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

[Jennytoon]

Josh has done exactly what no one else has done here: compiled data, and provided a logical analysis.

Not true. Others have provided analyses, including the one I will provide later in this post. I agree that Josh is relatively uniquely privileged to have access to the data.

You mention "other factors" besides crowd levels that might have contributed to changes in wait times, but I don't see the list of what you think those other factors might be.

I was trying hard to keep my post short and to the point, which I occasionally have difficulty with, and what the specific other factors are aren't actually relevant to my point. The failure to consider the crowds implies strongly that no consideration was made for other factors that might have affected the results. Many of these factors are hard to gather data on, so it might not have been possible to include them in the analysis. But it was an omission to exclude any consideration of them when interpreting the data.

I was curious about the increase in crowds, so I tried googling it. Does Disney even release attendance numbers broken down by park and by month? I could only find annual attendance numbers through 2013. Best I could do was Disney's 2nd Quarter Fiscal 2014 earnings report (covering Jan/Feb/Mar 2014): http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/sites/default/files/press-releases/pdfs/q2-fy14-earnings.pdf which says nothing about WDW attendance.

It is a big problem in these discussions that crop up on the boards that nobody who is posting has any real access to this data at the level that would be required to support an analysis.

By comparison, press releases and web news articles for Q4 2014 and Q1 2015 talk about WDW record attendance, and a record quarterly attendance increase of 7%. Safe to assume that if there was a large attendance increase at WDW in Q2 2014, Disney might have mentioned it? Note that a 7% increase to a 15 minute wait time would make it 1 minute longer. I would also suspect a 7% increase in crowd levels to increase standby wait times across the park somewhat uniformly.

Your analysis is somewhat flawed, as it fails to take into account the capacity threshold -- that is, a 7% increase cannot be calculated directly on the wait time. Consider the following analysis, where only 500 more people wanting to ride Figment on a given day, an increase of only 3%, results in bumping the average posted wait time from 5 to 10 minutes. I've chosen Figment because it is commonly cited as a ride that was always a walk on and now has a line.

According to Touring Plans, the wait per 100 people in line in front of you at Figment is 2 minutes per 100 people. That means the ride can handle 3000 people per hour. Most days FutureWorld is open from 9 to 7, so that's 10 hours or ideally 30,000 people that can ride Figment with nobody having to wait. Obviously this assumes they all arrive at the "right time", because 30,000 people who arrive at 9AM will definitely have to wait (and 15,000 of them will be scared off by the size of the queue) and if the whole 30,000 don't show up until 6 PM they're not all going to get on.

Let's assume we have 300 people over capacity there from the very beginning, and the rest of the 30,000 arrive at the right time throughout the day. Now Figment will experience a 5 (really 6) minute wait all day. At every point, the ride will be at capacity, with 300 people in the queue causing a 5 minute wait. The average will be five minutes.

This is quite unrealistic as we all know that crowds are light in the morning, increase towards the middle of the day, and taper off at the end. So let's consider a different scenario -- in this scenario we will assume that nobody rides Figment until 11 AM, and they all stop at 4 PM. Now we need more people in the queue at all times to give us our 5 minute wait; to be precise we need 500 people and the ride is now going to process 15,500 people over the course of the day and we will still have an average wait of 5 minutes.

Now let's add 500 more people into our same scenario riding between 11 AM and 4 PM. That's a 3% increase (500/15500), and we'll get an increase in the posted wait time of 5 minutes to 10 minutes, just like Josh showed. Note that 400 extra people would be only 2.5%, but would still show the average ride time as 10 minutes because it's rounded to the nearest 5 minutes.

Now, obviously there are some omissions in this analysis, obviously there are people on the ride before 11 AM and after 4 PM. Those people would only lower the % increase in overall ridership for the day that is required for the given bump, let's say it's exactly at capacity in those hours -- now we're looking at 500/30500 (1.6%) instead of 500/15500. That's not really true of course, it's going to be under capacity some of that time. And also if we only have 500 more people than the day before, some of them are going to ride in those hours where it's under capacity. And we all know that the line will be bouncy, and they won't all show up at the "right time" as they did in this analysis, although that smoothing assumption doesn't really affect the analysis badly since we are looking at averages.

The difficulties of assessing the affects of a a given boost on the spread is why there is an entire branch of mathematics called queuing theory. However, given that ignoring the riders who are out of window when calculating the % increase and assuming that all of those riders are riding in the window are assumptions that create inaccuracies in the opposite direction (they compensate for each other), then the numbers from this analysis are not an unreasonable simplification. So taking the # of people that results in a 5 minute average wait and increasing it by only 3% has the potential to increase the average wait to 10 minutes.

