Why are lines so long?

[GADisneyDad14]

Does Early Morning Magic affect things as much as EMH?

No, EMM is a very small guest count relative to something like EMH. Too small to notice and people spread out at park opening. You’d never really know they were there, for most practical purposes.

 

[Delirium]

I believe the fast pass system is responsible for the long lines .
Sometimes the lines were as long as the regular line .
Disney has built an expectation of planning months in advance and only getting three rides per day.
Had the worst experience in 20 years this year causing me to seriously look at the cost per ride .
Work it out for your experience .
Ours cost $10 per ride over three weeks

I have to ask. Do you only go to Disney for the rides? I assume so, otherwise you would not be calculating cost per ride.

This advice applies to anyone thinking about a Disney trip. If it's all about the rides, Disney is not for you. A Disney trip is about the overall experience. Has the quality of that experience suffered over the years. Yes, I believe it has. But, I don't think FP+ is the reason why. The experience would be worse without it.

A good touring plan still trumps all. We went over Thanksgiving week last week and our longest waits were for an ADR (Liberty Tree Tavern on Thanksgiving night) and a character meet (Mickey at Town Square). I don't think we waited over 20 minutes for a single ride during a very busy week.

I've said it before, but if someone waits 40 minutes to ride Pooh at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, that's on them, because they could wait less than 5 minutes at 9:55 at night.

 

[Pmlocke]

I have checked the attendance figures for that 10 years and it seems that the attendance increases every year between 4-8 percent on average. With approximately 40 million visitors last year, that translates into roughly 1.6 to 3.2 million additional people this year and it grows like that every year. Back in 2002 it was manageable with low crowds during the off season. I don't think there is an off season any longer and with Star Wars, I only expect it to get worse. Why else would they be building all of those extra hotels? Oh how I long for the quieter times. I will still go back, I just miss it.

 

[LSUmiss]

I have to ask. Do you only go to Disney for the rides? I assume so, otherwise you would not be calculating cost per ride.

This advice applies to anyone thinking about a Disney trip. If it's all about the rides, Disney is not for you. A Disney trip is about the overall experience. Has the quality of that experience suffered over the years. Yes, I believe it has. But, I don't think FP+ is the reason why. The experience would be worse without it.

A good touring plan still trumps all. We went over Thanksgiving week last week and our longest waits were for an ADR (Liberty Tree Tavern on Thanksgiving night) and a character meet (Mickey at Town Square). I don't think we waited over 20 minutes for a single ride during a very busy week.

I've said it before, but if someone waits 40 minutes to ride Pooh at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, that's on them, because they could wait less than 5 minutes at 9:55 at night.

No we go for the overall experience & when EVERYTHING seems to be overcrowded,
understaffed and/or overbooked now (after trip 2 weeks ago), it finally makes me question the value for us.

 

[bryanb]

I have to ask. Do you only go to Disney for the rides? I assume so, otherwise you would not be calculating cost per ride.

Personally, I agree that cost per ride is a bad way to calculate WDW value. I've done that mental math at Disneyland before, but I'm absolutely confident that you can check off more rides per day at DL than is possible at WDW, given the density of each park, the number of attractions, and the corresponding lower average attendance rate per park.

I'm honestly not sure that the experience has suffered over the years. Tracking opinions over a longer period of time, one would think that things were constantly getting worse over decades or that staff has been cut and cut and cut, perks taken away, and favorite experiences shuttered. I think that the quality ebbs and flows, but is still generally world class and ever expanding.

 

[TarotFox]

Answered your own questions with the words “free dining.”




Seems ok to me.




I’ve literally only been during quieter times and that’s been my wait experience on speedway.




Yikes. That’s a low wait time to be your limit!

Better stay onsite deluxe at universal to get that express pass.

Or just go to Disneyland. It isn't hard to pull off 20 minute or less wait times there.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

Personally, I agree that cost per ride is a bad way to calculate WDW value. I've done that mental math at Disneyland before, but I'm absolutely confident that you can check off more rides per day at DL than is possible at WDW, given the density of each park, the number of attractions, and the corresponding lower average attendance rate per park.

I'm honestly not sure that the experience has suffered over the years. Tracking opinions over a longer period of time, one would think that things were constantly getting worse over decades or that staff has been cut and cut and cut, perks taken away, and favorite experiences shuttered. I think that the quality ebbs and flows, but is still generally world class and ever expanding.

The most aggravating to me is rides not at full capacity or broken down.

 

[bryanb]

The most aggravating to me is rides not at full capacity or broken down.

True. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Can't do anything about rides being broken down, but for attractions with large crews of CMs, usually one team will open the attraction and then enough CMs are scheduled by mid-morning to bump up the attraction's capacity. In most cases, by 10:30 or 11:00 it should be running at full staff until things wind down late in the day. While budgets ebb and flow, I think this has been a typical example.

