Last month we took a look at September crowds and wait times, which are among the absolute lowest of the year. As the numbers show, this is in no way debatable. Much of September is the least crowded time of year at Walt Disney World, regardless of how crowded it is. And again, to any naysayers, I offer the same challenge: give me a date and send me a check. Maybe I can get on the Draft Kings bandwagon and we can do Daily Fantasy Crowd Prediction. One week free with Crowd Kings! Promo code: Kira.
There are a few things that come into play with the higher wait times than we’ve seen in past years. Yes, crowds are up, but as a percentage, it’s only in the very low single digits as compared to last year. And looking over September attendance, the percentage jump was actually higher from 2013 to 2014 than 2014 to 2015. The main culprit, as I’ve discussed endlessly over the last couple of years, is FastPass+ priority and maximum FastPass+ distribution. FastPass+ availability gets worse every day as more and more people become aware of the system and make their plans in advance. For example, there is usually no day-of FastPass+ availability for more than ten WDW attractions:
- Enchanted Tales with Belle
- Festival of Fantasy
- Main Street Electrical Parade
- Meet Anna/Elsa
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Wishes
- Character Spot
- IllumiNations
- Toy Story Mania
- Adventurers Outpost
So if you show up to Hollywood Studios tomorrow without FastPass+ scheduled, there will be no availability at Toy Story Mania unless you luck into a cancellation. It also means no 4th FastPass+ availability unless you’re refreshing your phone constantly hunting for a cancellation. We’ve come to expect new attractions like Mine Train to be without FP+ availability well in advance and with such a limited capacity at something like Fairytale Hall, I don’t think a lack of availability there is surprising. But seeing things like Peter Pan’s Flight completely out of inventory, in addition to other character meets like Character Spot completely unavailable is more surprising. It’s also indicative of lower availability at other priority attractions, where Soarin’ or Test Track may only have a handful of available FastPass+ times at 10:30am and absolutely none after 1pm. This is as true on September 14th as it is on Christmas Day.
As we know, FastPass+ takes up as much as 70% of an attraction’s capacity. So let’s say Pirates of the Caribbean has an actual hourly capacity of 2,000 riders per hour and you’re 200 people back in standby before FP+ haunted our dreams in July 2k12. In this scenario, you’d be on the ride in about six minutes. Give 70% of that capacity to FastPass+ and by the time the 200th person rides in standby, 462 will ride before using FastPass+. Many of these people in FP+ will arrive long after the 200th person in standby, but will still ride first due to FP+ priority boarding. So in this scenario, the 200th person in standby actually rides in the spot of the 662nd person in line. With 2,000 riders per hour, the 6-minute wait turns into a 20-minute wait even with the same number of people in standby. It’s pretty easy to figure out why standby lines are so much longer now, particularly at the attractions that didn’t historically offer FastPass+.
So what does it mean? Let’s start with the worst case scenario here in October: Magic Kingdom on a day that it isn’t closing at 7pm for a Mickey’s Party. Or, yesterday, a Wednesday with evening Extra Magic Hours, Wishes, and two Electrical Parades:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk101415.jpg
From noon to 2:45pm. The red underlines are the peak waits during this time period at a few interesting attractions:
This is ugly. 85 at Big Thunder. 80 at Haunted Mansion. 95 at Jungle Cruise. 105 at Ariel. 120 at Mickey. 40 at Monsters Inc. 110 at Peter Pan. 80 at Pirates of the Caribbean. 130 at Space Mountain. 60 at Under the Sea. Etc.
Compare that to the same Wednesday last year at the same time of day:
It’s not exactly a night and day difference; Buzz is still at 55 minutes versus 60. Haunted Mansion is still 45 compared to 80. Jungle Cruise is 60 compared to 95. Pirates is still 65 compared to 80. Peter Pan’s Flight is 80 compared to 110. Under the Sea is 50 compared to 60. So year over year, it’s decidedly “worse,” but these wait times haven’t appeared out of thin air and you can probably attribute this year’s longer wait times to more on-site guests visiting with the Extra Magic Hours scheduled, which wouldn’t have been on the schedule in 2014.
But Magic Kingdom waits aren’t always this bad here in October. Subtract just one day to Tuesday October 13, 2015 with a Mickey’s Party scheduled and a 7pm close. Here, we have the recommended Tuesday Party day wait times in white and the non-recommmended Wednesday evening EMH/Wishes day in green right underneath:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mkoctobercomparison.jpg
The differences in wait times are pretty shocking considering we’re talking about a difference of exactly 24 hours. Wednesday’s wait times are somewhere between 50% and 100%+ longer on Wednesday as compared to Tuesday.
