What is with the Horrible Wait times???

[pens4821]

This was very similar to what we experienced last March. Aside from one out of control wait for the safari we consistently found stand by lines to be 50-60% of the posted wait time. Its almost like they started inflating it to deal with unknowns from genie+? or pushing them up to try to drive up genie+ purchases...

I always think it’s just a matter of luck. We too were there last March, but our experience was the opposite of yours. We waited right around what the posted wait times were pretty much every time (except the last half hour or so of a park being open and during fireworks at MK). I’d say the times we waited 15ish minutes less was equal to the times we waited 15ish minutes longer than posted.

I really didn’t think we’d have to wait as long as we did a lot of times when we’d get in line, but we did. It was what it was though. We weren’t upset over it. I got in line expecting that wait. But at the same time I kind of didn’t haha.

 

[aboveH20]

I feel your pain, OP. Last year is the first time I have ever left WDW not wanting to return. The wait times were just too long, which to me seems ironic since with park reservations Disney now knows how many people will be in a park and should be able to plan accordingly.

It made me wonder how DVC sales were going, because I couldn't imagine the "magic" of repeating my experience year after year. I posted on here asking about DVC sales, and majority thought sales were as strong as ever.

 

[parasail_of_congress]

I know they have data scientist(s) , and most stuff is algorithm based. However, Len Testa has said they have people in the parks counting. He has even said that he counts sometimes.

What you are saying is true, but my understanding is that the people in the parks counting is more like quality control of an assembly line. The algorithms are what's used to create the estimated wait times, then the spot checks and actual wait times are compared against the estimates better help with futre estimates.

 

[cgattis]

What you are saying is true, but my understanding is that the people in the parks counting is more like quality control of an assembly line. The algorithms are what's used to create the estimated wait times, then the spot checks and actual wait times are compared against the estimates better help with futre estimates.

Aka “model validation.”

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

The problem is your submitted wait time is not accurate either. Assuming we're talking about a ride with a sizable wait - which is really when wait times become relevant - by the time you've submitted your wait it is out of date by however long you waited. Submitting a 60 minute wait time means that 60 minutes ago the wait was 60 minutes . . . doesn't help too much for those getting on line 60 minutes later. Disney's posted wait times for the vast majority of the day are fairly accurate barring a ride encountering difficulties. Thrill data is basically sweeping the posted wait times so you shouldn't see much difference in the aggregate from what is posted. People tend to remember the times that waits were off and barely notice when they're mostly accurate.

[The exception being the very beginning of the day when ride times fluctuate wildly very quickly and end of day when they drop off significantly as well.]

I totally get what you're saying but that submitted wait time is also how disney calculates wait times too. They give a guest entering the ride a card and you turn it in before you get on the ride, it's really always a moving target and everyone knows that. Of course it's not the only method that disney or TP and TD use either. I think there's an expected discrepancy from Disney's posted times to 3rd party times as Disney is also aiming to manipulate crowds and hit numbers for guest satisfaction. TP and TD don't have that vested interest as Disney does. I don't think Disney's goal is to be accurate, I don't think they want to be wrong but they also have other motives. However, I 100% agree with you, guests will remember when wait times are wildly off and that one time they waited a lot longer than the posted wait time. But that one memory can be wiped away if all the other rides were much shorter wait than the actual posted time. It's this guest satisfaction that keeps disney on the side of over inflating.....under promise and over deliver.

 

[parasail_of_congress]

I totally get what you're saying but that submitted wait time is also how disney calculates wait times too. They give a guest entering the ride a card and you turn it in before you get on the ride, it's really always a moving target and everyone knows that.

I'm pretty sure they phased out the FLIK cards several years ago. But they could obtain the data from people's Magic Bands if they wanted to.

 

[DavidNYC]

I totally get what you're saying but that submitted wait time is also how disney calculates wait times too. They give a guest entering the ride a card and you turn it in before you get on the ride, it's really always a moving target and everyone knows that. Of course it's not the only method that disney or TP and TD use either. I think there's an expected discrepancy from Disney's posted times to 3rd party times as Disney is also aiming to manipulate crowds and hit numbers for guest satisfaction. TP and TD don't have that vested interest as Disney does. I don't think Disney's goal is to be accurate, I don't think they want to be wrong but they also have other motives. However, I 100% agree with you, guests will remember when wait times are wildly off and that one time they waited a lot longer than the posted wait time. But that one memory can be wiped away if all the other rides were much shorter wait than the actual posted time. It's this guest satisfaction that keeps disney on the side of over inflating.....under promise and over deliver.

