Soarin' and 'delayed boarding'

[recmouse]

I was in WDW from 2/2/14 - 2/7/14. I love riding Soarin' and with all the new changes, only got to ride it twice. I used FP+ both times... the standby line was 70 minutes.

The first time we were waiting to walk into where the ride actually is, a cast member came up to the cast member in our area and whispered, "delay boarding." We get lead to our seats and then that cast member asked everyone to get up and he looked under the seats like he was looking for something... but he didn't really look hard or anything. When someone asked him what he was looking for he kind of stammered and said "someone thinks they may have left something."

The next time we went on the ride, using our FP+, it took us 20 minutes just to get past the second FP+ scanner. It was another 20 minutes before we got onto the ride! Again, the standby line was 70 minutes.

What is the reasoning behind slowing down people getting onto this ride?

 

[Robo]

I was in WDW from 2/2/14 - 2/7/14. I love riding Soarin' and with all the new changes, only got to ride it twice. I used FP+ both times... the standby line was 70 minutes.

The first time we were waiting to walk into where the ride actually is, a cast member came up to the cast member in our area and whispered, "delay boarding." We get lead to our seats and then that cast member asked everyone to get up and he looked under the seats like he was looking for something... but he didn't really look hard or anything. When someone asked him what he was looking for he kind of stammered and said "someone thinks they may have left something."

The next time we went on the ride, using our FP+, it took us 20 minutes just to get past the second FP+ scanner. It was another 20 minutes before we got onto the ride! Again, the standby line was 70 minutes.

What is the reasoning behind slowing down people getting onto this ride?

I don't know that they were "intentionally" slowing down boarding.

 

[recmouse]

Well the cast member definitely said "delay boarding". Also - I am not the only poster saying that this FP line took 45 minutes. All the other rides in the park were pretty much walk on or 10 minute waits... other than TT. Even Mission Space was 15 mins. stand by. Seems odd to me.

Of course there was the 3 hour wait to meet Anna and Elsa!

 

[Robo]

Well the cast member definitely said "delay boarding". Also - I am not the only poster saying that this FP line took 45 minutes. All the other rides in the park were pretty much walk on or 10 minute waits... other than TT. Even Mission Space was 15 mins. stand by. Seems odd to me.

Of course there was the 3 hour wait to meet Anna and Elsa!

What I take "delay boarding" to mean is "hold while we check for something."

 

[RalphinSC]

Ride operator might of had to go pee.......

 

[Toad_Passenger]

Well the cast member definitely said "delay boarding". Also - I am not the only poster saying that this FP line took 45 minutes. All the other rides in the park were pretty much walk on or 10 minute waits... other than TT. Even Mission Space was 15 mins. stand by. Seems odd to me.

Of course there was the 3 hour wait to meet Anna and Elsa!

Do you remember what day it was? We were just there 2/1 - 2/7 and had no problem using FP+ on Soarin'. The longest part of the wait was when we were waiting to board. That was on Thursday around 3:15.

 

[Pooksie]

Well the cast member definitely said "delay boarding". Also - I am not the only poster saying that this FP line took 45 minutes. All the other rides in the park were pretty much walk on or 10 minute waits... other than TT. Even Mission Space was 15 mins. stand by. Seems odd to me.

Of course there was the 3 hour wait to meet Anna and Elsa!

It must have been a problem they were attending to.

I rode Soarin' on 2/2 and on 2/3. Once just after lunch, once just before lunch. Each time we went right through the FP+ line and walked all the way up to the "concourse"? The hallway just before you make the turn and are in front of the gates. We were about 20 feet from that turn each day, and didn't wait more than five minutes or so each day before we were in our gate and our row. Before lunch the standby line was 50 minutes, the after lunch standby line was 60 minutes while we were there. Although I didn't do the standby, every other ride in each park that I did standby had a shorter time than posted. Nemo for example was listed as 10 minutes, and we walked right onto the ride. Same with Spaceship earth. Mission space orange side was listed as 15 minutes, but we only waited 10 at most. We FP+'d it one time and did it again standby a few hours later.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

I've always found Soarin' to take a long time using FP+ simply because you merge with the regular crowd. I know that have a FP to Standby Ratio but we have often waited 20-30 minutes using FP+ depending on the Standby wait time.