Why all these extended ques?

[DisneyFive]

In the past, a queue that fit completely inside the normal line would be a 2 hour wait for most big rides. Because flashpass is gone, rides can get through an entire queue in 30 to 45 minutes, but people are willing to wait longer for attractions. So you get one hour waits that need extended queues.

People are only willing to stand in line because they HAVE to now. It’s that, or you don’t do much of anything all day.

Dan

 

[jimmymc]

People are only willing to stand in line because they HAVE to now. It’s that, or you don’t do much of anything all day.

Dan

What? Long lines are not new. Flight of Passage and 7 Dwarfs were regularly over 2 hour waits pre-Covid. The mountains in MK were almost always more than 1 hour. The lines are back to normal, not longer than before.

 

[DisneyFive]

What? Long lines are not new. Flight of Passage and 7 Dwarfs were regularly over 2 hour waits pre-Covid. The mountains in MK were almost always more than 1 hour. The lines are back to normal, not longer than before.

Sure, standby could be that long but who in their right mind would do that when you had fast pass available? With FP+ or paper FP we never waited in those long lines. Never. And we still did all of the headliners, FOP, 7DMR, etc…. AND we didn’t have to get up early every morning to try and beat the crowds

 

[cakebaker]

What? Long lines are not new. Flight of Passage and 7 Dwarfs were regularly over 2 hour waits pre-Covid. The mountains in MK were almost always more than 1 hour. The lines are back to normal, not longer than before.

You never saw the kind of lines for extended queues like we do know and that's because anyone riding is in standby. It's crowding the parks and most of the extended lines have you waiting out in the sun with no shade available. The wait times may not be a great deal longer than they were with FP+- which only proves that FP does not increase wait times, but no one had to use standby if they chose not to. I would argue that SDMT rarely hit the 2 hr mark in recent times- an hour sure- but not 2 or more.

And the secondary rides are much longer than they used to be. We never used FP+ for things like IASW or Carpets but the lines there are significantly longer now due to having absolutely nothing else to do and not being willing to stand for 3 hrs to ride FOP.

All I know is with FP+ I never got in hours long lines and now if I want to ride, I have no choice but to do that or join the mob at rope drop. We were lucky on this last trip to have a number of recovery FP's that allowed us to ride the headliners with very little wait time and then we rode secondary rides early in the mornings when everyone else was rushing to the headliners. I will be very glad when Disney comes out with their new system, but for now, we are done.

 

[jimmymc]

Sure, standby could be that long but who in their right mind would do that when you had fast pass available? With FP+ or paper FP we never waited in those long lines. Never. And we still did all of the headliners, FOP, 7DMR, etc…. AND we didn’t have to get up early every morning to try and beat the crowds

Obviously someone was waiting if the lines were that long.

 

[jimmymc]

You never saw the kind of lines for extended queues like we do know and that's because anyone riding is in standby. It's crowding the parks and most of the extended lines have you waiting out in the sun with no shade available. The wait times may not be a great deal longer than they were with FP+- which only proves that FP does not increase wait times, but no one had to use standby if they chose not to. I would argue that SDMT rarely hit the 2 hr mark in recent times- an hour sure- but not 2 or more.

And the secondary rides are much longer than they used to be. We never used FP+ for things like IASW or Carpets but the lines there are significantly longer now due to having absolutely nothing else to do and not being willing to stand for 3 hrs to ride FOP.

All I know is with FP+ I never got in hours long lines and now if I want to ride, I have no choice but to do that or join the mob at rope drop. We were lucky on this last trip to have a number of recovery FP's that allowed us to ride the headliners with very little wait time and then we rode secondary rides early in the mornings when everyone else was rushing to the headliners. I will be very glad when Disney comes out with their new system, but for now, we are done.

The extended queues only exist now because they are moving faster. Like I said, a 2 hour line used to fit in a queue. Now because of FP+ being gone, that standby line moves faster, so the queue is longer for the same wait time.

FP+ does significantly slow down standby queues, but makes up for it by letting you skip a few. The real issue right now is that so much entertainment is gone. Things that used to pull in huge crowds for 30 minutes at a time are still closed, same with character queues.

 

[soniam]

Len Testa and Jim Hill were discussing this on the Disney Dish podcast. Attractions have been designed/setup to take 20% of the total queue. That has to go somewhere.

