Artificially Inflating Wait Times?

[GatorChris]

We were at WDW for 3 days last week. We had an amazing visit after 9 years removed. I bought the Genie+ on two of those days, simply because I had eGfit cards from Disney when they refunded my Disneyland MaxPass money. I found it VERY helpful at MK. Didn't use it at Epcot and sorta wish I had. Then used it at AK where I felt it wasn't worth the money because by the mid-afternoon, there was nothing else to Lightening Lane.

But here's my rub. For the ILL (couldn't have picked a better acronym, Disney!) rides, I noticed the times were inflated for what they were. And I mean grossly inflated.

MK:
7 Dwarves said 70 minutes. It took us 35.
Space Mountain said 45. It took 25

Epcot:
Frozen said 70 minutes. We waited 25 minutes, no joke. The line started just inside the main doors. I was shocked at how fast we got on, even with ILL riders coming through.

AK:
Flight of Passage said 75 minutes. We waited 35 minutes.
ExEv was about the only ride that was always spot on for time.

I realize that Disney will often add 5 minutes or so to an expected wait time so that they can exceed customer expectations. But for the ILL rides, it was incredible how far off the numbers were repeatedly. Which leads me to ask this question: Could Disney be artificially inflating the ILL time significantly so that they can draw people into spending cash to skip the "long" line? I know, I know. That's conspiracy theory stuff. It just seems suspicious to me. Anybody else experience these wait times inflations? Or were we just the luckiest family at WDW last week?

 

[3kidsdad]

Not a conspiracy. It's almost 2 hours long but a great watch

 

[Rileygirl]

I think there a few threads regarding inflated wait times. The video link above is excellent, and well worth the two hours.

i can’t remember if it was outlined in this video, or I read it on another site, that Disney inflates wait times to discourage people from going to certain part of the parks as a crowd management sort of thing. They check their phones and say, nope, not going there, maybe we should check out the tiki birds, that looks like a more reasonable wait…..

I am not sure if Disney is looking to encourage people to buy genie plus right now, as it appears it may be oversold? 15 dollars is not a steep threshold for people to cross. And if guests equate it to express passes like the ones available at their hometown parks, I think there may be a lot of first time guests purchasing it. Just a theory….

 

[Tom_E_D]

TP had a blogpost concerning this a month ago. Its conclusion was that, since Genie was introduced, posted wait times for non-ILL attractions have become more accurate and less inflated, while becoming less accurate and more inflated for ILL attractions. Here's a link.

Edit: added "posted" before wait times.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

TP had a blogpost concerning this a month ago. Its conclusion was that, since Genie was introduced, wait times for non-ILL attractions have become more accurate and less inflated, while becoming less accurate and more inflated for ILL attractions. Here's a link.

Can’t say I’m shocked by that development.

 

[Tonberry]

Last week, the line for SDD in Hollywood Studios wrapped down to right about across from TSM at about 11:00 in the morning and the posted wait time was 70 minutes. Later at 6:00pm, the line was only to about under the standby que sign at the entrance to SDD and the posted wait time was also 70 minutes.

 

[Tom_E_D]

Can’t say I’m shocked by that development.

Actually, I am a bit surprised that the posted wait times for the non-ILL attractions became less inflated and more accurate. Those are mostly the Genie+ attractions.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

We first read about the intentionally inflated wait times in the 1999 Unofficial Guide so this is nothing new. For several years it was done for crowd control and to steer guests away from the attractions later in the evenings. Near the end of the night the posted times were often 4x the actual wait.

Now it sounds like they may be doing it for a different reason.

 

[maloned]

We were there a few weeks ago. The crowds seem light but the wait times were very long, until I realized that all the wait times were inflated. Many of them were half the posted wait time. We’ve always known that they fudge the wait time to control crowd flows by creating false demand, etc… I don’t believe in conspiracies, but my friend mentioned that it’s probably to entice us to buy Genie plus and Lighting Lanes, and it made sense to me. After we returned from our trip, we saw a few articles about small crowds and Disney having a hard time filling the parks and now I believe it even more.

 

[musicguy856]

Late one morning in January Soarin was posted around 50-55 minutes and I was sent to a concourse in 10.

 

[kverdon]

The problem with the wait times is that they often don’t change them. I’m the 2 weeks we have been here Peter Pan has always been 65 minutes. The first 2 times we rode it was actually 15 and 25. This time it will be about 55.

The other problem is that you cannot accurately gauge wait times visually. We are in line for Pan that looked to be about a 25 min wait. However they are only letting a standbygroup on every 3-4 minutes so it is not moving.

The whole thing is pretty much a con by Disney to shill for Genie+/ILL. They have the technology to accurately gauge the wait times, they just don’t feel the need to do it.

