WDW 2018 increasing waits trend?

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Alien

I listened to Len Testa interview this morning regarding recent wait time. The wait times this January and February were higher than any week last year including summer months or Easter.

See more...

One wonders how Len measures his wait times (not via the Lines app anyway ).

Here are the relative wait times (scaled 1 to 10) for Magic Kingdom this February:

And here are the relative wait times for April 2017:

Now, admittedly, February does look busy and the end of April does look quieter than February just gone. But the week before Easter was generally busier than Feb (9 out of 10 on four days before Easter compared to 7 out of 10 for the busy days in Feb).

Still, the fact that February looks almost as busy as early April is a bit surprising. I don't think it's just increased crowds - the crowds don't increase by such huge numbers from one year to the next. There's a gradual increase from year to year but it won't suddenly make queues for this Jan/Feb twice as long as queues were last Jan/Feb.

It's fairly well known that Disney operates it's rides below capacity during expected "quieter" times. Not only does it save on energy costs, it also means less CMs are required to assist in loading the rides. Which, in turn, makes it more profitable for Disney. This is nothing new. It makes business sense to run the rides at less capacity during quieter times - even if we don't like it if we visit then. Overall, I think the reduced capacity has a higher impact on wait times.

The best indicator of how many guests are in the parks at various times of the year is not wait times but the seasonal pricing of the 1-day tickets. On a Value day there is expected to be less than the average number of people in the park and the tickets for that day will therefore be cheaper to attract more guests. Whereas on a Peak day the opposite is true and tickets are more expensive to 'discourage' guests. The last 3 weeks in Jan and most of Feb (not including the time around Presidents Day) are not considered Peak season by Disney - and Disney know best how many people are in the parks.

[tracey1302]

It is a lot busier these days. I was quite surprised at the jump in crowds between 2014 and 2017... that said we did visit during Memorial Week during 2017... Still managed to get everything done though...

[MinniMouse]

Originally Posted by Alien

I listened to Len Testa interview this morning regarding recent wait time. The wait times this January and February were higher than any week last year including summer months or Easter. On further investigation he suggest that WDW have instruction to cut operations costs this year and the increased waits relate to decrease capacity of rides during what was historically quiet time.

bit of a downer, right? We pay more to wait more?

any feedback from this January and February

See more...

See this makes sense to me. We have been 4 times December/January and once the crowds leave - usually immediately after New Year, we have found the parks to be quieter (apart from Disney on the Marathon weekend) but the waits are as long if not longer. Not for the ones like Philharmagic, Shrek etc. I mean the ones with more than one track. We have noticed this on The Mummy, Big Thunder Mountain RR and others.

[penguin19]

We were there 10th - 17th February and it was the businest I have ever seen it.

We've been May x2. August x 2 and October.

We had a good plan so it didn't phase us too much.. I think our longest Q was it's a small world where we waited 25 mins... 🤣

[Moorlandman]

Universal we’re doing this last August with less trains used on the Hulk and Rip Ride Rocket.

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

One wonders how Len measures his wait times (not via the Lines app anyway ).

See more...

He addresses same in detail in the interivew

Collecting data from WDW app, he also said he have good official and unofficial connection with WDW data science teams
He has staff to check waiting times in the park and compare to official posted time. That's what they do all day - what awesome job
And also he had people counting how many exit specific attraction per hour so he can verify reduction in capacity
Lines app as well
He also has team of statisticians working on this full time

Josh have posted some data (easywdw) re waits
"Animal Kingdom wait times are up more than 70% in the last four years. Epcot’s wait times are virtually flat over the same period, up just over 5%. And Studios’ wait times are up 33.7%. "
he has not posted on MK yet.

[holidayrep]

Here at the moment.

It is very busy but it just has to be expected now. Also I think fastpass plus pushes people onto rides that didn’t have waits before as people don’t have much choice is say choosing on the day.

I don’t mind too much but I’m lucky to come here quite a bit so I am happy to skip rides.

[adamtoonarmy]

I listened to the Len Testa interview too. I listen to lots of his stuff and find he is very engaging and interesting to listen to.

The way he explained the capacity reduction made complete sense to me and I for one believe him.

If anyone is interested in finding out more then I would encourage them to listen to the interview and the related WDW discussion from the Disunplugged team. Both are available for free on the Disunplugged itunes and youtube feeds.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Alien

He addresses same in detail in the interivew

See more...

My comment related to another thread where I pointed out that TP uses very few wait time submissions from people in the park and/or from the Lines app. There's typically only 1 wait time submitted per attraction per day from people in the park - 99% of the data used by TP is from Disney's posted wait times.

BTW, I'm not disagreeing with what Len has said (well, except the statement that wait times in Jan/Feb have been higher than the week before Easter. The data disagrees with that statement). As I said above, I agree with him about Jan/Feb being busier than expected and that it was probably due to reduced ride capacity. Len is an expert on Disney and knows his stuff.

As for increased numbers of people visiting... Yes, more people are visiting the parks. But that would increase wait times across the year and not explain why Jan/Feb specifically is significantly busier. Either something has to be attracting more people in Jan/Feb than any other time (I can't think of anything), or Disney is doing something to make wait times longer (i.e. reducing ride capacity because it's typically a quieter period).

Of course, this just goes to show that wait times are not necessarily a good measure of how crowded a park is.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Alien

Josh have posted some data (easywdw) re waits
"Animal Kingdom wait times are up more than 70% in the last four years. Epcot’s wait times are virtually flat over the same period, up just over 5%. And Studios’ wait times are up 33.7%. "
he has not posted on MK yet.

See more...

The above has nothing to do with the original post which was about Jan/Feb being busier than any other time in the last 12 months.

However, what the above shows is that it's not just increased numbers of visitors that impacts on wait times. For example, Epcot's slight increase in wait times over the last 4 years probably correlates with the rise in visitor numbers whereas most of the increase at Hollywood Studios over the same period is likely due to the reduction in the number of rides - a similar number of people are now going on almost half as many rides.