Welcome to Holiday Week G+ Surge Pricing

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

FOP has been particularly bad lately, moreso than the others. Any guesses why? It was 120 minutes within 10 minutes of an 8am regular park opening today and is currently 170 minutes. Its been pretty consistently a longer wait than RotR, which did not use to be true. I was not planning to buy an ILL for it on our upcoming trip, but I guess maybe I will have to. Trying to track rope drop and end of the night wait times.

I recently got back from a WDW trip and witnessed the longer FOP waits 1st hand ... my current theory is that the park reservation system is doing what Disney intended. On a few of my days both MK and HS were 'sold out' even if the park levels were not close to what I would consider a sell out. By selling out MK and HS, it drives the higher fall/winter crowds over to AK, and then with only a few attractions everyone rope drops to FOP.

FOP was always a long wait, but with the park reservations selling out elsewhere it just drives up the FOP wait at AK even longer.

FOP typically gets long right in the morning. It's the first attraction people head to in AK. Navi usually next. It was like this pre-park reservation too. It then gets long in the evening too with park hours the way they are people try to ride that and then get out and enjoy what they can of Pandora with the nighttime effects.

Yes park reservations will migrate people to other parks but the attraction wait time isn't always directly related to that. Rise it goes down so frequently wait times get crazy high just on that alone.

In May we entered the line for FOP at 7:45am and it was posted at 60 mins and it did take that to get onto the ride. Navi on the other hand when we entered the line at 9:05am had a posted wait time of 40mins. Due to constant stopping for LL guests we ended up waiting 60 mins. AK was not all that crowded either at least in our opinions.

It's the day before Thanksgiving so I would expect wait times to be high, the basic premise of FOP garnering high wait times in the morning stands the test of time. Largely with DHS and AK there's only so many attractions. With AK the main one is FOP, with DHS the main one is now Rise (before that it was Smuggler's Run). Spreading out of wait times can be helped by pushing out the crowds to more various attractions and shows and giving more people eating things to do. Unfortunately that's just not what WDW has to offer at this point.

 

[Smugpugmug]

This exactly.

Whatever they plan at DAK for Dinosaur has to increase capacity.

At DHS I’m all for a reimagining of the Animation Courtyard.

Even EPCOT could use another attraction (looking at you paused/scrapped Mary Poppins project, Play Pavilion)

I agree with all of this. I used to be in the "build another park" camp but now I don't believe it'll fix anything. Think back to the most recent parks that were built. Animal Kingdom, California Adventure and the Studios park in Paris. All of these parks were built with more shopping and dining than actual attractions. The last thing we need is another half day park. AK and HS in particular need more rides. There is a plot behind FOP that can fit another ride.

 

[HokieRaven5]

I agree with all of this. I used to be in the "build another park" camp but now I don't believe it'll fix anything. Think back to the most recent parks that were built. Animal Kingdom, California Adventure and the Studios park in Paris. All of these parks were built with more shopping and dining than actual attractions. The last thing we need is another half day park. AK and HS in particular need more rides. There is a plot behind FOP that can fit another ride.

Building another park also means another mass amounts of CMs to hire or stretch things even thinner than they currently are.

Individual attraction additions just don’t require as many CMs and would be more beneficial to current park operations.

 

[1lilspark]

These inflated Genie + prices are disgusting. So disappointing.
There's only one solution to get the line wait times down = BUILD ANOTHER PARK!!!!

No the solutions are staff things better if they can and try to reimagine dead spaces

FOP has been particularly bad lately, moreso than the others. Any guesses why? It was 120 minutes within 10 minutes of an 8am regular park opening today and is currently 170 minutes. It’s been pretty consistently a longer wait than RotR, which did not use to be true. I was not planning to buy an ILL for it on our upcoming trip, but I guess maybe I will have to. Trying to track rope drop and end of the night wait times.

I assume it’s due to A) Avatar being in the public eye again due to its upcoming sequel B) not all theaters are functioning due to being out of service or understaffed or C) both

 

[gharter]

This exactly.

Whatever they plan at DAK for Dinosaur has to increase capacity.

At DHS I’m all for a reimagining of the Animation Courtyard.

Even EPCOT could use another attraction (looking at you paused/scrapped Mary Poppins project, Play Pavilion)

Agree.
Hoping they put something good in the area of Chesters. Too god of space to be wasting.
I would love to see some type of Monsters Inc in the animation area at HS.
Wasn't a fan of the play pavillion idea at EPCOT, but they need something in that space. And it would seem like they should be able to do something with the Odyssey location other than a festival stop.

 

[robinb]

Good to know. I've just been spoiled the last 2 trips without G+ and didn't have to wait for that long. One was spring break and one was summer after they opened, so that doesn't count.

I'll just wait and see what they extract from me!

I went to WDW twice after Covid before G+. It was *heaven*. I have also been twice since G+ was implemented. I only used it at MK and DHS, but if I were going over a holiday week like Christmas I would plan to buy it every day. I think it totally sucks, but I would have no choice. I would be less annoyed to spend more money than I would standing in long lines and skipping attractions because or long waits.

