Why the consistently posted high fake wait times?

[goofyernmost]

My 8 year old hypothesized that this must be the reason. I was pretty impressed with her logic.

The problem is that occasionally, at least for me, they have situations and it doesn't always work. If you are familiar with the length of the queue line for Soarin' you know how long that queue is. I entered once with the time at 35 minutes. A perfectly reasonable time at WDW. This was in the paper FastPass days. There might have been some other problem, but the time was actually 90 minutes. I would never have even entered had it said 90, but I think something happened, like one of the theaters broke down or something. I never did know why, but by the time I realized just how long it was taking I had invested to much time to turn around and go back out. However, that was a few years back and I have never forgotten it to this day. Now by contrast, if I had gotten to the show in 30 minutes I would have left with a positive feeling that I would also still be remembering, but pleasantly. If it was a breakdown, they should have told us instead of us wondering what was going on. That was very good reasoning for even an 70 year old, so kudos to your 8 year old.

 

[bedientes]

I was at WDW last week and also used TP Lines app. The TP predictions that were shorter than the posted wait time were not always correct. We got in line for Flight of Passage and the posted wait time was 55 minutes and TP said something like 35 or 40. We definitely waited 60 minutes in line (I used the TP timer and submitted). So it just depends.

I don't know if this has any bearing on the official posted waits, but with social distancing the lines stretch out much farther. At the parks, they seem to indicate that the line will take such and such minutes from a particular spot. Now, if that is based on people using the "wait here" markers through the whole line, then those estimates based on distance may be very off depending on how well people are observing the "wait here" markers. I saw many examples of where a whole length of a back and forth queue section was supposed to be empty according to the distancing markers, but it was full of people just like old times. I wonder how that kind of thing throws off their wait time estimates.

 

[heapmaster]

Disney (to my knowledge) isn't currently using their guests the help determine accurate wait times right now either with the cards attached to lanyards to give back to the CM at the other end of the line.

They actually are phasing those out and are moving to using guests magic bands and soon phones with the MDE app and BTLE beacons from what I heard.

 

[lentesta]

Current comparison at 2:44 on 3/20

BTMRR- MDE:45 TP:23
Splash- MDE:45 TP:25
Space- MDE:50 TP:33
7DMT- MDE:65 TP:46

those are some fairly large differences in the course of a day if you are trying to ride all them

For reference, below is a graph showing Big Thunder's posted wait times for Saturday, and the actual wait times TP got from its Lines app.

Posted wait times are the black dots on the purple line. Actual wait times are the green dots.

(The blue line is what TP predicted Disney's posted wait times would be. TP has a separate prediction for actual wait times, which isn't shown on this graph.)

 

[RangerPooh]

We just spent that week at WDW and many attractions had posted wait times of 60-80+ minutes that were accurate. Lines were long, even when you account for social distancing. Not since the attraction first opened have I seen a line for Navi River Journey that extended towards the bridge entering Pandora. The line was legit. Haunted Mansions line snaked back into Frontierland across from Country Bear. Spalshes line looked line any other peak visitation period.

 

[supersnoop]

I'm regretting renewing my Touring Plans subscription last week. The estimated wait times were almost always incorrect. I found the posted wait times to be much closer to accurate than the Lines app. It became a running joke towards the end of the trip; we simply could not trust the Lines estimate.

 

[wilkydelts]

I'm regretting renewing my Touring Plans subscription last week. The estimated wait times were almost always incorrect. I found the posted wait times to be much closer to accurate than the Lines app. It became a running joke towards the end of the trip; we simply could not trust the Lines estimate.

You must of had a very unique experience than because this is far from the norm being reported.

 

[samsonjs]

Many, many people on the Here & Back thread would disagree with this point and have listed there exact timing experiences as proof.

Some people in that thread said the wait times and lines looked so long they didn’t even get in line. Others say they got in line and they waited much less than the listed time. I feel bad for the people who never got in lines.

 

[kniquy]

So, I have two questions:

1. Does Disney know this (if not, why not)?

2. Why does Disney do this (is there a hidden purpose or some sort of reason I am missing)?

There are a few reasons why WDW might inflate their wait times. From my understanding because there are cleaning cycles you never know when you might hit one of them, thus adding 10-15 minutes of wait time. There is also the fact that there is different loading procedures. They really can't tell just by the number of people in line how many parties they have and how they can load with distancing.

Our trip in Nov 2020 we pretty much found that what ever the wait time was our wait was 10-20 minutes less, and on rare occasion sometimes even 30 min less. As they start loading all rows their wait times may start to be more accurate.