Average Day at MK- Rope Drop, Crowds, and Wait Times

[wisblue]

Josh at easywdw just published this article describing his experience at rope drop at the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, May 20:

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/magic-kingdom-rope-drop-1-day-cheat-sheet-touring-plan-in-practice-may-20-2015/#more-15692

The main focus of the article is to show how one of the “cheat sheet” touring plans from the easywdw site works in practice. But, the narrative, pictures, videos, and wait time charts in the article provide some useful information for anyone with respect to how the crowds develop at the MK, including crowds before the gates open and a video of the rope drop procedure itself. There is also some discussion about 4th FPs, though Josh's experience may not be typical because he was travelling solo.

That day was listed as a crowd 6 (slightly above average) on easywdw and observed as crowd level 5 (average) by Touring Plans. The park opened at 9 AM and closed at 11 PM with MSEP at 9 PM and 11 PM and Wishes at 10 PM and there were no Extra Magic Hours that day. So, it was a pretty “average” day at the MK: not the huge crowds of the holidays or summer, but not the lower than average crowds like the ones earlier in the month.

The chart of posted wait times that day also provides some interesting information:

http://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk52015.jpg

We often hear these days how FP+ has caused some rides that didn’t have paper FP to have significantly longer lines than they did before FP+. Those comments are made frequently about Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and IASW, and often take the form of “these rides were always walk ons before but now they routinely have lines of 30 minutes or more”. But, this was clearly not the case on May 20. According to the chart, the posted wait time at IASW was not higher than 20 minutes all day and averaged 13 minutes for the day. At POC, the posted time had a couple of brief spikes in the early afternoon, but was 20 minutes or less for most of the day and averaged 13 minutes for the day. The posted wait at HM hovered around 30 minutes in the middle of the day, but was less than 30 minutes for much of the day and averaged 20 minutes for the whole day. Simply put, for all 3 attractions, there were plenty of opportunities to experience them with very manageable waits.

This data also provides a good opportunity to compare the wait times to those on a comparable date in 2013, before FP+ was in place. Conveniently, Monday May 20, 2013 was also listed by Touring Plans as a crowd level 5 day at MK, and had the same park hours and MSEP and Wishes schedule as May 20, 2015.

Touring Plans develops its crowd levels by analyzing wait times at certain attractions from 10 AM to 5 PM. For the attractions used for this analysis in 2013, here are (1) the average wait times on May 20, 2013, (2) the average wait times on May 20, 2015, and (3) the average wait times for the whole day on May 20, 2015 according to easywdw:

Thunder Mountain 33/30/25
Buzz 27/28/19
Jungle Cruise 39/42/31
Peter Pan 56/56/52
Pirates 18/19/13
Space 39/40/32
Splash 47/45/32
Haunted Mansion 19/25/20
Pooh 42/30/24

To me, the most striking thing in these numbers is how similar the 2013 numbers on TP are to the 2015 numbers. They certainly do not support a claim that some of these attractions were walk-ons before FP+, or that they always have significantly longer standby lines now.

BTW, IASW is not one of the attractions TP uses to establish its crowd levels. But, on May 20, 2013 TP observed an average wait for IASW of 16 minutes and on May 20, 2015 it was 18 minutes. So, again, no significant change.

 

[maryandtyson]

Wow! Thank you for posting this!

Personally, I kind of like FP+. And, I think the objections to it are a little overblown. Nice to see actual evidence instead of rampant speculation and exaggeration.

One thing is for sure, change is hard.

 

[Sparkly]

When did fastpass plus actually go into effect?

Honestly, I don't actually ever remember seeing Pirates/IASW being walk ons in the middle of the day. I've always expected to wait around 20-30 mins in the peak hours. Maybe it's the times of year we go.

 

[WillAustin]

I'm not sure the average day is what people complain about regarding FP+. For me personally, we usually encounter crowd levels of 8 or greater and that's when the wait times are longer for secondary attractions than the same peak times pre-2013. At least that's been our experience over 8 trips.

This summer we have to travel over the 4th of July, so I'll have another great opportunity to gauge wait times and crowd levels.

 

[mom2rtk]

My complaint is not about a 5 or 10 minute change in the standby wait on certain attractions.

Once you use your first 3 fastpasses, your odds of accessing headliners by FP are far less than ever before. So headline rides after the first 3 are most likely via standby now instead of fastpass. That starts adding wait time to my day in huge chunks far greater than 5-10 minute increments.

 

[mesaboy2]

When did fastpass plus actually go into effect?

Honestly, I don't actually ever remember seeing Pirates/IASW being walk ons in the middle of the day. I've always expected to wait around 20-30 mins in the peak hours. Maybe it's the times of year we go.

