Why wait times have gotten crazy

[dlavender]

10:15 is still low lines. In fact, in FP- days, there were virtually no lines in October at 10:15 am.

Buzz has now crept up to a 60 minute wait. Who is waiting 60 minutes for that, anyhow? Surely people know better than that....

 

[havoc315]

I understand that you can get a better experience anywhere if you are willing to spend the money. I'm not talking about a guided tour for celebrities, however. I could eat at Longhorn by myself if I paid them enough money to not seat anyone else. I don't like a general strategy of offering a special pass for more money to wait less, at the expense of the general admission. Six flags offers this, I resent it. Universal offers this, I resent it. I hope Disney stays away from this type of a model.

Doesn't Disney already offer a version of this "special pass"-- stay on-site, and get special access to EMH hours. So they are already giving on site guests special access.

So they are already doing it-- question is whether they should increase it even more.

 

[havoc315]

Buzz has now crept up to a 60 minute wait. Who is waiting 60 minutes for that, anyhow? Surely people know better than that....

60 minutes... It's only 11 am, and it's October, and it's a secondary attraction.
That would make sense at 2:00 pm in Christmas week. Not now.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

What I love most about the wait times posted in the app is that Disney now defines a wait between 30 min and 60 min a moderate wait time and anything less than 30 as short. At least they are trying to create reasonable expectations of the experience they created.

 

[dlavender]

Doesn't Disney already offer a version of this "special pass"-- stay on-site, and get special access to EMH hours. So they are already giving on site guests special access.

So they are already doing it-- question is whether they should increase it even more.

I see that as a different offering. I guess its a perception thing. But just talking about two people, off the street, buying a ticket for a regular day's admission, I don't like the model of up charging one ticket to be able to ride more rides in that park that day. To me, again a perception thing, it would be like a restaurant saying you can have your food faster for an additional fee...I just resent that model.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Buzz has now crept up to a 60 minute wait. Who is waiting 60 minutes for that, anyhow? Surely people know better than that....

The same people who wait 30-45 min to see Figment.

 

[minnie-apple-mouse]

At Universal, I can stay at their most expensive resort or their lower cost resort or stay offsite and in all three cases if I spend enough money via resort costs or by buying the passes outright I can use the express feature. I can't do that at Disney at least not right now.

I have read some posts hear mentioning Universal. I really dislike Universal's Express pass. We used it for Halloween Horror nights. You have two options: Pay double - see everything, or pay regular admission, and get lucky to see half of the houses/mazes, whatever they are called now. I resent that. We did the former, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from it. At least Disney hasn't ever tried to go that route, and I applaud them for it.

But you simply pay more. Everyone can do it.

I resent that if I don't pay more, I don't have a shot at seeing it all, or even close to it. Not a system that I condone.

Hmm, interesting.

Is it?

Yes, the 2 opinions are interesting to me.

 

[momof2n2]

The same people who wait 30-45 min to see Figment.

AKA "not me"

 

[MrInfinity]

Doesn't Disney already offer a version of this "special pass"-- stay on-site, and get special access to EMH hours. So they are already giving on site guests special access.

So they are already doing it-- question is whether they should increase it even more.

Right but they do not charge specifically for it. It is not a line item on your MYW package that you can choose to add, for say $x, like Hoppers. It is a bundled perk. At Cedar Point, you pay $x for your ticket, then approximately $x again if you want the line pass. Their line pass has a monetized value. Cedar Point is using the perk of their rides to drive incremental cash flow thru the extra pass sale. Disney is using the perk of their rides to drive massive amounts of extra revenue by encouraging an onsite stay which... brings in $120-$400 for a resort stay, plus food, souvenirs, and drinks. By not selling EMH as a fixed price of say $50, Disney can drive in possibly $500 worth of revenue. Cedar Point can't do this because they do not have the infrastructure nor the demand for guests to be there for a week. Thus I do not see Disney "selling" EMH or FP+ for a fixed value. It's much more useful to have these things pull guests in to a greater spending structure while at the same time not resenting that they have to pay extra. It's a win-win for Disney to leverage it this way.