 

[MrsInsG]

The extended queues only exist now because they are moving faster. Like I said, a 2 hour line used to fit in a queue. Now because of FP+ being gone, that standby line moves faster, so the queue is longer for the same wait time.

FP+ does significantly slow down standby queues, but makes up for it by letting you skip a few. The real issue right now is that so much entertainment is gone. Things that used to pull in huge crowds for 30 minutes at a time are still closed, same with character queues.

I agree with this completely. The wait time is the same, but the line is longer. For example, waiting for Jungle Cruise with a 45 minute wait used to be inside the "building", now it tends to back up onto the terrace, but it's still 45 minutes. The difference is the lack of FP+, and I am 100% here for it. I have no desire to see the return of FP+ as it was. *Maybe* FP as it used to be? Maybe some combination of a paid system with the old FP system? I don't know, but I do know I don't want to book reservations for rides 60 days in advance and then get in a line that should take 20 minutes and have it stretch to 40+ due to the uneven nature of how CMs move the lines along. I'm content not riding everything every day of every trip. I realize others may not feel this way, and I look forward to more distractors coming back to the parks and spacing the crowds.

 

[DisneyFive]

I just don't understand the fixation on standby times, and totally ignoring the fact that you didn't need to ride standby in the past. Just back from 10 days at WDW and I can tell you the time we spent standing in lines, for the same exact rides, was easily double or triple what we are used to. FP+ resolved that in the past. We FP'd pretty much every ride we used to do, except for early morning when standby used to be low. I don't understand why people refuse(d) to use the system when it was a night and day difference than how things are now. Makes me think of the phrase... "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"

The parks weren't any busier this trip than when we visited in 2018 and 2016, same time of year, but the wait in lines was so much longer. Also, it's not about the lack of shows either, at least not in the early morning. Shows weren't open early morning before either. In the afternoon and evenings sure the shows would help but wouldn't reduce the waits back to FP wait times.

FP used to do so many good things... There wasn't the crush of humanity at rope drop because you could have headliners already booked for later in the morning or later in the day. This caused less people to be there at rope drop, because they actually got some rest and came later. This allowed for standby wait times, especially the headliners, to build MUCH more slowly than they do now. As things are now, you get ONE headliner in at rope drop and by the time you are done with that, all the headliners have very long lines. This never used to be the case when FP was around. Standby lines stayed low for a good 1 to 1.5 hours after open. So, FP used to do good things for standby in the early mornings as well.

Dan

 

[cakebaker]

FP+ does significantly slow down standby queues, but makes up for it by letting you skip a few.

I'm not going to continue arguing whether FP slowed standby lines or not. I don't agree, I think the lines now prove that but it's beside the point.

FP didn't let us skip a few waits, it let us skip ALL the waits. We used FP for headliners. That allowed us to ride secondary rides in the mornings when there was little to no wait because those people who just refuse to use FP were rushing to get to headliners. With park hopping, we visited each park in the mornings at least twice, got all the secondary rides in and all the headliners using our 3 FP's we booked in advance.

We rarely even tried for additional FP's. We didn't need them. We don't ride a lot of rides multiple times and the few we do were easily done with the multiple trips into each park. I'm not sure how this method is so difficult to understand and why people insist on saying you only got to skip waits for a handful of rides. All I know is without the recovery FP's we had this past week, we wouldn't have ridden near as many headliners as we did. We refuse to do rope drop in that mass of humanity that it is and we don't stand in lines that are hours long. No one I passed standing in those queues outside in the heat looked like they were having a great time. They looked hot and miserable and bored.

 

[MrsInsG]

I just don't understand the fixation on standby times, and totally ignoring the fact that you didn't need to ride standby in the past.

FP didn't let us skip a few waits, it let us skip ALL the waits.

