How Much Longer Are Standby Wait Times?

[wisblue]

Every time I try to raise this question, the discussion gets sidetracked by comments about what is causing lines to be longer.

What I would like to do, if possible, is get a handle on how standby waits at some attractions have changed in the last 2 years for days with comparable crowd levels. Even though it is impossible to get an exact measure because we don't have daily attendance numbers, it should be possible to get at least a rough idea using available data on posted wait times and comparing them from one year to the next.

Is anyone else interested in trying to figure this out, or is it just me? If I am used to touring the MK during spring break when the park opens at 8 AM and riding POC at 10 AM with a 10 minute wait, I would like to know if I should now expect that posted wait to be 30-40 minutes.

Is it worth trying to quantify some of this, or is everyone satisfied with the general statement that "standby lines are a lot longer"?

BTW, I am aware of the studies by Touring Plans and easyWDW that have said that average standby waits are up to 10 minutes longer at some attractions and up to 10 minutes lower at others. But those seem to have been rejected by posters who say that they have observed significantly longer waits throughout the day. So, is there some way to use objective data to make these comparisons without offending anyone who thinks that raising this question is dismissing their observations?

 

[Dan Murphy]

Here is some work by Josh from several months ago.

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/

 

[Luckybee]

Every time I try to raise this question, the discussion gets sidetracked by comments about what is causing lines to be longer.

What I would like to do, if possible, is get a handle on how standby waits at some attractions have changed in the last 2 years for days with comparable crowd levels. Even though it is impossible to get an exact measure because we don't have daily attendance numbers, it should be possible to get at least a rough idea using available data on posted wait times and comparing them from one year to the next.

Is anyone else interested in trying to figure this out, or is it just me? If I am used to touring the MK during spring break when the park opens at 8 AM and riding POC at 10 AM with a 10 minute wait, I would like to know if I should now expect that posted wait to be 30-40 minutes.

Is it worth trying to quantify some of this, or is everyone satisfied with the general statement that "standby lines are a lot longer"?

BTW, I am aware of the studies by Touring Plans and easyWDW that have said that average standby waits are up to 10 minutes longer at some attractions and up to 10 minutes lower at others. But those seem to have been rejected by posters who say that they have observed significantly longer waits throughout the day. So, is there some way to use objective data to make these comparisons without offending anyone who thinks that raising this question is dismissing their observations?

Unless you have boots on the ground on a daily basis so to speak I think it would be very difficult to accomplish this. There seems to be a great deal of variation from day to day and even hour to hour from what we've seen on here.
I have been convinced since our trip that Disney varies the number of FP's they release for each attraction based on the anticipated crowd level for given times, and if their prediction is in error it potentially skews the experience. When we were at MK the standby lines were imho ridiculously long, and in contrast the fp's were equally as short, in other words non existent. That works well at U where express pass is available for almost all attractions but not where they are limited. Yet we've also seen on these boards where others have seen longer fp lines and not so bad sb. I'd love to know if my theory is correct because if it is there is hope that with time Disney will get better at predicting and things may level out.
For now one really cant determine how long SB's will be when they individually attend at any given park and that is unfortunate. One can follow a particular plan but there have been a great deal of comments stating that the plan times have been way off too. If the experts are having trouble I'm not sure how anyone else could do it .

 

[Luckybee]

And I forgot to add....there has also been a fair amount of commentary on the boards that the posted times have been way off as well....so that not only would you need the "boots on the ground" but you'd also need them waiting in all the lines !

 

[wisblue]

Here is some work by Josh from several months ago.

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/

That's the article I referenced. That has been discussed on the board before, but there seem to be a lot of opinions that the increases are substantially larger than he says.

 

[wisblue]

And I forgot to add....there has also been a fair amount of commentary on the boards that the posted times have been way off as well....so that not only would you need the "boots on the ground" but you'd also need them waiting in all the lines !

Because most people decide whether or not to enter a standby line based on the posted time, I think a comparison of posted times has value. The question of whether posted times are way off can be a subject of its own.

I understand that it is impossible to make a perfect comparison. But, just because the comparison will be imperfect doesn't mean it is worthless. Otherwise all you have to go on is anecdotal evidence from people with boots on the ground who can only see one wait time at a time. When data on posted wait times at many attractions taken many times is a day is available, it doesn't make sense to me to disregard it in favor of anecdotal evidence.

For example, if someone says, "I have never seen a posted wait time at Pirates as long as 40 minutes except over the holidays" wouldn't it be useful to see that posted wait times close to that have been common at other times of the year?

