What's up with MK wait times?

[jade1]

Yep looks super familiar to very trip we take to WDW (Spring break and XMAS week) and since we do other AM activities then hit SAB-this was our norm until now we have FP+ to get a few things done we never could before.


Barnstormer
Expected: 61 min
Posted: 80 min

BTMRR
Expected: 83 min
Posted: 125 min

Buzz
Expected: 47 min
Posted: 65 min

ETWB
Expected: 57 min
Posted: 80 min

Haunted Mansion
Expected: 62 min
Posted: 90 min

Jungle Cruise
Expected: 73 min
Posted: 90 min

Laugh Floor
Expected: ~7 min
Posted: 45 min

Peter Pan
Expected: 61 min
Posted: 90 min

PoTC
Expected: 44 min
Posted: 65 min

Space Mountain
Expected: 46 min
Posted: 90 min

 

[NicholeB630]

No scientific way to support the conclusion, but I would say that this is the new normal for days when the crowds are 7 or higher. But even when the crowds are smaller, we are going to see a marked difference in afternoon touring. FP+ is new. People are just now figuring out how to best use it. But if you started a poll right now that asked: Should I use my FPs in the morning or afternoon, the vote would be overwhelmingly for the afternoon. Pretty soon, everyone is going to be like-minded. Afternoon FPs will be the coveted ones. On less busy days, that means that afternoon FPs will still "sell out", but morning ones will be available. On busy days, both morning and afternoon times will be gone. So even if the crowd is low on a given day, if all the afternoon FP times are booked, it spells trouble for SB guests. So you use your three for Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. You want to ride the 7DMT? No way. The afternoon FP folks will occupy 100% of the ride. Want to ride Buzz? Stand in line for an hour because the afternoon FP people will occupy 90% of the line. Once the "masses" figure out that afternoons are the best time to use FPs, and all FP slots are allocated in the afternoons, there will be little space left for SB guests. This will definitely be the case on crowded days, and should hold true for even moderate days of 5 or 6.

Ok thanks! So do you recommend that we use our FP+ for the afternoon times? We are going Dec 7th-14th. In the past its showed crowd levels at 4 except for that Saturday which we'll do AK that day. We just cannot stand in lines over 30 minutes with a 5 and 2 year old. No way.

 

[siskaren]

Ok thanks! So do you recommend that we use our FP+ for the afternoon times? We are going Dec 7th-14th. In the past its showed crowd levels at 4 except for that Saturday which we'll do AK that day. We just cannot stand in lines over 30 minutes with a 5 and 2 year old. No way.

You're a long way off from when you'll be able to make FP+ selections and the way FP+ works could change by the time you can. I'd wait awhile before worrying about it.

 

[JimmyV]

Ok thanks! So do you recommend that we use our FP+ for the afternoon times? We are going Dec 7th-14th. In the past its showed crowd levels at 4 except for that Saturday which we'll do AK that day. We just cannot stand in lines over 30 minutes with a 5 and 2 year old. No way.

It's hard for me to justify ever using a FP before 11:00. (Although, we did, on the day we had to head to the airport. We had no choice. So we used a FP at Test Track at 10:30 and felt guilty cutting off people in the SB line at that hour. But, oh well.) If you arrive when the park opens, or close to it, and you concentrate on popular rides for the first two hours, you won't have any waits that are unmanageable. With kids ages 2 and 5, you get to the MK when it opens and tour the heck out of Fantasyland for 2-2.5 hours and you'll have no trouble at all. After lunch, back-fill with major attractions using your FPs. In the end, your typical day from Rope Drop until lunch won't be a whole lot different under FP+ as it was under FP-, as long as you get an early start. If you can't arrive until later in the day, then use your FPs any time.

 

[mousefan73]

A though just came in my head.. does Disney publish visitor numbers? I am curious if the lines have less to do with the FPs ( shock) but more that's its spring break AND this winter was INSANE for anyone north of Florida.

Think about it, basically 80% of the country has had a crap winter. I mean a really REALLY REALLY bad, Looooooong winter so I wonder if the spring break crowds overall to Florida have jumped this year due to last minute bookings.

Heck If I had the money and I was basically buried under snow since November, I'd be putting my family on the next flight down.

 

[HydroGuy]

I don't think anyone predicted the parking lot would close today either (MK is the Most Recommended on Easy WDW). It's just a LOT of people any way you slice it. I'm not saying FP+ is not having an effect, but you can't really tell from just today.

So, I heard a rumor that you will need a FP+ for a parking spot. Booked 60 days out. Wonder what effect that will have?

