How Much Longer Are Standby Wait Times?

[Laketravis]

.....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.

Various times of the day in Epcot 11/30 thru 12/5. I used SE as one of my benchmarks and consistently saw 20-30 minute standby wait times via MDE and in person. Most frequently mid-morning between 10am and noon and then late afternoons.

Dinosaur would be another good one to compare.

 

[Laketravis]

Here is "Average" wait time data for Epcot for Monday, 11/24. See if you can find the same data for Monday, 12/1.

A few items worth noting:

• "Actual" (the second line for each attraction) includes FP queue time so cannot be used to represent actual SB time
• Note the distribution of SB wait times for Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land
• Note as well the SB wait times for scheduled high capacity attractions like Captain EO, Turtle Talk, Ellen, and to some extent Mission Space for which FP is available but never needed even in the highest of "crowd" levels

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[jade1]

We did a posted 50 min wait for 7DMT in 20 minutes Thanksgiving week, but it was towards the end of the night.

For us the SB times were rarely on our radar (sorry) but for a holiday week they seemed pretty reasonable, but we are used to XMAS and S Break.

I guess we just didn't care if POTC/HM/IASM were 30 or 60 or even 4 hour waits, compared to what we gained.

What we didn't have to wait for what the amazing part-priceless really. Actually scared to think what I may be willing to pay for that if it was still the old days.

Same with AK.

EPCOT we did Soarin for the first time in a long time with FP+, and SB at TT was 50 minutes so we skipped that and did that on another day. EPCOT needs more no doubt though esp holiday weeks. Holiday Illuminations was great as usual. We enjoy WS more anyway than the rides there.

DHS we did RNR/TOT one day and TSM/TOT another-but I'm sure the lines were long all week. Osborne and Fantasmic no problem of course-although Mickey was not on the mountain at the end, kinda ruined it.

 

[wisblue]

Various times of the day in Epcot 11/30 thru 12/5. I used SE as one of my benchmarks and consistently saw 20-30 minute standby wait times via MDE and in person. Most frequently mid-morning between 10am and noon and then late afternoons.

Dinosaur would be another good one to compare.

OK, I'll take a look at those two when I get a chance.

My observation on SE over the years is that its general crowd pattern is that it builds up a line in the first two hours because some people are attracted by the big ball and go there first while others go there after hitting Soarin or Test Track but before heading out to World Showcase. The wait time then peaks around noon or shortly after and then drops and stays fairly low for most of the rest of the day.

We also noticed a longer than usual line at Dinosaur in August. We went there after KS and EE and had to wait about 20 minutes at around 10 AM while a lot of people entered with FPs. in November there was no wait on a Sunday morning at about 9:30 after an 8 AM EMH, but the weather was a little iffy that morning.

I'll start with these, but at some point I'd like to pick out a few rides at MK. I suspect that the much larger number of attractions there creates a different pattern than the park's at which there are many fewer attractions and fewer FP options.

 

[Laketravis]

What we didn't have to wait for what the amazing part-priceless really.

Agreed. It's nice to be able to walk into the park in the late afternoon or early evening and be able to have 2 or 3 FP's to attractions with historically high SB times. And if you frequent the parks enough to be satisfied with that, it's definitely an advantage. But for those who aren't spending 15 days on site or can't return multiple times a year, I can see how it can be discouraging after you've used your 3 FP's to face nothing but long SB lines and feel like they aren't getting very much done.

We also found the "additional" FP's somewhat of a cruel joke - often the time waiting in line at the Kiosks to see what was left would exceed the SB wait time for the selections that were left.

One last thing - there are still some attractions that will maintain low SB times no matter how efficiently WDW distributes crowds, and it really is senseless to use an FP for those. Obvious examples are Captain EO and other cyclical attractions where everyone enters at the same time, but we also found Star Tours to be interesting because you can progress thru the FP queue side-by-side with Standby, and often those guests who entered SB the same time we did the FP would progress to the loading areas before us because we had to stop at the second scan point behind others. A silly little observation, I'm sure, but one that would leave every guest questioning why they "wasted" an FP on that attraction to begin with.

 

[SmithSmith]

This is interesting. The idea is kinda similar to a post I made yesterday. Another poster insinuated I was lying about the wait times I experienced on our trip in Sept. So I shared with them the date, time, and wait time of every attraction I visited, excluding shows. I also pointed out that all wait times could be corroborated with Touring Plans data. Unfortunately, I have nothing to compare it to because I don't have the wait times for the year prior... but maybe someone else does.

 

[Laketravis]

My observation on SE over the years is that its general crowd pattern is that it builds up a line in the first two hours because some people are attracted by the big ball and go there first while others go there after hitting Soarin or Test Track but before heading out to World Showcase. The wait time then peaks around noon or shortly after and then drops and stays fairly low for most of the rest of the day.

