Actual vs. Posted Wait Times at Disney World
Actual versus posted wait times for rides at Walt Disney World has been a known issue for years. Many fans have reported significant disparities during their days in Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom–and wondering why inaccuracies persist despite this being a known “problem.” (Updated April 25, 2023.)
Let’s start with some background into actual versus posted wait times at Walt Disney World. For starters, this is absolutely nothing new. Walt Disney World has been doing this for as long as I can remember, which is at least the last couple of decades. Anyone who has ever visited the parks and used standby lines to a significant degree for a few days can tell you that posted wait times are higher than actual ones more often than not.
There’s really no debating whether this is happening. The better questions are: why does Walt Disney World inflate posted wait times? and to what extent does Walt Disney World overstate wait times? This post will attempt to answer those questions plus a few others, discussing why Walt Disney World has historically inflated wait times, biggest offenders, and the company’s “buyer beware” warning in Genie+. We’ll also some strategy, tips, and info for using the wait time disparity to your advantage…
There are several reasons why Walt Disney World deliberately inflates wait times. First, it’s good for guest satisfaction–an extension of the ole “underpromise and overdeliver” mantra. It’s surprisingly simple: guests will be happy if they wait less time than is advertised, but unhappy if they wait longer. Since it’s tough to make predictions that are 100% accurate, it’s better to err on the side of inflation.
This kind of consumer manipulation is incredibly common. We’ve often “joked” that Disney follows the Kohl’s school of pricing–the store where everything is always on sale. Although this year has been an odd outlier, Disney never lowers sticker prices, instead offering aggressive and sometimes illusory discounts for their psychological appeal. Free Dining isn’t really free–it comes with an opportunity cost–but nothing sells better than FREE. Similar idea here. People love it when they think they’re coming out ahead.
Second, wait times themselves are a form of crowd control. This is not a big revelation, but some attractions are more popular than others. If you give 100 guests the choice between Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Country Bear Jamboree without any other constraints, 99 of them are going to make the wrong decision and pick the roller coaster.
Sometimes, we all just need a gentle little nudge to do the right thing. That can come in the form of inflated wait times at popular attractions, which push people towards less popular ones. Everyone has a balking point–a wait that is simply too high to justify the time spent waiting in line–even for their favorite rides. Higher wait times on headliners increase utilization of less popular attractions, making the park more efficient and better able to absorb crowds.
Finally, pumped up wait times offer a variety of other operational advantages. One of these is discouraging abuse of DAS, as those who have sufficient knowledge to abuse that system are also likely aware of inflated wait times. (It’s not a perfect solution and there’s an obvious downside, but there is no perfect solution here.)
Another is clearing the park at the end of the night. Our go-to example for this is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which is so consistently inflated that our Ride Guide for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train highly recommends doing that attraction after the fireworks and ignoring the posted wait time. This is consistently and predictably overstated, and that’s entirely by design. It’s to discourage guests from jumping in line at the end of the night so Magic Kingdom can be cleared quicker.
To that point, we’ve found that wait times are least accurate and most inflated at the end of the night. This is particularly true among headliners in any of the 4 theme parks. Usually, the more popular the attraction, the more the wait time is inflated. Prime examples here are (again) Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and Test Track.
Oh, and literally every single attraction in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. Those parks are home to some of the biggest offenders, with Slinky Dog Dash, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run, Avatar Flight of Passage, and Na’vi River Journey being among the worst. Na’vi River Journey is probably the biggest red flag, as we had countless experiences with it having a posted wait time of 50-75 minutes and an actual wait time of 15 minutes or less.
Another specific example is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which is often way off. That’s not listed above because it’s frequently inaccurate in both directions. We’ve had actual waits that are less than half the posted time (quite often, in fact) but also actual waits that are nearly double the posted wait time.
The wild fluctuations with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance are because the attraction is prone to breakdowns and delays, so the company is building in a buffer. If you get lucky and it’s not having any issues on the day of your visit, that 75 minute posted wait time at 7:45 pm might be an actual wait time of 20 minutes. By contrast, if it’s been up-and-down all day and there’s a backlog of Lightning Lane guests, it might be an actual wait of 70-80 minutes. Worse yet, it could break down while you’re in line and end up being a triple-digit wait.
