Standby lines- before and after

[soniam]

We used to always walk on POTC and Small World, now it's not uncommon to see them with greater than 30 minute waits.

I never remember walking onto POTC or IASW, even going in the 80s as a child. Of course, I have always been in the summer. POTC lines were much longer for our trip in July, but it also broke down every time we tried to ride. IASW seemed normal, 15-20min posted.

I am not convinced that SB wait times are that much worse for when I go. They may have increased a little, maybe ~5 minutes, except for 7DMT and A&E. However, I also think that crowds have increased. I think the biggest problem is that people who normally go during the slower times are seeing larger crowds and longer waits, so their perception is that wait times increased, which is true from their perspective. However, I have read of others who go during peak times, i.e. summer, holidays, not noticing wait time increases or more crowds. I think overall wait times have possibly increased as well as attendance, but I think it's because more people are now going during the slow times. I think the peak times have remained about the same. The crowds are now spreading out more throughout the year and possibly the park too. Summer and Spring Break are terrible though. Please don't come then

 

[MrInfinity]

I know you keep saying that you didn't notice a difference in wait times but I'm still trying to figure that out given that you were at D the same time as we were(and if I recall correctly you were even at MK one of the same days as us) and compared to previous years in the same periods the differences in the lines that we saw was huge (both the lines and the differences) . Never ever ever ever ever had we had to wait 30+ minutes for secondary attractions in low season and there were more than just a couple that had posted wait times like this. Think what I may do next trip is take photos of the wait times so as to leave no doubt !

See, I don't get this either. I'm kind of with Cake here. I just did not see the 30+ minute waits. I'd say 30 min was the most we waited for anything. And I remember several long lines from earlier years. Nemo (Epcot) had pretty long lines in the past. They actually used the switchbacks in the entry. In recent times, just not. Everyone should report their own experiences. I really did not feel that lines were overall significantly longer.

Just... look at the waits, right now:
Figment: 5
LWTL: 10
MS: 15
Seas: 15
SE: 20
These are actual posted times. And it's 10am there, an hour after opening. No 30's in there anywhere.

 

[Luckybee]

Dont believe me?...maybe you'll believe Touringplans. I just looked at tp for Sept 27th one of the days we were actually there. Not reading it on an app.
Average wait times observed:
Buzz-32 minutes
Peter Pan-48 minutes
Pirates-34 minutes
Haunted Mansion-37 minutes
Winnie the Pooh-33 minutes

Oh and don't get me wrong. We didn't wait 30 minutes either. We did our 3 and out because the secondary ride lines were too ridiculously long because of fp+

 

[Nancyg56]

This is simply my experience. I think that the standby lines on the attractions that I was used to little to no wait times were longer when we were there in October. Now I realize that the week we stayed the crowds were much higher than we had anticipated, so that affected the waits, but I had toured during high crowd periods and still saw a short line at SE and POTC.

I am not sure overall how much FP+ has to do with how the crowds pattern was for us, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that FP+ has moved people around more evenly, and has impacted most lines. I think that SB was shorter on several attractions than I had anticipated, but much longer than my
"normal" on others. We compensated by making RD as much as possible and hitting headliners early. I skipped my FP if I saw a SB line was manageable when I was scooting by.

 

[Disneylover99]

See, I don't get this either. I'm kind of with Cake here. I just did not see the 30+ minute waits. I'd say 30 min was the most we waited for anything. And I remember several long lines from earlier years. Nemo (Epcot) had pretty long lines in the past. They actually used the switchbacks in the entry. In recent times, just not. Everyone should report their own experiences. I really did not feel that lines were overall significantly longer.

Just... look at the waits, right now:
Figment: 5
LWTL: 10
MS: 15
Seas: 15
SE: 20
These are actual posted times. And it's 10am there, an hour after opening. No 30's in there anywhere.

The wait times are not automatically going to be longer by 30 minutes at secondary attractions because of FP+. But there is an increased wait time. And that's what the op wanted to know. Many people won't even notice because sometimes the wait is insignificant. But it is a wait nonetheless.

For example, before FP was introduced here, Figment had a five minute wait time posted. You go through the queue and board. Now, Figment still has a five minute wait time posted with FP+. You go through the standby queue and there might be a few people ahead of you, then you are stopped to let some FP people go through. You maybe had to wait an extra minute. Insignificant, yes? But a wait nonetheless.

 

[cakebaker]

I know you keep saying that you didn't notice a difference in wait times but I'm still trying to figure that out given that you were at D the same time as we were(and if I recall correctly you were even at MK one of the same days as us) and compared to previous years in the same periods the differences in the lines that we saw was huge (both the lines and the differences) . Never ever ever ever ever had we had to wait 30+ minutes for secondary attractions in low season and there were more than just a couple that had posted wait times like this. Think what I may do next trip is take photos of the wait times so as to leave no doubt !

