How inaccurate are the standby wait times?

[I'm No Fool]

Is it true that wait time posted for the rides is longer that the actual time? If so, is there a way to estimate the real time?

 

[seashoreCM]

So far nobody has published a more precise wait time guide. Such a guide will include such details as, (Splash Mountain) "When you first enter the building where the left and right lines split and go around the little rotunda, the wait time at this point is X minutes if the line has reached back this far.

Immediately after a parade the actual wait time will shoot way past the posted wait time.

During the first hour in the morning, wait times tend to be less because there are no matured fastpasses yet.

For many rides, the standby wait is computed. Every 10 minutes or so a CM at the ride entrance (near the sign showing the wait time) hands a random guest a card attached to a lanyard, telling that guest to surrender the card when boarding the ride. The card is "scanned" just before and just after the time period the guest has it in his possession and the time interval becomes the wait time. This method is not perfect, it does not respond quickly to sudden influxes of guests. The guest with the card might not follow directions, for example he might give the card to someone else or forget to surrender it, or also a CM at the other end might take the card back too soon.

Even the appearance of the line at the entrance is not completely reliable. For many rides (Great Movie Ride, Buzz Lightyear, Big Thunder) they can vary the number of zigzags and therefore the number of people waiting inside the building.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[civileng68]

Is it true that wait time posted for the rides is longer that the actual time? If so, is there a way to estimate the real time?

Honestly, some are accurate and some are not. They rarely (if ever) say "0" wait. If it says anything under 15 minutes there may not be a single line at all.

I have typically found that the lines are typically shorter than the listed times (though they can be longer sometimes).

I think the best thing to do is just judge it visually if you are knowledgeable of the park.

For me, I know roughly how long it takes to get from the doorway at Space Mtn to the ride. So my philosophy is........if I dont see the line outside of the building, it's not that bad (remember that since they do a FP line and a Standby line, from building entry to the ride is only like 20 minutes or so.

You just have to learn certain rides and how the lines move. If you get the Unofficial guide it usually tells for every ride how many people the ride can take per hour and roughly how long per so many people the wait will be.

It gives you a good idea.

 

[Fredd's Girl]

I also have found that wait times are generally shorter than the time says. Like the poster before me, if it says 15 minutes, usually we glide right through. I will say though that the stand-by for Soarin' in December was dead on!! 70 minutes. We'll definately fastpass that next time!

 

[jann1033]

we go off season so it might change things but we've seen wait times that are the same ( say 20 mins) the whole time we are in the park. llike tot said 15 but was a walk on, same with rnr. not sure if there is a minimal time ( 0) but they don't seem totally accurate to me.

 

[livingthedream]

HI....

I would like to add my voice to those who say that the wait times posted are USUALLY less than what they post, but this is when it is saying between 10 and 30 minutes. Anything over that and they tend to be a lot closer.

Having said that, my hubby is convinced that they should call the "wait" time the actual "walk" time it takes to get from the gate to the ride.

 

[dpuck1998]

HI....

I would like to add my voice to those who say that the wait times posted are USUALLY less than what they post, but this is when it is saying between 10 and 30 minutes. Anything over that and they tend to be a lot closer.

Having said that, my hubby is convinced that they should call the "wait" time the actual "walk" time it takes to get from the gate to the ride.

I agree with that, for some rides (RNR) the wait time can be 0 or 5 and it still takes 20 mins to get to the ride with all the preshow etc..and the walk to get on a ride like Dinosaur can be long too!

 

[pezpam]

Some of the variation depends on the CM in charge, too. On a funny note, the 'wait time' at TOT was set to 13 minutes for quite a long time one afternoon. The actual wait time varied from 5-20 minutes, but I heard a lot of comments from guests who all thought it was hilarious. I'd bet a dollar that some CMs just enjoy having the 13 there on a spooky ride and will put it up if it's close to accurate.

 

[Dustin]

I as there when the wait on ToT said 13 minutes....in actuality it was like an hour wait... I was very confused, then I realized it was a joke.

 

[jennyl772003]

Me and DH don't typically wait in any lines over 20 minutes. We have found that when we do stand in line, the wait is less then posted.

Last week the wait posted on EE was 20 minutes and we were on in 10.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

So my philosophy is........if I dont see the line outside of the building, it's not that bad (remember that since they do a FP line and a Standby line, from building entry to the ride is only like 20 minutes or so.

This is basically my philosophy also. When I was there in Sept the TOT had a wait time of 20 min. I figured that isn't bad so I went on. My party was the ONLY ones there. There was no line, no one inside. We actually had to wait a minute for others to join us. I went in the off season so there weren't many lines to begin with. For things like Space Mountain, Buzz, Haunted Mansion, if you don't see a line, hop on.

