did anyone see josh's latest wait times for MK rope drop?!?!?

[snoopy352]

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/magic-kingdom-odds-and-ends-june/#more-13571

Could those times really be accurate? Just look at those 9:00 am waits!

 

[kaylasmom07]

I saw that too and I thought they looked really high too, but I attributed it to the fact that its summer?

I've never been in the summer so I don't know if its typical for this time of year.

 

[mjhannaf]

Could those times really be accurate? Just look at those 9:00 am waits!

During the soft opening it was almost always over-estimated. Now with FP+ and larger crowds I still feel like it is over-estimated a little bit (on the Disney end, Josh has a great resource), but it is a really popular ride right now so the times aren't more than 10-15 minutes off in my experience.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Yeah. It makes sense since FP+ gets priority now I guess.
Should be an interesting summer at MK!

 

[stschaefer]

why i wondered why you have to use them to get new ones. I changed one 5 PM fast pass to 9:30 so I could have fast passes open for afternoon. Total change in plans. With more fast passes being used early = longer waits?

 

[ArwenMarie]

why i wondered why you have to use them to get new ones. I changed one 5 PM fast pass to 9:30 so I could have fast passes open for afternoon. Total change in plans. With more fast passes being used early = longer waits?

Good point.

The 4th FP is really just a move towards a 100% ride reservation system.

 

[Luckybee]

I saw these as well which made me wonder whether I'm wasting my time using touringplan's personalized tours. The wait times they are giving me are no where near what these numbers are for our rope drop morning. Mind you we're not going until Sept/Oct. but we're talking wait times for Small World, Pooh and Under the Sea of less than 5 minutes between 9a and 10a compared to Josh's numbers. Now Im not sure how to plan

 

[Jfsag123]

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong (and as it's the Dis, I know you will ), but I think the times Josh cited are the posted wait times, not the actual wait times, which are probably lower in several instances, especially right at 9am and at the end of the night.

 

[lugnut33]

I have a feeling Josh is posting Disney's wait time numbers, not actual wait times. If you get to the park right at open there is still a magical pair of hours before the huge crowds start filtering in and really begin driving wait times up at all the attractions.

Of course 7DMT and Frozen are outliers.

 

[ilovemk76]

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong (and as it's the Dis, I know you will ), but I think the times Josh cited are the posted wait times, not the actual wait times, which are probably lower in several instances, especially right at 9am and at the end of the night.

When we were ther in May, all MK posted wait times were really high compared to the actual wait. Some were as high as 2xs. The other parks seems to be more accurate.

E&A went to 300 minutes shortly after opening. Within the hour it would fall to 210-240. We saw this on multiple days.

 

[snoopy352]

I have a feeling Josh is posting Disney's wait time numbers, not actual wait times. If you get to the park right at open there is still a magical pair of hours before the huge crowds start filtering in and really begin driving wait times up at all the attractions.

Of course 7DMT and Frozen are outliers.

The flip side to this argument though is that Josh posted his grid from May 28th and the numbers were much much lower at RD. It's as if in four days' time the wait times more than doubled across the board!

 

[hunter1722]

May 28th was a Wed and the opening of 7DMT with a crowd level predicted of 7 but saw a 6. IMO most people who hit rope drop on May 28th were there to ride 7DMT so the other rope drop times were lower than normal. June 1st was a Sunday and a crowd level of 8 but again I also think posted wait times were probably off 15 mins or so. Going forward it is going to be even more important to hit the EMH am at MK based on Josh's May 29th data so we split up the openings of the lands in order to hit more at opening before the build up. http://www.easywdw.com/reports11/mkmay.xlsx

It is possible on an 8 day to have rope drop times off the charts. I experienced this at HS for spring break one year. 8 mins after park opening TSM was 120 mins, RNR was 40 mins and TOT was 30 mins. Crazy!

 

[DavidNYC]

I'm sure those are posted wait times. Would not be surprised if they start off by posting what they think the wait time will be after about 30 minutes since the wait times probably fluctuate wildly in the first hour. Been on many rides with posted 20-30 minute waits at beginning and end of day that were nearly walk ons.

