Do you love to wait in line? If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Whether you know it or not, there’s one number that will make or break your day at any Disney Park: capacity. Tens of thousands of people visit each Disney Park, every day… and at some point, it will feel like most of them are in line ahead of you. That’s when capacity matters most. Late last year, we took a must-read look at Disney attractions with OUTRAGEOUSLY high capacity – “people-eaters” that can handle massive crowds with ease. Now, let’s take a look at the other side of the coin…
Naturally, Disney Parks are full of low-capacity attractions and experiences that can’t handle more than a few hundred guests per hour and thus don’t try to. Rather than listing all of those, we’ve chosen 10 headlining or essential attractions that have capacities lower than you might expect… These 10 rides and attractions command big attention, but with relatively small throughput to back it up. Given that these attractions overlap in the Venn diagrams of “low capacity” and “high desirability,” they often end up with long lines… So perhaps the best test of an attraction’s draw is to ask: which of these are worth the inevitable waits to experience?
What does it mean?
Image: Disney
A ride’s theoretical hourly capacity is a simple mathematical measure (often supplied by a ride’s manufacturer) of how many guests can experience a ride every hour “in theory.” If a ride vehicle can hold 4 guests and dispatch every 10 seconds, that’s 24 guests per minute, or 1440 per hour. In other words, theoretical hourly capacity would require a friction-free machine with every logistical and operational variable working at its peak.
That’s why a smaller operational hourly capacity accounts for the sheer realities of operating attractions (like vehicles that are dispatched with an empty seat or two, loading taking even just a few seconds longer than expected, etc.). Operational hourly capacities take those inevitable interruptions into consideration to produce a more reasonable, realistic number of guests who you’d expect to experience the ride in an hour.
So how do these numbers play out in practice? Here are 10 surprisingly low-capacity signature rides at Disney Parks…
10. AVATAR Flight of Passage
Image: Disney / Lightstorm Entertainment
Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Theoretical: 1600 pph
Operational: 1440 pph
It’s no surprise that some Disney fans call AVATAR Flight of Passage the best modern ride on the planet… The sweeping, moving, emotionally captivating attraction sends guests soaring across the floating mountains of the distant moon of Pandora. A breathless and beautiful thrill, the ride easily rose to the top of our countdown of the best Disney “mountains”, and it featured prominently in our in-depth look at the Rise of Simulators in theme parks.
There’s just one thing most guests don’t like about Flight of Passage: its capacity. With a realistic operational capacity of 1440 people per hour, Flight of Passage’s throughput is nothing to sneeze at… but it’s also not great for the anchor attraction inside the headlining new land at one of the most-visited theme parks in the world. Even before its opening, fans criticized Disney for opting to not increase the ride’s capacity (even though it already features four theaters that operate independently). What’s worse, insiders allege that the ride system itself is prone to breakdowns, with an overheated theater instantly reducing the hourly capacity to barely over 1000 riders.
So next time you see the E-Ticket’s queue stretch to two, three, or four hours, remember this: it’s not just that Flight of Passage may be the most in-demand attraction at Walt Disney World; it’s also got a surprisingly mediocre capacity – perhaps a fair trade-off for such an exhilerating experience.
9. Na’vi River Journey
Image: Disney
Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Theoretical: 1440 pph
Operational: 1080 pph
That brings us to the other in-demand attraction in Pandora – The World of AVATAR. Despite the obvious E-Ticket splendor of Flight of Passage, it’s actually the land’s secondary attraction – Na’vi River Journey – that really got fans talking. After all, when’s the last time Disney opened an original, tranquil, boat-based dark ride? Imagineering fans were intrigued by the idea of the plotless trip through the bioluminescent jungles of Pandora, promising encounters with the moon’s exotic plants and animals.
Ultimately, most guests tend to agree that Na’vi River Journey could probably have stood to double its four-minute ride time, given that just as the attraction reaches its peak, guests hit the unload. Even if the stirring, musical journey doesn’t quite hit “Modern Marvel” standard, it’s still a wonderful addition to the resort, a boon for Imagineering, and a much-needed ride for Disney’s Animal Kingdom (which, until the opening of Pandora, had only one dark ride – the terrifying Modern Marvel: DINOSAUR).
8. TEST TRACK
Image: Disney
Location: Epcot
Theoretical: 1200 pph
Operational: 1080 pph
TEST TRACK may very well be the ride that changed everything at Epcot. Replacing the intellectual and industrious Lost Legend: World of Motion, the original version of the ride – itself a Lost Legend: TEST TRACK – put guests through the paces, taking on the role of test dummies in a General Motors vehicle test facility. The attraction was meant to help guests appreciate GM’s real safety features (like antilock breaks, weatherproofing, and crash testing) by letting guests experience them first-hand.