 

[Luckybee]

Because most people decide whether or not to enter a standby line based on the posted time, I think a comparison of posted times has value. The question of whether posted times are way off can be a subject of its own.

I understand that it is impossible to make a perfect comparison. But, just because the comparison will be imperfect doesn't mean it is worthless. Otherwise all you have to go on is anecdotal evidence from people with boots on the ground who can only see one wait time at a time. When data on posted wait times at many attractions taken many times is a day is available, it doesn't make sense to me to disregard it in favor of anecdotal evidence.

For example, if someone says, "I have never seen a posted wait time at Pirates as long as 40 minutes except over the holidays" wouldn't it be useful to see that posted wait times close to that have been common at other times of the year?

I guess it depends on your perspective. I am not willing to discount 1st hand experience from posters whether they say lines are long or short esp when you see the same things over and over. In the last year I've read both, over and over and over again (and have posted myself about lines) and I refuse to believe that all these posters are making it up on either side of the equation. There are just too many posts for me to believe that and that is why I think there is something else at play here and it has to be surrounding fp. Now if someone tells me they were in the same park as I on the same day at the same time then I would question the veracity if they were saying something other than what I saw. Otherwise, nope !

 

[HulkBuster]

we could debate gerneraldata and statistics fruit.essly and u til were all blue in the face and it still doesnt matter to someones personal experence .. that data is useful only to disney .. what matters to me and some others is our own history and some of us can see wait times that used to be 10-20 minuts all the time are now 30,40 or more minutes all the time (small world mansion pirates) whenever we go at any time of year .. when someone like easy or Tp generalized it that's great but I don't care there data is abstract to me I know what isee

 

[Disneylover99]

Unless you have boots on the ground on a daily basis so to speak I think it would be very difficult to accomplish this. There seems to be a great deal of variation from day to day and even hour to hour from what we've seen on here.
I have been convinced since our trip that Disney varies the number of FP's they release for each attraction based on the anticipated crowd level for given times, and if their prediction is in error it potentially skews the experience. When we were at MK the standby lines were imho ridiculously long, and in contrast the fp's were equally as short, in other words non existent. That works well at U where express pass is available for almost all attractions but not where they are limited. Yet we've also seen on these boards where others have seen longer fp lines and not so bad sb. I'd love to know if my theory is correct because if it is there is hope that with time Disney will get better at predicting and things may level out.
For now one really cant determine how long SB's will be when they individually attend at any given park and that is unfortunate. One can follow a particular plan but there have been a great deal of comments stating that the plan times have been way off too. If the experts are having trouble I'm not sure how anyone else could do it .

I've never thought about this theory, but it seems to make sense to me.

Today I switched around a bunch of FP's during Christmas week when crowd levels will be a 10. There was availability for almost everything both early and late in the day.

 

[wisblue]

I guess it depends on your perspective. I am not willing to discount 1st hand experience from posters whether they say lines are long or short esp when you see the same things over and over. In the last year I've read both, over and over and over again (and have posted myself about lines) and I refuse to believe that all these posters are making it up on either side of the equation. There are just too many posts for me to believe that and that is why I think there is something else at play here and it has to be surrounding fp. Now if someone tells me they were in the same park as I on the same day at the same time then I would question the veracity if they were saying something other than what I saw. Otherwise, nope !

You're drifting away from my original point again. The issue is not just whether lines are longer, but by HOW MUCH. And again, I am not discounting first hand experience. But there are ways to use available data to put that first hand experience into a broader perspective. For example, if someone says that standby lines at Pirates were 40 minutes or longer all afternoon on a certain day, that data can tell us if that is really true or if that observation happened to take place at a spike time.

The anecdotal evidence and observations can be wildly inconsistent even for people visiting on the same days. So, unless you focus on ones that are consistent with yours and disregard the rest, it's hard to draw accurate and objective conclusions.

 

[HulkBuster]

i don't think what you want is possible without Disney internal info which we will never have there isn't enough data from anywhere else and you can't put data from one with data from another without coming to a bum result

 

[wisblue]

i don't think what you want is possible without Disney internal info which we will never have there isn't enough data from anywhere else and you can't put data from one with data from another without coming to a bum result

Data on Disney's posted wait times is available.

We also have data from a site like Touring Plans.

I agree that we have to compare data from the same source if we want the best apples to apples comparison.

 

[Luckybee]

You're drifting away from my original point again. The issue is not just whether lines are longer, but by HOW MUCH. And again, I am not discounting first hand experience. But there are ways to use available data to put that first hand experience into a broader perspective. For example, if someone says that standby lines at Pirates were 40 minutes or longer all afternoon on a certain day, that data can tell us if that is really true or if that observation happened to take place at a spike time.

