*** Updated to add spring break Data*** New Data, FP+ impacting wait times, discuss

[Shaden]

So, according to Josh at Easywdw it appears that there have been some significant changes to the wait times.

In particular, increases to the wait times at secondary attractions. The result of FP+ ? How does this affect your touring strategy/ability ? Discuss !!!!



http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...times-at-disney-world-attractions/#more-13129

A much better data set than was used in previous analysis, which only used Disney posted wait times, and did not include the busy period in February.

Also interesting this still has no account of FP+ return time wait times. So, if SB waits are up, and FP+ waits are up ... what does this mean for FP+ and you ?

**** UPDATED ***

More new data from Steve at TP.

People are reporting much higher wait times and "crowd levels" than previous years over the last couple weeks, and the last couple days. Yet, this doesn't seem to match up with the calendar for spring breaks. Is this possibly another sign that FP+ is increasing the wait times and the feel of crowds ???

Link Below

http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/0...t-disney-world/comment-page-1/#comment-169041

 

[morethananyonex]

There's a bit of a discussion going on here already

 

[Shaden]

There's a bit of a discussion going on here already

was actually following your advice and making a separate thread properly labeled for the discussion

I think its very interesting data, and have a hard time seeing any positive in it.

I am not sure if this is entirely a result of FP+, I don't know that we have solid numbers on attendance, though I would imagine that on the busiest days we wouldn't see much difference regardless, and I also imagine that if crowds were up much in total, we wouldn't see a reduction in any ride times ...

 

[mickeygirl14]

Not sure exactly yet what this will mean for our trip in June. We are taking a wait-and-see attitude right now, but I may have lost my battle for getting APs this year with all of this. DH says he will not upgrade to APs just to sit in line longer.

I do think this is very interesting data and I'm sure the Disney execs are analyzing this data on their end too - or I would certainly hope so. I think in theory FP+ looks great on paper, but something doesn't look like it's working in the implementation.

 

[Shaden]

Not sure exactly yet what this will mean for our trip in June. We are taking a wait-and-see attitude right now, but I may have lost my battle for getting APs this year with all of this. DH says he will not upgrade to APs just to sit in line longer.

I do think this is very interesting data and I'm sure the Disney execs are analyzing this data on their end too - or I would certainly hope so. I think in theory FP+ looks great on paper, but something doesn't look like it's working in the implementation.

I may have lost my battle for DVC over this, my hope/fear is our trip in May. If it all works out and we continue to get to do all the things we want to do, without standing in line all day, awesome, maybe DVC is still on the table. But if it plays out like I fear it will, even after booking our FP+s .... I am guessing DVC purchase is off the table.

 

[morethananyonex]

was actually following your advice and making a separate thread properly labeled for the discussion

I think its very interesting data, and have a hard time seeing any positive in it.

I am not sure if this is entirely a result of FP+, I don't know that we have solid numbers on attendance, though I would imagine that on the busiest days we wouldn't see much difference regardless, and I also imagine that if crowds were up much in total, we wouldn't see a reduction in any ride times ...

Oh okay, didn't know if you noticed the thread or not

I totally agree, it's very hard to see positives in it, unless you're a family who wants to SB a headliner midday, slight positives for them I guess.

Like you said, if crowds were up we wouldn't see a reduction in wait times. That's why I think this is mainly caused by FP+, with other causes like increased crowds minimally impacting it. It only makes sense that way, because an increase in crowds would bring an increase to the headliners wait times too. The only attractions I think we can comfortably say was impacted by other factors is Little Mermaid in MK. That ride showed a significant decrease, likely because it's newness wore off, also, wasn't the FP- there unattached from the rest of the system?

 

[Jennasis]

I may have lost my battle for DVC over this, my hope/fear is our trip in May. If it all works out and we continue to get to do all the things we want to do, without standing in line all day, awesome, maybe DVC is still on the table. But if it plays out like I fear it will, even after booking our FP+s .... I am guessing DVC purchase is off the table.

Don't lose hope Shaden. I detest FP+. But we just submitted a bid for a DVC resale contract today. We actually are planning WAY less theme park time and more resort time now. We LOVE rides, are rope droppers/park closers and Disney addicts. FP is making reevaluate what we do on our trips...but our trips will be to Disney.