OK, not all of those 7% are going to want to ride Figment. And we made some assumptions. Etc. But 3% is definitely close enough to the right range that no matter how much arguing you do about the assumptions and who lines up at different times etc., I don't think you can readily dismiss the idea that the increase in crowds on its own and in the absence of FP+ could account entirely for the changes in observed wait times on this ride.

As for other factors when comparing wait times between Jan/Feb 2013 and Jan/Feb 2014, some possibilities would be ride additions, ride closures, holidays, special events, vastly different park hours? Any special discounts or weather events that would affect attendance? Major recent addition at MK was 7DMT, but that was May 2014? I believe Splash Mountain had extended refurbs both years? The study period doesn't include Easter, so it's not affected by Easter being earlier. I'm not aware of any huge differences. That's also the slowest time of the year, would a June/July comparison yield different results?

Regardless, I can't picture any of those other factors having as much of an effect on wait times as FP+.

You've done a good job thinking of other factors, but in the light of the above analysis on how crowds might (note use of the word might) have an effect, you might not even need to consider any of these.

And again, I'm not saying that the bump wasn't due to FP+. I'm not saying it was due to the crowds. I'm saying there's enough uncertainty that you can't dismiss the effect of crowds and other factors without demonstrating that the effects are not as significant or more significant than the effect of FP+.

 

[notfrostyjosh]

Incremental attendance increases do affect wait times. Attendance has more or less gone up every quarter since I started doing this five years ago, but it had never had such an impact as FP+. You would have seen a major shift in wait times throughout the implementation of FP+ if you had an opportunity to visit the theme parks several times a week during that process that took something like 18 months from the very beginning to what is now basically final implementation. It didn't quite go from 10-minute peak waits at Spaceship Earth being the norm to 30- to 45-minute peak waits overnight, but it almost did.

One of the more interesting things I can tell you is how many people are in each of the theme parks every day for the last several years. So I could compare a day in early 2013 under legacy FASTPASS to a similarly crowded day in 2015 under FP+. And there are probably other factors to consider between 2013 and 2015 too. With a better economy, people are probably spending more time eating and shopping. And new attractions like Mine Train and Anna/Elsa would also have a major impact on crowd flow, in addition to all the closures at Hollywood Studios etc. And Test Track's closure had a major impact on Epcot attendance. But if you do look at similarly crowded days between 2013 and 2015, you would come to the same conclusions I did with the differences in median and peak waits. And like I've said in the past, even given higher attendance, waits are actually down at the majority of the headlining attractions that offered legacy FASTPASS.

As far as isolating the impact of FP+ specifically - I'm not sure how you would do that and account for the myriad of other factors that contribute to wait times and crowd flow. That sounds like something you would try to spend months doing with a team of graduate students far more intelligent than I am.

But I'm happy to be proved wrong if you think you can offer better analysis and can truly isolate just the effect of FP+ on WDW wait times and account for attendance changes, crowd flow changes, economical changes, attraction changes, etc. It seems all but impossible to me, but if you'd like to forward what you think the methodology would be for such a study, I'd be happy to take a look at the data through those eyes. And if it's really something worth investigating, I could probably provide my data as long as it stays reasonably secure.

One of the reasons why I don't spend a lot of time comparing 2013 wait times to 2015 wait times is that the analysis is so imperfect. And to the end user, it doesn't necessarily matter why wait times have gone up. I spend most of my time trying to develop strategies to combat those waits.

 

[SmithSmith]

This is turning out to be the most interesting thread on the boards.

 

[wisblue]

Josh, thank you for all of your comments.

ITA that it doesn't really matter WHY wait times are higher at some attractions and lower at others. I think what most people want to know is roughly what to expect on the days they are going to visit so they can plan accordingly.

Since you mentioned Spaceship Earth, I'll use that as an example. I know from my frequent visits (admittedly not nearly as many as you have had) that SE has a pretty consistent crowd pattern. The line there grows fairly quickly when the park first opens bexause of its prominent location and the appeal of entering "the big ball". But it doesn't grow as quickly get nearly as long as Soarin and TT. But, at the busy times when we usually visit, wait times of 20 minutes or longer have never been uncommon. The line tends to grow through the morning and into the early afternoon and then tails off as people gravitate more toward the World Showcase. By mid to late afternoon the line has usually dropped significantly from the peak and in the last few hours it was often a virtual walk on even on very busy days.