Looking over the October crowd calendar, you’ll notice that Magic Kingdom was the most recommended Park on the 13th and the least recommended Park on the 14th. The wait times above illustrate why.
Looking back at October 2014, there’s one other reason why Wednesday’s wait times were lower last year. Tuesdays last year also saw extended hours and both nighttime spectaculars, which helped even crowds out better between the four days with late closes. This year, Disney eliminated the early September Halloween Parties and moved them to October, so only three days each week see extended hours and both nighttime spectaculars. So you have a similar number of people cramming into three days with longer hours and both nighttime spectaculars instead of four and because of that, crowds and waits are even longer this year.
Wednesdays last year with the Electrical Parade/Wishes were actually “tentatively recommended” because they were still more or less manageable. This year, you can still kind of make it work, but it’s going to be a pretty miserable experience getting out of Magic Kingdom after Wishes and the daytime waits are horrendous. So Wednesdays this year aren’t recommended, given the much worse crowds and wait times.
While we’re discussing Extra Magic Hours and recommendations, the website admits that it sensibly chuckles whenever it sees someone say, “easywdw never recommends parks with extra magic hours.” This is, of course, factually inaccurate. You literally have to go no further than the first day in October to see Magic Kingdom recommended with a morning Extra Magic Hour attached.
Looking over the rest of the wait times from the 13th and 14th. Again, recommended Tuesday in white. Non-recommended Wednesday in green:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mkcrowdscomparison2.jpg
The numbers more than speak for themselves. Looking at the full chart from Tuesday October 13, the Party day with the 7pm close:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk101315.jpg
If you’re visiting on a Party day between now and mid-December and the overall crowd level is a 5 or above, this is what you’re looking at. If you’re visiting on a Wishes/Electrical Parade/Non-Party night, well…bring body armor.
This isn’t a one-off phenomenon either. It’s an every week thing and it has been for years. Here’s Friday the 9th – another Party day:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk10915.jpg
And the next day, a Saturday with a later close, Main Street Electrical Parade, and Wishes:
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/mk101015.jpg
You’ve probably seen me assert that the Park recommendations are much more important this time of year because crowds vary so wildly from day to day due to the changes in the operating schedule, particularly at Magic Kingdom. Over the summer, it doesn’t really matter where you go with the same operating hours and entertainment every night. Recommended Parks will still see lower attendance and wait times compared to the non-recommended days around them, of course, but it’s not the night and day difference that we see in the fall.
Moving on…
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/ak101315.jpg
Animal Kingdom on Tuesday the 13th on a recommended day, which is about what we can expect given above average crowds. The 120-minute wait at 1:15pm at Safaris jumps out and the posted wait curiously drops to just 10-minutes by 1:45pm. Otherwise, the afternoon sees relatively high waits before things drop considerably after 5pm. Safaris is a walk-on from 4:15pm to when it ceases operation at 6:30pm. Everest has a zero minute posted wait in the last hour. Arriving late at Animal Kingdom is one of my favorite things. If you get there at 4pm with a 7pm close, you’ll see hundreds of people that waited 45+ minutes for Everest and 90+ minutes for Kali River Rapids streaming out. And I want to tell them, “you know if you just go back you can ride with no wait.” Stay through close, folks.
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/ep101315.jpg
FastPass+ continues to make things batty at Epcot, which probably deserves its own post full of charts. Granted, a couple of hours of downtime at Journey into Imagination is pushing up wait times later in the day..but 50 minutes? Likewise, 30-minute waits at Living with the Land were virtually unheard of prior to FP+. 40 minutes at Nemo…45 at Spaceship Earth…and Soarin’ wait times that are already hitting 90+ minutes within a half hour of opening. I used to call this the “new normal.” But it’s not so new anymore. It’s just “normal.”
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/ep101215.jpg
Subtract a day and things are basically the same. 45 minutes at Figment with no downtime. 30 at Living with the Land. 40 at Spaceship Earth. 45 at Nemo. And if you’re still wondering why, I would refer you to our Pirates example above. Historically, it doesn’t make any sense to use FP+ at a ride like Figment. But with so few options and FastPass+ at the priority attractions becoming unavailable early in the morning, people don’t have any choice. And when you’re looking at a FP+ screen and your options are Living with the Land, Journey into Imagination, and The Seas with Nemo, then that’s what you take. Most people that come away with Living with the Land would probably prefer Test Track. Most people that select Journey into Imagination would probably prefer Mission: SPACE. But when those aren’t available, people choose other attractions, and in turn fill up the FP+ queues full nearly every day.
