Current wait times look pretty long. I was thinking September had lighter crowds. Is there anything special going on that might account for the

[MomOTwins]

Welcome to party season. Today is a Monday. Halloween parties yesterday and tomorrow (Sunday and Tuesday). Meaning everyone without park hoppers or a party ticket flocks to MK on Mondays. This is mostly an MK problem—if you look at AK for example, FOP only has a 50 minute wait and the Safari is a walk on. Wait times are never truly short at HS, but not a single wait is triple digits—that’s pretty low for midday.

It’s only truly MK that is crowded today, and it’s all due to the party schedule. Everything will be short waits tomorrow (party day).

So just replying to myself to confirm this checks out. Most rides in MK are 5 minute waits today and nothing is over an hour (7DMT is the highest at 40 mins). Party day for the win!

 

[set88]

Are they inflating ride times more than they have in the past? I feel like they have always inflated them a little, because it makes people feel better to wait for 40 minutes when they expect 60. Is there any hard data on this?

Every blog post or video I've ever seen on this subject says no, not more inflated than they previously were.

Disney started doing inflated wait times to try to push crowds away from certain areas and redirect to others. This got a bit more pronounced when wait times became available through mobile devices. There's also an element of wanting to underpromise and overdeliver.

Wait times (based videos/blogs from people that have studied it) are least reliable early and late in the date, and most reliable at midday when crowds are steady. They are also less reliable just after a ride comes up from downtime.

 

[Jennasis]

DHS is busy today but RnRC is down all morning and Rise was down first thing too so lines jumped on everything else. They also had Slinky listed at 60 min and we waited 40. So times are inflated as always.

 

[BamaGuy44]

Every blog post or video I've ever seen on this subject says no, not more inflated than they previously were.

Disney started doing inflated wait times to try to push crowds away from certain areas and redirect to others. This got a bit more pronounced when wait times became available through mobile devices. There's also an element of wanting to underpromise and overdeliver.

Wait times (based videos/blogs from people that have studied it) are least reliable early and late in the date, and most reliable at midday when crowds are steady. They are also less reliable just after a ride comes up from downtime.

I think they highly inflate wait times on big attractions close to closing time too, to discourage people from getting in line just before closing. I sort of get it, the more people in line at park close, the longer the day is for the CMs. ROTR is notorious for this, we've gotten in line the last 20 min of the day and waited 15 min on a 75 minute posted wait. Also seems to go "down" a lot close to closing, at least the last couple of times I've been to DHS, but that could just be my bad luck

I use the Touring Plans app for wait times, much more accurate to your real world wait.

 

[raidermatt]

While the wait times are generally overstated, the real issue is when crowds are lower Disney runs many attractions at lower capacity. They have wait times which they consider acceptable and if they can save $'s by reducing an attraction's capacity (less staffing, fewer ride vehicles, etc), while not exceeding those wait times, they will do so.

 

[igrsod]

I will be there in 2 weeks, spending one day at HS and one night at the Halloween party. You say Genie+ isn't necessary, but you were there for 10 days. I'm wondering if it would be helpful if only spending one day at HS?

I will tell you what we did on our last day at HS.
RotR was down at rope drop, so we rode MFSR twice in a row, hoping Rise would open up... it didn't
Over to SDD, rode once, then hopped into TSMM.
Then over to MMRR rode twice.
Over to Star Tours, then Muppets
Lunch at Mama Melrose
Watched Frozen show, went straight into Indiana Jones Show, went straight over to B&tB... it was cancelled after 2 postponements.
Went straight onto ToT, then RnR.
I was exhausted and it was hot... ready to go back but my DH wanted to ride RotR. This is where the 60 minute displayed time came in... I didn't want to wait 60 minutes and we rode it 2 times already this trip... but he LOVES the ride, so off we went. 25 minutes later on the ride
Then he decides he wants to ride SR again. edited... to add we rode TSMM again on the way out of the park as the wait was listed at 10 minutes.
By now it's 5:00.... I talk him into leaving.... we could have stayed and done more, park is open til 9:00
SOOOOOO, you can do it all in one day for sure, easily.
We don't have little ones so we didn't do any of the kiddie things to do, but there was time to fit it in if needed. We also are not ones to run and rush... we meander and go in stores... buy snacks.... etc.

 

[igrsod]

I will tell you what we did on our last day at HS.
RotR was down at rope drop, so we rode MMSR twice in a row, hoping Rise would open up... it didn't
Over to SDD, rode once, then hopped into TSMM.
Then over to MMRR rode twice.
Over to Star Tours, then Muppets
Lunch at Mama Melrose
Watched Frozen show, went straight into Indiana Jones Show, went straight over to B&tB... it was cancelled after 2 postponements.
Went straight onto ToT, then RnR.
I was exhausted and it was hot... ready to go back but my DH wanted to ride RotR. This is where the 60 minute displayed time came in... I didn't want to wait 60 minutes and we rode it 2 times already this trip... but he LOVES the ride, so off we went. 25 minutes later on the ride
Then he decides he wants to ride SR again. edited... to add we rode TSMM again on the way out of the park as the wait was listed at 10 minutes.
By now it's 5:00.... I talk him into leaving.... we could have stayed and done more, park is open til 9:00
SOOOOOO, you can do it all in one day for sure, easily.
We don't have little ones so we didn't do any of the kiddie things to do, but there was time to fit it in if needed. We also are not ones to run and rush... we meander and go in stores... buy snacks.... etc.