With this pattern, we always knew that if we wanted to ride SE we would do it in the morning (maybe after Soarin, TT, and MS) or later in the day after the peak wait has subsided. Now, getting a FP for it is another option. But, we would never plan to ride SE standby from about 11 AM-2PM because we know that will be when the line is the longest.

My point is that, with an efficient touring plan, and armed with the knowledge of the line pattern at SE, it should be very easy for an informed guest to ride it with a short wait. That being the case, it really doesn't matter to us how long the line is during the peak times because we won't be waiting in that line anyway. The same is true for the other attractions that are often mentioned as having longer standby lines.

Now, if you want to ride something multiple times, that could be more difficult. But, if you want to ride SE over and over with short waits, that could still be possible after about 5 PM even on a fairly busy day. Someone mentioned yesterday that the posted standby wait at SE was at 45 minutes around noon. According to Touring Plans (which listed yesterday as a crowd level 9 at Epcot with morning EMH) the posted wait was at 45 minutes from about 10 AM-1 PM. Then it dropped to 25 minutes and stayed at or below that the rest of the day, and was at 5 minutes from about 6 PM until park closing. In other words, even on a busy day, there were plenty of opportunities to ride SE with a short wait, with or without a FP.

 

[cakebaker]

And to the end user, it doesn't necessarily matter why wait times have gone up. I spend most of my time trying to develop strategies to combat those waits.

And this is what you do better than anyone I've found. And you're absolutely right. I don't care if the wait times have gone up and I don't care why. I want to know how to get what I think is the most I can get out of my trip. First by knowing what to expect and secondly, planning so that I can avoid whatever lines there may be.

The point I took away from the OP is the contention that for the most part, lines were rarely ever a walk on for most any ride during busy periods. Sure, early in the morning or during EMH, you could certainly ride without waits, but not during busy times. It's a myth, it really is- at least in my experience. And also with planning and using information you provide as well as others, it's still possible to avoid long standby lines.


But thank you for your insights.

 

[NavyDad]

I know I'm going to regret this.

I run easywdw.com - a site that gets over 850,000 visitors/month. I write the highest rated Walt Disney World guidebook on Amazon of all time (of all time) and have visited the theme parks well over 500 times over the last five years. I can also pull up those wait times charts for any park, any day, all day, for the last couple of years. Tens of thousands of people have used my crowd calendars, cheat sheets, etc. So I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

FP+ has affected wait times in a variety of ways.

The biggest change is in secondary attractions that didn't historically offer FastPass+. FP+ is, in essence, priority boarding for those that have it. So if you have 1,000 people in line at Haunted Mansion and Haunted Mansion moves through 2,000 people/hour, your wait would be 30 minutes if you were the 1,001st person in line. If you have that same 1,000 people in line, but 200 of them have FP+, your wait would still be 30 minutes because you're still behind 1,000 people. The reason the wait is longer is because while you're waiting, 200 more people with FP+ arrive after you. And because they have priority boarding, they will be seated and ride before you. So instead of being behind 1,000 people, you're now behind 1,200 people and your wait is longer because of it.

FastPass+ has its biggest impact on days with higher attendance because more FP+ are distributed to more people. If there are 10,000 people all selecting 3 FP+, you have a total of 30,000 FP+. If there are 30,000 people all selecting FP+, you have 90,000 FP+. And because there are a limited number of high priority FP+ at the major attractions, the people that choose later will have fewer options and will be selecting lower priority FP+ choices because that's what's remaining in inventory. But they will still have FP+ for those low priority attractions, arrive after you, and board before you. And because of that, you will wait longer. The 4th FP+ thing has also "helped" increase waits. Just yesterday I got a 4th FP+ for Living with the Land around 1:15pm for 1:25pm-2:25pm. The posted wait was 30 minutes and there were hundreds of people in line. I boarded in under five minutes, bypassing all of those people that arrived before me. And they will wait longer because of it.