 

[havoc315]

I see that as a different offering. I guess its a perception thing. But just talking about two people, off the street, buying a ticket for a regular day's admission, I don't like the model of up charging one ticket to be able to ride more rides in that park that day. To me, again a perception thing, it would be like a restaurant saying you can have your food faster for an additional fee...I just resent that model.

I've tipped at a crowded restaurant to skip the line.

And remember the original pricing structure of Disney World. Paid per ride,"e tickets" cost more. So it's really not such a foreign concept.
It's just a change that would "hurt" some guests, so therefore those guests don't like the sound of it. But it's not unethical or unprecedented.


Personally, I like the idea of being able to earn advantages : whether by waking up early and going to rope drop, or spending more time getting organized, or by spending more.

If I wake up earlier, plan better, and spend more -- then I think I should be able to get shorter lines than someone who spends less, and wanders into the park at noon without a plan.

 

[Planogirl]

I see that as a different offering. I guess its a perception thing. But just talking about two people, off the street, buying a ticket for a regular day's admission, I don't like the model of up charging one ticket to be able to ride more rides in that park that day. To me, again a perception thing, it would be like a restaurant saying you can have your food faster for an additional fee...I just resent that model.

I agree that it's a matter of perception. I don't like any of the models to be honest.

I do believe that Disney will in some manner upcharge for FP+ as Minnie-apple-mouse said. It makes sense because then they can further control capacity plus charge more for certain services. The only question is whether those extra fees will be upfront and obvious as in the case of Universal or ONLY rolled into resort charges.

 

[dlavender]

Right but they do not charge specifically for it. It is not a line item on your MYW package that you can choose to add, for say $x, like Hoppers. It is a bundled perk. At Cedar Point, you pay $x for your ticket, then approximately $x again if you want the line pass. Their line pass has a monetized value. Cedar Point is using the perk of their rides to drive incremental cash flow thru the extra pass sale. Disney is using the perk of their rides to drive massive amounts of extra revenue by encouraging an onsite stay which... brings in $120-$400 for a resort stay, plus food, souvenirs, and drinks. By not selling EMH as a fixed price of say $50, Disney can drive in possibly $500 worth of revenue. Cedar Point can't do this because they do not have the infrastructure nor the demand for guests to be there for a week. Thus I do not see Disney "selling" EMH or FP+ for a fixed value. It's much more useful to have these things pull guests in to a greater spending structure while at the same time not resenting that they have to pay extra. It's a win-win for Disney to leverage it this way.

Well put. Its all in the eye of the beholder. I mentioned to DW last week that I liked that Disney didn't try to offer "preferred parking" for an additional $5. She thinks I'm crazy for noticing stuff like that. But to me, its a small thing that I appreciate.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Many moons ago the precursor to EMH was a process where resort guests were offered exclusive access to the parks for a nominal fee. It was limited and if you paid for the access you could pretty much walk onto anything you wanted. It was great and we never minded kicking out a little extra for it.

 

[dlavender]

Personally, I like the idea of being able to earn advantages : whether by waking up early and going to rope drop, or spending more time getting organized, or by spending more.

I agree, until the spending portion. Those who RD, and plan better, should be able to have a better experience than those that arrive at noon and expect to ride everything. I would resent it if someone could meander about, arrive late, and get more done than I could because they spent more on a better ticket....I don't think Disney would ever go this route, and I am happy about that. I think that FP + is an attempt at giving these customers a better experience than they previously got with their meandering efforts. Hopefully they don't go too much further with it. Only time will tell.

 

[CapeCodTenor]

Wow! I haven't gotten all the way through this thread yet and I already don't want to go to WDW. Between ticket prices and this FP+ thing I just might take a trip to Germany. I didn't mind waiting in lines but now you have to schedule things out 60 days in advance just to ride a ride?! That's crazy.

 

[dlavender]

Wow! I haven't gotten all the way through this thread yet and I already don't want to go to WDW. Between ticket prices and this FP+ thing I just might take a trip to Germany. I didn't mind waiting in lines but now you have to schedule things out 60 days in advance just to ride a ride?! That's crazy.