Replying to myself to add, I understand why people feel like they need to purchase these add ons, especially if it's a once every few years kind of trip.
But our last trip, we were at HS the week before Christmas, arguably one of the busiest weeks of the year. We had Genie+ on one of our HS days (gifted to us by Disney for a problem), and went back a second day without it. We did the exact same amount of rides. The difference was, we found ourselves trying to figure out what to do between LL times the day we had Genie +. We spent more time wasting time... don't want to go too far away since our next LL is here.... we only have 30 minutes til the next LL, what do you want to do to kill time. The day without Genie + we rope dropped one of the headliners at Early Entry, then went in a steady, organized path, going on each ride as we happened upon it.
So that proved to me that Genie+ was not necessary even on the busiest of weeks.

 

[Nick6300]

We got back on Sun am, and given that we go during this time of year, nearly every year, I felt that posted wait times occasionally seemed higher than typical. I recall having that impression. GotG, a highly anticipated ride is also pretty new, and we still have the 50th, pent up demand. We noticed that while actual times were lower, sometimes much lower, there weren't many cases where wait times exceeded stated times. Many MK rides were washed out from heavy storms, and the open indoor attractions had higher wait times as a result. We also experienced many many breakdowns, much more than usual. By our 3rd RD at EP for Remi, we wanted to skip it because we'd get up early to be at front of line, work our way all the way to France, even be in the ride, just to be turned around and have been better off going to FEA. Same with 7D, Rise.

On the flip side, days at MK during party nights had incredibly low wait times - haven't seen anything like that in several years. We rode 7D, Pan, then Space 4x, Jungle, Pirates, BTM 2x, Splash 2x, and went back to a posted 40 min for 7D (20 actual). Most rides were 5 min., with the headliners in the 20-40 min posted even in the afternoon. We only bought G+ 2x in 8 park days, the lowest since advent of G. And we didn't need it for that 2nd day on Labor Day. We bought our first LL ever, for my back to back to back ride on GotG (used wife's for 2nd ride). We rode rides like TT, Space, BTM, Soarin around 10x each. We did most of what we aimed for but this is perhaps the first time the thought crept in that we should stop coming in Sept for the lower crowds. I've probably been going at the end of Aug./early Sept for 20 years. I was getting tired of the rain every day last week. One day last week, we got out to the bus at 6:30 and it was already 82 feels like 88. Each brisk walk at RD and we were puddles. And I don't typically sweat a lot.

 

[Jrb1979]

I'm wondering if the pent up demand is coming to an end.

 

[Mheato]

We just got back from a Monday to Monday trip. Last week lines were short across the parks, yesterday (Monday) Hollwood Studios was noticeably busier.

 

[lentesta]

Are they inflating ride times more than they have in the past? I feel like they have always inflated them a little, because it makes people feel better to wait for 40 minutes when they expect 60. Is there any hard data on this?

IIRC, the actual wait averages something like 70-75% of posted waits, on average, over time, for all attractions. Here's the parks from yesterday:

 

[inspectorgadget]

IIRC, the actual wait averages something like 70-75% of posted waits, on average, over time, for all attractions. Here's the parks from yesterday:

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Is this from thrilldata?

 

[lentesta]

Is this from thrilldata?

Ha! I love those folks - they're good people. This is an internal set of reports from touringplans, with actual data collected by users.

 

[sponica]

I'm wondering if the pent up demand is coming to an end.

I think we'd normally have a soft spot in the calendar around now. I'd say look at the wait times in 2019, but GE opened and I don't know how much that disrupted things. Maybe someone with more time than I have can look at average wait times in Sept 2018/2019 and compare them to today.

 

[Jrb1979]

I think we'd normally have a soft spot in the calendar around now. I'd say look at the wait times in 2019, but GE opened and I don't know how much that disrupted things. Maybe someone with more time than I have can look at average wait times in Sept 2018/2019 and compare them to today.

Yes normally this is a soft spot. The fact they are offering room discounts for D+ subscribers all the way til Christmas is telling.

 

[Nick6300]

I'm wondering if the pent up demand is coming to an end.

Per Expedia CEO, no signs of consumer recession with an outlook of a solid travel season for end of year. 51% increase in sales from prior year and 26% increase YOY for gross travel bookings.

 

[BugsPop]

Party nights do usually follow the same cycle each year, but I think they start off with just 2/wk early on, and then as it gets closer to Halloween they add in a 3rd day ea week..It was Monday and Friday when we were there.. We were down there from the 31st through the 11th, and it was definitely light on crowds…let me put it this way, we could walk right up the the tapstiles and tap in, with no lines each morning… That rope drop throng off humanity that usually exists, just wasn’t there. Suggestion, if you’re able to, definitely take advantage of the early entry perk, as that was a difference maker for us.

 

[eric8]

Again, thanks everyone for the replies. This helps me out a lot for our trip exactly a year from now. I'll probably switch my Magic Kingdom days to a Tuesday and Thursday if that is the normal Halloween Party days. Hollywood Studios just seems like a very busy park all the time. I'm assuming probably cause it is more attractive to teens, young adults?

 

[stinkpickle]

I'm wondering if the pent up demand is coming to an end.

I doubt it. It's just on pause until October.

 

[lugnut33]

IIRC, the actual wait averages something like 70-75% of posted waits, on average, over time, for all attractions. Here's the parks from yesterday:

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Your charts also show how big of an attraction capacity problem HS has. Honestly, Disney should not be selling Day Of tickets at HS.