First, I did not consider the crowd levels to be low season on either trip. It was very crowded. Not all roads lead to fp+ and the increase in wait times could, at least partially, be explained by the huge increase in attendance. We were amazed at just how crowded it was. I'm not at all surprised that you would wait longer now, under certain circumstances, than you did in the past when fewer guests were in the park.

I'm not about to spend my time at WDW taking pictures of lines to prove what I say. lol I can't explain it to you other than we don't like standing in long lines and have found over the years that if we just skip past any long lines, we'll run onto something we want to ride where the lines are short. Later, we'll pass by the same ride that had a long line, and it's a short line.

For instance, we were in the area and decided to ride IASW. For some reason- have no idea why- the line was across the walkway. It hadn't been that way long because the CM's are usually pretty good at not letting people block the walkway. At any rate, the line went across almost all the way to PPF. I could've taken a picture and posted it as "proof" that lines are horribly long. But, we walked past it, went and rode the carousel that was a walk on. Later, we were in the area, IASW was a 5 minute wait at most. We rode it then. Again, I could've taken a picture as "proof" of how lines are not long. All pictures do is show a moment in time, not trends.

This of course isn't true for the most part for the headliners other than during EHM, rope drop etc...but we use those methods combined with FP+ to take care of that.

 

[cakebaker]

Dont believe me?...maybe you'll believe Touringplans. I just looked at tp for Sept 27th one of the days we were actually there. Not reading it on an app.
Average wait times observed:
Buzz-32 minutes
Peter Pan-48 minutes
Pirates-34 minutes
Haunted Mansion-37 minutes
Winnie the Pooh-33 minutes

Oh and don't get me wrong. We didn't wait 30 minutes either. We did our 3 and out because the secondary ride lines were too ridiculously long because of fp+

It has nothing to do with believing you or not believing you. I'm not sure why you want to turn it into "one of us has got to be lying". No, one of us managed to ride the attractions when the lines were not long. The times you post are average times- there are times those waits are longer, times they are shorter. We ride during the shorter times. We don't walk up to a ride and just get in line regardless of the wait time. But we also don't walk by, observe the wait time and walk out, declaring that the waits are ridiculously long and give up. Lines ebb and flow...it's just a matter of timing.

I have no doubt you experienced longer waits. If you say you did, you did. I expect the same respect from you on what my experience was.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Dont believe me?...maybe you'll believe Touringplans. I just looked at tp for Sept 27th one of the days we were actually there. Not reading it on an app.
Average wait times observed:
Buzz-32 minutes
Peter Pan-48 minutes
Pirates-34 minutes
Haunted Mansion-37 minutes
Winnie the Pooh-33 minutes

Oh and don't get me wrong. We didn't wait 30 minutes either. We did our 3 and out because the secondary ride lines were too ridiculously long because of fp+

Neither here not there but I will share my observations--

Pre-FP+ (back on the FP- days), I saw these same waits.

I get that this is average. But at the same time, such waits were not foreign to me. I saw then often prior to 2010 when we had APs or Seasonal passes and went more often.

Onto a different observation:
Attendance is up, so it would be difficult to pinpoint these increases as claimed to just being caused by FP+. I know folks wish to correlate the two and conclude a cause, but even basic scientific method would not permit the result to be valid without controlling for all variables. (I don't proclaim to know how one does control, but unless these sites are doing that in their analysis, their conclusions are no more or less valid than anyone else's observations.)

 

[itchin2go]

If I recall, there are some experts who say that most standby lines have increased, while some headliners have decreased.

However, on our recent Thanksgiving week trip, we didn't notice any change. I expected to notice a difference, if only because we've never been during such a busy week. I didn't. Apparently, it's true what they say: a good touring plan is the most important thing. On our main MK day, we had knocked out 11 rides before lunch - and that included riding BTMR twice back to back with no wait. Of course, it helps that everyone makes a beeline to Anna and Elsa and SDMT. We didn't do Anna and Elsa (no interest), and we had a FP for SDMT later in the day.

I can't stress enough how scared I was that FP+ was going to change our trips forever ... for the worse. That just wasn't the case. The same strategies we used before, still worked.

 

[Jennytoon]

Neither here not there but I will share my observations--

Pre-FP+ (back on the FP- days), I saw these same waits.

I get that this is average. But at the same time, such waits were not foreign to me. I saw then often prior to 2010 when we had APs or Seasonal passes and went more often.

