Exactly our experience as well. Everyone saying that
DAS users were 80% of the LL, and I was like "What?? We never see anyone else around us in line who is a DAS user."
Now we see that drastically reducing DAS users had zero affect on wait times, it's pretty clear the percentages being thrown around were not accurate.
We go to WDW twice a year for 2 week plus trips and seldom see any other DAS parties scan in
I know that our April/May trip this year made a DAS ration of 80% completely believable, as we were watching blue lights non-stop as we toured the parks with our paid G+. When we did standby, we also stood and watched what seemed like endless streaming by of LL users while we were at a complete standstill for at times up to 5 minutes. There is no point in arguing over whether DAS was getting to be too much, when you have a disability system MOST of the people in the park have a legitimate reason to utilize, it is too many people with special access. It needs to be tightened to people who NEED it, not those who find it convenient. The initial weeding process is going to suck until it gets straightened out.
We were also at WDW April/May this year and seldom saw anyone else scan in with the Mickey head turn blue. Turning blue is not specific to DAS. It's just an alert for the CM that they to check the screen to see what the alert it. For DAS, it's to check that the photo of the DAS registered person on the screen matches the person entering the attraction.
One occasion that we saw, the alert was that the group was early for their
Genie+. Another, they scanned in to the wrong attraction.
My experience does not support the 80% estimate or even close. I do agree with your last point though. A large number of people were getting DAS for 'just in case' , specific diagnosis or convenience and it's now being trimmed back to NEED.
Your math is failing to account for ratios such as 4:1 or 10:1 for LL entrance and how that affects timing. That is why I included the ratio piece in my calculation. Less people in LL but the same ratio of LL:Standby = exponentially faster throughput of LL. You can't calculate it as x number of people have now moved from LL to Standby. You must insert timing ratios into your equation. A 4:1 or even 10:1 ratio (x:y) where x has decreased by 40% and transferred to y does not increase y by 40%, neither does it cause y to remain stable.
This is why it was said that standby will speed up and wait times decrease if LL users decline. (ie: touring plans predicted math).
This is why the observed result draws us to conclude that DAS users did not make up 80% - or even 40% of LL users.
CM have posted in various places that the ratio is not the same for each attraction and even within an attraction, it varies based on conditions at the time.
Wait times are not only based on how many people enter each queue (LL, SB). Disney controls the capacity of several rides by adjusting the number of vehicles/boats operating, etc. Depending on how many boats they have running, we could see an hour wait for Jungle Cruise on a slow day or a busy day.
This is a very important variable - number of boats, number of vehicles, number of theaters/rooms running can make a big difference.
I posted this about 150 pages back regarding the touring plans claims about observations.
There has been a lot of discussion on this thread, with a lot of people accepting everything he has written as 'Proof'. I am pointing out some things here and don't think this 'proof' should be discussed here anymore.
ONLY DISNEY KNOWS THE ACTUAL NUMBER, anything else is a guess.
He had people watching everyone who entered a particular attraction at a particular 1 hour time of day on 9/13/2023. His people were just counting numbers entering the Standby and LL entrance. Those may or may not reflect what goes on other times, especially for guests using DAS.
He's making a lot of assumptions to come up with his figures. His assumptions included:
- Observations made reflected what would be seen other times of day (his observations were made between 5 and 9pm).
- That his observations were correct (for example, Haunted Mansion between 5 and 6pm, they reported counting 710 entering the Standby line and 923 in the LL).
- The small number of guests on VIP tours during the observation times reflected VIP tour use. I've personally seen 2 or 3 groups of VIP tours getting on an attraction during the few minutes I'm getting on an attraction during the day on some days. I personally would expect more VIP tours during the day and fewer in the evening.
- attractions have a maximum capacity of 300 per hour for Genie+ allocation, which is a static number. He admits that number should be taken with a grain of salt. He/we don't know whether ALL attractions have the same Genie+ allocation per hour AND/OR whether the allocation per hour is the same for all hours of the day.
- Genie+ has a 1 hour return time, so the guest using LL during his count included only the 300 Genie+ allocated for that hour. Guests frequently post that they were able to use Genie+ 5 minutes before and 15 minutes after their 1 hour window. The 'unknowable' part is how many in his count included people using that 'expanded window'
- There is no way to count Rider Swap (which he conceded) or people using LL with Guest Recovery Passes (for example, if Space Mountain had been down for a while, guests who had Genie+ while the ride was down might have gotten a Guest Recovery Pass allowing entry into another attraction).
He's extrapolating all that to come up with his numbers. A few numbers/assumptions being different would make a big difference in the end result.
Some other confounding factors include:
- guests with a DAS Return Time have a beginning time to use it, but it can be used any time after that until the attraction or park closes. So, people using DAS during the one hour observation period could have received that Return Time many hours before.
- guests with disabilities don't use all attractions equally. Many have disabilities that make attractions like Space Mountain or 7 Dwarfs inappropriate for them.