Yes - I agree that Disney will tend to over estimate a bit exactly for the reason you state. I've had my share of times where waits were longer as well but usually you can tell what has happened. I just find that in the aggregate - none of the other sites really do a much better job than Disney. They're more accurate about the same frequency as Disney is. It's just when people keep insisting that other sites are using "actual times" as if Disney isn't doing that as well. I'll also find that if a time is significantly off - the wait time posted when I leave the ride will tend to be a lot closer to what I just waited because wait times are always going to be a lagging indicator. I have never gotten the obsession with these external sites that basically offer nearly nothing in addition.

The one exception is these sites are great when you're planning a trip to see aggregate data over time. I love Thrill Data particularly as I get closer to a trip to see what the Lightning Lane return time trends have been.

 

[Davey Jones II]

In my experience, before the pandemic, Disney's posted wait times were fairly accurate, except near closing time, when they were wildly exaggerated. But now, I have seen lots of reports (on these boards, in YouTube videos, etc.) that posted wait times are exaggerated most of the time. It seems either that Disney has other motives which are leading them to deliberately skew the numbers, or Genie+ has messed up the accuracy.

 

[Matt'sMom]

This was very similar to what we experienced last March. Aside from one out of control wait for the safari we consistently found stand by lines to be 50-60% of the posted wait time. Its almost like they started inflating it to deal with unknowns from genie+? or pushing them up to try to drive up genie+ purchases...

This is the sort of information that makes me a little sad for all who need to use the DAS. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for the DAS at WDW, as we would rarely be able to do many of the attractions without it. But DAS return times are based on the posted stand-by wait times, which means that when those stand-by times are over inflated then DAS guests wait longer than other guests (sometimes more than twice as long).

 

[DavidNYC]

In my experience, before the pandemic, Disney's posted wait times were fairly accurate, except near closing time, when they were wildly exaggerated. But now, I have seen lots of reports (on these boards, in YouTube videos, etc.) that posted wait times are exaggerated most of the time. It seems either that Disney has other motives which are leading them to deliberately skew the numbers, or Genie+ has messed up the accuracy.

It makes perfect sense for Disney to want to air on the side of posting too long a wait time. Think about it. You see a posted wait time of 45 minutes and you wait 30 minutes. How do you feel? Now you see a posted wait time of 20 minutes and you wait 40. How do you feel? It's very much an under promise and over deliver situation. They don't want to deal with complaints from people saying they waited longer than promised.

Disney is NEVER going to intentionally post a wait time LOWER than what they estimate. When a wait is longer is going to be due to something unpredicted like a temporary down time, a large number of people who need extra assistance boarding, etc. Things that no paid service can predict either.

Reports are skewed. Almost no one comes to a board to post about how the wait times were mostly accurate for their trip. People post about inaccuracies. They also remember the inaccuracies far more than the inaccuracies.

 

[winterwhite]

I was just there for nearly two weeks and with the exception of slinky dog, we waited about half of what was posted for rides. I felt the lines were actually very short, but the parks themselves were physically crowded. I am guessing the long waits are keeping more people wandering about in the parks, which makes the pathways more congested.

Epcot was wall to wall people last night, I was not at all a fan.