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/hs101315.jpg
I’ve been to grocery stores that have more rides outside of them than Hollywood Studios does inside of its gates, so it isn’t surprising that it’s suffering given what remains record attendance. You’ve probably heard that the noise group, “Mulch, Sweat, and Shears” is no longer performing. Their purpose, combined with the Sorcerer’s Hat, was always to get people to enter the Park and immediately leave. People were supposed to see the Hat in the distance and conclude that there was nothing to do at the Studios (a fair assessment), and once the “music” hit…well…it was a quick, “So….I’ve heard good things about the BoardWalk?” and then a quick about-face out of there. It’s a similar thing with Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Just No Show. People would arrive in the Streets of America thinking “Mulch, Sweat, and Shears is at least something to do and something to do is better than not-something to do.” Inevitably, people would then hear half of a song and start walking in the opposite direction, at which point Mulch would hop in their truck and follow them down the Streets of America, ultimately cornering them at the end of the road and roping them into Lights, Motors. Nobody willingly sees Lights, Motors.
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/hs101215.jpg
Subtract a day and it doesn’t make much of a difference.
Larger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports13/hs101415.jpg
I’m not trying to ignore October 14th here – it’s just that due to a glitch out of the website’s control, I didn’t capture the first 90 minutes worth of wait times. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was also down for about seven hours, in addition to an hour of downtime at Great Movie Ride. Tower of Terror continues to see capacity issues, resulting in those 100+ minute waits some days and 20 minute waits on others depending on how many elevators are running.
That’s the reality of a Walt Disney World vacation these days. Much of the rest of October, November, and December sees slightly below average to slightly above average crowds just like this. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
This is sounding less and less fun I am afraid
Make WDW GREAT again!
Ha!
Is it even possible to enjoy a day at the parks if you don’t have a smart phone to check wait times, email notices, etc.?
We just got back yesterday and we had a fabulous time–no smartphone needed! Plans were executed flawlessly thanks to Josh’s crowd calendars!
Thank you for such a thorough explanation! I enjoyed reading it and feel better about my upcoming November trip now that I better understand the reasons behind the longer waits.
I so miss 2005.
Does it seem like RocknRollerCoaster is down alot more than usual these days? Wonder what’s up with it? Anybody have an idea?
aerosmith just can’t party like they used to, maybe?
I guess that limo company Stephen Tyler’s manager uses gets overbooked easily.
Thanks as always Josh. The explanation was well thorough and very needed. You da man
We’ll be there Thanksgiving week, which will probably be more summer-like with daily Wishes.
I wonder why people care about late EMH? My kids aren’t staying up until 12 AM.
Everyone is different. I care a lot about evening EMH. My kids stay up until 2AM frequently. And they were young. We just slept a lot during the day. 🙂
read…wait…stop…WHAT? re – read….ooohh…this is a ton of info!
I’m wondering as Im reading this if this was Disney’s intended outcome?
I am currently at WDW this week and I can vouch for what Josh is saying. I followed the cheat sheets and made FPs accordingly. MK on Tuesday October 13th (recommended) was a breeze. We even ended up 30 minutes ahead of schedule by lunch. We later rode Mine Train in standby at a 60 minute posted wait in 30 minutes total. It was a great day. We went to HS on Wenesday October 14 (recommended) and hopped to MK later. I expected it to be crowded, but it was a special kind of hell. Quick service lines out the doors and long waits for every ride. I can put up with a lot but it was so ridiculous that we had to leave.
“As we know, FastPass+ takes up as much as 70% of an attraction’s capacity”
So, if Fastpass+ can take up 70% of a ride’s capacity, then surely using the standby queue time as a measure of crowds will only tell you 30% of the story? It means only 30% of the guests in the park will experience the waits posted whilst 70% will have wait times of 10 minutes or less. To me, it seems like using standby wait times is becoming less and less reflective of how busy a park is.
Also, although the standby wait times might be higher it means more people are entering the fastpass entrance and getting on the ride quicker. Which is surely a good thing? (Long wait times = more fastpass+).
“So, if Fastpass+ can take up 70% of a ride’s capacity, then surely using the standby queue time as a measure of crowds will only tell you 30% of the story? It means only 30% of the guests in the park will experience the waits posted whilst 70% will have wait times of 10 minutes or less.”
That math only works if everyone rode 3 rides and left. It’s not a good thing.
Well, people can fastpass more than 3 rides per day. Once you’ve used the 3 prebooked ones you can book another, and then another, and so on.
I’m merely pointing out that if Fastpass riders use X percent of the capacity then standby riders can only use 100-X percent of the ride’s capacity. So the quoted wait times shown in this post only apply to 100-X of the total number of rides.
Personally I didn’t think fastpass riders used up to 70% of the hourly capacity but Josh is more of an expert than me.