Though it’s been completely overhauled into a digital, TRON-esque aesthetic and an emphasis on the engineering design process, TEST TRACK still uses the first generation of Disney’s high-speed, slot-car ride system (used once more in California’s Modern Marvel: Radiator Springs Racers). One culprit for the ride’s lower-than-liked capacity? Its six-person vehicles. While they do resemble real cars in their “two rows of three” setup, the design doesn’t account for the fact that guests rarely come to the parks in odd-numbered groups like three or six. While a Single Rider line helps keep vehicles dispatched full, the unusual set-up and the physical infrastructure of the ride system keep TEST TRACK from ranking among Disney’s high capacity rides.
Now, we’re leaving the “mediocre capacity” category and are heading into attractions whose throughput is significantly low for being in a top 10 park… Read on…
7. Frozen Ever After
Image: Disney
Location: Epcot
Theoretical: 1000 pph
Operational: 900 pph
When Disney announced that the long-sailing EPCOT Center original Lost Legend: Maelstrom would take its final voyages in 2014, fans knew there could only have been one reason… Many Imagineering fans have a frosty relationship with the 2013 film Frozen thanks in part to what felt like a rapid oversaturization of the fairy tale film in the years following its release. The fact that the fictional world of Arendelle would overtake a part of the very real Norway pavilion at Epcot meant that cartoon characters had officially breached World Showcase, and that there was no going back.
Perhaps tempers cooled a bit when the final product was revealed. The subject of its own in-depth Modern Marvels: Frozen Ever After feature, even naysayers have to admit that the dark ride is surprisingly astounding. En route to Elsa’s ice palace, the ride sails through gorgeous, totally-transformed scenes as riders hear familiar, re-worked songs in this quasi-sequel to the film.
One thing the reimagined ride could not overcome were the limitations placed on it by way of simply reusing Maelstrom’s infrastructure and ride system. On Maelstrom, a 4-minute ride time was acceptable… but that same ride time on the end of a multi-hour wait for Frozen Ever Ever feels brisk. Those multi-hour waits are caused by the re-use of Maelstrom’s ride system (including its Viking longboat vehicles) which, of course, isn’t really meant to be used as the backbone of a headlining attraction.
6. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland
Theoretical: 900 pph
Operational: 800 pph
Forget the Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, or Haunted Mansion… Dumbo the Flying Elephant may be one of the most legendary and instantly-recognizable rides at Disney Parks. The simple circus spinner just seats pairs of guests in flying elephants where joysticks control the elephants’ height as they circle a center post. Of course, each subsequent refurbishment of the ride has added increasingly more elaborate decorations, but at its core Dumbo is what it is… a simple carnival ride. And it carries a pitifully low capacity to prove it.
If Dumbo can realistically accomodate 800 people per hour, then in a 15-hour operating day only about 12,000 riders – 25% of Disneyland’s average daily attendance! – can take the flight.
Which is precisely why when Disney designed the elaborate New Fantasyland for Magic Kingdom, they purposefully doubled Dumbo. Now, two mirrored spinners are placed before a big top tent and circus playground which serves as a virtual queue for waiting riders. The simple doubling of the spinner means that Florida’s Dumbo can actually process 1600 guests per hour – more guests in an hour than Flight of Passage (Cue our jaws dropping)!
5. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland
Theoretical: 900 pph
Operational: 800 pph
When Walt Disney debuted the Submarine Voyage in 1959, he loved the attraction so much, he created the new “E-Ticket” designation, meaning it required the most expensive ride coupon to experience. The journey sent guests through “liquid space” aboard lumbering, 38-person submarines – perfect for Tomorrowland given that submarines were as cutting-edge as spacecrafts at the time. The underwater dark ride was even spectacular enough to be included in the new Magic Kingdom park, albeit remade into a Jules Verne inspired version placed in Fantasyland – the Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
In the 1990s, cost-cutting closed both versions of the seafaring ride. Why? The subs took up a massive amount of space, were wildly expensive to operate and difficult to load, and had a relatively low capacity for two of the highest-attended theme parks on Earth. Magic Kingdom’s lagoon was eventually filled and today, almost all of New Fantasyland resides on the massive plot of land vacated by the subs. Disneyland’s looked headed for removal, too, until Finding Nemo offered it a new lease on life in time for the park’s 50th anniversary in 2005.
The wildly low capacity left Disneyland’s “new” version of the ride with multi-hour queues for its first years, but its wait times have leveled out in recent years. Unfortunately, that means the Subs are once again viewed by many as land-wasting, expensive, low-capacity rides destined for removal, so we’ll just have to wait and see… And in case you missed the numbers, yes, Submarine Voyage has the same hourly capacity as Dumbo!