 

[normjen]

I think it really has to do with park hours and disappearing rides. I may be wrong because I am going from memory, but the park hours have changed drastically in the last ten years, with all the ticketed events and no more 3 hour EMH. With hours changed for the worse (shortened), now I can see where people stay in the park all day instead of the ebb and flow that occurred when the park(s) where open late often and guests would take a break throughout the day because they could still get their park hours in.
We are going in Dec and MK is closed early for a ticketed party on all but 3 days we are there. If Mk normally would close at 9 pm that is about 8 hours of park time not available to regular guests, which also pushes guests to other parks making them more crowded.
Think about HS and what there is to do there, of course lines are crazy, No movie ride to share the load- no car thrill show that took 3000 guests out of the park every couple of hours- No back lot tours to share the load- no Osborne lights. All the closed rides or attractions in the parks that helped level out crowds just add more guests to fight for time in the existing rides and attractions.
How many of you struggle with what FP's to choose at Epcot after your initial Tier 1 FP. I am talking veterans who have done most everything, it is a bit sad.
We were there in February and it felt like July crowds where you had to pick your way to get from A to point B. I am not sure if it is an open record anywhere but you would like to know if crowds are that much higher than ten years ago or it just seems that way because of WDW operating procedures in place

 

[one_cat]

We are going in Dec and MK is closed early for a ticketed party on all but 3 days we are there. If Mk normally would close at 9 pm that is about 8 hours of park time not available to regular guests, which also pushes guests to other parks making them more crowded.

The Christmas party is so crowded these days I doubt it’s impacting other parks for the worse, maybe better?

I don’t divide the cost by the number of rides but by the number of minutes I can spend with DW. That stays constant regardless of the crowd.

 

[bryanb]

I think it really has to do with park hours and disappearing rides. I may be wrong because I am going from memory, but the park hours have changed drastically in the last ten years, with all the ticketed events and no more 3 hour EMH. With hours changed for the worse (shortened), now I can see where people stay in the park all day instead of the ebb and flow that occurred when the park(s) where open late often and guests would take a break throughout the day because they could still get their park hours in.
We are going in Dec and MK is closed early for a ticketed party on all but 3 days we are there. If Mk normally would close at 9 pm that is about 8 hours of park time not available to regular guests, which also pushes guests to other parks making them more crowded.
Think about HS and what there is to do there, of course lines are crazy, No movie ride to share the load- no car thrill show that took 3000 guests out of the park every couple of hours- No back lot tours to share the load- no Osborne lights. All the closed rides or attractions in the parks that helped level out crowds just add more guests to fight for time in the existing rides and attractions.
How many of you struggle with what FP's to choose at Epcot after your initial Tier 1 FP. I am talking veterans who have done most everything, it is a bit sad.
We were there in February and it felt like July crowds where you had to pick your way to get from A to point B. I am not sure if it is an open record anywhere but you would like to know if crowds are that much higher than ten years ago or it just seems that way because of WDW operating procedures in place

Hollywood Studios is an excellent example of a half-day park (for many visitors) where a huge swath of the space is under construction. Obviously, that's because the park is about to open a rather expensive expansion so there is some temporary pain there. If Star Wars interests you, there are enough activities to eat up a good chunk of your day -- even though there's only one ride. Epcot's Futureworld has languished for years and is about to finally get something new there. But throughout its history, it has always been the least ride-focused park, so the FastPass system feels kind of forced on there because there aren't that many rides to begin with.

You're right that park hours were longer, with EMH extending the MK to as late as 1:00am -- a beautiful time when the parks were near empty because there were hardly any guests. (No wonder they stopped that!) But before that, park hours were even shorter than they are now. AK had no Pandora, and was closed by 6pm every night. (I wondered if they ever even changed the light bulbs there, since they were rarely on with guests present!) And there was a long time when even the Magic Kingdom would close with the fireworks.

My point (probably an unpopular one), is that I think that there's balance to this story. The parks are too crowded and ever more expensive. They're also expanding, and you can't really talk about closures while leaving out the context of what's happening now.

Long time park veterans will always be the harshest critics, because we've seen it all ebb and flow. We are delighted when things expand, but our outrage is doubled when it goes the other way. And our standards are higher because we care, and because as you consume more of the same thing over-and-over again, you get acclimated to it and demand more to have the same satisfaction.

 

[dprincessmom]

So I am here right now, leaving tomorrow. This is our 5th trip in the last 10 years and the lines and transportation have been the worst we have seen. In the past, we rope dropped and were able to grt so much accomplished in the first two hours, ate lunch, returned to the hotel for a few hours of rest and pool and then had dinner/used fast passes and life was good. This trip the rides seemed packed with long waits in the first hour and we have not been able to accomplish much except the morning we did Epcot. One morning we rope dropped to btmr and splash, but both were down and no one told us until we got there. By the time we got to space mountain the wait was already 40 plus minutes.

Previous trips buses have been plentiful and relatively empty. This trip we have had to wait a while for buses and/or drivers (sometimes a bus would pull up quickly but we had to wait for a new driver or once we had a packed bus, but sat waiting for 20 minutes for the bus driver to get permission to take us to our hotel). Pretty much every bus we have been on packed.

The food has been great (free dining) and so has the resort, but why are the lines so long and transportation so bad compared with years past? Is Disney cutting back, are people getting smarter and planning better, are crowds up? Something else?