 

[mcconnellfam96]

We are most accustomed to traveling to WDW at spring break and are going back again this year from July 18-28......these RD wait times SCARE me!

 

[DVCkidsMOM]

Didn't pull up the link but I was at MK rope drop yesterday morning. We went first thing to SDMT and had about 75 people (says DH) in front of us in line. The ride was down and didn't come back up until 9:25. We were done riding SDMT at 9:45 and the line was well outside the que area and along the fence. I didn't notice the posted wait time, nor did I think to note how far along the fence the line went. I expect wait times were greatly affected by the late openning of the ride yesterday.

 

[MuddyTires]

I have a feeling Josh is posting Disney's wait time numbers, not actual wait times. .

Correct. He's collecting the wait time information provided by Disney an 5 minute intervals.

 

[DVCkidsMOM]

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/magic-kingdom-odds-and-ends-june/#more-13571

Could those times really be accurate? Just look at those 9:00 am waits!

Now I have skimmed the times listed on the rides we experienced yesterday. We were there before RD and rode SDMT (previous post), Buzz, Space Mtn, and POtC then left the park. Posted wait for Buzz 10 minutes and it wasn't even that. The posted wait time at Space Mtn was 20 minutes and was probably accurate. (We weren't watching our watch here as we did while awaiting SDMT opening.) When we exited after riding Space Mtn, the posted wait at Space was 40min and posted wait at Buzz 20 min. We went to PotC and the posted wait was 20 minutes and wasn't as long as the Space Mtn wait, but I can't be sure exactly how long the wait was because we were not checking watches - yet. Toward the end or PotC, when we were just at the beginning or the jail cells, the ride stopped. We were stuck on the ride at least 15 minutes and it seemed so much longer - they kept "restarting with pumps." We escaped PotC at 11:30, saw a mass of people in the que outside the building but didn't look at posted wait times, and rushed back to our resort for lunch. Note that we walk quickly - not to get ahead of others in line, but because our natural pace is a bit faster than most. I drives me crazy to plod, trudge, or meander. We are quick in bathrooms and we did not stop for any snacks - just so you have a reference about our touring style. We got much less done than we usually do, but we think it's because we have only been during June (or any other busy season) one other time out of 18 or so trips with our kids.

 

[Luckybee]

For us even if they are just " posted " wait times it would mean without doubt getting way less done then we are planning on our rope drop morning.
We would not likely get in an rd line for 30 minutes for something like potc so we'd likely skip a number of attractions. Maybe this is what Disney wants ...less wear and tear on their rides

 

[DumboDash2006]

I'm officially scared. We'll be there June 22-27 (with one non park day) and haven't been since 2006 so while not total newbies we don't know all the ins and outs, no matter how much I have researched. I've taken Josh's plans and adjusted them as best I could for our interests and FP+ times.
We are following his best days etc. We're staying off site so no EMH's for us.

We have two days scheduled for the MK but had originally hoped to be done by three or four pm each day so we could have some time to relax by the pool. Now I think relaxing will not be an option, not if we want to see everything on our list.

 

[JenniferinFL]

Those are what I like to call Disney default wait times. Seriously, the Under the Sea ride always says 20 minutes for the wait time even if no one is in line and you can walk right on.

Now, on Saturday, at 9:09 am the line for 7dmt was all the way out of the queue and wrapped around down the fence all the way to Ariel's grotto. Posted wait time was 180 minutes. We arrived for rope drop, but, crowds were crazy to the point that even so it was 9:09 before we got back to 7dmt. We saw people taking the path to the far right of the castle and going around by the tea cups and that would have been a much better choice. We got stuck behind Anna/Elsa traffic as well.

I would make fast passing that one a priority.

On the bright side, it seems like everyone there at rope drop was either at Anna/Elsa or 7dmt. There were people who had been on Space Mountain three times in under a half hour. We opted not to get into the 7dmt line at that point and instead got quite a bit done without any waits.

We only got on 7dmt because there was a closure and when we saw it running empty we just hung out around the area waiting for the line to reopen and were one of the first 100 people in line. But, because they were honoring all the earlier fastpasses we still had over an hour wait.