Legacy FP was phased out completely in January 2014. Of course, FP+ was being phased in for months prior.

 

[wisblue]

My complaint is not about a 5 or 10 minute change in the standby wait on certain attractions.

Once you use your first 3 fastpasses, your odds of accessing headliners by FP are far less than ever before. So headline rides after the first 3 are most likely via standby now instead of fastpass. That starts adding wait time to my day in huge chunks far greater than 5-10 minute increments.

That's pretty much a necessary result of FPs being distributed more evenly to all guests.

So, it stands to reason that the guests who knew how to take the greatest advantage of the paper system are unhappy with FP+.

 

[Lucretia]

So, it stands to reason that the guests who knew how to take the greatest advantage of the paper system are unhappy with FP+

I don't understand theses types of statements. How can you speak for people who don't like FP+? How do you know why someone likes or dislikes FP+?

 

[wisblue]

I don't understand theses types of statements. How can you speak for people who don't like FP+? How do you know why someone likes or dislikes FP+?

Many posters on these boards have said why they like or dislike FP+.

 

[TheDisGuy]

You do realise Josh has posted several times comparing pre and post FP+ wait times, and has concluded several times that FP+ has increased SB wait times on a number of rides, and this is the first time you have decided to look at his data ? Very interesting ...

 

[wisblue]

You do realise Josh has posted several times comparing pre and post FP+ wait times, and has concluded several times that FP+ has increased SB wait times on a number of rides, and this is the first time you have decided to look at his data ? Very interesting ...

I have seen some of those posts and have commented on them. I have also agreed that FP+ appears to have increased wait times at SOME rides SOME of the time. But I have also said several times that those increases are nowhere near as frequent and as significant as some posters seem to think.

 

[wisblue]

I'm not sure the average day is what people complain about regarding FP+. For me personally, we usually encounter crowd levels of 8 or greater and that's when the wait times are longer for secondary attractions than the same peak times pre-2013. At least that's been our experience over 8 trips.

This summer we have to travel over the 4th of July, so I'll have another great opportunity to gauge wait times and crowd levels.

When I see general statements like this I wonder things like (1) when your trips were, (2) what you consider secondary attractions, (3) what kinds of wait times you were used to seeing for these secondary attractions at which times of the day, and (4) what kinds of wait times you have seen on your more recent trips.

"Longer" can mean that a typical wait of 20 minutes has now become 30, or that a walk on has routinely become 30-45 minutes, or lots of other things.

 

[itchin2go]

I have seen some of those posts and have commented on them. I have also agreed that FP+ appears to have increased wait times at SOME rides SOME of the time. But I have also said several times that those increases are nowhere near as frequent and as significant as some posters seem to think.

I don't have a perfect memory and I haven't gone back to find the "studies" (using this term loosely) that were done, but my recollection was that standby lines of secondary attractions went up nominally after the implementation of the new FP+ system. I never thought they went up a lot, but that they went up a little - pretty much across the board, where lines for some headliners went down a little.

I guess my point is, I haven't seen anything that alleged significantly longer SB lines.

I will say, anecdotally, that the standby line for Living with the Land was unexpectedly long on our last trip. I haven't looked at any data regarding that, but I wondered if FP+ was affecting that attraction in some way.

 

[Lucius Best]

On my first FP+ trip, I was worried that secondary rides that never had paper FP (like PotC and HM) would have the lines significantly lengthened by FP+. Personally I didn't notice any real change in standby wait time. I go during average/below-average crowd times, I'm used to PotC and HM fluctuating between 20-30 minutes during the height of the day, and that's what I saw. It makes sense to me logically that there would be a slight increase.

The difference to me is not the length of the line, but the speed of the line. A 30 minute standby line is going to feel a lot different when dozens/hundreds of people are merging in from the FP return line. On PotC, standby line was boarding on one dock, FP line boarding on the other dock. So the line might be the same 30 minute length timewise, but you're now moving at half the speed through the queue, so it feels longer.

Here's an example of the main difference I noticed with FP+: with the old paper system I would go to the kiosk at 1pm, and get a FP for a headliner (like BTMRR) with return time 2pm. While waiting for my BTMRR return time, I'd ride a secondary ride (like PotC or HM) standby with 20-30 minute wait. With the new FP+ system, I would go to a kiosk at 1pm and see that BTMRR return times were 4pm or later. Not wanting to wait that long before getting another FP, I would instead get FP for PotC or HM with return time 2pm. Then go sit in Tiki Room or Hall of Presidents or pop over to Tom Sawyer Island until the return time. Like someone else said above, you're getting fewer headliner rides with FP than before.

 

[WillAustin]

When I see general statements like this I wonder things like (1) when your trips were, (2) what you consider secondary attractions, (3) what kinds of wait times you were used to seeing for these secondary attractions at which times of the day, and (4) what kinds of wait times you have seen on your more recent trips.