But FP+ is affecting wait times more and more on "less crowded" days because more people are privy to FP+ because Disney is making such a big deal out of it. And with 4th and subsequent FP+ opportunities via kiosk, you see more and more cases of maximum FP+ distribution, even for the lowest priority attractions. And because there is some disconnect between wait times and what FP+ are available, people are more likely to make blind decisions on which FP+ they select. Back in the days of legacy FASTPASS, you might arrive at DINOSAUR, see a 10-minute wait, and just get in line instead of pulling those FASTPASSes. Now, you have to select that DINOSAUR FP+ from a kiosk no closer than Disney Outfitters in front of the Tree of Life. And because you don't know the wait time, you might select DINOSAUR even if it has a 10-minute wait because you don't know it has a 10-minute wait. And when you arrive and see the 10-minute wait, most people are still going to use their FP+. And people in standby wait longer because all those people that arrived after them have priority boarding.

So while it might not make a lot of sense to get FP+ for Journey into Imagination, somebody will still select FP+ for that attraction because it might be the only thing left and it makes a lot more sense to get something than to get nothing. So when you show up at 1pm for Journey into Imagination and there are 100 people in front of you in standby, another 100 people might arrive with FP+ and they will all board before you. So in essence, you are waiting behind 200 people instead of 100. With legacy FASTPASS, Journey into Imagination would not have allowed priority boarding like that. And the 100 people that arrived after you would board after you, resulting in a shorter wait.

This seems like it should be easy to understand.

The other major effect FP+ has had is how quickly lines develop, particularly at secondary attractions that didn't offer FP+, but also at the priority attractions. Legacy FASTPASS return times generally started at 9:40am, then once 9:05am hit, they were distributed for 9:45am-10:45am, and after that, 9:50am-10:50am etc. So those that arrived first thing in the morning could pull legacy FASTPASS for the earliest return windows, and also had 40+ minutes to tour the legacy FASTPASS attractions before FASTPASS users began to arrive with their paper tickets around 10am. And because relatively few people were around to pull those 9:40am-10:40am FASTPASSes, you had relatively low distribution numbers and fewer people returning between 10am-11am with FASTPASSes in hand than say, 3pm-4pm.

With FP+, there will be people arriving right at 9am with FP+ because that's their first window. And while we could argue that it doesn't make any sense to use FP+ at Big Thunder Mountain at 9:15am, there will still be people doing just that because that's what was available and they "don't know any better." So if you get to Big Thunder at 9:45am and there are 100 people in front of you, you'd wait behind those 100 people under legacy FASTPASS. Maybe a handful of FASTPASS returners would get back there that soon, but it would be a negligible number. Under FP+, you have as many as a thousand people visiting Big Thunder between 9am-10am with FP+ in hand. And a lot of those FP+ returners will arrive after you and ride before you. And because of that, you will wait longer.

Those two things alone have rocked theme park touring strategy. The mornings are more of a rush and you will wait longer. And secondary attractions that historically didn't develop sizable waits until much later in the day now develop longer waits, earlier, due to FastPass+ returners.

I wrote a post around this time last year comparing posted waits before and after FP+ implementation: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/. While it's no secret that posted waits aren't always indicative of actual waits, the day-to-day trends are much more telling. And when you have millions of numbers to work with, you can make some relatively definitive conclusions based on that data, in addition to the hundreds of visits that I suppose are "anecdotal" by some definitions. Not perfect conclusions, but ones based on more data and experience than you'll find anywhere else.

That's my experience based on a few hundred visits and millions of wait times, anyway.

Thanks Josh!

I love your site and I am very grateful for the work you do. You have been a big help to our family as we navigate the brave new world of FP+ and your site/book is the best tool out there for anyone planning a trip to WDW.

Your data, your reasoning and your conclussions make perfect sense and are very helpful in understanding and navigating the current landscape.

I think the biggest problem with this debate (and why you keep getting dragged into this) is that the vocal minorities at the two opposite ends of the spectrum like to cherry-pick certain charts or conclussions you make if it suits their argument to claim victory and do a touchdown dance.

This results in takes such as:

"See - this chart on this day PROVES once and for all that nothing has changed and everything is exactly as awesome as before for everyone so anyone who disagrees can now thank me for proving them wrong"

or

"See Josh says that STBY times have increased at secondary attractions so that means that every single person who visits WDW is now spending more total time in lines and whole system is OBVIOUSLY an epic failure.... the world is ending... I'm never going back"

If however everyone just accepted your statement about touring being greatly changed by the new system at face value and used your data, experience and conclussions to help them plan their touring and manage their expectations things would get a lot better around here in a hurry

 

[notfrostyjosh]

My last post was in response to Jennytoon, who brought up other factors than FP+ that could be contributing to longer waits. The "why" is interesting and it's worth studying; I just don't think we'll ever be to a point where we can "scientifically prove" the exact effect FP+ has had on wait times because there are too many other variables. Someone would have to set up a very complicated simulation and even then, I'm sure we could poke plenty of holes in that methodology.

