Anna & Elsa Hit The 4 Hour Mark Today

[mom2rtk]

I have seen a lot of pictures too and I think seriously why can't they just hire more girls to disperse in the parks? Obviously they are not going for a "look" here so what is the problem? It must be that they are having a problem manufacturing the Elsa costume for them to wear?

But they ARE going for a certain look. Partly, I suppose, because so many people will come onto a message board and complain about how the look was all wrong. I think the fact that an occasional Else doesn't quite look the part is an indication that they are having trouble casting that part, not an indication that they don't care.

That said, I do still believe that Disney loves a good feeding frenzy and likes seeing a visible sign of that demand.

 

[squirrel4569]

I love my girls and I know they are huge Frozen fans (I get woken up daily to my youngest singing Do You Want to Build a Snowman?) but I'm not waiting more than 30-60 minutes for something like that. Pretty much if we don't get FP for it when we go we're not going to get to see them. Years ago we didn't know what the draw was for TSMM at DHS and when we saw the line at 90 minutes early in the morning we thought "it'll die down as the day goes on." Y'all already know what happened there. It was 120 minutes later in the day and didn't dip below 100 for the rest of the day. When the kids asked if we could go on it we told them how long it would be (and kids think 5 minutes is forever!) and they wanted no part of it. I'll be up at the crack of dawn on day 60 for my FP+ selections and we'll get one hopefully, although by November the buzz may die down some.

Curious as to how the increase in wait there is affecting other things.

 

[ivanaernmore]

All the time folks are standing in line is time they're not spending money, so one would think Disney would analyze the tradeoff between the cost of paying two more girls (or more) to dress the part and have them @ Epcot and MK, and thus either be able to handle more guests and/or free them up to spend $ @ QS, stores, TS restaurants, etc.

As for kids believing that these girls "are" A&E and that they can't be in more than one place - these are the same kids that willingly understand "Santa" can be in both mall A and mall B within the same day (as well as everywhere at once on Christmas eve). They could handle it, IMHO.

That being said, we sure are glad we have our FP+ for 9:20 am on 5/4 to meet them! And, we have a home-sewn simple Elsa dress: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wr7z19p5y8wf2x4/atDEkOzKpz

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

This! Some people are cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

 

[DisMama5]

It's crazy to me that people are willing to waste an extremely expensive day in the parks to wait to meet a couple of college students dressed in somewhat tacky costumes and bad wigs. I've seen some YouTube footage which is supposed to show how "in character" they are and it actually had me cringing in embarrassment. Sheer insanity.

I could agree if adults are standing in line that long with no kids to meet them. But coming from a mom with a A&E obsessed daughter.. Those tacky college students are very much the real thing to my little one and to meet them is to her the magic of Disney. The craze over A&E is nuts no doubt about that but for some of the people in those lines that's the magic for them, a dream come true our last trip we spent more time meeting characters then anything and that trip I would say has been the best on yet, everyone has different obligations for their park days.

 

[gabrielacsarti]

Does anyone know how much long time it takes in fastpass line? I will go next month with my mom and got a Fastpass for this, but if the regular line is taking more than 4 hours, possibly fastpass line takes 1 hour. Anyone can confirm it?

 

[mikeyg1479]

People who actually wait that length of time are crazy in my eyes.

Don't get me wrong, people are free to do what they want with their visit, maybe these are people with annual passes or something who can visit all the time.

Me, I can only afford a disney visit once every 2-3 years, and I'm certainly not spending more than 20-30 minutes of my valuable park time waiting for any character "experience". Theres just better things to do in the parks. I'd have no problem grabbing my kid's hand and saying, OK, we are moving on now.

That said, given the popularity and the fact that Frozen is now one of Disney's biggest things ever, I sure hope the imagineers are working on a Frozen themed attraction, if not an entire land at this point. (I mean, one could argue the entire Animal Kingdom was a response to the Lion King).

 

[mom2rtk]

Does anyone know how much long time it takes in fastpass line? I will go next month with my mom and got a Fastpass for this, but if the regular line is taking more than 4 hours, possibly fastpass line takes 1 hour. Anyone can confirm it?

No reports of it taking more than a typical fastpass line.

 

[jbish]

I had a first grade student return recently from WDW. Her favorite thing she did - meet Anna and Elsa. Her wait - 4 hours. She didn't meet some college kids dressed up, she met Anna and Elsa. Her classmates are in awe.
I know plenty of people who have waited longer for concert tickets or who would wait that long to see their favorite actor/actress. For a child, this is meeting the biggest movie stars they know. I would totally wait in that line for someone who believed.

Aww!! As a mother of a first-grader, this story brings such a smile to my face! My daughter is quickly outgrowing her love of princesses, which makes me sad in many ways. But I have to give myself a pat on the back as I had the forethought to stand in a 30 min wait back in November before the movie even came out so that she could meet both A&E. I knew she would love them even though she didn't know them at the time!

 

[FLchick415]

Does anyone know how much long time it takes in fastpass line? I will go next month with my mom and got a Fastpass for this, but if the regular line is taking more than 4 hours, possibly fastpass line takes 1 hour. Anyone can confirm it?

I've read that FP waits seem to be pretty normal, 5-10 minutes maybe. The FP+ line gets priority over standby, so that's why the regular line is so long.