You’ve got a point Steve. While Josh does a great job with his analysis a better measure of wait time might be a weighted average of standby and FP+ lines.
To put it another way, FP+ has no effect on a ride’s capacity. It just affects the flow through.
The part that’s strange to me is that it seems the effect of FP+ would be to lower the number of people who do repeat/multiple rides of an attraction which you’d think would lower overall wait times. I guess that is being offset by increased attendance numbers.
Another thing to keep in mind is the wait WITH fastpass, especially at TSMM, Soarin’, Test Track, meet-n-greets, etc. TSMM in particular often has a considerable wait even with FP. Josh is including a bit of this in his new ride overviews.
Assuming josh is using wait times posted by Disney, I think their system does take into effect some sort of averaging between standby and FP+ lines. When we were there earlier this year, we carried red cards several times in both standby and FP+ lines. The cards were the same for each type of line and you end up giving it to the last CM you see before you board. By then, they don’t know which line you were in. Again, I’m not sure how Disney uses the red card times (average, weighted average, median,etc.), but it seems that their posted wait times take some of the difference into account.
I thought the posted wait times only applied to the standby line?
I’d hate to wait 45 minutes in the fastpass queue for Journey into Imagination. Mind you, I’d hate to wait that length of time in the regular queue. I like Figment, but not *that* much. 🙂
Like I said, I don’t know how Disney uses the red cards in FP+ lines. But I have seen some FP+ lines with have 30min waits. Not likely Figment, but we ran into that specifically on Safaris in mid-day June on a most recommended day.
$$$$$$$$$$ = Disney vacation . prices going up on passes, not as deep discount on rooms you must do homework & plan josh does that better than anyone out there . plus he makes it easy to understand . sadly the days of just showing up are over & done .
I believe it is time to stop trying to improve all the other parks and focus on one thing…build a second Magic Kingdom!
Thanks for the thorough explanation, Josh. Any way I look at it, it’s obvious that the good old days of walking onto Pirates or the Great Movie Ride or doing multiple rides on Tower of Terror are gone. I will never be able to understand Living with the Land as a Tier 1 FP+. For me, It’s okay – I can enjoy the parks and do a few attractions. For first timers and those who aren’t “in the know”, it must be something of a nightmare.
Why not eliminate the standby lines completely? All fastpass, no standby allowed. Thoughts?
Disney has experimented with this a bit, at TSMM for example. It seemed not to be a popular decision. One of my strongest early memories of Disney (at 8 years old) was simply waiting in line for Jungle Cruise in the middle of a June afternoon. Sometimes, waiting for an hour (or more) is the best option. The alternative is to tell people, you paid a ton of money for your tickets, but you’re SOL and can’t even ride the most popular rides.
So, any chance you will be able to fill in the end of December ??? before I have to choose FP next week? I feel better about planning when you just tell me what to do.
This is why I won’t bother giving Disney any money after my pass expires, how the heck are you supposed to have a magical time with all this going on? Not to mention food prices are up, merchandise prices are way up ($32 t-shirt, come on!), and so much of the ancillary parks are shut down it’s stupid.
Thanks but no thanks. Disney might be able to sucker unsuspecting people into believing that it’s those bad bad passholders causing all of this but guess what, its not! It’s Disney Company’s mismanagement and greed that’s causing this! I’m actively telling friends and family avoid going to Disney World because it’s just not magical. Maybe they’ll give some money to Universal and Busch Gardens instead for the next few years.
Nice explanation but I really don’t care about why. Just that the wait times ARE longer. We can’t do much of anything about why.
Very informative post. I thought it was interesting that you pointed out that the park choice is especially important in the fall. Have you ever thought about adding a (-X/+X) number to the most/least recommended parks on each day? In other words, if the overall crowd level is a “5” but due to the factors you’ve outlined above (evening entertainment, etc), AK is more like a “4” and MK is more like a “7”, you could have something like AK(-1) EP (0) HS (0) | MK (+2) on the crowd calendar. Easy enough for me to give you more work, I know.
It appears to me that Disney has a problem that is being exacerbated by FP+, and that is the lack of headlining attractions. There simply is not enough to do for the amount of people coming into the parks.
Unless one is in the know, I can’t imagine someone having a good time on a Disney vacation.
We were there last 2 weeks and this looks about right. Overall we were successful with about 95% of our plans. The 2 glitches we had involved TSMM on 2 rope drops. One day it was down and we found out en route and diverted to RNRC and TOT without issue. On the second RD we were maybe 25% behind the front and by the time we got to TSMM the line was easily 45min but only said 20 on the screen…so we again diverted back to RNRC and TOT to use our TSMM FP later. Our resolve is to no longer RD TSMM unless we at the very front. By 0820 they had already let people in the park to line up on the main drag.