Simply an observation as well, but in the last four years this is the only year I remember not being able to just walk right on (like everyone probably remembers People Mover to be) regardless of the time of day. Definitely the first year I always saw the SB line to the right of the entrance always filled with people.

 

[wisblue]

Here is "Average" wait time data for Epcot for Monday, 11/24. See if you can find the same data for Monday, 12/1.

The first thing I did before I go much further is to compare the data in this chart to the data in the graph on Touring Plans for the same day. Fortunately, they appear to match up perfectly. So, I am hoping that means I can use that data from Touring Plans as a substitute for these charts.

I looked at the TP graph for Monday, December 1 and the posted wait times are much lower than they were the week before. They gradually go from 5 to 15 (about 9:45) to 20 (a little after 10 AM) to 25 (around 10:30) before peaking at 30 minutes from around 11:30-12:30. It then goes to 20 minutes from 12:30-1:30, to 15 from 1:40- 3 PM, and then to 5 minutes at 3 PM for the rest of the day.

 

[Laketravis]

Various times of the day in Epcot 11/30 thru 12/5. I used SE as one of my benchmarks and consistently saw 20-30 minute standby wait times via MDE and in person. Most frequently mid-morning between 10am and noon and then late afternoons.

I looked at the TP graph for Monday, December 1.....They gradually go from 5 to 15 (about 9:45) to 20 (a little after 10 AM) to 25 (around 10:30) before peaking at 30 minutes from around 11:30-12:30. It then goes to 20 minutes from 12:30-1:30, to 15 from 1:40- 3 PM, and then to 5 minutes at 3 PM for the rest of the day.

Looks like my observations were correct. And TP had that day as a "4" for Epcot, right? Josh also had EP as a "Highly Recommended" park that day. Can't say I've ever seen a 30 minute wait for SE on a "4" day.

I believe TP stops measuring after 5pm, so "rest of the day" after 3pm would only be a couple more hours before it could have possibly started to peak again. How do the rest of the days last week look?

I'm curious what Living with the Land looked like on that day. I didn't track it but do remember it having a substantial wait despite being a virtual walk-on in years past.

Is it possible to post the TP graph so we can get the full picture?

 

[wisblue]

Looks like my observations were correct. And TP had that day as a "4" for Epcot, right? Josh also had EP as a "Highly Recommended" park that day. Can't say I've ever seen a 30 minute wait for SE on a "4" day.

Doesn't TP stop measuring after 5pm? So "rest of the day" after 3pm would only be a couple more hours before it could have possibly started to peak again?

How do the rest of the days last week look?

I think Touring Plans only uses wait times from 10 AM to 5 PM for purposes of making their crowd ratings and predictions. But their charts show posted wait times for the whole day.

I have to do something else now so I won't be checking any other days for a while.

 

[Laketravis]

I think Touring Plans only uses wait times from 10 AM to 5 PM for purposes of making their crowd ratings and predictions. But their charts show posted wait times for the whole day.

I have to do something else now so I won't be checking any other days for a while.

Do you have to be a subscriber to access this info? I'd like to see it as well.

 

[wisblue]

Do you have to be a subscriber to access this info? I'd like to see it as well.

I do have a subscription this year. It probably is subscriber only information.

 

[johde]

Here is "Average" wait time data for Epcot for Monday, 11/24. See if you can find the same data for Monday, 12/1.

A few items worth noting:

• "Actual" (the second line for each attraction) includes FP queue time so cannot be used to represent actual SB time
• Note the distribution of SB wait times for Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land
• Note as well the SB wait times for scheduled high capacity attractions like Captain EO, Turtle Talk, Ellen, and to some extent Mission Space for which FP is available but never needed even in the highest of "crowd" levels

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Some historical data is free on touringplans.

Comparing "apples" to "apples" as best we can leads to interesting observation. Looking at TouringPlans data for the Monday before Thanksgiving for the year prior you can see it here. http://touringplans.com/epcot/attractions/spaceship-earth/wait-times/date/2013-11-25 . The pink line is Disney's posted wait times (as reported by members). I see 2 things. Standby times were not "walk on " all the time like many people suggest but they are lower than top time in the chart. Conversely, the "actual" wait time in the second line that you suggest includes a combination of FP and SB times is lower than the times from last year. That would suggest that overall, guest wait time on Spaceship earth is actually lower. With people in the FP line taking benefit from the people in the SB line.

 

[wisblue]

Some historical data is free on touringplans.

Comparing "apples" to "apples" as best we can leads to interesting observation. Looking at TouringPlans data for the Monday before Thanksgiving for the year prior you can see it here. http://touringplans.com/epcot/attractions/spaceship-earth/wait-times/date/2013-11-25 . The pink line is Disney's posted wait times (as reported by members). I see 2 things. Standby times were not "walk on " all the time like many people suggest but they are lower than top time in the chart. Conversely, the "actual" wait time in the second line that you suggest includes a combination of FP and SB times is lower than the times from last year. That would suggest that overall, guest wait time on Spaceship earth is actually lower. With people in the FP line taking benefit from the people in the SB line.