 

[amg35]

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I am reading the charts for each park, where it has wait times for 2013 and 2014, that's stand-by right?

If I'm reading correctly, it seems that the times have increased by 5 minutes for most, 10-15 for a few?

 

[JimmyV]

Are the wait times shown in Josh's report "actual" times or Disney's "posted" times? We found that the "posted" tmes were based in part on CM's assumptions taking into account the physical length of the lines and how long the wait would be historically, but they weren't very good at estimating the impact of FP+. So in other words, a CM would see a line at 10:00 and think: "Gee. Usually a line that long is a 20 minute wait. So that's what I will post." Then, a person would go through the line with a red card to actually time the wait and it would be 30-40 minutes causing the CM to change the posted estimate. Guests aren't used to the phenomenon of FP returnees cutting off the SB line at 9:30-10:00, and neither are the CMs. On busy days when these early times are fully booked, this causes lies to back up more quickly. Over President's Day weekend, it was very obvious to us that the posted wait times were not accounting for this early on. Eventually, after enough red card people went through to time the lines, the wait times became more accurate. But what we saw were posted wait times that jumped from 15 minutes to 45 minutes in a single jump without the SB line actually growing in physical length.

 

[redrosesix]

was actually following your advice and making a separate thread properly labeled for the discussion

I think its very interesting data, and have a hard time seeing any positive in it.

I am not sure if this is entirely a result of FP+, I don't know that we have solid numbers on attendance, though I would imagine that on the busiest days we wouldn't see much difference regardless, and I also imagine that if crowds were up much in total, we wouldn't see a reduction in any ride times ...

FWIW we didn't notice larger crowds in the CS locations or at the fireworks, etc. This was our 7th trip at this time of the year and if anything, crowds were lower than in some of those years. So it might all be because of FP+ (not the pre-booked times alone, but also scanning MBs, MBs not working sometimes, etc)

I may have lost my battle for DVC over this, my hope/fear is our trip in May. If it all works out and we continue to get to do all the things we want to do, without standing in line all day, awesome, maybe DVC is still on the table. But if it plays out like I fear it will, even after booking our FP+s .... I am guessing DVC purchase is off the table.

We were going to buy DVC on our February trip (can't buy from home). We opted out after our first day in the parks and cancelled our appointment with our guide. It just wasn't the kind of experience I had planned to "lock in" for a lot of reasons.

 

[MrInfinity]

Collecting data is one thing. Analyzing it correctly is another!

The premise of that article:
FP+ changed the standby wait time of Dinosaur from 15 to 25 minutes.

However that is completely subjective. It could just as well be:

Disney World is experiencing a boom in attendance, as clearly evidenced by no free dining, fewer room discounts, higher ticket prices, and record crowds. Wait times are higher, driving the standby time for rides like Dinosaur from 15 to 30 minutes. But thanks to new ride management solutions like the revolutionary FP+, guests are able to get on 20% faster, reducing standby from 30 to 25 minutes, and getting any guest that would like to ride Dinosaur, on in 5-10 minutes once per day.

It's all in how you look at it. FP+

 

[Mad Hattered]

Well I, for one, sure didn't see this coming. How long have "we" been saying this would be the case? Now we just need bcrook to see this thread.

Thanks for the link, Shaden!

 

[redrosesix]

Are the wait times shown in Josh's report "actual" times or Disney's "posted" times? We found that the "posted" tmes were based in part on CM's assumptions taking into account the physical length of the lines and how long the wait would be historically, but they weren't very good at estimating the impact of FP+. So in other words, a CM would see a line at 10:00 and think: "Gee. Usually a line that long is a 20 minute wait. So that's what I will post." Then, a person would go through the line with a red card to actually time the wait and it would be 30-40 minutes causing the CM to change the posted estimate. Guests aren't used to the phenomenon of FP returnees cutting off the SB line at 9:30-10:00, and neither are the CMs. On busy days when these early times are fully booked, this causes lies to back up more quickly. Over President's Day weekend, it was very obvious to us that the posted wait times were not accounting for this early on. Eventually, after enough red card people went through to time the lines, the wait times became more accurate. But what we saw were posted wait times that jumped from 15 minutes to 45 minutes in a single jump without the SB line actually growing in physical length.

