At Disneyland:
Most people are courteous when in lines.
However, we have experienced people who cut past saying they are "catching up" to their family. Depending on the number of people and the make up of people (eg. parent + young child OR a bunch of teens OR an entire family), I will either believe them or not.
However, we always let them pass (giving them the benefit of the doubt).
I hope that most (prefer "all") people are "truthful" when they say they are "catching up" to families and are not taking advantage of others' kindness in allowing them to pass. This just ruins it for people who need to catch up with their families for "legitimate" reasons and who have no intention of "line cutting".
Having said this, I think that those who are "catching up" to family should ONLY be doing so IF they were originally in line with the family when they entered the queue and had to leave for some important reason (eg. emergency washroom break).
I do NOT think it's OK for 1 family member to "hold places" in line while the "rest" of the family do other things and then "join" them (ie. catch up) to them in the queue. In "my" humble opinion, this essentially amounts to "true" line cutting because those who are "catching up" were never in the queue to begin with. They are only "catching up" (at a later time) when it is "convenient" for them to do so.
We always try to use the washrooms prior to lining up. However, emergencies occur (it's only happened a couple of times when our child was 2 years old) and if we need to leave the queue I will always explain to the people in "front AND behind" of me that we are leaving the queue for an emergency washroom break and will return. I will also apologize for leaving the queue.
This is a bit of overkill but I will also explain and apologize to others in the queue as we exit (example: sorry ... emergency washroom ... coming back) so that when they see us return they will hopefully recall that we left for an emergency washroom break and are not line cutting. We also try to "catch up" to our family from the "least" disruptive point in the queue (eg. if we can go back in line from the "side" instead of going through the entire line up we will do that).
As for "real, actual, no doubt in my mind" line cutting ...
We've only had one truly bad experience with "line cutting" and it occurred at the Tram line up. The parks had just closed and it was chaos at the Tram line ups. We lined up for the section designated for "unfolded" (ie. open) strollers.
For those who are not familiar with this section, this section can only fit about "4" regular sized "open" strollers so the wait for this section is always "long". At minimum, there's always a "several" trams wait before being able to get on BUT since it was park closing, the wait was especially "long" (recall: the chaos I previously mentioned).
We had been in line for over 20+ minutes when the family in front of us ran into their friends. The friends lined up behind us BUT the family in front of us (the mother) kept signalling her friends to "cut in front" of our family. The friends refused but the mother in front us of kept urging her friend forward and even told her friend "it's OK" several times despite her friend's refusal. Kudos to the friend!
However "Boo" to the mother in front of us ...
I do NOT understand why the woman in front of us thought it was "OK" to "line cut" because
no one "asked us" if it was OK ... the woman just "assumed" that it was OK to line cut because she knew the people behind us.
For the record, when I heard this I definitely felt that it was NOT OK.
So far, we had kept silent because the family behind us refused to cut in line. However, the mother's blatant encouragement to "cut in line and that it was OK" to do so made me really angry especially since I knew if her friends cut in line we would be relegated to a "later" Tram (we were next in line and by the stroller count in front of us we knew we would be the last ones on for the next Tram ... I wasn't willing to wait extra time for the 2nd Tram ... like everyone else waiting for the Trams, we just wanted to leave ASAP).
I finally spoke up and told the mother that "No ... it's not OK for her friend to cut in front of us". The mother replied that they were together and that her friends were part of her "family". I told her I understand but it still wasn't OK for her friend to cut in front of us. If she (the mother) wanted to be with her friends then she could trade places with us to join her friend (ie. we move up and she moves back in line).
I refused to relent and the mother and her family "glared daggers" at us during the remainder of the wait and throughout the entire Tram ride. Her friend had to wait for the 2nd Tram. Somehow I was at fault for not being willing to give up our spot despite waiting 20+ minutes prior to her friends arrival.
Thankfully, this was a "one of" experience because, as I stated at the beginning of my post, most people are courteous when in lines. We just had unfortunate luck!
Sorry for the super long post ... apparently I'm still upset over the blatant encouragement to line cut and the rude assumption that it is acceptable behaviour.