As far as Spaceship Earth is concerned:

The median wait in 2013 was 5 minutes. In 2014 it was 15 minutes. In 2015 it's 20 minutes.
The median peak wait in 2013 was 15 minutes. In 2014 it was 30 minutes. In 2015 it's 35 minutes.

Those are some pretty big jumps.

In 2013, you'd be looking at waiting 10 to 15 minutes at Spaceship Earth in the heart of the afternoon. Now, you'd be looking at 30 to 35. Almost every day. 10 is doable. 35 is much less so.

This was the line on Monday when I used FP+ at 12:45pm with a 45-minute posted wait. If you looked through my posts from all of 2013, I don't think you would ever see a wait that long at Spaceship Earth. Historic waits were so low that I usually didn't even bother to take a picture of the queue because there was nobody in it. Some of that does have to do with higher attendance. But remove FP+ and priority boarding and you have waits that would be much lower because there wouldn't be people arriving after you that also board in front of you. I'm not sure that's an arguable point.

 

[notfrostyjosh]

One thing I've wanted to do is try to find a day that I visited a certain park in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and then could visit again in 2015 and see what kinds of things have changed in regards to wait times and traffic flow and try to take as many pictures of the same things at the same time as possible. But I didn't ever plan on doing that so it would just be luck that something will work out. The posted wait times charts are helpful, but don't always tell the whole story as we know. One of these days.

 

[Angel Ariel]

If however everyone just accepted your statement about touring being greatly changed by the new system at face value and used your data, experience and conclussions to help them plan their touring and manage their expectations things would get a lot better around here in a hurry

I can only speak for myself, but I appreciate the time Josh took in posting his analysis here. It is thorough, well thought out and well explained. I think it's absolutely fair to agree that touring is greatly different now than it was, and to concentrate on how to make what's there now work as best we can.

 

[wisblue]

I don't take a lot of pictures, but here is one that I took at about 2:30 on Tuesday, May 5.The posted wait time was 15 minutes but the standby line started past the FP checkpoint and was probably a lot less than that. We had already ridden SE standby at about 9:30 AM (morning EMH that day) with about a 10 minute wait.

I am not trying to argue that FP+ has had no effect on lines, or that it doesn't require some changes to how one approaches the parks if you want to avoid long lines. But, I do think that it is not that difficult to avoid those long lines. Crowd size and time of day obviously play a big part in that.

 

[NavyDad]

Josh one thing I would like to point out for clarity:

When you use the phrase "wait times" you are talking about standby wait times.

I think there are some who confuse standby wait times with overall wait times. I think it is an important point.

Is it logical to conclude that since more people know about Fast Pass and are more people are using it that the total time the "average guest" (not the FP super user you describe LOL) would see about the same total time spent in lines or possibly even a decrease?

 

[notfrostyjosh]

I can only speak for myself, but I appreciate the time Josh took in posting his analysis here. It is thorough, well thought out and well explained. I think it's absolutely fair to agree that touring is greatly different now than it was, and to concentrate on how to make what's there now work as best we can.

I think one big problem is people see something as better for them in a certain situation and assume it is better for someone else in all situations. FastPass+ is a very different beast and the strategies for optimizing it for your party are very different. There are a lot of situations where FP+ can benefit your day. And there are a lot of situations where FP+ may affect your day negatively. Early morning touring and FASTPASS maximization are two things that have been affected greatly under FP+ and I think many power users on the DIS and elsewhere feel that's very negative. On the other hand, I think most casual vacationers that arrive with very little knowledge of touring wait less over the course of the day, which in turn has increased guest satisfaction and guest spending.

As a local annual passholder, FP+ benefits me greatly because I can schedule something like Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and Star Tours FP+ a few days in advance, show up at 3pm, and ride those rides with minimal waits, hang out, grab dinner, and what have you. Rewind a couple years and Toy Story Mania FASTPASS would be long gone by 3pm and Tower of Terror might or might not have FASTPASS depending on how long it was down for earlier in the day. So my options for riding Toy Story a couple years ago were arrive at 9am and ride or get FASTPASSes or wait until the very end of the night when waits drop again. Neither of those is particularly convenient.

