So different take on some mentioned…in Feb after a crowded hot day at HS, returned to park after pool break at about 6:45p with the goal of riding SDD and RotR (first time for both) before closing. DD12 and I got online for SDD at 7 with 90 min posted wait and figured we were in the clear for getting on line for Rise before 9 and we could breathe a little. Sun was already down, so much cooler temps, line moving the entire time and I never actually thought it would take 90 (actual was 72). Ultimately I really enjoyed the SDD Queue, DD and I were chatting the whole time looking at all the little details in the queue, took lots of pictures, always something new to uncover. Then the coaster hit our expectations and was super cool riding at night and seeing the park lit up in pastels all over. Perhaps if context were different (same wait but in the hot sun, no nighttime pastels, worries if we’d run out of time to do other things) we might have felt different, but I’d get online again with a 90 min wait with 120 before park close.
Now…we did get to ride RotR and it was awesome, but there was zero reason to get on standby 40 min before park close. It was slow moving outside and then slow moving inside with very little to look at. And then the park closed and $ILL ended, and the line suddenly became a stroll, and a quick one at that. And then we were guided through a different door by a CM and ended up skipping past part of the pre show experience before we realized it. Don’t know if that’s typical at the end of the day. Unsure if LL skips what we skipped, but we we’re disappointed nonetheless. Glad we did it at night tho. Got off the ride about 9:30 to an empty Galaxy’s Edge and got more awesome pictures.
TLDR, perspective and context probably impacts the queue experience as much as the physical queue.