I think the better apples to apples comparison is in the black dots, which are the wait times posted by Disney.

 

[JanaDee]

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.

 

[Laketravis]

Conversely, the "actual" wait time in the second line that you suggest includes a combination of FP and SB times is lower than the times from last year.

WDW measures both SB and FP queues via the use of the red cards everyone is probably familiar with. The values for both are contained in the "Actual" field in the data stream obtained from the Disney API as an aggregate value; only Disney knows which values were from the SB samples and which were from the FP samples which are parsed from separate fields and not available thru the API. The fact that the SB values are higher and the "Actual" values are lower would correspond with the reported increase in FP usage.

With people in the FP line taking benefit from the people in the SB line.

Exactly. Which has helped cap wait times on the most popular of venues but put upward pressure on SB waits for just about everything else placed in the yield pool.

I think the better apples to apples comparison is in the black dots, which are the wait times posted by Disney.

I agree - best to keep data sources consistent.

 

[FlipHipster]

I haven't digested this thread yet but I will. We just got back a couple hours ago , I need to wind down a little

I was wondering if anyone remembers around 1.5 months ago, Disney had a "glitch" where tiers were removed for a while and people were able to book 2 tiers 1's at Epcot and DHS? Last week was one of the weeks affected. I wonder if they over allocated FP's last week? MK wasn't much of a problem, but DHS and Epcot sucked royally. Soarin' was 80mins 1hr after opening Thursday. People were just pouring into the FP line. We rode LWTL with I think 2 other families on the whole ride TT was the same in the morning, but seemed to taper off in the evening. We walked on everything else no problem. Mission Space was never over 5-10mins that I saw. It wasn't crowded IMO. Certainly not enough to expect those wait times. We noticed the same thing at RnRC and ToT on Monday.

IMO, the posted wait times were useless for those rides. FWIW, RnRC kept going down which just makes it worse. Everyone runs to ToT and then when it comes back up they post a 20min wait. Everyone runs back and you get a dbl whammy of FP+ riders as well. Those that have one for the current window and those that had one when it was down. ST tours was walk on all day. I love it and all, but how many times can you really do it in a day?

 

[Laketravis]

I looked at the TP graph for Monday, December 1 and the posted wait times are much lower than they were the week before. They gradually go from 5 to 15 (about 9:45) to 20 (a little after 10 AM) to 25 (around 10:30) before peaking at 30 minutes from around 11:30-12:30. It then goes to 20 minutes from 12:30-1:30, to 15 from 1:40- 3 PM, and then to 5 minutes at 3 PM for the rest of the day.

If I am interpreting it correctly, it looks like the same chart for the same day last year does have lower wait times:

http://touringplans.com/epcot/attractions/spaceship-earth/wait-times/date/2013-12-02

 

[Laketravis]

It wasn't crowded IMO. Certainly not enough to expect those wait times.....

I agree... and I'm trying really hard not to admit that perhaps the best touring strategy is that there is no longer a strategy at all. When wait times are low (an increasingly rare event for sure), you don't need a strategy. When wait times are high, no strategy really works anymore. Neither do the FP+ Kiosks, because they offer the least benefit during the times you need them the most.

The only things left are Rope Drop which is quickly losing it's edge; EMH with morning EMH holding an advantage over evening EMH because new arrivals to the queue aren't competing with an already established SB and FP queue, and the high capacity/cyclical attractions were everyone waits 5-10 minutes and then all go in at the same time (what a waste of an FP!). But like you said, you can only do ST or CoP or Captain EO so many times in one day

 

[FlipHipster]

I agree... and I'm trying really hard not to admit that perhaps the best touring strategy is that there is no longer a strategy at all. When wait times are low (an increasingly rare event for sure), you don't need a strategy. When wait times are high, no strategy really works anymore. Neither do the FP+ Kiosks, because they offer the least benefit during the times you need them the most.

The only things left are Rope Drop which is quickly losing it's edge; EMH with morning EMH holding an advantage over evening EMH because new arrivals to the queue aren't competing with an already established SB and FP queue, and the high capacity/cyclical attractions were everyone waits 5-10 minutes and then all go in at the same time (what a waste of an FP!). But like you said, you can only do ST or CoP or Captain EO so many times in one day

It definitely affects the way we like to do the parks. Typically dw and sil go shopping while I take the kids on attractions. They love to shop, we love to play in the park. It used to work well for us, but the shopping is kinda meh and we spent way too much effort to get on a couple of rides. We had the totally opposite experience at US. I rode Hulk so many times I had to have an intervention Saturday. I'm not kidding, I kept sneaking away to run through SR line and got busted. The ladies spent a fortune on Potter gear, I'm scared to even ask. After riding Gringotts(4x),FJ, Spiderman, Transformers, Soarin' feels old and tired. RnRC 1x? I'll take Hulk, RRR, DC over and over and over any day of the week