"Longer" can mean that a typical wait of 20 minutes has now become 30, or that a walk on has routinely become 30-45 minutes, or lots of other things.

1. Most of the trips have been July, with some in late June and early August.
2. IASW, HM, Figment, Living with the Land.
3. Almost always less than 10 minutes, sometimes walk-on.
4. Several times over the past couple of years we've seen lines long enough that we decided not to get in them, so usually more than 15-20 minutes.

We don't get in a line over 20 minutes long, mainly because we never (really never) needed to in the past in order to ride what we wanted.

 

[wisblue]

1. Most of the trips have been July, with some in late June and early August.
2. IASW, HM, Figment, Living with the Land.
3. Almost always less than 10 minutes, sometimes walk-on.
4. Several times over the past couple of years we've seen lines long enough that we decided not to get in them, so usually more than 15-20 minutes.

We don't get in a line over 20 minutes long, mainly because we never (really never) needed to in the past in order to ride what we wanted.

Above you mentioned 8 trips. Is that one trip a year for the last 8 years, or are there multiple trips in some years?

If you're going back more than a couple of years you have to take into account that overall crowd levels have increased significantly since the depth of the economic downturn late last decade. So, at least some, if not most of those longer lines since then are going to be a result of larger crowds. A level 8 crowd in 2014 and 2015 is going to have a lot more people than one in 2008 or 2009.

 

[MikeandReneePlus5]

My complaint is not about a 5 or 10 minute change in the standby wait on certain attractions.

Once you use your first 3 fastpasses, your odds of accessing headliners by FP are far less than ever before. So headline rides after the first 3 are most likely via standby now instead of fastpass. That starts adding wait time to my day in huge chunks far greater than 5-10 minute increments.

I guess you are saying you want to ride headliners 4X per day?

Because we just got back and it is very, very easy to ride them twice (once at opening and once with a FP+) and for, say, the 3 mountains or EE or even RNRC and TOT its is very, very, easy to ride them 3 times (or more)....all with little to no wait (meaning 0 to 15 minutes or so).

The only exception that we found was TT and Soarin where it is easy to ride one of them twice in a day with minimal waits (once at opening and once with FP+) but getting a second ride on the other one was harder without a long wait. But if you go to Epcot on multiple days it isn't a big deal. But then again that was our experience with those two attractions before FP+ also. And I LOVED not having to run to one of them, get a FP and then run to the other one. That Epcot run was always a lowlight of my previous vacations. Now it's a simple stroll to one at opening and a lesiurley stroll to the other one with a pre-booked FP+.

Have you been to WDW since FP+ has been running?

 

[WillAustin]

Above you mentioned 8 trips. Is that one trip a year for the last 8 years, or are there multiple trips in some years?

If you're going back more than a couple of years you have to take into account that overall crowd levels have increased significantly since the depth of the economic downturn late last decade. So, at least some, if not most of those longer lines since then are going to be a result of larger crowds. A level 8 crowd in 2014 and 2015 is going to have a lot more people than one in 2008 or 2009.

Multiple trips. We've been 8 times since 2009. 2 have been "off-peak".

 

[mom2rtk]

I guess you are saying you want to ride headliners 4X per day?

Because we just got back and it is very, very easy to ride them twice (once at opening and once with a FP+) and for, say, the 3 mountains or EE or even RNRC and TOT its is very, very, easy to ride them 3 times (or more)....all with little to no wait (meaning 0 to 15 minutes or so).

The only exception that we found was TT and Soarin where it is easy to ride one of them twice in a day with minimal waits (once at opening and once with FP+) but getting a second ride on the other one was harder without a long wait. But if you go to Epcot on multiple days it isn't a big deal. But then again that was our experience with those two attractions before FP+ also. And I LOVED not having to run to one of them, get a FP and then run to the other one. That Epcot run was always a lowlight of my previous vacations. Now it's a simple stroll to one at opening and a lesiurley stroll to the other one with a pre-booked FP+.

Have you been to WDW since FP+ has been running?

We typically used rope drop for only things we could not get a FP for later in the day. If I have to now start using that to replace the headliners I can't get FPs for later, then my wait time on those secondary attractions we previously did at rope drop is going to be substantially more than before.

 

[momof2n2]

I guess you are saying you want to ride headliners 4X per day?

Because we just got back and it is very, very easy to ride them twice (once at opening and once with a FP+) and for, say, the 3 mountains or EE or even RNRC and TOT its is very, very, easy to ride them 3 times (or more)....all with little to no wait (meaning 0 to 15 minutes or so).

I really, really hope this holds true for our trip next May...