Posted wait times are wrong this week (May 15th)

[toontoy]

We have been at magic kingdom this week and the posted wait times are all wrong. Right now little mermaid was 15 when we joined the line and currently have waited over 35 min and still not even on the ride. All the rides today and character greetings we have been to are all way off. Usually about half the time we have been waiting. This isn't the only day either. It's been all week and our last trip in September we had the same issue. Is this just a new thing to deal with. Not sure how much value I am seeing when all we do is wait and wait. And use 3 fast passes all day

 

[glocon]

I hear TP lines app is more accurate. I’m going to try that for our trip in July.

 

[toontoy]

I wouldn't trust the posted waits or the disney app

 

[TwinkleKS]

The posted wait times are always rather random ... too short or too long. Hasn't it been raining this week with lots of ride closures? I thought I saw someone post that earlier. Any rain that causes a ride to shut down for any period of time will mess with wait times ... during the rain people will go from the closed rides to the only open rides ... after the rain people with FPs during the closed times will now have an anytime FP and make the FP line longer, which lengthens the other lines as well.

You can get additional FP's after you use your first three. Many people that know how to use the system report getting 6 or more a day.

 

[Chocolate Cake]

This past week was supposed to be a "slow" time. Parks are absolutely packed. I wonder why?

 

[Davey Jones II]

I would recommend being done with your FPs early in the day, then book new ones with the MDE App or at the kiosks in the park. There is more availability for fourth and fifth FPs when you are looking for them early in the day.

Wait times were pretty accurate on our last trip (last Oct.-early Nov.) for the most part. When they were way off, we complained to Guest Services...and got more FPs!

 

[KidaniZen]

This past week was supposed to be a "slow" time. Parks are absolutely packed. I wonder why?

It's never really "slow" anymore.

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

I don’t really ever put much stock in the app because a lot can change between the time I look and the time we haul ourselves over. I trust the posted wait times at the actual ride a little more because I’m already there, I can kind of see the where the line ends in some cases, and then I figure it could be ten minutes in either direction beyond the posted wait.

The last 6 days we were there I don’t think we waited more than 10 minutes for Little Mermaid. Could the ride have stopped for some reason, pushing up the wait time?

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

This past week was supposed to be a "slow" time. Parks are absolutely packed. I wonder why?

We were there in August and September and then again the last 6 days and it was much less packed the last 6 days than during either of the two previous trips. Time of day could be a factor? There was a cheerleading competition in town and some of the parks got busier later as they finished practice/ competition. We also avoid any park with EMH, I’m not sure if it helped or not (we just don’t use EMH so no reason to visit that park).

 

[bigbabyblues]

We found the TP Lines app much more accurate last June than posted wait times.

 

[Flapdoodle]

We were in the parks Monday and Tuesday. Was able to get multiple same day fast passes using the refresh method and even s ores a second FOP on Monday. Crowds did seem a bit more crowded but still able to do a lot.

 

[Jennasis]

The LINES app by TP is the way to go!

 

[itstrue56]

Use the Touring Plans lines app.

 

[AngiTN]

It's not just this week
The posted wait times have never been accurate.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

It's not just this week
The posted wait times have never been accurate.

I have only stood in a line once where it was longer than the posted wait time. However, it had an indoor queue, so getting out of the hot sun was a nice breather. I didn't know how to use FP efficiently back in 2015 so we did several stand by lines. Longest one was posted 45 minutes and we were on the ride in just a little less than that.

 

[Randomsoulshine]

I have Touring Plans Line app for upcoming trip. It’s not easy to read. Do I pick the park then pick reported wait times ? I’m guessing I look for actual wait times not reported ones? Also is there a way to look for a specific ride or are they ordered by latest one someone reported on? Say I wanted to check for HM. What’s the best thing for me to do?

 

[Flapdoodle]

I have Touring Plans Line app for upcoming trip. It’s not easy to read. Do I pick the park then pick reported wait times ? I’m guessing I look for actual wait times not reported ones? Also is there a way to look for a specific ride or are they ordered by latest one someone reported on? Say I wanted to check for HM. What’s the best thing for me to do?

In the app go to parks and click one of the four parks. Each attraction/ride will have a posted time and an actual time listed. We found TP line app accurate this past week.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

We were there in August and September and then again the last 6 days and it was much less packed the last 6 days than during either of the two previous trips. Time of day could be a factor? There was a cheerleading competition in town and some of the parks got busier later as they finished practice/ competition. We also avoid any park with EMH, I’m not sure if it helped or not (we just don’t use EMH so no reason to visit that park).

According to TP, the crowds this week have been average (4, 5, 6). The cheer competition weekend was a little higher (6, 7). That's pretty typical for May. Lower to moderate crowds. However, if the wait times are inaccurately low, that will throw off the crowd level determination.

I met a woman on the way back to the resort The first week of May who was there for her first trip. Her TA told her it was a slower time and she said it like the TA had been completely wrong. I nodded my head and told her it was (3-5 that week). She was floored because she didn't know what busy looked like so 4 felt really busy to her. A lot of it is expections. You often see posts that Jersey week is so busy and to be avoided but crowds average around 5 that week typically too, which is the same as May, generally, which people say has low-mod crowds.

 

[cmoliver5]

We were in MK in Monday and yesterday this week as well. Monday was a bit different because it rained off and on for a good 3 to 4 hours so many rides went up and down all day long. My kids are too small for anything bigger than 7DMT so we were able to grab FPs for Fantasy Land and things like Jungle Cruise no problem all afternoon once the rain stopped because so many other guests dumped their plans and went back to their resorts. Even HEA wasn’t very crowded. We grabbed a great spot only about 30 minutes ahead of time and the rest of it didn’t really fill up until about 5 minutes later.

Yesterday was definitely busy though. I think the rains earlier in the week may have cause more people to come yesterday than would have been there otherwise. I also noticed quite a few of the larger Brazilian tour groups yesterday than I did Monday. FPs were not as easily grabbed but we still did quite a bit. HEA was much busier and there were EMH last night at MK so a pretty big push of people came into the park as the sun went down.

I’ll add my plug for the Lines app though. It’s much more reliable than the MDE.

 

[jodifla]

I posted about this last month. We ran into longer than posted wait times often, and it was sometimes day-wrecking. Standing hourlong lines that were supposed to be 15 minutes, causing us to miss ADRs or the next FP time.

I got a survey from WDW and detailed this, and also detailed it to one of the "cast member experiences" people. It was very frustrating.