Also, PotC and THM have longer waits aafter lunch and we have had to change them to earlier stops. Thanks for the great break down!
The number of people getting on a ride is the same everyday (max capacity), 1000 people getting on, 700 FP and 300 Standby. When you average it out across all experiences, the wait times should be the same. 10 minutes for 1 FP, and 60 minutes for another standby, its still an average wait of 35 minutes, however we focus more on the 60 minute wait, and forget that 10 minute wait. Without an increase in capacity, this entire thing is smoke and mirrors…. completely wrong numbers, but using them to prove a point… if the park can run a total ride capacity of 100,000 people a day, then the overall wait time for those 100,000 people will average out to be the same, with or without fast pass. Fastpass just makes you believe that you are not part of that average. Unless you a) reduce the attendance or b) increase capacity, those numbers are never going to change.
I wonder also if this problem is aggravated by the wild swings in park by park attendance in the “off” season, compounded by the party nights. I’ll be curious in Feb if the same problem exists, with the low crowds spread more evenly, only moving with EMH, it might balance out.
For a lot of people, the difference is who is waiting 10 minutes and who is waiting 60 minutes. With more and more people aware of FP+, you have a ton of inventory going to people that historically would not use FASTPASS. Subtract three years and you could very easily:
Get a FASTPASS for Toy Story
Ride Toy Story
Ride Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Get a FASTPASS for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Ride Tower of Terror
Ride Toy Story Mania with FASTPASS
Get a FASTPASS for Tower of Terror
Ride Rock n Roller Coaster with FASTPASS
Hang out or ride Great Movie Ride or something
Ride Tower of Terror with FASTPASS
So you have 2x Toy Story, 2x Rock n Roller Coaster, and 2x Tower of Terror without much waiting.
Now, you’d ride Toy Story Mania, ride Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (where you’ll wait longer due to FP+ returners) and actually want to consider using FP+ at Tower of Terror that early in the morning. In this instance, it’s partially a capacity/breakdown thing, but it’s also because waits legitimately develop that early with FP+ returners. And it’s also very important that you get through Tower of Terror quickly so you have time to get to Star Tours, Great Movie Ride, Voyage of the Little Mermaid before waits develop there. And then you’d have a choice of one priority to ride again later with FP+. The kinds of power users used to riding Toy Story three or four times with legacy FASTPASS are not willing to wait 60+ minutes to experience that ride again.
This also goes back to clogging up lines at secondary attractions. You’ve got all these FASTPASS power users that now have to find something else to do instead of being in front of somebody that has never experienced the attraction before.
So while daily capacity might not change, how long you wait and how many times a person “in the know” can experience an attraction has changed drastically.
Just reading that made me mournful….
“With more and more people aware of FP+,…”
Of course, this means more and more people are skipping the regular lines and thus more people are therefore getting on the rides quicker than before. At least for 3 rides per day anyway.
Bad news for those that were always aware of FP+ (and the old paper Fastpass system) and used their fastpasses wisely. But good news for the rest?
The only positive to that seems to be that the headliners actually can have less waits for There lines. You used to be able to get six fastpasses a day at rnr. Now that people have to split them up it means more people that werent having a fastpass because they were all out had to wait in line. Meaning more que people. Having said that now more people can fastpass and less people in line. So more people get to enjoy the headliners and see part of what makes Disney mágical.
example for my xmas vacation . rope drop hollywood studios get paper fastpass for toy story, ride stand by usually 30 min. get out wait maybe 15 min use paper fastpass for toy story, get out stand near fastpass machines & watch clock till time too return is near 6: 30 pm get fastpass to return eveing for 3rd ride on toy story visit Osborne lights late dinner @ 50s prime time café leave to near empty park all lit up for Christmas . btw Disney MUST pervide transportation to your resort so no worries
One last thought that goes with my previous comment…
Could it take as little additional capacity as a 3rd theater and a 3rd track at Soarin and TSMM to restore the balance, or would it take a more dramatic SW Land and avatar to move crowds in a better way?
I’ll answer that. You need WAY more than an extra track or theater. They need more attractions like SWL, TSL, and Avatar. So in 5 years we’ll be ok, in theory. Except Epcot. Which has nothing in the pipeline.
Except that MK is the one that experiences the worst crush. And it has tons of great attractions.
Magic experiences the worst of it mostly because the other parks offer so little and have closed so much.
Exactly. (I assume by Magic Experience you mean Magic Kingdom) 🙂
You bring the other 3 parks to the level of attractions & night shows as MK has and the crush will be lessened and dispersed throughout instead of everyone converging to MK at once. Theres a reason MK has 40% more attendance.