Onto a different observation:
Attendance is up, so it would be difficult to pinpoint these increases as claimed to just being caused by FP+. I know folks wish to correlate the two and conclude a cause, but even basic scientific method would not permit the result to be valid without controlling for all variables. (I don't proclaim to know how one does control, but unless these sites are doing that in their analysis, their conclusions are no more or less valid than anyone else's observations.)

I'll second this. We have not been since FP+ was introduced (last time we were there was during testing). We went in August of 2007,2009,2011, all pretty much crowd 4-6 days.

1) Those posted wait time are very familiar to me
2) We did see waits "creep up" during the span of our visits, for instance in 2007 we were always able to (at some point) find SE at 10 minutes or less in the late morning, by 2011 this was no longer true. Note that I'm not saying that it *wasn't* at 10 minutes or less ever, just not with enough frequency that we could catch a window.

On the topic of "how could we be there at the same time and not have the same opinion / perception?", I think that different touring strategies will make a big difference in people's perception of how long the waits are.

ETA: I had a brain spasm. It should be 2009, 2011, 2013 for the years.

 

[wdhinn89]

Thank your for all the replies!!! Please lets just keep this thread to answering the question and not debating with each other about what THEIR experience was. There are other threads to debate on. Thank you so much!

 

[JimmyV]

It doesn't matter that standby lines were longer in the past because everyone was standing in them. Now, standby lines may actually be shorter because more people are using a FP, but the wait times in standby are still longer then in the past, because of the ratio of FP users being let in before standby.

This really gets to the heart of it, and also explains why everyone can be "right". Assume this scenario. We are operating under FP-. There is no line at Spaceship Earth at 8:55 p.m. with Illuminations about to begin. Literally not one person in line. 100 people decide that they can't get a good view of Illuminations so they decide to get one last ride in before leaving and the all head for SE. The first person to arrive gets right on. The 10th person gets on in about a minute. The 50th person to arrive gets on in about 5 minutes or so. And the 100th person gets on in about 8-10 minutes.

Now, assume the same set-up, only when the 100 people decide to go to SE, 40 of them stop by a kiosk and get a FP with an immediate return time. The 100 people all get to the ride in the same order, and it takes exactly the same total time to board all 100. But the order in which they will board will differ. Assume that the first person to arrive does not have a FP. He still gets on first, because he was there first. Now assume that people 2-9, and 11-20 all have FPs. The person who is 10th in line no longer boards in about a minute. She boards in about 2 minutes. Her wait was longer. So when you ask her what her experience was with respect to the SB lines before and after, she is going to tell you that she waited longer from the same point in line as she had before. And she would be right. But assume that that 100th person in line did not have a FP. That person takes the same spot in line both before and after, and boards in the same amount of time as before. So to him there was no difference. 100 people board in 10 minutes. They just do so in a different order. The person who was fifth in line who would have boarded in 30 seconds could potentially see 40 consecutive FP people pass him by slowing him down by 5 minutes. That person is going to complain that getting into a short line no longer guarantees a short wait, even though the 100 people all boarded in the same 10 minutes as before.

 

[Disneylover99]

This really gets to the heart of it, and also explains why everyone can be "right". Assume this scenario. We are operating under FP-. There is no line at Spaceship Earth at 8:55 p.m. with Illuminations about to begin. Literally not one person in line. 100 people decide that they can't get a good view of Illuminations so they decide to get one last ride in before leaving and the all head for SE. The first person to arrive gets right on. The 10th person gets on in about a minute. The 50th person to arrive gets on in about 5 minutes or so. And the 100th person gets on in about 8-10 minutes.

Now, assume the same set-up, only when the 100 people decide to go to SE, 40 of them stop by a kiosk and get a FP with an immediate return time. The 100 people all get to the ride in the same order, and it takes exactly the same total time to board all 100. But the order in which they will board will differ. Assume that the first person to arrive does not have a FP. He still gets on first, because he was there first. Now assume that people 2-9, and 11-20 all have FPs. The person who is 10th in line no longer boards in about a minute. She boards in about 2 minutes. Her wait was longer. So when you ask her what her experience was with respect to the SB lines before and after, she is going to tell you that she waited longer from the same point in line as she had before. And she would be right. But assume that that 100th person in line did not have a FP. That person takes the same spot in line both before and after, and boards in the same amount of time as before. So to him there was no difference. 100 people board in 10 minutes. They just do so in a different order. The person who was fifth in line who would have boarded in 30 seconds could potentially see 40 consecutive FP people pass him by slowing him down by 5 minutes. That person is going to complain that getting into a short line no longer guarantees a short wait, even though the 100 people all boarded in the same 10 minutes as before.

