Understanding ‘Wait Times’ at Walt Disney World?
Wait Times refer to the estimated time a guest will spend waiting in the Standby Lane before boarding a ride or entering an attraction at a Walt Disney World Resort® Theme Park.
These Wait Times are displayed in the My Disney Experience (MDE) app and on boards at the entrance of each attraction. Disney calculates these times based on several factors and updates them regularly.
Given that Walt Disney World has an average of 160,000 visitors per day across its Parks, it is unsurprising that even on a relatively quiet day, Wait Times for popular rides can be well in excess of 60 minutes.
Is there a difference between Posted Versus Actual wait times?
It’s important to understand that posted Wait Times at attractions are not always accurate! Guests may join a line with a posted Wait Time of 55 minutes only to find themselves waiting just 40 minutes. Typically, posted Wait Times are higher than the actual time you will wait.
There are a number of reasons Disney does this:
Firstly, it’s good for guest satisfaction: people are happier when they feel they’ve waited less time than expected.
Secondly, Wait Times can be used as a form of crowd control, with Parks deliberately inflating them to persuade guests to move on to other areas. The most popular rides often have inflated Wait Times to encourage guests to visit less popular or less busy attractions, thus distributing crowds more evenly, and enabling the Park to operate more efficiently. You only need look at how quickly the queue for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom® builds as guests head here when first arriving for Early Entry; Disney uses this technique to discourage more guests from joining. In our Park Guides, we recommend strategies to help you avoid such traps, like telling you which popular rides to go on whilst everyone is busy going nowhere fast in the Seven Dwarfs queue!
Another occasion on which Wait Times can be deliberately inflated is when a ride has experienced downtime, perhaps due to a technical problem or inclement weather conditions. This means there will be a backlog of guests with Lightning Lane passes who need to ride and will be prioritised ahead of the Standby Lane.
Finally, (and this is really important!), inaccurately high Wait Times are used to dissuade guests from joining ride queues when the Park is nearing closing time so that visitors exit more quickly! You only need to look at the sky-high Wait Times of Slinky Dog Dash, Avatar Flight of Passage, or Tron as closing time approaches to see why anyone who doesn’t know about this practice would avoid those rides! In our experience, jumping into the queue for those – or pretty much any of the popular rides – just before the Park closes is a great move! Typically, you will only wait as long as it takes to walk through the empty queue! Rise of the Resistance can be a great option for this hack, provided it hasn’t experienced a breakdown that evening and doesn’t have a backlog of Lightning Lane pass holders waiting to ride.
So, what can you take from this?
- Wait Times are often inflated first thing in the morning when a surge of Early Entry guests head to the same few rides (particularly in Magic Kingdom, which only opens two Lands for Early Entry).
- Wait Times are least accurate and most inflated at the end of the night!
- Wait Times tend to be more accurate during the middle of the day, 10am – 6pm (earlier in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom).
The general consensus is that actual Wait Times average between two-thirds to seventy five percent of the posted Wait Time. This changes if a ride breaks down while you are waiting in line (we’re looking at you, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Rise of the Resistance!), as your Wait Time can substantially increase in such instances.
Talking of breakdowns – which happen more than you might imagine- if a popular attraction is out of action for any length of time it will push guests to other attractions and increase Wait Times. This happened to us several times in Hollywood Studios® when Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was unexpectedly out of action for a whole day.
Can you mitigate against these factors?
Absolutely! Disney hopes you will purchase Lightning Lane Single or Multi Passes to bypass the queues but is that really necessary? They can certainly be helpful in Magic Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios if you visit at busy times of the year, but there are other strategies you can use that will make a big difference and save you money!
All things to take into consideration when planning your WDW trip!
In our Walt Disney World Planning Guides for families from the UK and Ireland, we offer lots of advice and suggest many ways to minimise the time you spend in queues and it’s easy to pick the right Guide for you based on whether or not you are staying in a Disney resort and the age of your children.
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