Are Disney's new rides the wrong type (per hour capacity)?

[DVCcurious]

I was sitting here thinking about the lines at the attractions and then something occurred to me that we've all talked about before. There are great attractions, good attractions, mediocre attractions, and bad attractions. I've seen an argument before that Disney "needs" mediocre or bad attractions. I don't remember the logic but it struck me as "if there were no bad attractions you wouldn't recognize a good one" or something. But let's ignore that for now.

What is true is that Disney NEEDS people-eater attractions. Some rides have very low riders-per-hour (Peter pan's flight) and some have very high riders-per-hour (Under the Sea, Haunted Mansion).

So what occurred to me is the best way to improve crowds and lines is to create only "high rider-per-hour" style of attractions. I know this will get a lot of blowback. People love 7 Dwarfs, Peter Pan, etc. But those rides have long lines because of their low capacity. Rides like Haunted Mansion and Pirates are also great rides that people love but the waits typically top out around an hour whereas Peter Pan and 7 Dwarfs can get to 2 hours.

We all know this but it seems Disney hasn't put two-and-two together. Is the Mickey and Minnie runaway railway a high capacity attraction? How about flight of progress*, slinky dog dash, or the new TRON coaster.

When Disney builds something new they should look at what types of attractions have high capacity and then find a way to use one of those methods for their new attraction.


*I wrote this wrong but left it because I think it's funny. Think of a combination of flight of passage meets carousel of progress.

 

[wdw&sonny]

I am sure Disney considers ride throughput. But, you can't have everything. Imagine a continuous moving loading platform for a high speed coaster?
I do love the idea of "Flight of Progress". Riding a Banshee to get a Sarsaparilla.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Imagine a continuous moving loading platform for a high speed coaster?

You mean, like Universal's Hagrid Motorbike coaster or Rip Ride Rocket?

 

[Wild4Walt]

I'll also throw this in - all new rides, no matter how many they can hold have a line frenzy in the beginning. I think you could have a ride that could hold 50 people at a time, that runs fairly continuously, and you'd still see wait times that were over 2 hours. ( Granted that would be better than some of the current rides. )

 

[FCDub]

I am sure Disney understands this

 

[DVCcurious]

I am sure Disney understands this

Flight of Passage
Rise of the Resistance

These are two of Disney's newest A-list attractions and neither comes close to satisfying demand. Rise's demand is so high you can't even wait in line for it. I think these two rides show that Disney may understand capacity but it isn't their top priority. Disney could instead be making rides with higher capacity.

 

[CastAStone]

We all know this but it seems Disney hasn't put two-and-two together. Is the Mickey and Minnie runaway railway a high capacity attraction? How about flight of progress*, slinky dog dash, or the new TRON coaster.

All four of those are reasonably high capacity, they are all between 1400-1800 guests an hour. There’s a reason they built 4 identical theatres at Flight of Passage and why Slinky Dog has several brake and launch sections - its to increase capacity. The Omnimovers you name are more like 1800-2400 theoretical capacity but in reality most clamshells don’t go out with 4 guests each and the ride stops constantly for people who require assistance. They never achieve anything close to their theoretical capacities (which typically are not as high for Omnimovers as you might see bloggers claim online). If you want everything to be 2200+ you need basically a park of only Omnimovers and what fun would that be?

 

[CastAStone]

Flight of Passage
Rise of the Resistance

These are two of Disney's newest A-list attractions and neither comes close to satisfying demand. Rise's demand is so high you can't even wait in line for it. I think these two rides show that Disney may understand capacity but it isn't their top priority. Disney could instead be making rides with higher capacity.

ROTR is one of the highest capacity rides at WDW. It’s problems are that it’s insanely popular and it breaks down all the time. The boarding groups aren’t trying to manage crowds they’re trying to keep people from waiting 3 hours only for the ride to break down for 3 hours more.