Good point -- we saw the same thing and probably passed you in the parks a couple of times.

Getting into a SB line nowadays is a gamble if you have to be somewhere else after that.

 

[AmyB2006]

So, according to Josh at Easywdw it appears that there have been some significant changes to the wait times.

In particular, increases to the wait times at secondary attractions. The result of FP+ ?

Of course! Because when you have a ride that was a 5 min standby, like GMR, Figment, Nemo, etc, and then you add in a FP+ line, now that 5 minute standby turns into a 10 or 15 minute standby because the FP line will be taken before the standby line.

I saw this with GMR in February. We didn't wait long, overall, but waited longer than normal. All while people were going through the FP+ line. I don't get FPing rides like this. But people are going to do it, which will make the standby line for those rides longer. Maybe only 5 or 10 minutes, but it's 5 or 10 minutes longer that it doesn't need to be.

Case in point the thread yesterday or the day before where the OP just decided to go to Epcot and picked Nemo and Figment as two of her FPs.

 

[JimmyV]

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I am reading the charts for each park, where it has wait times for 2013 and 2014, that's stand-by right?

If I'm reading correctly, it seems that the times have increased by 5 minutes for most, 10-15 for a few?

Yes, but keep in mind that most of 2014 so far has been during Disney's slowest months historically. Josh can only compare January-first week of March. The modest line growth (5-15 minutes) will magnify as the data for heavier crowd days becomes available. I can tell you that the difference over President's Day weekend was not 5-10 minutes for secondary attractions. And while the waits for headliners built up to pretty much "nomal" length, they did so much faster. Instead of Test Track building from 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 to 70 minutes over time, it went from 20 to 70 minutes in between 9:00 and 9:30.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Yes, but keep in mind that most of 2014 so far has been during Disney's slowest months historically.

Exactly! Wait until Spring Break and the Summer crowds roll in. Ugh.

 

[redrosesix]

Collecting data is one thing. Analyzing it correctly is another!

The premise of that article:
FP+ changed the standby wait time of Dinosaur from 15 to 25 minutes.

However that is completely subjective. It could just as well be:

Disney World is experiencing a boom in attendance, as clearly evidenced by no free dining, fewer room discounts, higher ticket prices, and record crowds. Wait times are higher, driving the standby time for rides like Dinosaur from 15 to 30 minutes. But thanks to new ride management solutions like the revolutionary FP+, guests are able to get on 20% faster, reducing standby from 30 to 25 minutes, and getting any guest that would like to ride Dinosaur, on in 5-10 minutes once per day.

It's all in how you look at it. FP+

I totally lost you here.

And I haven't seen anywhere that it was stated they were having record attendance -- it would be too early for them to report that. Their earnings report said they had increased revenue because of increased prices, but that was for a previous period.

 

[Dan Murphy]

There's a bit of a discussion going on here already

I was just signing on to post this, you should make it a separate thread . I agree, very interesting. Many of us guessed that's what would happen to the secondary rides.

http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=50913008&postcount=5

 

[2Tiggies]

Thanks for the link, Shaden. This comes as no surprise to me. I do think there is more than one issue with the standby lines increasing though. It's one thing to measure wait times by going past the signs and noting them during the course of the day, but the reports this year have been that they are sometimes far from accurate -more so than ever before - and without actually standing in the line and timing it, I am going to question any 'face value' reports of it. It's an interesting article but I think the problem is actually worse than what it appears.

 

[MrInfinity]

I totally lost you here.

What did you lose? The article is drawing a connection between longer waits and FP+. That connection is arbitrary and chosen to make a point. You can always slice data to make a point if that is your goal.

The longer wait times are more likely due to the fact that attendance is up in 2014, not due to the FP+. Or say it's due to FP+ if you prefer, but that's probly not the case, as we know attendance is up this year and heavier crowds are likely to be the cause of longer wait times.