Toy Story Mania Wait Times

[ChrisMc]

This is a great site and I have learned a lot of great tips. I just wanted to report one negative experience so others do not experience it as well.

I had a choice between a FP for Mania or the Saucers and I took the wrong one. Since we had a Saucer FP, we went to Mania as soon as we got there. This was a big mistake and started the day off on the wrong foot. The wait time was listed as 40 minutes and some of my family was already on the line and said it was moving quickly. I decided to break my 25 min wait rule and we hopped on the line. There are essentially three rooms and the first room moves fairly quickly. As we entered the middle of the second room, I noticed the FP line was backing up. It was now 40 minutes and several families were now grumbling if they should miss their next FP ride or get off. Due to the backing up of the FP line, the general line was basically being ignored. After an hour and fifteen minutes and hardly any movement, do you cut bait or miss your next 2 FB rides? There were also no more FP for rides the rest of the day. My son and I decided to get off the line while two others stayed on. As I took the exit and went back to the front of the line, I told a CM that the wait times have to be more accurate. She clearly did not care and I went on my way (in my opinion if the wait times are significantly off, you should be provided a FP). My other two family members got on roughly two hours after the start.... I was told that they let a couple people on the general line go on and then let a few dozen on the FP line on (the FP line ended up being 30 minutes).

Few suggestions if I had to do it again on a busy day.

The Toy Story ride times seem to go Slinky, Mania and Saucers. Give yourself a significant amount of time between the two non FP rides and a FP ride (ie if you are waiting for Mania, give yourself at least 1.5 hr).
Use parent swap if you can so your older kids can ride twice on Aerosmith and Tower.
SW is not a popular ride (or it moves fast) and wait time was around twenty minutes.
Finally, I cannot imagine the wait times for the new SW rides when they open. If the TS rides are 2 plus hours of a wait, the SW wait time will be unreal. Good luck

 

[skippytx]

If this happened today, I think one of the tracks was down and when that happens they can barely keep up with the FP line. We had a 1pm FP and walked right through but one of the loading lines was down so they didn’t seem to be pulling many people from the standby line.

Edit: I saw several rides the last few days operating at reduced capacity or just going offline totally for several hours. Big thunder and 7D had issues yesterday. I was at DAH tonight at AK and FOP was 90 minutes at 9:15pm because they only had 1, maybe 2 theaters running instead of all of them. People were cranky about paying for DAH and waiting that long for FOP

I really dislike how WDW adjusts ride capacity and staffing to create these artificial extended wait times.

We bailed from DAH at 10pm.

 

[gharter]

Would agree.
Given the option between a FP for TSMM or AS2, i'd pick TSMM every time. Tough leason to learn, but now you know better for next time.
I would agree, that if the wait time was that long early in the day, one of the tracks almost had to not be working.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

It definitely sounds like at least one track went down (maybe 2). Can I ask what time you arrived when it was 40 mins?

 

[Wendy98]

This has been my experience with TSM lately. I was there a couple of weeks ago and last month and both times, the waits were at least 20 minutes beyond posted—closer to 60 than the posted 40. This seemed to be the only ride I had this issue. Definitely pick TSM over Alien Saucers. I was able to pick up fp for SDD for same day that morning.

 

[ChrisMc]

Would agree.
Given the option between a FP for TSMM or AS2, i'd pick TSMM every time. Tough leason to learn, but now you know better for next time.
I would agree, that if the wait time was that long early in the day, one of the tracks almost had to not be working.

I did a better job the next day at MK where we went on almost every ride and were able to sit by the pool in the afternoon.

 

[ChrisMc]

It definitely sounds like at least one track went down (maybe 2). Can I ask what time you arrived when it was 40 mins?

The highway was closed (major accident) so we got into the park around 930. Not ideal.

 

[ChrisMc]

This has been my experience with TSM lately. I was there a couple of weeks ago and last month and both times, the waits were at least 20 minutes beyond posted—closer to 60 than the posted 40. This seemed to be the only ride I had this issue. Definitely pick TSM over Alien Saucers. I was able to pick up fp for SDD for same day that morning.

I do not understand why someone would wait over 2 hours to go on mine train. But that is someone’s choice and Disney is honest about it. I have no issue. If a track is closed or the wait is 2 hrs for TSM, just be honest. That would be my comment to Disney. You just start the day off in the wrong way when you mislead.