I was at Disney this past week and for the most part was a great trip. But I have noticed that the cutting in line seems to be a growing problem at WDW. There must have been probably at least one incident of cutting at practically every attraction I was at and seems to be increasing.
-There were two incidents in the line to Mad Hatter's Tea Party that nearly resulted in a fight. (there were two incidents of fighting in that line the past two months due to people being accused of cutting in line).
-There was an issue at Test Track where a group of at least 5 cut ahead of everyone by going through the single rider line and then joining the party at the end.
-And the "person holding my place in line" is used all over the place. And sometimes I have noticed there is no other person in line holding their place. They move ahead in order to find a spot where someone isn't paying attention and just squeeze in there.
It seems what people are also starting to do is break up their party while one goes and gets fast passes. For example, one person gets a fast pass for the whole party while that party waits in line at another attraction. The person with the fast passes then cuts in line to re-join their party. And when I was talking to one cast member about this she agreed that the lines were not designed to work that way and if a large number of people do it, it makes the wait time longer and also makes the estimated wait time wrong since the computer can not accuratly measure the length of the line.
Solution to this is probably do what Busch Gardens does when someone cuts in line, they get thrown out of the park and banned from re-entering for the day. This seems to have eliminated that problem at those parks. Disney is supposed to have something similar, but it isn't enforced and cast members dont seem to want to deal with it.
The Fast Pass system is also a mess and is inferior to Universal's "Express Pass" in my opinion. And everyone I've mentioned that to also agrees. Universal seems to have Disney beat when it comes to managing their lines. I know Disney has been looking at several different ways to improve the system, but it really needs a lot of work. And even though they have been testing multiple ideas...they have failed to change the system in any way.
When all fast passes to an attraction are distributed before noon and the standby is 130 minutes....something is wrong. And yes, I saw this twice when I was at WDW this past week. I can't think of any theme park I've ever been to where I would have to wait OVER 2 hours to get on a 3-minute ride. That's insane. And this was before the park was at peek attendance! I can't imagine the wait at 2 or 3pm.... 3 hours?
-There were two incidents in the line to Mad Hatter's Tea Party that nearly resulted in a fight. (there were two incidents of fighting in that line the past two months due to people being accused of cutting in line).
-There was an issue at Test Track where a group of at least 5 cut ahead of everyone by going through the single rider line and then joining the party at the end.
-And the "person holding my place in line" is used all over the place. And sometimes I have noticed there is no other person in line holding their place. They move ahead in order to find a spot where someone isn't paying attention and just squeeze in there.
It seems what people are also starting to do is break up their party while one goes and gets fast passes. For example, one person gets a fast pass for the whole party while that party waits in line at another attraction. The person with the fast passes then cuts in line to re-join their party. And when I was talking to one cast member about this she agreed that the lines were not designed to work that way and if a large number of people do it, it makes the wait time longer and also makes the estimated wait time wrong since the computer can not accuratly measure the length of the line.
Solution to this is probably do what Busch Gardens does when someone cuts in line, they get thrown out of the park and banned from re-entering for the day. This seems to have eliminated that problem at those parks. Disney is supposed to have something similar, but it isn't enforced and cast members dont seem to want to deal with it.
The Fast Pass system is also a mess and is inferior to Universal's "Express Pass" in my opinion. And everyone I've mentioned that to also agrees. Universal seems to have Disney beat when it comes to managing their lines. I know Disney has been looking at several different ways to improve the system, but it really needs a lot of work. And even though they have been testing multiple ideas...they have failed to change the system in any way.
When all fast passes to an attraction are distributed before noon and the standby is 130 minutes....something is wrong. And yes, I saw this twice when I was at WDW this past week. I can't think of any theme park I've ever been to where I would have to wait OVER 2 hours to get on a 3-minute ride. That's insane. And this was before the park was at peek attendance! I can't imagine the wait at 2 or 3pm.... 3 hours?
between parents of children who are waiting to see characters! It's just plain ridiculous and for goodness sakes what are we teaching the children? That's the kids that grow up to be the line cutters and think it's their right to do so. 
The massing style of "line" in Soarin is also ridiculous. It is truly a situation of push, shove, elbow, and sneak trying to get ahead of others. I absolutely love this ride but 130+ minute wait time is shear insanity. And this past Tuesday (one of those insanely busy days) one of the "million dreams" awards gave a family a ride on Soarin alone...just those 4 or 5 folks on the ride alone...with all those empty seats and all those people waiting in the cue. I don't really understand why they didn't just seat them front and center and then fill in the rest of the theater. People were not happy at waiting for the ride to run essentially empty.