Exactly. But many people don't realize this or notice it, because they are too busy enjoying themselves. And that's fine too.

 

[cakebaker]

Dont believe me?...maybe you'll believe Touringplans. I just looked at tp for Sept 27th one of the days we were actually there. Not reading it on an app.
Average wait times observed:
Buzz-32 minutes
Peter Pan-48 minutes
Pirates-34 minutes
Haunted Mansion-37 minutes
Winnie the Pooh-33 minutes

For example this date you chose to show the wait times:
1) According to Josh, the busiest day of the week to visit the MK
2) They had added EMH - avoid EMH parks, except during EMH itself.
3)The MSEP was only on specific days, this was one of them
4)They had extended hours in general- always adds to the crowd level

His final comments on visiting that day: "While it is possible to have a decent day here if you arrive early and tour efficiently, there are much less crowded days to visit during the week."

If one chose to go that day, and didn't tour efficiently, you'd probably see long lines.

 

[JimmyV]

Exactly. But many people don't realize this or notice it, because they are too busy enjoying themselves. And that's fine too.

I think what people notice more, (at least I did), was the "super-priority" that FP riders have now. It used to be that the CM would hold up their hand and let 20 FP people go by. No big deal. Now, I have been in the FP line at BTMRR and seen train after train load up with FP people while SB people stood like statues for what seemed like 10 straight minutes. That may be rare. But when it happens, it leaves an impression.

 

[Cormoran]

What I find really interesting is that people have pointed out one of the negatives about legacy was going and obtaining a FP at the attraction and then returning later to use the FP. In other words a lot of zig zagging through the parks.

For instance, we were in the area and decided to ride IASW. For some reason- have no idea why- the line was across the walkway. It hadn't been that way long because the CM's are usually pretty good at not letting people block the walkway. At any rate, the line went across almost all the way to PPF. I could've taken a picture and posted it as "proof" that lines are horribly long. But, we walked past it, went and rode the carousel that was a walk on. Later, we were in the area, IASW was a 5 minute wait at most. We rode it then. Again, I could've taken a picture as "proof" of how lines are not long. All pictures do is show a moment in time, not trends

But I'm seeing posts about people circling back to a ride when the SB line is shorter. So doesn't this negate the premise that Legacy FP required more zig zagging through the park than FP+?

 

[Disneylover99]

I think what people notice more, (at least I did), was the "super-priority" that FP riders have now. It used to be that the CM would hold up their hand and let 20 FP people go by. No big deal. Now, I have been in the FP line at BTMRR and seen train after train load up with FP people while SB people stood like statues for what seemed like 10 straight minutes. That may be rare. But when it happens, it leaves an impression.

And that's why I won't get into a standby line for a popular ride unless I'm there at rope drop or at the end of the evening. And I'm not going to lie.......waiting in line at Figment for a whole minute while fp plus people passed me totally bugged me.

 

[cakebaker]

What I find really interesting is that people have pointed out one of the negatives about legacy was going and obtaining a FP at the attraction and then returning later to use the FP. In other words a lot of zig zagging through the parks.


But I'm seeing posts about people circling back to a ride when the SB line is shorter. So doesn't this negate the premise that Legacy FP required more zig zagging through the park than FP+?

If one chooses to zigag around the park then I can't help that. We don't. We ride what we're near or that is on the way to where we want to end up. Since we have fp+'s scheduled during the busiest times, we know in advance our general paths around the park.

 

[Jennytoon]

What I find really interesting is that people have pointed out one of the negatives about legacy was going and obtaining a FP at the attraction and then returning later to use the FP. In other words a lot of zig zagging through the parks.


But I'm seeing posts about people circling back to a ride when the SB line is shorter. So doesn't this negate the premise that Legacy FP required more zig zagging through the park than FP+?

Not necessarily. Our strategy has always been to pick the low-hanging fruit in a specific radius from where we were. So if IASW was busy, we'd find something with a short wait in the same area and circle back. If there wasn't, we'd head to an area of the park with several rides on relatively short waits. So circling back doesn't have to take a lot of time. In parks with fewer rides, you obviously can't always pick an attraction in the same area with a lower wait, but there is often lots of stuff to do in the area that doesn't work on a waiting line basis -- you do some of that and check back on the line, again you are not zipping around the park in order to ride when the lines are low.

 

[Cormoran]

If one chooses to zigag around the park then I can't help that. We don't. We ride what we're near or that is on the way to where we want to end up. Since we have fp+'s scheduled during the busiest times, we know in advance our general paths around the park.

But you said in a previous post that the SB line was too long on IASW so you went and rode the carousel and returned to IASW when the line was shorter. Isn't that zig zagging? Isn't that the thing you hated about Legacy?