At the other end of the operating day is the morning, which also can be inaccurate. Since the debut of Early Entry and Lightning Lanes, we’re finding that wait times are typically abnormally inflated during the first 60-90 minutes of the day (including Early Entry) before settling into normal patterns. They’re still inflated, to be sure, but not as bad as at the beginning of the day or end of the evening.
Then there’s the heart of the day, from about 10 am until 6 pm (or around 4 pm at both DHS and Animal Kingdom). That’s when wait times have the lowest amount of inflation. Again, they’re still usually overstated, but not to the extreme degrees as earlier and later in the day.
Turning back to attractions, other big offenders are actually the least popular attractions. At least, in percentage terms.
The reason for this is actually quite simple–it’s because the least popular attractions often have minimal waits or are walk-ons, making just about any posted wait time inflated by a significant degree. For example, if the posted wait time for Journey into Imagination is 15 minutes, but the actual wait time is however long it takes to walk through an empty queue (3-4 minutes), the posted wait time is 5 times the actual wait.
On paper, that’s really bad. It’s objectively worse than the aforementioned headliners in pure percentage terms. However, subjectively or as a matter of perception, that’s probably not the case. Most reasonable guests–and especially seasoned Walt Disney World visitors–view 15 minutes or less as shorthand for “basically no wait.” So it thus comes as little surprise that the actual wait time is essentially nothing. It would come as a bigger shock to see a 5-15 minute posted wait time and actually wait 20 minutes.
Over the course of the last 2 years, our experience across all of Walt Disney World has been that actual wait times average about two-thirds to 75% of posted wait times most of the day. That drops to around 50% at night, if not lower. These are averages; we’ve waited significantly less and even sometimes more than posted wait times, too.
Moreover, this is entirely anecdotal and based on our first-hand experiences, but they’re pretty extensive at this point. We’d love to hear generalizations from other regular Walt Disney World visitors about posted v. actual wait times in the 2 years and beyond in the comments.
This background info is just good knowledge to have that can help you plan and build itineraries. It should also illustrate how inflated posted wait times are actually mutually beneficial for the company and guests. Well, at least they are to anyone who is aware that posted wait times are exaggerated (and who doesn’t use DAS).
This is knowledge you can leverage to your strategic advantage–see the above Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at park closing, for example. We mention this because in the last few weeks we’ve received a ton of reader complaints about inflated posted wait times. It’s not uncommon to get comments about these, but usually it’s in a matter-of-fact or even positive way. More recently, it’s been cynical and negative.
Lightning Lanes have added a new wrinkle to this conversation about posted v. actual wait times at Walt Disney World. (As always, if you’re new to paid FastPass, start by reading our Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ.) After all, if guests are paying for Genie+ or ILL to skip a line, don’t they deserve to know how long that wait actually is?
The perspective among some fans has been that Walt Disney World just started inflating wait times with Genie+ to encourage guests to buy that and Individual Lightning Lanes. People have indicated they’d be mad if they paid to skip the line and then found out the actual wait time was half what was posted. Others have questioned whether Disney had a duty to eliminate inflated wait times or risk claims of fraud, consumer deception, false advertising, etc.
I understand that many of you hate Genie+ and Lightning Lanes–going from free to paid FastPass sucks. But it’s enough to dislike it on principle, and not try and concoct other reasons to loathe Lightning Lanes. There’s no need to pile on, I promise. Especially in the case of posted v. actual wait times where it sorta feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Nevertheless, it would seem that Walt Disney World has heard this complaint, as the following is included in the terms & conditions of Genie+ that guests can read before buying:
Of course, no one is going to actually read all of this legalese besides bloggers and other dorks. (No offense, my fellow dorks.) That’s exactly the point, and arguably the goal of “effective” terms & conditions–bog them down with boring boilerplate language and make them tedious to read…so no one does!
This should answer the questions about Walt Disney World’s intentions to continue inflating wait times. Quite simply, the practice is too important operationally and integral to guest satisfaction to stop doing it now. The increased transparency to prospective buyers of Genie+ doesn’t move the needle. And frankly, it shouldn’t.
Ultimately, this is simply CYA language from Disney and is not intended to be brought to the attention of average guests. There’s really no need to do so, since the majority of people purchasing Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lanes will never have any clue as to the posted wait time that they bypassed. The whole goal in buying is to save time; people aren’t going to undercut that by standing outside the ride exit and polling others as they leave about how long they waited.