Im thinking this will be our last disney trip unless it goes back to the good ole days.

I'm guessing that the answer to some of your questions are in your own words - FREE DINING! It gets a lot of people there at the same time, moving vacation weeks as needed to be able to book. Also with the wacky weather and school finishing delays this year, I think parents pushed back vacations. I live in Florida, we start Monday in our district - Friend lives in Virginia they still have 4 weeks of summer break left.

I don't see the good ole days happening again anytime soon. We had a similar experience at Hollywood Studios last trip. Won't stop me from going again, but might cause a shift in FP+ elections.

 

[spleuchan]

Our last day on Saturday was good. We rope dropped HS and rode TSM, then had fast passes for SDD, ToT, and RnRC, hopped over to Epcot for Chefs de France lunch and snagged a 4th fast pass for Soarin, making it back to BWI by 2:45 for our Magical Express Bus to the airport.

Someone mentioned lines at Disneyland. I checked the wait on the app and it is amazing how short the lines are there compared to Disney World (even accounting for the time difference). I really wonder why the lines there are so much shorter there. Those lines are much closer to my past experiences with Disney World. Checking the wait times at Disney World this week, it doesn't seem like my week was an abnormality.

I guess another thing that made it feel worse was that this was our most expensive trip (even having FD). In our previous trips, we stayed offsite once (pre FP+), booked a deal with the TA that used to have really awesome rates at deluxes twice, and did full FD at a moderate once. No good to pay a lot more for a lot less.

 

[suemom2kay]

When we were there in mid-July we made the mistake of RDing DHS on a morning with EMM. It really didn't matter where we were on the line cause all the EMM guests were already cued up to ride SDD one last ride. So it took us about an hour to get on SDD. It was 98-100 degrees the whole 5 days we were there so we enjoyed the pool/resort and went to the parks at night. Lines were better and obviously the temperatures were much more amenable.

 

[suemom2kay]

Someone mentioned lines at Disneyland. I checked the wait on the app and it is amazing how short the lines are there compared to Disney World (even accounting for the time difference). I really wonder why the lines there are so much shorter there.

Disneyland is a locals park. People go in hit a few rides, mill about, and leave. Disney World is a destination, people, lots of people go in at RD and leave at close. This difference in guests' touring behavior has a huge impact. Disneyland also has Maxpass vs Fastpass+ which I'm sure has an impact on lines, but I don't know enough about Maxpass to know what that impact is.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Our last day on Saturday was good. We rope dropped HS and rode TSM, then had fast passes for SDD, ToT, and RnRC, hopped over to Epcot for Chefs de France lunch and snagged a 4th fast pass for Soarin, making it back to BWI by 2:45 for our Magical Express Bus to the airport.

Someone mentioned lines at Disneyland. I checked the wait on the app and it is amazing how short the lines are there compared to Disney World (even accounting for the time difference). I really wonder why the lines there are so much shorter there. Those lines are much closer to my past experiences with Disney World. Checking the wait times at Disney World this week, it doesn't seem like my week was an abnormality.

I guess another thing that made it feel worse was that this was our most expensive trip (even having FD). In our previous trips, we stayed offsite once (pre FP+), booked a deal with the TA that used to have really awesome rates at deluxes twice, and did full FD at a moderate once. No good to pay a lot more for a lot less.

Just remember that DLR right now is considered slow even by its standards. APs are still blocked out and people flat out avoided the park when Star Wars opened up. All you had to do was look at the news to see stories all over the place for how 'empty' DLR was.

 

[Love Tink]

Disneyland is a locals park. People go in hit a few rides, mill about, and leave. Disney World is a destination, people, lots of people go in at RD and leave at close. This difference in guests' touring behavior has a huge impact. Disneyland also has Maxpass vs Fastpass+ which I'm sure has an impact on lines, but I don't know enough about Maxpass to know what that impact is.

Completely disagree. Yes, locals make up a bigger share of the crowd at DL than they do at WDW. But DL also has lots of out-of-town visitors, and many who stay all day.

DL has more than 35 rides in one park (with many more a one-minute walk away). HS has 6. AK currently has 7. Line distribution isn't that mysterious.

 

[TarotFox]

Just remember that DLR right now is considered slow even by its standards. APs are still blocked out and people flat out avoided the park when Star Wars opened up. All you had to do was look at the news to see stories all over the place for how 'empty' DLR was.

Yeah, but even during high times, it isn't high like WDW is. You can still manage relatively low waits by coming early, staying late, and using MaxPass effectively.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah, but even during high times, it isn't high like WDW is. You can still manage relatively low waits by coming early, staying late, and using MaxPass effectively.

Yes but that wasn't pertaining to what the OP was mentioning as in they looked at the lines now and saw they were low--they are low even by normal standards for DLR for the moment.

MP costs money.

 

[TarotFox]

Yes but that wasn't pertaining to what the OP was mentioning as in they looked at the lines now and saw they were low--they are low even by normal standards for DLR for the moment.

MP costs money.

Yes, but it is pertaining to what I was saying, since I was the one who brought up the lines at DL in the first place, leading to OP looking at the app. I wasn't talking about "right now."