 

[loves to dive]

OP - it's been crowded mostly all the time since the re-opening. The only time it was less was when they first opened up and weren't allowing as many people in. I was there about a year after opening when all the rides were standby, no Genie+, no FP+, you wanted to ride, you stood in line. I was also there after Genie+ started (twice). I always do stand by because I go often and don't mind waiting in line and don't need to see how many rides I can ride. The wait times were less before Genie+, the lines looked longer because of the spacing but the waits weren't that bad. I went last April starting on Easter Sunday. The lines were fairly long and a lot of breakdowns for the usual suspects (Rise, Remi and oddly Frozen broke down and we had to be evacuated after a hour and Navi broke down) but with park hopping, even doing stand by I rode everything I wanted to and could have ridden more except I got sick round about Wens night (leaving Sat. morning) and spent 3/4 of Thurs and about 1/2 of Friday in bed. The last week in August when I was there, everything was either a walk on or the longest I waited was 20 min. for Under the Sea and about 50 (at EE) for 7DMT. Even PP was a walk on and so was Splash. Of course, it was hotter than the surface of the sun and the storms were some of the worst and longest I've experienced but still no long lines. It's just luck lots of times. I don't look at the wait times ahead of time, even with Genie+ I've learned how to look at the line for about 30 secs. watch how the LL is moving and where the standby line stops and how fast it is moving and pretty much can figure out if the wait time is close to accurate.

 

[lentesta]

For example yesterday touring plans calculated 153 user provided wait times for the entire day for seven dwarfs mine train with a ride capacity of 16000 people(on a bad day) that's .009% used to calculate actual wait times. At that point the user data is useless and there algorithm was predicting wait times throughout the day.

If you have the time, call your local college's math department. Ask if getting 153 wait times from Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in one day, roughly one every 5 minutes, is enough of a sample. Post here what they say, please. I'll buy you lunch for your trouble (PM me with how you'd like to get paid.)

Your local college professor is likely to not only answer the question, but explain why the math works. And I'm just some random dude on the internet.

 

[lentesta]

I know they have data scientist(s) , and most stuff is algorithm based. However, Len Testa has said they have people in the parks counting. He has even said that he counts sometimes.

We do. It's how we know when rides are and are not running at capacity. And thank you!

 

[lentesta]

I'm pretty sure they phased out the FLIK cards several years ago. But they could obtain the data from people's Magic Bands if they wanted to.

The "theme park data nerd" community is relatively small, so occasionally I hear fun stories.

One such story is that Disney's initial attempt at this failed spectacularly. Apparently the readers couldn't differentiate which line a MB was in. The example I heard was "Are you in line for Jungle Cruise, Magic Carpets, or Tiki Room? We don't know." And that supposedly went on for years before the data collected got verified.

One post-verification estimate I heard was that 35% of the data collected was bad, but nobody knew which 35%. So all of it was unusable. I'm assuming it's been fixed post-pandemic.

I believe that Universal is implemeting AI-based camera systems for this now. I could be wrong.

 

[Dcfas]

A lot of kids have off varios times this week because of Presidents Day & Lincoln's Birthday, so this is a high crowd time.

Yes. This is the reason we will be there next week. It is our mid winter recess.

And yes, we plan on using G+ and ILL. We will also rope drop. It’s a rare trip for us, so we’ll do all we can to navigate the crowds.

 

[DL1WDW2]

The "theme park data nerd" community is relatively small, so occasionally I hear fun stories.

One such story is that Disney's initial attempt at this failed spectacularly. Apparently the readers couldn't differentiate which line a MB was in. The example I heard was "Are you in line for Jungle Cruise, Magic Carpets, or Tiki Room? We don't know." And that supposedly went on for years before the data collected got verified.

One post-verification estimate I heard was that 35% of the data collected was bad, but nobody knew which 35%. So all of it was unusable. I'm assuming it's been fixed post-pandemic.

I believe that Universal is implemeting AI-based camera systems for this now. I could be wrong.

I noticed this as we exited last Saturday night with overhead cameras thru exit turnstiles from Islands of Adventure. …Do they also count guests exiting for security at closing time ?

 

[lentesta]

I noticed this as we exited last Saturday night with overhead cameras thru exit turnstiles from Islands of Adventure. …Do they also count guests exiting for security at closing time ?

I'll ask. It could also be to detect people trying to come in through the exits. Cameras in a cental office would probably be cheaper than staffing someone just for that.

 

[Maggie The Cat]

We do. It's how we know when rides are and are not running at capacity. And thank you!

N/M, I think I'm confused!

 

[Dznefreek]

Wait times definitely inflated.
My last couple of trips to WDW (I am a local) every ride time was about 60% of listed time except for FEA and Remy.
Also, when is the last time anyone was handed a red card at the beginning of the line by a cast member.