On the other hand, I rope dropped Epcot this past Monday and accomplished less than I would have a couple of years ago under legacy FASTPASS. Part of that is higher attendance, particularly on a holiday, but a lot of it is directly attributable to FP+, whether we're talking about priority boarding leading to longer standby waits or being locked into scheduling just three FP+ in advance and only one true headliner.

 

[NavyDad]

I think one big problem is people see something as better for them in a certain situation and assume it is better for someone else in all situations. FastPass+ is a very different beast and the strategies for optimizing it for your party are very different. There are a lot of situations where FP+ can benefit your day. And there are a lot of situations where FP+ may affect your day negatively. Early morning touring and FASTPASS maximization are two things that have been affected greatly under FP+ and I think many power users on the DIS and elsewhere feel that's very negative. On the other hand, I think most casual vacationers that arrive with very little knowledge of touring wait less over the course of the day, which in turn has increased guest satisfaction and guest spending.

As a local annual passholder, FP+ benefits me greatly because I can schedule something like Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and Star Tours FP+ a few days in advance, show up at 3pm, and ride those rides with minimal waits, hang out, grab dinner, and what have you. Rewind a couple years and Toy Story Mania FASTPASS would be long gone by 3pm and Tower of Terror might or might not have FASTPASS depending on how long it was down for earlier in the day. So my options for riding Toy Story a couple years ago were arrive at 9am and ride or get FASTPASSes or wait until the very end of the night when waits drop again. Neither of those is particularly convenient.

On the other hand, I rope dropped Epcot this past Monday and accomplished less than I would have a couple of years ago under legacy FASTPASS. Part of that is higher attendance, particularly on a holiday, but a lot of it is directly attributable to FP+, whether we're talking about priority boarding leading to longer standby waits or being locked into scheduling just three FP+ in advance and only one true headliner.

Never mind - you just answered my question above regarding the "average guest".

 

[notfrostyjosh]

Josh one thing I would like to point out for clarity:

When you use the phrase "wait times" you are talking about standby wait times.

I think there are some who confuse standby wait times with overall wait times. I think it is an important point.

Is it logical to conclude that since more people know about Fast Pass and are more people are using it that the total time the "average guest" (not the FP super user you describe LOL) would see about the same total time spent in lines or possibly even a decrease?

If you are interested in some of the financials, resort occupancy, crowd levels, etc. I'd recommend listening to the quarterly report earnings call, typically at 5pm EST on the day earnings are released. You can find an archive here: http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investors/events I forget which report it was, but Jay Rasulo said the number of attractions the average guest completed under FP+ was two higher than before. Which would lead me to believe that they're waiting less.

 

[NavyDad]

If you are interested in some of the financials, resort occupancy, crowd levels, etc. I'd recommend listening to the quarterly report earnings call, typically at 5pm EST on the day earnings are released. You can find an archive here: http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investors/events I forget which report it was, but Jay Rasulo said the number of attractions the average guest completed under FP+ was two higher than before. Which would lead me to believe that they're waiting less.

I have listened a few times and found it very interesting.

I mainly wanted to clarify for the benefit of everyone that when they see you post that "wait times" are up, this actually means that STBY wait times are up but it is very likely that total time spent in line for the "average guest" is actually down.

As a PP mentioned, for her and some other posters on here FP+ has had (or could have) negative results for their family. At the same time it is worth noting that in almost all cases people who frequent the DIS and Easy WDW would probably be on the far fringes of guest experience.

An anecdote that I keep in mind is that I have travelled to WDW with one extended family of 11 and the other side of the extended family being 9 people and even though they all enjoy WDW they do think I am crazy for spending so much time online researching it. DW indulges a little bit but still thinks I'm crazy as well. So out of an extended group of 20 only 1.5 of us would ever post on a message board or do extensive research concerning WDW: they would all just show up at Noon, spend 4 hours on Main Street and then complain that they only rode 1 ride if I was not around

 

[Angel Ariel]

I think one big problem is people see something as better for them in a certain situation and assume it is better for someone else in all situations. FastPass+ is a very different beast and the strategies for optimizing it for your party are very different. There are a lot of situations where FP+ can benefit your day. And there are a lot of situations where FP+ may affect your day negatively. Early morning touring and FASTPASS maximization are two things that have been affected greatly under FP+ and I think many power users on the DIS and elsewhere feel that's very negative. On the other hand, I think most casual vacationers that arrive with very little knowledge of touring wait less over the course of the day, which in turn has increased guest satisfaction and guest spending.