The anecdotal evidence and observations can be wildly inconsistent even for people visiting on the same days. So, unless you focus on ones that are consistent with yours and disregard the rest, it's hard to draw accurate and objective conclusions.

But once again...Im not prepared to discount the individual experience as you seem willing to do by your comment "if that is really true". If it floats your boat go for it...I prefer to rely on my fellow bd members.

 

[HulkBuster]

Data on Disney's posted wait times is available. We also have data from a site like Touring Plans. I agree that we have to compare data from the same source if we want the best apples to apples comparison.

but i don't think you can use crowd level data from tp with wait times from disney you would need disneys own crowd data and you know you wont get that i dont have faith in any sites crowd data at least not to the level that a meenngful studi would need .. if you could put posted wait times with actual attendence numbers that would be good stuff there

 

[wisblue]

but i don't think you can use crowd level data from tp with wait times from disney you would need disneys own crowd data and you know you wont get that i dont have faith in any sites crowd data at least not to the level that a meenngful studi would need .. if you could put posted wait times with actual attendence numbers that would be good stuff there

I am not talking about Touring Plans crowd level data. I am talking about data on their site that includes charts with wait times for each of the attractions that they use to make their crowd calendar predictions. Those charts include Disney's posted wait times. So, if I would like to know what Disney's posted wait times were for those attractions yesterday, two weeks ago, or as much as 2 years ago, the data is there. I have no reason to question whether that data is accurate.

So, if a poster says the standby line at Pirates was longer than 30 minutes all afternoon on a particular day, I could look to see if that observation is consistent with the reported data. I could also look to see what the wait times were like on a comparable date last year or the year before.

 

[warrenz1963]

I'm not sure you can accomplish your task without real hard data: actual numbers direct from the source. Anything less than that would subjectively skew results to varying degrees.
However you may be able to accomplish your research, keep subjective opinions about personal experiences completely out of it.

 

[Laketravis]

How much longer are posted wait times for attractions that previously had no to low waits?

• Long enough for people to talk about them
• Long enough for people to complain about them
• Long enough for people to feel like they are spending more time in line
• Long enough to push people to less popular attractions with lower wait times they otherwise would not have chosen on their own
• Long enough for people to feel like they didn't accomplish as much after a day in the park
• Long enough for people to question the daily value they receive for dollars spent
• Long enough for people to begin wondering why WDW closes even more attractions without opening new ones
• Long enough for people to start threads wanting to know how much longer they really are

"Average" doesn't exist in reality. If you want to try and quantify by exactly how much it impacts each guest every minute of every day without even being in the park in order to confirm/dispute those who are, you would need to cross tabulate real time wait time data for every attraction (excluding the FP component from it) with corresponding real-time park attendance numbers. Neither of which Disney is going to provide to you.

 

[siskaren]

I'm not sure you can accomplish your task without real hard data: actual numbers direct from the source.

Exactly. And I don't know where you'd find that data, because I doubt Disney would release it.

 

[HulkBuster]

thank you that is what I was tryng to say tp is not going to help because they don't have actual attendance numbers without that this is pointless cause you can skew estimates however you want

 

[wisblue]

"Average" doesn't exist in reality. If you want to try and quantify by exactly how much it impacts each guest every minute of every day without even being in the park in order to confirm/dispute those who are, you would need to cross tabulate real time wait time data for every attraction (excluding the FP component from it) with corresponding real-time park attendance numbers. Neither of which Disney is going to provide to you.

I am absolutely NOT trying to do that. As I said on another thread last week, how much increased wait times would affect a specific guest depends very heavily on how that guest tours. For example, someone who uses the first few hours after opening to get in several rides on the mountains before moving on to things like Pirates is going to be affected much differently than someone who focuses on doing as many popular attractions as possible once.

To illustrate what I am trying to get a handle on, I'll offer you (or anyone else) this. Provide a specific example of an attraction at which you observed a significantly longer standby wait than you were used to seeing. That should include a date and the general times of day covered by the observation. Then we can look at the data for that day from Touring Plans or whatever other source we can get for the posted wait times they reported that day. If that data is inconsistent with your observation, fine.

To take it to the next step, it would help to provide a comparable date from last year or the year before to use as a basis for comparison.

For example, you said on another (now closed) thread that on your recent trip you saw Spaceship Earth with consistent 30 minute waits. If you want to give a specific date on which you observed that, and other non holiday dates on which you visited, we could use that to make a comparison.