Yes, I mean MK.
Jeez! Looks like I’ll be needing Prozac with my magic band.
I just don’t understand why they can’t do FP+ like the legacy FP. Why not go back to getting one at a time once you get into the park giving everyone a fair shot on getting on the headliners. As it is now, you hear people saying they don’t even use the 3 FP’s in DHS and Epcot, but they make them so they can get to the 4th FP at a chance for another ride on a headliner or for when they park hop. So FP’s aren’t being used the way it’s set up now yet the times are taken up. You also have locals who say they book FP’s “just in case” they go. So those times are all taken up as most of those locals won’t cancel them once they know they aren’t going to go to the parks. Just makes no sense to have FP set up this way. Really hope they go back to the old way.
Well, because the lazy people that want to sleep in all day then lose out and that isn’t “fair” to them. Today’s American society in a nutshell. The working people are the early bid and get the worm, sure, but then the lazy slackers just get it handed to them by the government. And really, Disney operates like the gub’ment. The shoe fits.
The reality is Disney wants you going on a few rides to get you into the parks which you pay an exorbitant sum for and would rather have you buying snacks and souvies than riding rides. How do they do that? Limit you to a few rides in a system that has large stand-by lines. Voila, FastPass+.
IMHO: FP+ helps Disney know what days are busy and where everyone will be at throughout the day. It also “forces” guests to commit to a park before arriving – making it harder to skip Disney and go off property on-the-fly.
They get too much planning info out of it to change it back.
dittios to both comments above
I still believe that the new system benefits only Disney as they can now plan for how many people will be in which parks weeks in advance based on FP demand. They still control the number of FPs, pricing, how many lines are open for each ride and staffing at attractions and restaurants. Unfortunately, the things they cannot control are the weather and attraction breakdowns.
They have developed a system where it is in the visitor’s interest to pre-purchase tickets so Disney gets to sit on all that additional revenue for a longer period. They are probably moving towards an airline/reservation model where you buy tickets for certain days so that they can individualize the rate you pay for a ticket, more for weekends and busy seasons … then think what you will pay for canceling, they will tier your cancellation fees based on how much notice you give them … see dining cancellation policies.
Jays4wdw
We had a trip with park days October 4, 5, 6 and followed your calendar to visit MK and Epcot on their most recommended days and used the cheat sheets. We were SO THANKFUL we did. Both MK days were party days, so we gave up seeing the night time spectaculars, but it was worth it. We were so ahead of schedule that we actually did everything on BOTH MK cheat sheets on our 1st MK day (except Mine Train because our FP+ was only for our second day). It didn’t “feel” crowded and we stayed until 4:30pm with no frustration at all. I was even more appreciative we followed your advice when my oldest child woke up on our last day with a stomach bug and missed going back to MK. Because our first day went so well, the only thing she missed was Mine Train and eating lunch at BOG.
When I looked at Touring Plans Crowd Tracker for Oct 5, the day we went to Epcot because it was NOT a recommended day on your calendar, they estimated the crowds were a level 10. I was so glad we followed your advice!
All of this begs the question, if Disney instated the FP/FP+ to improve visitor satisfaction and the reality is that lines in general are getting longer, what happens when satisfaction drops because they can no longer get any 4th FP+ or maybe even any FP+ (think Anna and Elsa)? Will there be a FP++? What does that system look like? Do you get on a 10 year wait list for FP+?
I go back to my first point a few commnets back. The same number of people are getting to ride the rides, it is smoke and mirros using FP+ to make you think that in some cases the wait is less. In the end, there is no more capacity, so if a ride runs all day, it will get the same number of riders with or without FP. However, the number of people using FP makes the standby line significantly longer.
Capacity is not actually the same as it was 10 years ago on the same rides. There has actually been a decrease in riders per hour on all attractions over the last decade due to lawyer requirements and unique demands of today’s society per Al Lutz at Mice Age. Though Mice Age is talking about Disneyland the same can be said about WDW. POTC has gone from 2900 per hour down to 2300, Small World from 2300 down to 1800. Disney has not done enough in FL to keep up with demand in the parks. FP+ exacerbates the problem.
Just like Kevin said….