As a local annual passholder, FP+ benefits me greatly because I can schedule something like Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and Star Tours FP+ a few days in advance, show up at 3pm, and ride those rides with minimal waits, hang out, grab dinner, and what have you. Rewind a couple years and Toy Story Mania FASTPASS would be long gone by 3pm and Tower of Terror might or might not have FASTPASS depending on how long it was down for earlier in the day. So my options for riding Toy Story a couple years ago were arrive at 9am and ride or get FASTPASSes or wait until the very end of the night when waits drop again. Neither of those is particularly convenient.
On the other hand, I rope dropped Epcot this past Monday and accomplished less than I would have a couple of years ago under legacy FASTPASS. Part of that is higher attendance, particularly on a holiday, but a lot of it is directly attributable to FP+, whether we're talking about priority boarding leading to longer standby waits or being locked into scheduling just three FP+ in advance and only one true headliner.

ITA with all of this. We experienced just what you wrote on our November trip. FP+ was very helpful on days that we entered the park late (arrival day, day after the 1/2 marathon when we were all up til 4am and didn't enter a park til appx noon). We were able to ride headliners we wouldn't have otherwise been able to. But on days that we were there at RD, we also felt that we got less done than we would have a few years ago, and we also did not get the opportunity to re-ride as many attractions as we have in the (and while we made good use of legacy, we wouldn't call ourselves power users).

There is no one size fits all advice for WDW. We all have different experiences at Disney. Heck you can be at WDW the same exact time as someone else here and have a totally different experience depending on what parks you visit on what day, when you arrive at the parks, etc. How FP+ worked for DH and I on our adults only trip would be very different from how we'd use it on a trip with our toddler DD. We all tour differently and what works for some won't work for all. Experiences with FP+ are going to span the entire spectrum, and those experiences - all of them - can help others with their trips and strategies.

 

[Jennytoon]

Incremental attendance increases do affect wait times. Attendance has more or less gone up every quarter since I started doing this five years ago, but it had never had such an impact as FP+. You would have seen a major shift in wait times throughout the implementation of FP+ if you had an opportunity to visit the theme parks several times a week during that process that took something like 18 months from the very beginning to what is now basically final implementation. It didn't quite go from 10-minute peak waits at Spaceship Earth being the norm to 30- to 45-minute peak waits overnight, but it almost did.

I know many might call me a nitpicker or a stickler, and they wouldn't be wrong. My DH and kids live a life of quiet frustration at the high standard all their statements have to live up to. That said, I think if we are going to discuss (debate) the effects of FP+ then we should not state things as fact unless we can support them, and if we are going to state things as opinion we should label them that way. If someone posts advice, and in their post they make claims as fact that I know personally to be false, then the rest of their post is decreased in value to me no matter how useful it might be, because I can't tell how much the rest of their advice that I don't have direct experience with is accurate.

The only point of my original response was that you made a statement as fact and provided evidence to support it (an analysis of the numbers) that I considered to be inadequate. I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but a lot of people take your reports very seriously (myself included), and I didn't want to later see people referencing this post in threads down the road if it wasn't correct.

The point you make above where you support your conclusion about the effect of FP+ on wait times on the basis of your personal experience in the parks is far more meaningful to me, and I'm more than willing to take that as evidence that FP+ had a significant effect. However, you mentioned it in only in passing in the last couple of lines of your previous post, and not at all in your post on the blog.

I'll go farther and say that I place a much greater value on your report of your experiences as a frequent visitor than I do on the report of an average DISer. The average DISer is subject to the vagaries of memory, perception, and sampled data points -- at least twice I have seen someone post that "lines at SE are 25 minutes, we were last there in Aug 2013 and they were never that long"; well, I was there in Aug 2013 and I'll skip the embarrassing story but it's burned into my brain that on at least three separate days over two weeks the lines for SE were over 25 minutes from 10 AM into the early afternoon. The fact that you go very frequently, and that you collect data on the performance of your cheatsheets and times around the park while you are running them means that your report of your experiences is not subject to these issues in the same way.

As far as isolating the impact of FP+ specifically - I'm not sure how you would do that and account for the myriad of other factors that contribute to wait times and crowd flow. That sounds like something you would try to spend months doing with a team of graduate students far more intelligent than I am.

But I'm happy to be proved wrong if you think you can offer better analysis and can truly isolate just the effect of FP+ on WDW wait times and account for attendance changes, crowd flow changes, economical changes, attraction changes, etc. It seems all but impossible to me, but if you'd like to forward what you think the methodology would be for such a study, I'd be happy to take a look at the data through those eyes. And if it's really something worth investigating, I could probably provide my data as long as it stays reasonably secure.