 

[JimmyV]

A though just came in my head.. does Disney publish visitor numbers? I am curious if the lines have less to do with the FPs ( shock) but more that's its spring break AND this winter was INSANE for anyone north of Florida.

Think about it, basically 80% of the country has had a crap winter. I mean a really REALLY REALLY bad, Looooooong winter so I wonder if the spring break crowds overall to Florida have jumped this year due to last minute bookings.

Heck If I had the money and I was basically buried under snow since November, I'd be putting my family on the next flight down.

Disney does not disclose daily attendance. As for people trying to escape winter, air and hotel bookings are pretty solid from planned vacations. This makes it prohibitively expensive for most people to hop on the next flight. Plus, if your kids don't have this time off from school, you can't just drive to the airport and fly to Orlando. There isn't any reason to think that people are escaping winter in large numbers on last minute trips in the last week of March. Probably some. But not enough to move the meter.

 

[kmowine]

Main Street was closed today for most of the day for filming of The Middle season finale. This might explain higher que times today. We had planned to show up Monday for MK but were told that the MK would be closed for the filming of The Middle. Turns out that they didnt close the park. They closed parts of it. That may have effected higher park numbers today.

Our first trip to MK didn't go so well today. We are Florida residents and couldn't use the FP+ system until we got to the park and proved our residence. Then their was a separate FP+ line in the park to select your FP+ which took 45 minutes. Our mailed tickets were invalid for the FP+ system till we exchanged them for actual park tickets. That line was almost 90 minutes.

I am hoping tomorrow goes better. My kids were miserable today.;

 

[jamoka]

Just to add.. I know my sister, who lives in Deland (about 45 minutes north of Orlando) does have spring break this week. Maybe many FL residents do, and this is why the parking lot would close!

 

[libba]

We are here now. They were also filming an episode of 'the middle' yesterday at MK which probably contributed!

 

[Ismo]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of "The Middle" fans out there who went to MK yesterday specifically because they wanted to get a glimpse of them.

They might have planned to do Epcot yesterday then changed their minds just to see a TV show being filmed.

I'm very curious though, how do you "close" Main Street? Did they have a pathway for park guests to walk through to get past Main Street? Did they close all of the shops?

 

[estherhead]

We are here now. They were also filming an episode of 'the middle' yesterday at MK which probably contributed!

I think this contributed to the chaos, but not necessarily the crowds.

I'm here now and I'm gonna do a how to skip the lines video Fastpass+ style. My current opinion is to simply not be in MK from 3-7:00. Not only were lines horrendous at that point but the walkways were unwalkable.

The Middle messed us up at Gastons a couple days ago & it closed Main St yesterday. But u didn't see huge crowds of people trying to talk to them.

We've been at spring break before but this is clearly our worst crowds. It reminded me of DL in June. The walkways of DL always stress me out because lines are out into them.

 

[estherhead]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of "The Middle" fans out there who went to MK yesterday specifically because they wanted to get a glimpse of them. They might have planned to do Epcot yesterday then changed their minds just to see a TV show being filmed. I'm very curious though, how do you "close" Main Street? Did they have a pathway for park guests to walk through to get past Main Street? Did they close all of the shops?

They just roped off the area at the front. So for half of main st you had to enter via the sidewalks or walk through the stores. It was very similar to closing it for parades.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

Disney does not disclose daily attendance. As for people trying to escape winter, air and hotel bookings are pretty solid from planned vacations. This makes it prohibitively expensive for most people to hop on the next flight. Plus, if your kids don't have this time off from school, you can't just drive to the airport and fly to Orlando. There isn't any reason to think that people are escaping winter in large numbers on last minute trips in the last week of March. Probably some. But not enough to move the meter.

I do think FP+ is having a great effect on crowd flow, and I'm dreading seeing the afternoon wait times for rides like POTC and IASW when I'm at MK next week. I'm going in with low expectations for what we can get done because of the effects and limits of FP+, along with the spring break crowds. I'm very glad it's only a small piece of our vacation, so we can enjoy what we can without disappointment.

But I wouldn't be surprised if attendance is up, from people who booked during the ice storms and endless blizzards of Dec/Jan and desperate people who are hopping in a car and driving south because the predictions of a harsh spring have so far been coming true. We usually stay home for spring break, but if we hadn't already planned a Florida trip we would be driving south anyway, after seeing the ice and snow forecast for the next week. It will be forty degrees warmer in Florida.

 

[kbelle8995]

I am going to be there next week as well. I'm going to MK and Epcot. in the same day on Saturday.