Overanalyzing the differences between actual and posted wait times is solely the domain of dorks on the internet. Regular park guests do not care beyond the happiness in saving time, whether that result from spending money to bypass the line or “beating” the system by not splurging and still not waiting as long as advertised. On the plus side, us dorks have a strategic advantage in understanding how all of this actually works, leveraging it to our advantage, and continuing to visit Walt Disney World more efficiently. Let’s not get too vocally negative about a practice that benefits us, capisce?
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Walt Disney World’s practice of inflating wait times? Think they should be more accurate to actual waits, or do you understand the rationales for inflating them–and appreciate the strategic advantage it confers on knowledgeable guests? What has been your experience with actual v. posted wait times at Walt Disney World? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
This post of yours is very accurate. I certainly understand the rational behind wdw inflating the wait times & yes I have experienced just that in September 2020. Actual wait times for most if not all attractions I went on were over inflated by as much as 50%! As for genie + – I do question if the wait times are inflated to entice guests to spend even more $ to assure efficient attraction availability. Unfortunately I like perhaps many others have had to make the decision to book a shorter stay due to all of the rising costs of such a trip. With a shorter visit to wdw I am admittedly concerned about being able to enjoy my favorite attractions in the time alloted to my stay. So, yes – I will probably buy genie+ & AL a carte tickets for myself & my family on my next upcoming visit. I read your blog & am grateful for your tips on how to avoid this extra cost but do I want to take the chance of skipping an attraction because the wait is too long & I can’t stand for an extended period of time ? I am a senior & do not consider myself disabled but with age comes more aches & pains. So – I get what disney is doing. I don’t appreciate it nor do I think all the extra fees are necessary but time is precious in more ways than one. To us our time for some enjoyment is limited. To disney – selling time is money in their pockets.
(No offense, my fellow dorks.) BAHAHA! You know your regular readers well. Great article, thank you.
AT what capacity is the Magic Kingdom open? When I called to ask, the cast member didn’t know. Aplso, when will you update your two day magic kingdom plan. I;m thinking things are much different today than in March. Thank you so much. I have really enjoyed your blog and have learned a lot about planning my trip.
Terressa Ree
@Mickey1928 I have to say I love reading through the comments–as much as Tom’s articles–and especially appreciate your personality/sense of humor that always shines through your writing. The comments, particularly from regular readers, are such a complement to the blog!
We paid for the subscription app for the first time this past summer. Wait times were not as high as Disney said, but they also were not anywhere near as low as what the subscription app said. When someone in your party CANNOT handle the longer wait (my youngest needs DAS, but with long DAS return times this summer, we used the TP to try to ride a few things in between), it’s better not to get in line at all than get in and wait longer than you expected. So we’re pretty much the perfect candidate for paying extra for a lightning lane (though the 3 advance reservations for DAS should be a huge help next time we visit).
I have no problem with Disney selling a short wait and inflating the standby wait times–so long as the lightning lane is in fact a guaranteed short wait. I’d rather have a guaranteed short wait than an unknown one. What I won’t put up with is if Disney sells me a lightning lane and they oversell it or give too many recovery passes and I end up waiting 30+ minutes in the lightning lane. That’s something we experienced at universal with their Express Pass from staying at a Premier hotel, and it really soured the experience, especially one time when we waited 45 minutes for the Hogwarts Express in the express line, only to be seated with a couple on the train that said they only waited 10 minutes in the regular line. If that happens at Disney with their paid attractions, I will be at guest services asking for a refund.
Of all the current complaints about Genie+, it’s funny that THAT is the one they chose to address. (That said, I’m actually a proponent of the system and am likely to use it for my double-park days when bringing friends.)
One thing I can’t wrap my mind around that you said…is that inflating times helps to prevent DAS abuse. It seems to me like it should go the other way: that someone thinking of abusing DAS would be more likely to do so if the lines are all long, even if they know they’re inflated. After all, it’s the *appearance* of skipping a heavy line that is satisfying to that sort of individual…
I 100% agree with you that we don’t need to complain about wait time inflation if it means getting shorter lines than promised, but I 100% disagree that guest satisfaction is part of the calculation. Disney’s just making too many decisions right now that prioritizes a giant list of other things over guest satisfaction. Sure, I’m extra grumpy with them right now because I was part of the crowd that woke up at 5:30 a.m. for the candlelight processional dining packages only to experience over an hour of system glitches before they sold out, but that is also the kind of problem that happens often and makes the rounds in the loudest corners of the Internet. Disney has yet to show concern about that, and I don’t think they’d really show concern if we were all complaining that lines are longer than promised.