Thank you very much for this offer. Although I have some training in statistics, I don't have enough in queuing theory or the other background fields I would need to even be able to approach what I would consider to be a sound methodology. Also, I would need to be laid off or retired to have the time. Thus I must decline although I do think it's a very interesting question and I would absolutely love to be let loose with your data if I had the time.

One of the reasons why I don't spend a lot of time comparing 2013 wait times to 2015 wait times is that the analysis is so imperfect. And to the end user, it doesn't necessarily matter why wait times have gone up. I spend most of my time trying to develop strategies to combat those waits.

I could not possibly agree more. I'm a big believer in that old saw about having the courage to change the things you can, the patience to accept the things you can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. It really wouldn't matter if FP+ had never been implemented and the lines were this much longer just on the basis of crowds, the important thing is to know how to manage your day to get the best experience. And in case I didn't say it clearly enough before I would like to reiterate: I really appreciate the work you put in and the effort you make to help the rest of us do just that.

 

[tj4disney]

Interesting discussions, especially Josh's contributions. There's something that just doesn't compute yet in my head though. Take Journey to Imagination for example...did that ever have more than a 5-10 minute wait pre-FP+? So now with FP+...suddenly a bunch of people who weren't willing to wait 10 minutes are now willing to ride it?? What were they doing with the extra 10 minutes prior to FP+...just wondering around? Did they simply not know that there was such a ride before, but now they see it on a FP+ list and figure it must be better than nothing??

So is the upshot of FP+ that now there are actually more people spending a greater part of their day standing in ride lines, but the difference is that they are now riding more rides than they used to (ie, second tier and lower rides, since repeating headliners is clearly less likely)?

 

[wisblue]

Interesting discussions, especially Josh's contributions. There's something that just doesn't compute yet in my head though. Take Journey to Imagination for example...did that ever have more than a 5-10 minute wait pre-FP+? So now with FP+...suddenly a bunch of people who weren't willing to wait 10 minutes are now willing to ride it?? What were they doing with the extra 10 minutes prior to FP+...just wondering around? Did they simply not know that there was such a ride before, but now they see it on a FP+ list and figure it must be better than nothing??

So is the upshot of FP+ that now there are actually more people spending a greater part of their day standing in ride lines, but the difference is that they are now riding more rides than they used to (ie, second tier and lower rides, since repeating headliners is clearly less likely)?

I think you're raising an interesting point. I do think there are a lot of people going to Figment because they have a FP for it that wouldn't have done it otherwise.

I do wonder how often the actual wait for Figment is 30 minutes and how many people are really waiting that long. On our trip the week after Easter we ended up with FPs for Figment on our departure day, the Saturday after Easter. We originally had FPs for MK that day, but because we had spent a lot of time at MK during the week and had done everything we wanted there, we decided the day before to go to Epcot instead. Because we had to leave the park by 2 PM to get back and catch the DME, our FP options were pretty limited and we picked Figment for one because we hadn't done it yet on the trip.

We used the FP at about noon, and the posted wait time was something like 30 minutes. Without a FP we would not have entered the ride, unless it was just to see how long the line really looked. As we entered, the CM was telling guests entering the standby line that the wait was probably about 15 minutes. When we saw how short the line was and how few people were in the FP line, I suspect those in the standby line waited even less than 15 minutes.

That experience was one of several that give me the impression that a lot of these posted waits are overstated, not necessarily intentionally, but because it is impossible to predict exactly how many people are going to arrive with FPs in the next 10-15 minutes. In the case of Figment, I would suspect that a higher percentage of the FPs distributed go unused than for a lot of other attractions. So, the posted standby wait may be accounting for the possibility of FP returns that don't materialize. Or maybe what I saw that day was not typical.

I would be curious to know how many people on the Dis have actually entered a standby line at Figment when the posted wait was 30 minutes or more. They may be hard to find.

 

[DisFam95]

This is turning out to be the most interesting thread on the boards.

ok now I'm going to disagree with you! So can you and I and a few others run 10 pages of beating that to death? Go!

I'm just happy to be getting to go to Disney. I know it's going to be crowded and I'll do my best to plan along with the other thousands of people there (using this great forum of course I hope to have a slight edge). But I'm kind of tired of analyzing every moment of my VACATION! Everyone's experience is different and valid.

ok I'm off to 'strategize' my dining and FP plan for the next 2 hrs.