Every ride at Walt Disney World posts an estimated wait time for its queue. Most guests take a glance at that number and base their next choice off how large it is. If it’s pleasantly small they’ll hop in line, but when that number creeps too high they tend to move on. While wait times are certainly a valuable bit of information, it’s important to understand that they’re only a guess based on an imperfect system. There are several factors that can cause your actual wait to differ from what’s posted outside.
1. The imperfect flick card system
Wait time flick card
Image: David, Flickr (license)
Wait times for most Disney rides are calculated using flick cards. These small cards are about the size of a credit card, and hang from a black lanyard. Every 10 to 20 minutes, a box near the attraction entrance starts beeping. The Cast Member at the entrance swipes the flick card across the surface of the box and hands the card to the next guest to enter the queue.
Guests with a flick card are instructed to hand it to the person at the end of the line. In a perfect system, the guests proceeds through the queue in an orderly fashion and hands it to the last Cast Member before they board the ride. That Cast Member promptly scans the flick card on a corresponding box at the end of the queue, and the wait time is calculated accordingly.
As you’ve probably ascertained already, the flick card system is fraught with flaws. The guest who receives the card may take his time meandering through the queue, particularly if it’s interactive like the queues for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. In some cases, the guest may forget to hand the card off entirely, or he may run back and hand it to a Cast Member after he’s been queued up for his car for a few minutes.
The Cast Member who receives the flick card isn’t flawless, either. If she’s talking to another guest out of reach of the box, she won’t be able to scan it until she’s resolved the current guest issue. Cast Members always have another job to do that’s more important than scanning that card. Since there’s no incessant beeping happening at the end of the line, it’s easier to forget about the card if things are hectic.
2. Finding the end of the line
When you look at the wait time for an attraction, you probably have a particular point in mind where you feel that the wait has ended. However, this isn’t always a clear-cut location, and you may feel that the end of the line comes much sooner than the official end point being used for posted wait times.
For example, the flick cards at the Haunted Mansion are scanned after you’re settled into a doom buggy. However, as a guest you may feel that the wait is finally over when you step into the doors, or begin to experience the pre-show in the stretch room.
3. Unpredictable FastPass flow
FastPass distribution is designed to provide a steady flow of guests through this line. A limited number of FastPass+ reservations are available for each time slot so it should be impossible for a long line to accumulate here. While guests typically filter in steadily throughout the allotted window, there’s no guarantee that they won’t come in a rush.
FastPass guests get priority seating, but increased guest flow can temporarily slow down both lines. Though groupers will typically clear the backup quickly, you can’t see the bigger picture as a guest. If you’re one of the few slowed down by five or ten minutes, you’ll only notice the added time as it applies to your personal experience.
4. Speeding up the ride slows things down
If the line gets too long, one of the most efficient ways to speed things up is to add another vehicle. On attractions where this requires physically placing another boat or car on the track, adding a vehicle is no small task. You may need to connect with someone in maintenance to prepare another vehicle in the bay. The other vehicles have to temporarily stop to allow the new one to come in. It needs to cycle through empty once and go through a quick Cast inspection before it’s loaded with guests.
The process of adding a new vehicle will slow down the attraction temporarily, though it speeds things up quickly once the vehicle is loaded and successfully added to the rotation. Wait times aren’t adjusted often enough to account for the temporary slow-down, so you may notice a longer wait if you happen to be at the head of the queue while a new vehicle is coming on.
5. Unexpected guest issues
Guest issues are one of the most unpredictable parts of managing a theme park attraction. You can create a precise algorithm for determining wait times, but it’s impossible to know when issues will pop up.
If a guest tells the grouper they have four people in their party, but proceeds to pull seven people along with them into their row, the grouper will have to back up and resolve the issue. If a child happens to sneak past the first height sign and must be measured further in the queue, this will slow down the flow as well. Omnimovers like The Seas with Nemo & Friends have to slow temporarily to accommodate guests transferring from wheelchairs.
Most guest issues slow the wait time for only a few minutes, but if these issues happen to pile up in a short amount of time, it can make for a noticeably longer wait for those who happen to get caught behind the excitement.
The bottom line
Flick cards provide a base line for estimating wait times, and in most cases the system is designed to round up. Posted wait times are usually longer than what you’ll actually experience. This helps to account for the unexpected issues mentioned above. If you’re caught behind something that slows the line down, you may not even notice because the wait time was high to account for such instances. If things are rolling along smoothly when you hop in line, you may find that your wait time is shorter than what you were quoted at the entrance.
In the end, all wait times are educated guesses. However, taking a broader look at how they’re calculated and what can change them will help you understand what to expect the next time you hop in a queue.