I don't agree with either of these statements. Fast passes allowed me to skip *some* lines. That said, FP+ lines got l-o-n-g. There were plenty of times I had a FP+ and waited upwards of 25 minutes with it. There are a lot of posts on this board detailing the backup and long lines waiting to get into the FP+ lines, and people angry that those lines would often take at least 30 minutes. Also, the tiered system at Epcot made it difficult to avoid lines. You could choose one headliner, but then were at the mercy of the crowds for the others. There was never a time when my family of five could systematically avoid every standby line in a park by using FP+. We weren't doing it "wrong", we weren't unaware or refusing to use technology, we simply prefer something different. Our last trip was in June of '21, and we dealt with the lines. We chose not to ride some rides based on wait time (they'll be there when we go back in December), and waited for other rides that were a priority for us. At this point we've been going for 20 years and have ridden everything many times. We are all about rope drop and used to get in a park for a PPO breakfast and then knock out a section of rides immediately (Fantasyland, for example). We took advantage of FP, then FP+, but my preference will always be FP combined with RD. Again, it's preference, but let's not pretend that everything was pixie dust when FP+ was being used.

 

[luv2cheer92]

I just don't understand the fixation on standby times, and totally ignoring the fact that you didn't need to ride standby in the past. Just back from 10 days at WDW and I can tell you the time we spent standing in lines, for the same exact rides, was easily double or triple what we are used to. FP+ resolved that in the past. We FP'd pretty much every ride we used to do, except for early morning when standby used to be low. I don't understand why people refuse(d) to use the system when it was a night and day difference than how things are now. Makes me think of the phrase... "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"

The parks weren't any busier this trip than when we visited in 2018 and 2016, same time of year, but the wait in lines was so much longer. Also, it's not about the lack of shows either, at least not in the early morning. Shows weren't open early morning before either. In the afternoon and evenings sure the shows would help but wouldn't reduce the waits back to FP wait times.

FP used to do so many good things... There wasn't the crush of humanity at rope drop because you could have headliners already booked for later in the morning or later in the day. This caused less people to be there at rope drop, because they actually got some rest and came later. This allowed for standby wait times, especially the headliners, to build MUCH more slowly than they do now. As things are now, you get ONE headliner in at rope drop and by the time you are done with that, all the headliners have very long lines. This never used to be the case when FP was around. Standby lines stayed low for a good 1 to 1.5 hours after open. So, FP used to do good things for standby in the early mornings as well.

Dan

I was the same, we never rode anything besides the first ride of the day without FP. 10-12 FPs a day, at minimum, usually closer to 15. I still didn't feel like I was spending my whole day waiting. Was it more than before? Yes, of course. But nothing that detracted from the experience.

 

[cakebaker]

I don't agree with either of these statements.

You can’t disagree with my experience. It is what I say it is. No one is pretending anything. We never waited in any line longer than 30 minutes and a vast majority of the time, not even that long. Were there times when the FP line backed up? Sure, but it was mostly tines when the ride had been down and people rushed back to ride. We never did that. If the ride had been down, we waited a while once it reopened. But you just can’t tell someone their experience wasn’t what they say unless you’re questioning their honesty.

 

[JennP78]

I'm not going to continue arguing whether FP slowed standby lines or not. I don't agree, I think the lines now prove that but it's beside the point.

FP didn't let us skip a few waits, it let us skip ALL the waits. We used FP for headliners. That allowed us to ride secondary rides in the mornings when there was little to no wait because those people who just refuse to use FP were rushing to get to headliners. With park hopping, we visited each park in the mornings at least twice, got all the secondary rides in and all the headliners using our 3 FP's we booked in advance.

We rarely even tried for additional FP's. We didn't need them. We don't ride a lot of rides multiple times and the few we do were easily done with the multiple trips into each park. I'm not sure how this method is so difficult to understand and why people insist on saying you only got to skip waits for a handful of rides. All I know is without the recovery FP's we had this past week, we wouldn't have ridden near as many headliners as we did. We refuse to do rope drop in that mass of humanity that it is and we don't stand in lines that are hours long. No one I passed standing in those queues outside in the heat looked like they were having a great time. They looked hot and miserable and bored.

I'm not the person you quoted but everyone experiences the parks differently.

In YOUR experience you skipped all the waits. But, to the points you made, you don't generally re-ride. Others who do might want to suck it up and stay in line for a second ride. Others take shorter trips and don't get to have "multiple trips into each park."

So others might be more "exposed" to standby.

But I agree with your approach about not wanting to either do rope drop or wait in line longer than 20-30 minutes tops (for us anyway) which is one of the reasons why I'm holding off on booking anything until we know FP+ is coming back.

