Chasing Wait Times

[JustinD]

Has anyone had an experience where they felt like they were chasing wait times that were off?

We were at WDW in June this year. We normally try to go during the less busy times between October and January, avoiding holidays.. But this year it only worked out that we could go in June.

We all know that they measure wait times by timing the little tags given to people in the queues. If you visit WDW often, you have participated in this many times. I noticed this several times, but it was especially apparent on Toy Story. The wait time might say 30 minutes but the line would be long. After an hour one of the tags would get to the front of the line and the wait time would be updated to an hour. Then, nobody would get in the line and the actual wait time was much less. Then, another tag would get to the front of the line and the wait time would change to 20 minutes. The line would build and it would take an hour for the next tag to make it to the front of the line. So, during that hour the posted time was 20 min, but the actual wait time was an hour. And on and on the cycle went.

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Accident]

They've been adjusting the wait times better since your visit in june. Generally now the wait time listed is significantly more than it really is, especially a popular ride at night. The app and the sign on the ride also vary with the app being much higher than the ride posted sign which is higher than the actual wait. If it's a nighttime and there is a hard close (everyone get out, private event/wedding after you leave) then it's really wrong much earlier in the evening.

There is still a narrow band of time where your experience can happen but I'm running into it much less. I'm also seeing the red tags being used much less so I suspect they might have altered the system and the red tags (and now white ones they use in fastpass queue) might be a secondary check of the time.

 

[Roxyfire]

I use the Touring Plans "Lines" app and it has crowdsourced wait time and closure information. For example were able to hop onto Seven Dwarves after a storm closure because I watched the app for reopening times. Our wait was minimal plus we had some pretty good information during the evening when they'd otherwise inflate the times. It does require a yearly fee for touring plans but for the app alone its worth it if you have a lengthy trip.

 

[Klayfish]

We haven't been to WDW since the 4th of July, so we haven't experienced the changes Accident described. In general, yes, we found the posted times to not be wonderfully accurate, but at least a general ballpark of how busy the ride is. The times typically were conservative...so if the posted time was 40 minutes, we actually waited 25.

We downloaded the Lines app and found it to be much more reliable as far as true wait times. So we sort of used both apps during our trip. MDE gave us a general ballpark of how busy the ride or park was, then we could fine tune using the Lines app....though as the trip went on I found myself using Lines more and more and MDE less.