With that said, my experience has been more ride-specific. Take Frozen vs. Pirates with a 45 minute wait. Two dark boat rides that I absolutely love. I jump right in that line for Pirates knowing that I’m most likely waiting 20 minutes tops (at the beginning of October it said 35 minutes for a walk-on). With Frozen, I’ve found the wait to be close to what’s posted, a couple times even down to the minute (which I was honestly impressed with). I kind of have a running list in my head at this point of which attractions I believe when I see a Disney wait time, and which ones I basically cut in half or whatever.
Also, I’m sure you saw this and I don’t know if the account owner is trustworthy, but there has been a Twitter dude tracking inflation since Genie+. So far (and knowing there’s only one week of data right now), he’s found that Genie+ rides have actually been more accurate than pre-Genie, but ILL$ rides have had higher inflation. At a week, it’s too early to jump to conclusions, but I do find his work interesting.
Making decisions that are likely to hurt guest satisfaction definitely happens, as do various drop day and IT blunders.
However, that doesn’t mean Walt Disney World has stopped caring about guest satisfaction. (To the contrary, there are still some in the company who obsess over it.) Ultimately, it’s a huge organization run by people. As with any company of its size, you’ll find that some of them care and some do not. While their hands are frequently tied by higher level decision-makers, I can assure you that Walt Disney World still has a lot of people in relatively powerful positions that care a lot. They may not always get their way, but they influence and shape actions.
Yes it is touring plans….i wasnt sure if i should share on this website or not but i had a feeling you and Len were probably buddies
Does the touring plans subscription cover Disneyland?
Drew,
Thanks for sharing the article. One problem with it. Poughkeepsie which is about 50 minutes (or 70 minutes in WDW time) North east of me still hasn’t recovered from the 1970’s inflation when Popeye Doyle last visited. He should have checked the expiration dates on the warm milk.
I believe in inflating the wait times. It’s like Scotty told Geordi Le Forge that if you can fix something in 10 minutes tell the captain you need 25 and they’ll think you’re a genius.
It’s my experience too that wait times are shorter by about 10 to 20 minutes . They are only longer when the ride is halted for some reason. Like having to pry someone out of their seat on Rock n roller coaster. Not that I have any personal knowledge about that.
I think if they tried to be precise it would be a disaster because more often than not the wait would be longer and never shorter.
I do hope Disney doesn’t inflate them more than they have been in order to sell line skipping devices. Of course if they try that at least we Dork and Dorkettes have our fearless Commandork to keep us ahead of the game.
I suspect ILL will expand to 3 rides in 2022.
I also believe inflation drops the number of visitors to the point that Disney offers some good deals in which case I could see genie + offered up as part of a package.
Personally I’m going standby and hoping these new options fail big time.
Inflation of wait times in the evening can also be due to staffing. When I was cast member in California we often had fewer staff at the end of the day, so the position on the ride left empty was the “greeter”. For the attractions that I worked on, the “greeter” was the person who adjusted the wait times for the que. So while the higher wait time does keep some from jumping in the line and allows cast members to leave work closer to their designated shift end time, sometimes the reason behind it is simply staffing shortage.
To Kevin,
Disney does have a way to track time in line. Or at least they used to use this method but I haven’t seen it being used lately. They would give a guest a lanyard to hold onto until you got to the cast member when you actually got on the ride. The cast member that gave you the lanyard would note the time & then when handed off to the 2nd cast member, they would call the time to the 1st cast member & change the time on the wait time sign accordingly. This actually worked really well & wait times were pretty accurate. But since COVID I think they stopped doing it. Neat little system they had going.
There were problems with the FLIK card system, too. For one thing, it measured what wait times were X minutes ago, rather than what they are for someone who jumps in line now. There was also purposeful manipulation, just like now.
I’d generally agree, though, that wait times are now less accurate than they were a few years ago.
