character in Animal Kingdom at 1:15. That's just an example to don't throw things down my throat about which characters appear where but then again, do that since certain characters are only at certain parks.

And I should have led off with this but I'm 51 years old, my only son is married and living in another state with two kids of his own. So my days of meeting characters is long gone. I'd rather have Disney continue what they do with characters long into the future rather than have one child disallusioned.

Despite what you may conclude from the parad-ommercial, it's very common practice for WDW to put the same characters in multiple (and technically inexplicable) locations at the same time. You could spend a day going through multiple parks and resorts seeing Mickey hundreds of times in hundreds of costumes. I think my daughter saw no less than 5 different CMs playing Cinderella in the same day between meet and greets, character meals and parades.

I think Disney seriously underestimated how many people would want to meet Anna & Elsa.