 

[Muskrat191]

Same. As a family of 3 it’s easier compared to large families and at the end of the day we can afford it (even if I don’t like paying for it), but I will buy it for MK and Epcot/HS combo days. Do I like to pay for it? No. Could I take some stand and say “No I’m not giving into the man so I will stand here for 2 hours just to prove my point”? Sure, but I’m not willing to mess up my vacation for that. I would rather pay and not stand in super long lines. Now we will cut back on some things to make up for the price increase, so they aren’t necessarily getting more money out of me at the end...it’s just being shifted from one bucket to the other.

We were there about a month ago. It wasn't super busy, and we had pre-bought Genie+ with our tickets. We did pay to ride each of the ILL rides, and the Genie+ purchase was worth it. However, we did one ADR and zero character meals (very different than previous trips), and we stay offsite. In the end, Disney probably got less money out of us.

 

[godfather927]

FOP has been particularly bad lately, moreso than the others. Any guesses why? It was 120 minutes within 10 minutes of an 8am regular park opening today and is currently 170 minutes. Its been pretty consistently a longer wait than RotR, which did not use to be true. I was not planning to buy an ILL for it on our upcoming trip, but I guess maybe I will have to. Trying to track rope drop and end of the night wait times.

Probably related to the new movie coming out in a few weeks, and the old one having its own semi-popular second run in theatres a couple months back. I think the resurgence in popularity of Jungle Cruise was similarly correlated to the movie coming out.

 

[snikki]

FOP has been that way for a few days now - absolutely nuts! Its like back to the early Pandora days! I remember reading posts saying "Friendly reminder that 350 minutes is NOT 3 hours and 50 minutes."

ETA that the current standby wait for Tower of Terror is 220 minutes, or 3 hours and 40 minutes!!!

When we were there Jersey week TOT was running one side only starting around 11/7. On 11/5 it was running both. It made wait times ridiculous. To the point that they closed the standby and LL lines to new guests because it was over 195 minutes SB and 45 minutes for LL. This was after it had just gone down and everyone with anytime passes we’re using them.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When we were there Jersey week TOT was running one side only starting around 11/7. On 11/5 it was running both. It made wait times ridiculous. To the point that they closed the standby and LL lines to new guests because it was over 195 minutes SB and 45 minutes for LL. This was after it had just gone down and everyone with anytime passes we’re using them.

In May they were also running ToT on one side while doing maintenance on the other side. The only time my husband rode it was first thing in the morning one morning where we sacrificed other rides for that. He was in line at 8:40am with a posted wait of 40 mins (the wait increased quickly after that for posted). He was able to get off it in 35mins ONLY because they pulled for a single rider. He got lucky. Otherwise ToT was absolutely brutal with the waits with only 1 side running.

 

[Disneyhanna]

I went to WDW twice after Covid before G+. It was *heaven*. I have also been twice since G+ was implemented. I only used it at MK and DHS, but if I were going over a holiday week like Christmas I would plan to buy it every day. I think it totally sucks, but I would have no choice. I would be less annoyed to spend more money than I would standing in long lines and skipping attractions because or long waits.

Definitely agree. I will grumble once a day about paying for Genie+ but I would be grumbling all day if I were waiting in lines! We did the Princess 10k this year and didn't buy Genie+ on our MK day after the race as we didn't plan on getting in until late morning. Big mistake, all the lines were so long we were wandering around not knowing what to do, I think we did the People Mover and counted down the minutes until we could park hop.

 

[gorkt]

Adding another park would bring an avalanche of people that would spill over to existing parks. Adding more rides and lands to parks hasn't brought down wait times, in fact it increases them. See: Pandora, New Fantasyland, Galaxies Edge, TS Land.

The only thing I have seen that really works for reducing wait times is adding existing tracks or ride capacity to already popular rides. See: Dumbo, Soarin, TSM. Going along with that - keeping existing rides in good repair would also make a big difference.

 

[Gentry2004]

Adding another park would bring an avalanche of people that would spill over to existing parks. Adding more rides and lands to parks hasn't brought down wait times, in fact it increases them. See: Pandora, New Fantasyland, Galaxies Edge, TS Land.

The only thing I have seen that really works for reducing wait times is adding existing tracks or ride capacity to already popular rides. See: Dumbo, Soarin, TSM. Going along with that - keeping existing rides in good repair would also make a big difference.

It’s true - extended down times and “stealth” refurbishments like ToT do a number on wait times.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I disagree. I think Disney needs to add more capacity to the non MK parks. I don't think another half day park would fix anything. Having more than 7 rides at AK and 9 at HS would.

This x1000. There are not enough attractions in any park, except maybe MK...thus, why MK is always so packed...

 

[jimim]

Blaaaa. We are 4 days in and have been on every headliner and some twice all woth rope dropping and our usually Out by noon and back in for night. I have details of my days over in the here and back thread. The genie is in the bottle with the cork on and no ills for us so far.