 

[jimmymc]

I'm not going to continue arguing whether FP slowed standby lines or not. I don't agree, I think the lines now prove that but it's beside the point.

FP didn't let us skip a few waits, it let us skip ALL the waits. We used FP for headliners. That allowed us to ride secondary rides in the mornings when there was little to no wait because those people who just refuse to use FP were rushing to get to headliners. With park hopping, we visited each park in the mornings at least twice, got all the secondary rides in and all the headliners using our 3 FP's we booked in advance.

We rarely even tried for additional FP's. We didn't need them. We don't ride a lot of rides multiple times and the few we do were easily done with the multiple trips into each park. I'm not sure how this method is so difficult to understand and why people insist on saying you only got to skip waits for a handful of rides. All I know is without the recovery FP's we had this past week, we wouldn't have ridden near as many headliners as we did. We refuse to do rope drop in that mass of humanity that it is and we don't stand in lines that are hours long. No one I passed standing in those queues outside in the heat looked like they were having a great time. They looked hot and miserable and bored.

I think we just did the parks differently. I would also hit up the smaller rides during ropedrop, which you can still do right now. But at some point I would wait in line for some of the top tier attractions because I had used all 3 fastpasses and still had half the day in the park. And in some parks, you couldn't even get a Fastpass for all the headliners. You could only choose one of the Toy Story Rides, one of the Premier rides at Epcot, and Flight of Passage I just never got because they always sold out instantly. So it was either wait in a long line or skip a good attraction and not ride until another 2 years.

I've been able to ride my favorites more times in a single day since the parks reopened without Fastpass. Now that I'm able to go more often it's less important to ride things every trip, so maybe my opinion will change. But if you're trying to hit every big ride in one day, I prefer no FP.

 

[cakebaker]

In YOUR experience you skipped all the waits.

Yes, that’s just my experience. And that was the point I was making to the person who made the claim that FP only let you skip a few waits and you waited longer for other things. That is not true for us.

 

[MrsInsG]

You can’t disagree with my experience. It is what I say it is. No one is pretending anything. We never waited in any line longer than 30 minutes and a vast majority of the time, not even that long. Were there times when the FP line backed up? Sure, but it was mostly tines when the ride had been down and people rushed back to ride. We never did that. If the ride had been down, we waited a while once it reopened. But you just can’t tell someone their experience wasn’t what they say unless you’re questioning their honesty.

I'm not questioning your honesty at all. I am disagreeing with the point that you don't wait when FP+ is running. Not you in particular, but the "royal" you. I'm sorry if it came across otherwise.

 

[MrWreckless]

Sure, standby could be that long but who in their right mind would do that when you had fast pass available? With FP+ or paper FP we never waited in those long lines. Never. And we still did all of the headliners, FOP, 7DMR, etc…. AND we didn’t have to get up early every morning to try and beat the crowds

I've never even seen a FoP fast pass available, that is with the 60 day window (multiple trips). Not everyone was fortunate enough to grab a fast pass so we had to wait in the lines.

 

[ComeToSocialize]

It makes a huge difference if you are taking a >5 day trip (and thus can get hard to get FPs like FoP at day 60+6 or whatever) vs. having to book at day 60. As noted FoP is typically fully gone by day 60+2 or so. But arguably more importantly, the morning or early afternoon FPs typically run out first. You can't do 12-15 FPs in a day if you have an 8pm FP in your original 3 because it was the only time you could get FoP or 7DMT. So it creates tradeoffs. Do I want to free up unlimited FP access early, or lock in a FP for a headliner? You often can't do both.

Maximizing FP+ also requires tons of phone time to snag cancellations.

Also, at the end of the day, with or without FP+, the same number of people are going to ride the ride in a given day either way, meaning the average wait time is exactly the same either way. FP+ just creates much broader disparities between those who know how to use the system and are staying onsite, vs those who don't / are staying offsite.

 

[AshleyLovesDisney]

I agree with this completely. The wait time is the same, but the line is longer. For example, waiting for Jungle Cruise with a 45 minute wait used to be inside the "building", now it tends to back up onto the terrace, but it's still 45 minutes.

Also noticed this on my trip about three weeks ago. The wait times were shorter/same times, but queues were the same or longer, so I totally agree. It really is eye-opening.