Yes I am nuts. Since MK is not recommended park I picked all my FP for the morning. There were none in Epcot for the afternoon. I'm more interested in going to flower and garden.

And hearing the waits for the SB lines I am now glad I did. What a mess.

 

[lorinjax]

We were there yesterday as well. I've never seen it that crowded before. (btw, easywdw.com and undercovertourist.com showed Magic Kingdom a GREEN day yesterday. yeah right! lol) Granted we try not to ever go during busy times but with FP and our new magic bands we decided to try it. If it weren't for the FP and being able to book rides in advance we wouldn't have even gone. It's our spring break and also Orlando schools spring break this week.

We got there at 8:30 and left right before the new parade started. We rode Aladdin's carpet, Thunder Mountain (2x), Pirates of the Carribean, Tiki show, (bathroom break), Buzz Lightyear & Carousel of Progress & Racetrack all before 11am. only FP was Buzz Lightyear. The rest just had no lines that early. After that we did FP Under the Sea and went to do Barnstormer FP after that but the ride was broken down. Which automatically gave us a Choice FP to use so we chose Peter's Pans flight which was at an 80 minute wait at that point. I think there was a glitch in their system because it also gave us an extra FP for Dumbo so we went there next. We then went to Barnstormer and told them it broke down during our FP time and they let us on that one as well. We knew it was time to go at that point since we had had such a great day with rides!

So despite their being more people than should possibly be allowed in one park at one time, we waited no more than 10 minutes for anything! If yesterday was only a 9 on the crowd level then my comfort zone is more like a 4 or 5 lol. Thank goodness for annual passes! We got our money's worth yesterday for sure

 

[mom2rtk]

Yes, but....This is what I find most troubling. See if you can detect a pattern. (Data from Touring Plans at 4:47 p.m.)


This is a very sophisticated site that uses tons of data to make predictions based on past years experiences, crowd levels, vacation schedules, and whatever else goes into such metrics. While far from perfect, their predictions are usually eerily close. To be off by so much tells me that something is amiss. Or "something is a miss." Or the posted times are just way off.

I'm curious why you think it would be off by so much. I mean, I have long felt that they manipulated those numbers to get people to, for example, not jump in line right before closing. But what motivation would they have to mess with the times for nearly every ride in the middle of the day? Is it because they have overbooked FP by so much that they don't want anyone trying to do standby on anything? If so, that's just mind blowing.

 

[JimmyV]

I'm curious why you think it would be off by so much. I mean, I have long felt that they manipulated those numbers to get people to, for example, not jump in line right before closing. But what motivation would they have to mess with the times for nearly every ride in the middle of the day? Is it because they have overbooked FP by so much that they don't want anyone trying to do standby on anything? If so, that's just mind blowing.

I was really expecting a lot of people to chime in saying that the original predictions by TP were closer to what they were experiencing and that Disney's reported wait times were over estimated. But we didn't. So right now, I am left to conclude that the posted wait times were close to accurate and that TP was way low in its predicition. From that, I draw the conclusion that either TP severly missed in its crowd prediction for the day, (which is possible), or that TPs metrics haven't caught up with the effects of FP+ yet and that it doesn't quite have a handle on what a 9 or 10 day at the park will really look like under this new innovation (which is also possible). As between the two choices, I could only guess.

 

[mom2rtk]

I was really expecting a lot of people to chime in saying that the original predictions by TP were closer to what they were experiencing and that Disney's reported wait times were over estimated. But we didn't. So right now, I am left to conclude that the posted wait times were close to accurate and that TP was way low in its predicition. From that, I draw the conclusion that either TP severly missed in its crowd prediction for the day, (which is possible), or that TPs metrics haven't caught up with the effects of FP+ yet and that it doesn't quite have a handle on what a 9 or 10 day at the park will really look like under this new innovation (which is also possible). As between the two choices, I could only guess.

Too bad there's no real to know. I find this piece of it really interesting.

 

[ajwolfe]

A though just came in my head.. does Disney publish visitor numbers? I am curious if the lines have less to do with the FPs ( shock) but more that's its spring break AND this winter was INSANE for anyone north of Florida.

Think about it, basically 80% of the country has had a crap winter. I mean a really REALLY REALLY bad, Looooooong winter so I wonder if the spring break crowds overall to Florida have jumped this year due to last minute bookings.

Heck If I had the money and I was basically buried under snow since November, I'd be putting my family on the next flight down.

I have to agree that it is totally plausible that the crazy winter weather has played a part in the larger crowds at Spring Break time. If we didn't already have a trip planned for May I could have seen us jumping on the bandwagon. Here in MO, there are lots of schools in our area off this entire week.