The wdw employees told us they purposely inflate wait times to send people out to other rides. This is why I be an app that reports actual times instead of my Disney experience. Jungle ride reported a couple of weeks ago 70 minutes but was actually 25.
How do you keep track of your day when you’re in the park? I’m amazed that you know what time you got in line, what time you got on an attraction, and when you exited the attraction all day whey you’re testing strategy. Pen and paper? screen shots? an app?
I use the notes app in my phone.
Sometimes I can’t understand my abbreviations, autocorrect screws things up, or I forget to include something important, forcing my to reverse-engineer times based on photos and screenshots. If you’ve ever wondered why sometimes my numbers are incredibly precise and other times it’s “around” or “roughly” X minutes actual wait, that would be why.
My experience matches your own – usually slightly inflated wait times (but often accurate and some time under), with end-of-the-night being really inaccurate. If only they had some kind of way of tracking how long it took someone to stand inline. Like many the guest would agree to wear an RFID-enabled bracelet that would allow Disney to measure the actual time spent in line…
LOL.
I think Disney’s use of high-tech and low-tech solutions would surprise a lot of people, probably and good and bad ways. (Although perhaps not, as the same thing plays out regularly with consumer-facing websites and apps.)
At the end of the night, they clearly inflate wait times intentionally. For the rest of the day, I really don’t believe it’s intentional other than erring on the side of caution.
Getting back to guest satisfaction — Yes, it will increase guest satisfaction if the wait time is posted as 30 minutes, and the guest pleasantly only waits 20 minutes.
But if you were to massively over-inflate everything, you’ll drive down guest satisfaction. You’ll have guests throw up their hands in frustration, “I left the park early because everything had a 50 minute posted wait!”
So it’s really in Disney’s best interest to be fairly accurate, erring on the side of caution. (at the end of the night is a different story, where it’s in Disney’s interest to clear the park. They don’t care if high wait times scare off guests).
And if they were really over-inflating times just as a sales technique, when we wouldn’t see Expedition Everest continuously posting wait times under 15 minutes.
Of course, there is the added wrinkle that Genie+ can make wait times even less predictable. This will improve with data collection, but you can get a sudden surge of LL users, which will extend the standby wait. That’s the thing with a line cutting system — Wait gets longer, as more people cut the line. While Disney knows how many LL passes were given for a particular hour, they can’t always predict when within the hour they will be redeemed.
Agree with all of that.
I’d add to your last point that standby inaccuracies (or “pace of movement”) will be exacerbated following ride downtime. People might think it’s smart to jump into the standby line right when an attraction returns from being down, only to come to the painful realization that the backlog of Genie+ reservations is being “processed” ahead of them.
Mike, what is the paid service you’re referencing?
Presumably, TouringPlans: https://touringplans.com/
This is at best tangentially related, but this article from today, https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/26/1048892388/meet-skimpflation-a-reason-inflation-is-worse-than-the-government-says-it-is, is a quick read, and referenced the trams at Disneyland as an example. Seemed timely. Figured you could use a fun portmanteau when discussing cost cutting in future articles :-).
Thanks for sharing–that’s a great read.
This has been particularly pronounced in the hospitality sector, and I think probably has a couple of causes–labor/supply chain shortages and opportunism in knowing that there’s pent-up demand after people have been stuck at home for so long. While current inflation itself clearly isn’t entirely transitory, both of those things probably are. That makes a temporary “skimp” more desirable to the companies than a long-term solution (raising prices or wages significantly) to a short-term problem.
Why are we more concerned about inflated wait times.How about Disney charging families more money for fast passes(genie) that we’re free as part of your Disney ticket. I remembered when I purchased hopper passes for January ask about the fast pass stoppage because of COVID Disney Guess service said once the COVID crisis in check most likely will resume normal fast passes with Disney ticket.Then Disney turned a COVID situation to making $$$ and charging poor families more money for the Genie(fast pass) that was free before. First no transportation as on Jan 1 no free fast passes what next terrible public relations.
Ive always recognized it as “normal business operations” and why I pay for a service (that Im sure you are familiar with) to get actual real wait times that I help contribute to by putting my real times in the app when i’m in the park
No problem with the inflated wite times, HUGE problem with paid GENIE+ and ILL$