 

[gabrielacsarti]

Ok, I was thinking that Fastpass line was affected too. So I'll hold my fastpass. Thinking better, I could sell it in this 5-hour line LOL Somebody would pay a lot

 

[Planogirl]

But if there's multiple sets of friends, wouldn't the Norway wait have been worse than what we're seeing? Even if there's not multiple sets yet at least they can do it there.

It would be nice to have them at multiple places, I agree. Norway just wasn't the place for them, it's just not equipped for that kind of crowd. An already very busy princess meal doesn't really help much either. Maybe somewhere in DHS just to take the heat off the one location for a while? I don't really care, I'm just glad they're not clogging up Norway anymore.

Me too! I remember Norway being inundated with people and all we wanted was some lefse and to enjoy the ambience. It was a mess.

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

I could agree if adults are standing in line that long with no kids to meet them. But coming from a mom with a A&E obsessed daughter.. Those tacky college students are very much the real thing to my little one and to meet them is to her the magic of Disney. The craze over A&E is nuts no doubt about that but for some of the people in those lines that's the magic for them, a dream come true our last trip we spent more time meeting characters then anything and that trip I would say has been the best on yet, everyone has different obligations for their park days.

My DD12 was a princess obsessed little girl as well. We lucked out because all her favs were at plenty of character meals. We have done EVERY princess meal!
AND, those are some of my favorite memories, and her's. Seeing her eyes light up...

It'd be nice to have the Frozen girls with a meal too.

Me, personally, I am just glad my youngest is a boy, no interest in Frozen!

 

[catne]

Question...is the whole party actually waiting in line for 5 hours, or is one parent "holding" a place for the rest of the group?

My 4 kids are long grown, but thinking back, I don't think any of them would have waited 4-5 hours for ANYTHING when they were 4-10 yrs old (guessing the age this appeals to)

Thankful my kids were never into the character thing back in the day. We just waved and yelled Hi if we happened to see one walking by with a handler...never waited in a line.

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm thinking the MK standby line won't be much shorter than the line at Norway. As someone else pointed out, MK just has more people to start with. And I'm thinking FP is being used up by many people who would never step foot in a 5 hour line anyway. So while I think FP has made it possible for more people to meet the girls, it probably won't shorten the wait as much as we all hoped.

 

[Liljo22]

I'm thinking the MK standby line won't be much shorter than the line at Norway. As someone else pointed out, MK just has more people to start with. And I'm thinking FP is being used up by many people who would never step foot in a 5 hour line anyway. So while I think FP has made it possible for more people to meet the girls, it probably won't shorten the wait as much as we all hoped.

That is what I am thinking. A 4 hour line at MK is actually moving more people through than a 4 hour line at Norway. The MK wait isnt taking into account the FP people that are getting in between Standby people.

Throw on top of it that there is a larger attendence base at MK and you still get long lines but more people actually seeing A&E.

 

[CFioren317]

Here's what Disney needs to do, at least in the beginning while this A&E thing is insane.

1) Have 4 different A&Es in 4 different closed off rooms. This way, you will never see multiples at the same time.

2) Have no standby line. Everybody who comes up to get into line gets a time to return, which will be after 3pm.

Basically, FP+ are all given out from 9am(8am for EMH) to 3pm and then everybody who walks up earlier to wait "in standby line" gets a return time between 3pm and 7pm or 9pm. Again, since there are 4 different pairs going at once (8 pairs would be needed since you never close a line and they need a break sometime), for between 10 and 12 hours a day, you should be able to almost accommodate everybody who wants to see them.

This would eliminate completely the wait for longer than a FP+ wait. It would also keep the people walking around spending money in the park instead of standing around for 4 hours doing nothing but sweating and swearing.

So for the people who have the advantage of FP+, they get 6 hours of times to choose from. For the people who come at rope drop, they can get their 3pm return time and then do whatever they want to do until then.

 

[AngiTN]

Here's what Disney needs to do, at least in the beginning while this A&E thing is insane.

1) Have 4 different A&Es in 4 different closed off rooms. This way, you will never see multiples at the same time.

2) Have no standby line. Everybody who comes up to get into line gets a time to return, which will be after 3pm.

Basically, FP+ are all given out from 9am(8am for EMH) to 3pm and then everybody who walks up earlier to wait "in standby line" gets a return time between 3pm and 7pm or 9pm. Again, since there are 4 different pairs going at once (8 pairs would be needed since you never close a line and they need a break sometime), for between 10 and 12 hours a day, you should be able to almost accommodate everybody who wants to see them.

This would eliminate completely the wait for longer than a FP+ wait. It would also keep the people walking around spending money in the park instead of standing around for 4 hours doing nothing but sweating and swearing.

So for the people who have the advantage of FP+, they get 6 hours of times to choose from. For the people who come at rope drop, they can get their 3pm return time and then do whatever they want to do until then.

I think they do have #1, though maybe it's not 4 sets just yet. There's more then 1, which is why they did open up more FP+ shortly after they moved to MK.

And they really, really should be meeting past 5:00 PM. There is no reason, other than not having enough friends to play them, for them to stop before park closing.

 

[Planogirl]

Maybe they aren't meeting past 5 PM because the lines might be at 4 hours at that time. If they meet until 9 or so, the lines might just be as bad or at least close to it.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

I just can't imagine why anyone would wait 3, 4, 5 hours in line to meet a character. I've been going to Disney since I was two, and I have no recollection of character meets from when I was young. I'm sure we did, but my memories of being in the parks are going on attractions and spending time at the resorts with my family. I would have been super pissed if we had wasted a day in line.