It seems worse to anyone here, anyone who makes a plan/knows what they’re doing
To an awful lot of people who don’t know much about Disney they used to just turn up and queue, those people are having a much better time now they know about FP+
(I’ve got a friend in the UK who visited recently, I was talking to him in the pub and he was shocked when I told him FP was free and available to everyone. He didn’t know and hadn’t used it)
No that is when they start charging you much the way universal does
Speaking as someone who fondly remembers the days of the paper fastpasses, as a lot on here do, I guess I will make these two points. One is that remembering trips back in the 80’s when it was just Epcot and MK, I can remember budgeting almost a full week just for those two parks. We split up both into half days because waiting in line for some rides was hours of your day. Even Epcot was a two day adventure with the front of the park being one day and the back of the park being another. As an 8 year old, I dreaded(!) the full day doing the countries because we saw every square inch of each. And this was pre-Norway the first trip we took. But even if you factor in that being 30 years ago, trips we take now to places other than Disney make you appreciate that while the Fastpass+ system is not perfect, it’s certainly better than having nothing but standby lines. Point two is try taking a trip to an amusement park like Cedar Point. You wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. It’s easily two days just to ride some of the more popular attractions in the middle of the summer. Some of the lines were 2-3 hours for one ride. And that’s with no theming to any of the rides. Just a name and the sun beating off the concrete. So I guess my overall conclusion is that maybe we have all just become a little too impatient and while things are certainly not as good as we recall, they’re not as bad as I remember either.
I agree.
I remember going to theme parks, erm, 30 years ago (blimey!) when things like fastpasses and express passes didn’t exist. And in those days you waited 2 hours for the latest, popular rides and considered that normal. Even old minor rides would have 20+ minute waits. Waiting was all part of the experience. Now, it feels like we consider the parks “busy” when we have to wait 15 minutes for “it’s a small world” or more than 45 minutes for Test Track or 7DMT.
Yes I agree. I remember going in the 80’s and 45-60 min was normal waits, for 20,000 Leagues, Space Mountain, BTM, etc. you just knew you would be in line an hour. When Splash Mountain was new it was minimum 1 hour wait at best. I did not go to Disney from 1994-2014 so I completely missed the Legacy FP system, this seems to be the salad days. But since I have no comparison of this I think the new FP is pretty decent becuase I don’t have to wait an hour for anything. I picked my FPs and anything that was an hour for standby I just did not go on by choice, and I still had a good day.
For example I am going to Epcot next month, and I chose Soarin’ and I am pretty much writing off Fast Track. I am going in with the expectation I will probably not go on it at all, if it works out that I can, great if not, oh well, there is other stuff to do. But I will be doing trips evey year to 2 years so I am not worried about it, I will just go on the rides I missed the next time.
While I hear what you’re saying, just because you waited an eternity in the 80’s and considered it normal, doesn’t mean we should “appreciate” 60+min waits now. I last went with my family in October of 2012, just before FP+ took effect. Three years of letting it settle and reading posts like this, I can’t see how this is in any way better. Is it? I’m asking seriously. I’m not sure what was wrong with legacy Fastpass in the first place?
If September is still the least-crowded time of the year, that’s terrifying. I went the first week of September and was really surprised to see just how busy it was on most days. My girlfriend and I remarked how we wouldn’t want to come during a more crowded time of the year.
Brutal.
I am not sure I understood all this. I’ll look at what I already have planned and see how it matches up. We usually have the international holiday folks during our trips and so maybe that lessens the crush.
one important takeaway is to always follow the EASYWDW recommendations! those differences between recommended and non-recommended days are startling!
Since more people are aware of FP+ I wonder where FP+ utilization will top out. What % of park guests on any given day?
Did Disney learn anything useful they, I think, put Toy Story in FP-only mode a while ago?
We (Planners) used to be able to FP (queue jump) a lot more whilst those not in the know waited in queues
Now everyone is being made more aware and advance booking with a limit of 3 means spreading the “queue jumping” between everyone
YOU might be worse of, there’s plenty that are better off
The only advantage you’ve got now is to follow Josh’s plans of which park to goto on any day – pretty much whichever will have the least relative attendance (IE avoid the 70k people heading to EMH)
“I’ve been to grocery stores that have more rides outside of them than Hollywood Studios does inside of its gates. . . ”
So funny!!! This is why I love this site.
indeed sadly
A bit off topic here but our rude and hostile society has definitely infiltrated the parks. Not disneys fault but I encountered enough of it this last trip to keep me away for a while. It’s not enjoyable for me. I saw the same things on a Disney cruise. People just being just plain rude to staff. The mom behind me with a stroller does not have to run me down when my finger print doesn’t take 1 or 2 times at the turnstile.
I have a Disney buddy who son was run over by a lady pushing a stroller @ tap stiles @ magic kingdom he rushed over to pick his son up & heard this shred of human debris cursing his son & then started in on him . before he could react Disney police & local police officer removed this person from magic kingdom . my god I feel so sorry for the child in that stroller . what must his/ her life be like.