 

[makinorlando]

Even the appearance of the line at the entrance is not completely reliable. For many rides (Great Movie Ride, Buzz Lightyear, Big Thunder) they can vary the number of zigzags and therefore the number of people waiting inside the building.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

You said that so much better than I... but that was going to be my comment. This happened to us on the Jungle Cruise. We had gone on one day, with harldy any wait - the time said 10 minutes, so on the next visit, when the sign said 30 minutes, but I didn't see a line going out of the "building", I figured we were okay - not until I got in side did I realize that the line was zigging and zagging through every available section of the queue line, whereas on the other day, we went in almost clear shot - no zigging nor zagging........

Occasionally when there is an unforseen "technical" difficulty the wait time will be longer. This happened to us during a wait (already long) for Soarin' which only made it longer...... until lots of people started leaving!!!

Another thing I have noticed is where there are FP lines, if you get in the standby line near the beginning of a FP time period - say 3:50 - 4:50 - and yout get in line at 3:45, when all the people who got FP for 3:50 arrive at the same time at 3:50, the stand by line tends to slow down. We had this happen on Winnie the Pooh.... sign said 30 minutes, and we were in line for closer to 50 minutes. There was a major influx of FPers immediately after we got on line.....

 

[aunt kelly]

Maybe we've just been very lucky, but I don't ever remember waiting longer than the time posted. We've found that generally the wait is shorter than posted.

 

[almacdonald]

My DL experiences....

1) POSTED wait time for the Sun Wheel: 35 min. (We had FP's for California Screaming that would mature slightly after that so we figured.... what the heck)

ACTUAL wait time: 90 min!!!!! You'd get 1/4 of the way through the line and think, "well, i've already waited this long, i can't leave now!" and 15 minutes turned into 30 minutes turned into 90 minutes. I was grumpy after that!



2) POSTER wait time for Pirate: 15 minutes

ACTUAL wait time: NONE!!!! we walked right on!

 

[civileng68]

My DL experiences....

1) POSTED wait time for the Sun Wheel: 35 min. (We had FP's for California Screaming that would mature slightly after that so we figured.... what the heck)

ACTUAL wait time: 90 min!!!!! You'd get 1/4 of the way through the line and think, "well, i've already waited this long, i can't leave now!" and 15 minutes turned into 30 minutes turned into 90 minutes. I was grumpy after that!



2) POSTER wait time for Pirate: 15 minutes

ACTUAL wait time: NONE!!!! we walked right on!

One thing I've noticed is that Soarin is a unique "monster" in terms of crowd levels.

I've gone on with a WALK ON wait and when I came out there was ALREADY a 30 minute wait. It builds so fast it's amazing.

Part of it is because when they post the short wait times, everyone shoots for it. So many walk in that building, on the top balcony, see the wait time and leave. When they see 15 mins, everyone shoots for it, and because the line cannot be seen from the entry area, they keep piling in because they can't tell that it's already filling up.

One thing is, the queue area, while somewhat boring is ok because it's spacious.

The worse line to wait in (in my opinion) is BTMRR. If you are chlaustrophobic (sp) it's a nightmare to wait in line.

 

[DOOM1001]

I as there when the wait on ToT said 13 minutes....in actuality it was like an hour wait... I was very confused, then I realized it was a joke.

Disney does put a 13 minute wait as a joke but not if it's an hour wait, they'll put that 13 minute wait time if it's around a 10-20 minute wait.You maybe got on and it was working normal and it may have broken down as you were waiting cause even on pretty busy days I rarely find the wait for tower to be more than 40 minutes and on average days more like 20.

 

[Sleepy]

I'll tell about our experience 5 years ago at Tough to be a Bug. We wanted to grab a fast pass, but the CMs at the fast pass booths said the standby would be faster. We insisted to get a fastpass, but they were more insistant to get in the standby, so we did. I am not kidding......2-1/2 hours later we were able to see the attraction. I've never been so irritated in my life. I'll never do that again.

 

[Dislifer]

I have found that the actual wait times are LESS than what is posted. We were there on Christmas day and at one point the wait time for Soarin was....240 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!! I asked the CM what the longest wait time for this ride ever was and he said this was the longest. Can you imagine waiting that long for anything???!!!!

 

[eeyoreiscool]

We have found it seems like anything 20 minutes and under might actually be less time in line. However anything over 20 minutes will probably be right on or even longer. There have been times when we get in line and it takes longer than was posted but when the ride is over we notice the wait time has increased to be around what we waited. I think they try to keep them fairly accurate.

 

[mdoc]

I've waited longer than the posted standby time (Fantasyland rides), and more frequently I've waited less than the posted time. In my experience it's always been within 5 or 10 minutes of the stated time, though.