4. Mad Tea Party
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom and Disneyland
Theoretical: 1100 pph
Operational: 765 pph
Returning to the “classics” category, we land on Mad Tea Party, which seemingly spawned hundreds of “spinning tea cup” rides at amusement parks and traveling fairs across the globe. Simple as it may be, the Mad Tea Party has become a Disney Parks standard with installations in California, Florida, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong (plus a Pooh-themed version in Shanghai).
The difference between the ride’s theoretical and operational capacity shouldn’t be too surprising; despite cups being designed for four, many end up with parties of two or three, severely slicing the ride’s throughput in a day. Still, a ride on the Mad Tea Party is practically as essential as a ride on the Railroad, and perhaps we should be glad that the nausea-inducing ride even still exists at Disney Parks when it would seem that nothing of the sort would be approved by Disney’s stateside lawyers today!
3. Peter Pan’s Flight
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland
Theoretical: 625 pph
Operational: 525 pph
Fantasyland is, in many ways, the heart of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. Even today, in an era marked by simulators and screens, Fantasyland is still anchored by its classic dark rides. Nostalgic, glowing, and timeless, these retellings of time-tested Disney fairy tales are fan-favorites, and on the rare occasions that they’ve been removed (see Lost Legends: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Snow White’s Scary Adventures), fans mourn for decades.
One Fantasyland favorite that will probably always reign supreme is Peter Pan’s Flight. Soaring over a miniature London and then sailing through the skies over Neverland, the dark ride is simply unforgettable. And unfortunately, there’s no way to see it but to wait for it. The ride can only realistically serve 525 guests per hour at Disneyland – unbelievably few for a park that sees upwards of 18 million guests a year (or 50,000 a day on average).
Magic Kingdom’s version of the ride does better by way of a continuously-loading belt that keeps the 3-person ships moving during load and unload, but the resulting 800 / 720 capacities still aren’t exactly stellar.
2. The Barnstormer
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom
Theoretical: 350 pph
Operational: 315 pph
The dipping, diving flight path of Goofy’s Barnstormer effortlessly made the transition from the Lost Legend: Mickey’s Toontown Fair‘s rural traveling carnival to the more historic, esteemed Storybook Circus celebrating classic Disney characters. Unfortunately, the tiny family coaster retained its surprisingly slim capacity of barely 300 people per hour.
Of course, the Barnstormer is one of 109 Junior Coasters designed by manufacturer Vekoma (with 27 of those 109 being identical clones of the Magic Kingdom ride), so for most of the ride’s installations, that capacity is just fine. For the most-visited theme park on Earth, it’s considerably lower than you’d like. Disney helps moderate the capacity by running Barnstormer through the course only once per cycle (many installations skip right through the station and go ’round again a second time). Plus, the Barnstormer’s queue tends to self-moderate as guests choose not to queue too long for the 30 second ride.
1. Enchanted Tales with Belle
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom
Theoretical: 300 pph
Operational: 270 pph
When Disney Imagineers got to work designing a New Fantasyland for Magic Kingdom in the 2000s, they had a revolutionary idea: rather than building new, expensive dark rides or E-Ticket attractions for this New Fantasyland, they’d stock the reborn area with what they called “play-and-greets” – an interactive evolution of the old “meet-and-greets” of yesteryear. Guests would queue up for immersive mini-shows that place guests face-to-face with the beloved Disney Princess characters.
But when fans looked across the plans for New Fantasyland, they had plenty to say about the lack of rides and the overemphasis on Princesses. That’s why you can only see most of those “play-and-greets” in our must-read walkthrough of the park that never was, Possibility World: Magic Kingdom.
Even though most of those interactive exhibits never came to be, Enchanted Tales with Belle did. The attraction – equal parts walkthrough, meet-and-greet, and show – is a great example of what “play-and-greets” would’ve been like in two ways: first, it’s fun, unique, and memorable. Second, it’s incredibly low capacity. Even with two operating theaters, the elaborate character encounter rarely crests 300 people her hour – astonishingly low for one of three legitimate new attractions opened in New Fantasyland.
Imagining that Disney planned three more of these “play-and-greets,” their combined capacity of about 1000 people per hour would still be less than that of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train that took their place in the revised Fantasyland plans, which can top 1500 people per hour.
Enchanted Tales with Belle can only handle about 300 guests per hour. Would you believe that Disney’s HIGHEST capacity ride can handle sixteen times as many? What Disney Parks attraction do you think can whisk through 4800 people each hour with ease? To find out, make the jump to our countdown of Disney’s Highest Capacity Attractions. Then, let us know in the comments below… which of the rides on this low-capacity list are worth their inevitable wait?