It's really not that bad. As I've mentioned before, we scheduled our trip 2 weeks out for a 9 level crowd day. We RD'd, and got in almost everything. If you want 7DMT without much of a wait, you have to schedule 60 days out, but thats it.

 

[epcotty]

This!

In the FP- era, I seldom got more than 2 or 3 fast passes, only got them when needed, and used them strategically.

Now, you virtually must book 3 FPs in advance. Since everyone is doing so, and with 70-90% of capacity being used to service those FPs, there is no such thing as a fast standby line anymore.

I'm guessing that the average visitor, still visiting the average amount of rides, still spends a similar overall amount of time in line.
Maybe they previously waited in a bunch of 10-30 minute lines, now they are doing 3 FPS, and a bunch of 20-50 minute lines.

If I previously would do Haunted Mansion with a 10-20 minute wait... But now, it is either "instant" with FP for 70% of guests, but 30-50 minutes for standby.... Is more being gained or lost?

The "old days"... In moderate crowds, might have 3-5 bad lines during mid-day. But even without FPs, there were another dozen attractions you could enjoy without significant lines. Now... It's 10+ attractions that have the bad lines, and very few that can be enjoyed without a FP or significant line.

And if 70% of capacity is going to FP, with 3 FPs per person, and most FPs gone by lunch.... How many attractions are people really enjoying? Seems to my math, people are probably only doing 5-7 attractions in Magic Kingdom. Use your 3 FPs, see a show/parade/fireworks, do 1 or 2 low/no line attractions (Hall of Presidents, Carousel of Progress), and maybe bear 1 or 2 of the long standby lines.

I wonder if FP+ has actually increased the number of attractions that an average guest experiences.

In Magic Kingdom in July we did 19 attractions in 1 day as well as MSEP/Celebrate The Magic/Wishes (and w/ actually getting in the park about an hour after opening). At least in our case the amount of attractions hasn't seemed to go down in our visits since FP+ started. I still definitely don't like it anywhere near as much as FP though as it's always tough to pin our plans to a specific day

 

[EricInPA]

I didn't mind waiting in lines but now you have to schedule things out 60 days in advance just to ride a ride?! That's crazy.

This is not the case. You are allowed to pick some fast pass selections 2 months before your trip, and with some rare exceptions you will get the ones you want, even if you don't do it right at 60 days.

This thread is just a friendly discussion about the differences between FP- and FP+. Wait times are a way of life at amusement parks.

 

[Angel Ariel]

You don't have to wait until a peak time. According to their app the numbers have gone up and in some cases pretty significantly in less than 30 min. There's some pretty fuzzy logic behind trying to pretend that the SB lines have significantly increased especially since pretty much everyone who monitors these numbers as part of their living has noted wait times are up after lengthy analysis.

We found last November that waits for frontierland, adventureland and tomorrowland (more the first 2 than the latter, but in the latter a bit as well) were pretty much nil until around 10:45am or so. The RD crowd running to a&e and sdmt seems to have made these areas of the park pretty dead for quite a while.

In our case, we got out of line at A&e about 10 mins after opening after seeing the wait jump up to 90 mins while we were in line and not moving at all. We walked right on to jungle cruise, rode BTMRR 2x back to back with less than a 5 min wait, met with chip.and dale (no line), went to HM where we waited about 15 mins, then shopped in.memento MorI. When we got out of MM, around 10:45 ish, the crowds had descended and there were decent waits at everything we had just ridden with no wait. The a&em/sdmt effect is definitely a factor first thing in the morning until appx 11ish, give or take some on either side.

 

[over50visits]

Many moons ago the precursor to EMH was a process where resort guests were offered exclusive access to the parks for a nominal fee. It was limited and if you paid for the access you could pretty much walk onto anything you wanted. It was great and we never minded kicking out a little extra for it.

Amazing. Disney charges (whatever) for a day at their park, and people are willing to pay more so they don't have to stand in line. So what are they offering now for the admission price? The privilege of standing in