This trip has really soured us on coming back and we have been coming yearly or Multi-Yearly since the 90’s. Genie+/ILL is such a poorly designed and poorly implemented system, we won’t be back until it’s fixed. They need to move Genie over to the Villains category.

 

[ccbloom]

We were there a few weeks ago. The crowds seem light but the wait times were very long, until I realized that all the wait times were inflated. Many of them were half the posted wait time. We’ve always known that they fudge the wait time to control crowd flows by creating false demand, etc… I don’t believe in conspiracies, but my friend mentioned that it’s probably to entice us to buy Genie plus and Lighting Lanes, and it made sense to me. After we returned from our trip, we saw a few articles about small crowds and Disney having a hard time filling the parks and now I believe it even more.

Just leaving the parks after a week and have been going this week or the week prior for 12 years. This week was the busiest we’ve ever seen this time of year, including pre-Covid.

 

[jknc]

If you’re on Twitter send isgenieworthit some love

They post daily on how much shorter on average the actual waits are

 

[Her Dotness]

We've never paid attention to posted wait times except to laugh upon trotting into POTC or HM in 5 minutes when the posted time said a half hour or more.

We just eyeball how fast the standby is moving anymore and do our own adjustment if it doesn't suit.

We used Genie+ not at all last fall (purely detest it), just amusing ourselves while moving along in standby.

 

[reddog21]

Nothing like a good conspiracy theory to pass the day

 

[_19disnA]

The last time we were at Disney we often noted the posted ride wait times at the entrance to a ride were just as likely to be too high as too low. Rather then some devious plot by Disney, I think they just have no idea how long the waits will be so we just ignored them and made our own decisions on what to ride. Even if some ride shows a low wait time at the other end of the park, by the time you walk there, it might have gotten longer if several others think it is worth the effort.

 

[Orsino]

I agree that the wait times are inaccurate, and it is tempting to think nefarious reasons. But in truth wait times are difficult to manage. We saw that Pooh was a short 15 minute wait and walked over. Big mistake since a bunch of people all had the same idea. The standby line was out the entrance and not moving. Short waits make the wait times longer as more people get in line. Long wait times make the true wait shorter as less people get in line. Disney essentially has to guess a time that will be stable.

 

[Jennasis]

I agree that the wait times are inaccurate, and it is tempting to think nefarious reasons. But in truth wait times are difficult to manage. We saw that Pooh was a short 15 minute wait and walked over. Big mistake since a bunch of people all had the same idea. The standby line was out the entrance and not moving. Short waits make the wait times longer as more people get in line. Long wait times make the true wait shorter as less people get in line. Disney essentially has to guess a time that will be stable.

That's kind of hogwash. LiNES has accurate wait times all day long (crowd sourced). Disney can easily and accurately track accurate wait times via magic bands. Just like the old red cards. We already know they intentionally inflate wait times at park close to discourage riders and get people to leave. This is no different. They are attempting crowd manipulation.

 

[wisblue]

That's kind of hogwash. LiNES has accurate wait times all day long (crowd sourced). Disney can easily and accurately track accurate wait times via magic bands. Just like the old red cards. We already know they intentionally inflate wait times at park close to discourage riders and get people to leave. This is no different. They are attempting crowd manipulation.

I don’t think the Lines app gets that much live, same day data on any given day. I think their estimates are based more on historical data that they have accumulated over time.

I regularly look at the Lines app when I’m in the parks, and often their expected waits aren’t that different than the posted waits, and when they are significantly different our wait usually ends up being between the two.

Regardless, data gained from the red cards or any personal report would always be a trailing indicator of the current wait time. If I get from the end of the line to the boarding area in 45 minutes, that tells me that the wait time was 45 minutes 45 minutes ago. It could easily be longer or shorter now.

If you accept the premise that Disney has an incentive to overstate the posted wait time for customer satisfaction reasons, and that wait times ebb and flow constantly, especially for rides with longer lines, the conclusion that there is some nefarious purpose behind inflated posted times becomes a lot harder to support.

I see the end of day inflation as a special case because they are trying to encourage people to move toward the exits instead of forcing popular rides to stay open for an extra hour or more. But, inflating posted times for most attractions for most of the day, which has gone on for decades, seems to be almost entirely an issue of guest satisfaction and the difficulty of posting precise times at all times.

 

[wisblue]

If you’re on Twitter send isgenieworthit some love

They post daily on how much shorter on average the actual waits are

Does the person who does this explain what data he or she uses to come up with these figures? It seems like it would take a lot of samples of actual waits vs posted waits to come up with numbers for all parks with this kind of precision.