Whats the deal with posted wait times

[tlmadden73]

Based on what I had to do on Dumbo in October .. this is how they determine wait times.

My son and I stood in the standby line and I was given a card on lanyard (my son was so excited to be special like that) .. we waited in line (Standby) and when we got to the final check in person (right before you walk on the ride), we gave that CM that card. So I would gather that recorded the time they gave it to me and the time they took it from me. Thus giving the standby wait time.

So .. about 30 minutes after I got in line they updated their wait times. But that isn't very accurate because what if no one walked into the line after I did? Then the posted sign would say "30 minutes" .. but the actual wait time would be 0 minutes. What if a gigantic tour group of 60+ people decided to get in line right after me, making the line immediately longer? Than the wait time would be longer than my 30 minutes because of the influx of that large of a group at one time. What if everyone who had a fast pass for their hour window shows up right at the end of the end of their hour? Then the standby line would be even slower.

It really just depends how many people hit a ride at any one given time .. there is no true accurate way to calculate that unless they give one of those cards to every group in the standby line.

 

[JZCubed]

In 2013, late one night, we walked by where Tink and friends were meeting (in Adventureland) and the sign said something stupid like 30 minutes. DD and I stood there looking at it for a moment, trying to decide if it was worth it (she's been trying to meet Terrance again since our first trip and at that time he was still in rotation) and the CM standing outside saw us, looked up at the sign, and said "It's not even CLOSE to that, come on in."

There was one other group ahead of us once we got in there. Sometimes I think they use wait times to funnel people around the park. It's like how at the end of the night, the TSMM times are never right. They don't WANT people getting in line, so they jack it up.

Funny, in a bad way, the only time that we ever waited far longer than a posted time was for Tinker Bell.

After 35 minutes for a posted 20 minutes, we were only half the way through the queue. Needless to say, we left that line.

On a positive note, we have mostly experienced reasonably accurate wait times. Apparently, we've been lucky.

 

[sharona]

You would think at this point, especially for rides where the queues have not been changed, that they would have some type of formula that can determine approximate wait time based on where the last person in line is standing - factoring in the expected number of FP returns and historical data for that time of day etc. I can't believe that they are using the actual wait time of someone that they just measured to assume future wait time. I thought that the red cards were used as a sort of check to verify their calculations, not set the wait times.

 

[DisneyFive]

You would think at this point, especially for rides where the queues have not been changed, that they would have some type of formula that can determine approximate wait time based on where the last person in line is standing - factoring in the expected number of FP returns and historical data for that time of day etc.

Yeah, doesn't seem that it should be all that complicated.

Dan

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

In my experience posted wait times are usually close to accurate. The app is usually never right. There comes a certain point, I think, for those that travel to the world often, that it is possible to gauge the wait just by looking at where the line ends, save any ride malfunctions/emergencies.

 

[Lovetherodent]

We used the Lines app, and found it more accurate than the MDE posted wait times. We also got handed red cards on about 6 different rides. I think the difference may be dozens of people feeding real time info into an app for each ride every hour vs. A few red cards.

And sometimes there just are problems. While we were there, Space Mountain shut down very briefly. Lines was still reporting closed. Wait time was posted at 40. It was a walk on for standby and a longer wait for FP, assumingly because all the FP people got FP's to come back.

 

[livingthedream]

I have seen it reported more and more recently that the CMs are saying things like "this is what the sign says...but its really ______". Don't know if the increase in this type of report is a fluke, but it reinforces my suspicion that Disney is trying to "manage" crowds, or influence the crowds by not accurately reporting wait times on purpose. This way they can steer people away from certain things, and increase people's interest in others. I haven't been to the parks in a little bit, so this is pure speculation, but I would suggest that sometimes the posted wait times are wrong on purpose. No flames please!