How Wait Times Are Calculated

[LisaT91403]

Have you ever wondered how wait times are calculated? I'm guessing that you "DIS veterans know", but I had no idea until our visit to DLR over the past 2 days. Here's how:

When we arrived at the Haunted Mansion, the CM handed me a red card attached to a lanyard. She asked me to hand it to the CM we would see right when we boarded our "sleigh" (that's what they call the Doom Buggies when the holiday overlay is in place). The card said something to the effect of please help us to determine accurate wait times.

I couple of things I found interesting were:

1. We were in the Fast Pass line, so I'm not sure how this information would help them to determine the "real" wait time for someone in the stand by line. Why would they need to know how long it take for a Fast Passer to get in?

2. I always figured that the "start" of Haunted Mansion was once you stepped inside the doors. However, based on the fact that they wanted to know when we actually arrived at the vehicles, the wait times seem to be based on the ride starting at that point and not when you enter the house.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting.

 

[jacs1234]

That's interesting to know. I would have thought the ride had started in the Elevator too. We had a red card for Soarin' once.

 

[Vexorg]

I've seen the red cards in use both at DLR and at WDW. As far as I can tell (based on observation of the system in use at WDW,) it appears that what happens here is that there's a device at the beginning of the queue that beeps at what I would presume to be regular intervals to tell the CM there to scan a card (the cards seem to be the same type of RFID cards that a lot of companies use as employee badges\cardkeys) and send it out into the line with a guest. When the guess reaches the end of the line, the loading CM scans the card, thus showing just how long that particular guest has spent in line. I don't think they do this on a lot of rides (since it would require installation of the RFID scanners at the beginning and end of the queues) and even on the ones that have it they may not be doing it all the time. If I had to guess (again, this is just my speculation) I'd say that they're probably using this more for research\data gathering purposes (hence the cards being used in the Fastpass line) than for actually setting the wait times on the queue entrances, since they can probably estimate those by watching how far back in the queue people go. There are also still a number of rides where the wait time indicators are set manually by a CM turning a dial on the back of the sign, where presumably this system wouldn't be of much use.

 

[Malcon10t]

Most rides use this system. Not sure why they did this in FP line though. Usually when you get to the front of the line, it is scanned, passed on to a lead, who then updates the times and notifies the wait board, where they update their times. We've been given one on SM, Star Tours, Peter Pan, and the Matterhorn.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Yep - we've been handed the red card/lanyard thing a couple times....

 

[BecomingObsessed]

We got one in the FP return line for BTMRR. Maybe they use them in the FP lanes to determine the return windows?

 

[Brady's Mom]

We've had them in a few places - Autopia, Buzz and Space!

My kids think it's really cool.

 

[jdb in AZ]

We had one for Mission Space in WDW but the ride broke down while we were still in the queue, so they didn't use our red card.

 

[miss.potatohead]

We were given the card for Soarin' once, although from memory we were given it after being in line for 10 minutes already (had a 15 minute wait time) and we certainly were not last in the line, closer to the middle-front (you'd think they'd give it to someone towards the end)

 

[Pikezh638]

We had one for Mission Space in WDW but the ride broke down while we were still in the queue, so they didn't use our red card.

wish they would have

 

[disneymom0104]

We have been given that red card so many times at WDW. The strangest times we have done it is shortly after rope drop when there is absolutely no line what-so-ever. Like, we would walk up to Peter Pan- get the red card and walk directly to the next CM to board the ride without stopping. I guess they are required to do them at certain intervals regardless of how many people are there.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

We seem to get them a lot on our recent trip to WDW. In the FP line and the regular line. The FP one may determine the time given out on the FP machine (ie if they FP line is taking longer than usual, they adjust the time to a later return???).

 

[ssuriano]

I actually have one of the red cards, it was given to my by a ex CM friend of mine. It seems silly to have one, but it's cool to have something from the parks.