Soarin' Single Rider Test

[elgerber]

I think they might be randomly testing this at various rides. When we were there in June, they were definitely pulling single riders at Space Mountain at least one day. My daughters rode Space Mtn. standby 3 different days and 1 of those days (the last day we were there) a CM came walking along the regular queue pulling single riders and putting them in a separate line. The CM pulled people way before the loading area, so not the usual last minute "are there any single riders?" Even though they still had to wait another 10 minutes in the single-rider line, my daughters estimated that using that line saved them about 20 minutes off of the regular stand-by queue wait time.

Space Mountain does that fairly often. I was there solo in 2017 and 2019 and both times was sent down a separate line before the loading area.

 

[gatorlisa]

I think Soarin' has always had a single rider line at DCA. I know there was one when I went in 2016. Interesting, if Epcot is now testing out using one.

 

[ghtx]

I am happy to hear this news. I'll be at Epcot in September and by myself for a few hours while my family takes a break; glad that there will be two single rider lines there (this and Test Track)

 

[pixar mark]

I did this earlier this week. The line was a little over an hour and backed up to the entrance. I believe they had just opened it that day because we watched someone come out with a sign for it, so we jumped in. We essentially walked all the way to the point where they send you down to one of the three theaters. We stood there for maybe 3-5 minutes until they sent all three of my party down to a theater. We waited at the very end of the hall where you would turn and go to the loading area. My wife was taken maybe after 1 or 2 cycles. But then it was maybe 3-4 cycles for my daughter to get on and maybe another 2 cycles for me to get on. It honestly didn't feel like I saved much time, although my wife did. They were still trying to fill all the slots with the correct sized parties from the main line, even taking groups of two from way down the line. And so often they were able to do the math and fill all the slots without using the single rider line. I kind of felt like when they let me go (and the person behind me), they did it out of mercy because there were groups of two in the standby line they could have taken. I would probably only use it again if the line was at least an hour long, because you wait times could be close to that unless they change their policies.

 

[pixar mark]

By the way, I sat in the back/bottom row right section but right on the aisle of the middle section. Not the worst seat, but not great either.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Thanks for sharing your family’s experience @pixar mark. Really helpful information!

 

[HopperFan]

I did this earlier this week. The line was a little over an hour and backed up to the entrance. I believe they had just opened it that day because we watched someone come out with a sign for it, so we jumped in. We essentially walked all the way to the point where they send you down to one of the three theaters. We stood there for maybe 3-5 minutes until they sent all three of my party down to a theater. We waited at the very end of the hall where you would turn and go to the loading area. My wife was taken maybe after 1 or 2 cycles. But then it was maybe 3-4 cycles for my daughter to get on and maybe another 2 cycles for me to get on. It honestly didn't feel like I saved much time, although my wife did. They were still trying to fill all the slots with the correct sized parties from the main line, even taking groups of two from way down the line. And so often they were able to do the math and fill all the slots without using the single rider line. I kind of felt like when they let me go (and the person behind me), they did it out of mercy because there were groups of two in the standby line they could have taken. I would probably only use it again if the line was at least an hour long, because you wait times could be close to that unless they change their policies.

That makes sense and follows what I expected. The ride has always tried to fill all sections up with odd/even parties very rarely allowing for an empty seat. It would make sense singles would be needed only occasionally due to the loading sizes, unlike a coaster or TT.

 

[musicguy856]

I used the single rider line over Labor Day weekend. It seems they open it on higher crowd level days and leave it closed when crowds are lower. Saturday of Labor Day it was not open, Sunday it was. It goes quick if there are 1-2 people in line for your theater. If there are 5-6 in line you could be waiting multiple cycles before you are allowed on.

The thing that really annoyed me was that one time the CM called for singles from the regular line before taking anyone from the single rider line. There were maybe 5 of us in line and some of us were sitting on the floor because it was taking a long time. When the CM did this multiple people called out from the single rider line and raised their hands. The CM said something along the lines of "I have to take from LL first because they paid $15." Of course at that point in the line there are likely standby people in the mix so I'm not sure what was going on there. It just really annoyed me that they would do that rather than pull from the single rider line.