Have to thank you for your recommendations and hard work. We pretty much followed the recommended days on our trip and encountered very few instances of long waits. We went against recommendations one day and could definitely tell a difference. Though we expected it going in as the day was not recommended. Thank you for helping us be prepared!
I’ve read the article twice, and read (all!) of the comments in between. In my second reading of the article, a bit of paranoia began to develop. Here’s my conspiracy theory:
Give it 5 years for AK and DHS to complete their expansions. At that point or soon thereafter, you will see a transformation of FP+ (FP++ if you will). I think you will see better FP’s (more Tier 1) or more FastPasses available to those who stay onsite or those who pay a la Universal.
People who remember the old FastPass system will LOVE the idea. It will be just like the old days. Take my money! But if they had jumped from paper FP to FP++, the same people would have revolted – me being one of them. FP+ with its 45 min waits for Jungle Cruise is just a transitional period. They’ll say they are doing it to improve wait times, but the truth is it’s probably already in the works.
Oh, man. I’m becoming one of *those* people. Where are my aluminum foil Mickey ears?
I have “lurked” on many Disney blogs prepaying for fastpasses would work like this , any guest staying at deluxe resorts would have 1st dibs if you will on fastpasses due to paying $$$$$ upwards of 5 to 6 hundred a nite . just guessing that once all new attractions are built there will be a chance for the rich & famous to take advantage of this. but my last name is not shute.
Hey Josh, wouldn’t it be great if the powers that be at Disney headquarters would take a long hard look at your above charts and stats and realise what an absolute balls up they have made of things. I bet they don’t have to plan out their holidays to the “Nth” degree or tour the parks the way the general public do. They would have VIP front of line privileges so all this is a moot point to them. It will also be interesting to see how your advice of touring Animal Kingdom pans out once Avatarland opens up (whenever that might be). That last little loop hole of being able to ride late in the day will fly right out the window just like the rest of the little tips we savvy tourers use to avail ourselves of to beat the lines. I so want to visit WDW again but I am so concerned about how much of a different experience it is going to be this time. Signed Aussie Visitor Who Spends A Fortune To Get To WDW And Would Love To Get Her Money’s Worth.
Well now I’m depressed.
Josh, thanks so much for this website! We were in MK on Tuesday 10/13 and Thursday 10/15, both party days. We got everything done that we wanted to and then some! Couldn’t believe how low the posted waits were on party days! By lunch time we had gone on 9 rides, seen 5 characters and a show! Rode Barnstormer 3 times and it only took 13 minutes, so we were ahead of schedule! It was an incredible vacation and we can’t wait to go back! Thank you so much!
Hi Josh, Your analyses are extremely informative but also a bit scary at the same time. I am bringing my entire immediate family (now 10 of us) on Veteran’s Day, also a Wednesday and we had planned on being at MK for the EMH. It’s our arrival day so we probably won’t get to MK until 4. I’ve created a touring plan for that day and the wait times for our non-FP+ rides are so low and not reflective of the times noted here for a Wednesday MK non-party day. Because it’s Veteran’s Day, I think the crowds will be even worse than even perhaps the times you’ve posted here. Will you be updating the touring plan model to reflect that the park will more likely be at a 9-10 level as opposed to a 7 level? (Well, I guess I should ask…do you believe it will be more like a 9-10 as opposed to a 7?) I know it’s going to be crowded and I’ll be relying on my touring plan to get us through the crazy. We will be taking advantage of the EMH from 11-1 as well. Thanks, Annie
Annie, it depends on your touring plan. Post it on the forums and ask for feedback. They are super helpful.
We were in Epcot 10/15. Last minute trip (decided the night before to drive up from Sarasota and, gasp, bought 1-day tickets!). I had been an AP holder (from ATL) for 3 years and it expired this summer and have followed Josh’s advice for a few years…but this time, I was one of the un-initiated. Bought a 1-day ticket and had no pre-scheduled FP+, on a night with evening EMH (alas, not for us).
We got to the park at 10 (no RD for us!), got FP+ for Living with the Land, Nemo, and Figment. Nothing available for Soarin’ or TT (party of 3, searched for single FP+, but none to be found).
Decided to go stand-by for Soarin’; posted wait time, 95 minutes (gulp!), actual wait time 67 minutes. Not so bad…
Did TT single-rider line–actual wait time of 18 minutes.
We were back in World Showcase by 2:45 and spent the afternoon/evening doing F&W.
Not sure my point, but can say, you can do most everything (or what you want) at Epcot with minimal planning. Definitely not as efficient as previous visits, but enjoyable none the less.
glad you enjoyed . as you should have been able to do. try that in 2 months though