Queue Etiquette

[TinkerPan]

How does one politely regroup their party when they are separated in a queue?

Ever since our last Disney trip I’ve been pondering this question.

Here’s our situation. We are a party of 6 that tour together: my DH, myself (the grandparents), my adult DD and SiL and two grandchildren 9 and 11. I do the planning for our group and lead the way. What I’ve found sometimes happens is after entering the queue I’ll proceed to the end of the queue line with someone from my party, then myself and one other person from our party will at some point turn around and find to our surprise 2 strangers coming up or already behind us and then the rest of our party of 4.

When this happens I’d say to the 2 strangers “You can go ahead, we’re with them.” (Never did anyone not accept that as a solution.) I did this believing the intermingling of our parties was likely inadvertent and it would be impolite to have 4 folks going ahead of 2. However, after telling the 2 strangers to go ahead I’d find that they would quickly be joined by 4 others that were apparently part of their party. So, six people have now gone ahead of our 6. Hmmm. I let this slide initially, after all I had told them they could go ahead, but after the third time this happened I started to get really annoyed. I started to feel like a sucker and I had been played.

Has anyone else run into this situation? Do you have any suggestions for politely resolving it?

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Guess I’m not understanding how your party is getting separated? If it did happen I probably would just let the other party go ahead and not worry about it. A few extra people aren’t going to make much difference in your wait time. Not worth making a big deal about.

 

[Allison]

Just have your party catch up to you. The other people realize they passed a group. Just say they are with you. I think you are overthinking it. Unless your party is significantly behind, it shouldn't be an issue.

You can also try to staying with your group going at a slower pace and not get ahead of them.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

How about this...wait for everyone then get in line.

 

[Mome Rath]

Yeah, I would either wait for everyone to get in line and walk together in the queue (staying with the slowest person), or just let the others go in front of you as you've been doing, and letting anyone that got separated from them join them.

 

[TinkerPan]

Yeah, I would either wait for everyone to get in line and walk together in the queue (staying with the slowest person), or just let the others go in front of you as you've been doing, and letting anyone that got separated from them join them.

We do wait for everyone to get in line together. I have wondered how this happens and have a few theories. First, this seems to take place in the FP line. I think we natuarally line up single file and there are two tapstyles and others start going thru the other tapstyle, The other thing is we have one person in our party in a wheel chair and I think people want to get by them as they perceive them as moving slowly. The queue lines are generally broad, at least to start and that problem contributes to this happening.

 

[Mome Rath]

Yeah, at the start of the FP queue, after tapping into the tapstile, I'd step to the side (leaving room for people to pass) and look back and wait for all the people in my party to step through. Sometimes the tapping in takes a bit longer, which is how groups can be separated because of the location of the tapstiles.

 

[TinkerPan]

Yeah, at the start of the FP queue, after tapping into the tapstile, I'd step to the side (leaving room for people to pass) and look back and wait for all the people in my party to step through. Sometimes the tapping in takes a bit longer, which is how groups can be separated because of the location of the tapstiles.

Yeah, that's probably the best approach.

 

[gillep]

I think you are over thinking this. Is it really a big deal if six people get ahead of you? If I wanted my whole party to be together the whole time I would walk at the pace of the slowest person and not single file, usually we have people looking around the queue when we go in a group so I have no issue if people pass us. I also always have my group split up between the tap points in a FP line and then wait until everyone is done before proceeding, there is no reason that we all need to go through the same one. Everyone has their own MB or ticket media so we each use the next open one when we get there.

 

[Burgundy Rose]

Just commenting to say thank you so much for going back to your party instead of waving at them to come to you. I think it's the polite thing to do.

 

[fbarker]

How about this...wait for everyone then get in line.

Wow is this a novel idea!! So simple yet so effective in solving this problem. I love it!!

 

[tinkerbellybutton]

We once had a group of 25. It was impossible for us to all get through a FP line without someone not in our group to end up splitting us up. It's just the way it happens with the two or more touch point set up Disney has.

We always found it was just easier to let them ahead of us. I never felt like anyone purposefully cut inbetween us, how would they know we were all togethet? Even when it ended up just a few of us were behind, we still allowed others to cut rather than asking for our party to get ahead of them. Imagine their pleasant surprise when they got to pass up 15 people in line! Lol. When in Disney I try my best not to sweat the small stuff!

 

[powellrj]

If you think people are going around your wheelchair, can you have people stand on each side of the chair so people can’t get around. I am in a wheelchair so I know how people try to cut in front of you.

 

[paradesintherain]

There's plenty of points in queues at Disney World where it's easy to get separated from your party; for instance when leaving the library at Tower of Terror, or after the preshow at Dinosaur, etc etc.

I've let parties in front of me before and never ended up having huge groups pass... so I'm not sure what to tell you. I think the best option is to let people pass, even though that may be annoying at times!