Category: Other

This past weekend we saw the highest attendance at Walt Disney World since its reopening. Back to school was a major factor– it is always busy the weekend before local schools go back in session. Weekdays, however, have been delightful at all of the Disney theme parks. Yesterday our field team spent some time at EPCOT testing wait times at attractions, indulging in a delicious lunch at Biergarten, and swooning over the new EPCOT Fountain Pylons at the front entrance.

EPCOT Actual Wait Times August 12, 2020

Currently EPCOT is open 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., though that will change next month with a new closing time of 7:00 p.m. We have found that all of the parks wind down leading up to the final hour of operations, now that there is no nighttime finale to anchor them. It will be interesting to see if the final hour of operations will continue to be magical when the new closing time is basically dinner time. The peak wait times tend to be in the very middle of the day and early afternoon.

Around 2:15 p.m. we saw many wait times peak, except the peak was only about 30 minutes. This low attendance day resulted in Disney’s posted wait times being fairly close to the wait times being calculated and reported in our Lines app. To make sure the data in our app is accurate we often wait in the lines and ride attractions ourselves to verify the actual wait times.

Expected Wait Times below are the wait times expected based on data calculated in our Lines app. Any Actual wait times below are from people actually waiting in line and riding.

 

 

 

 

• Frozen Ever After
  • Posted Wait Time 15 / Expected 6
• Test Track
  • Posted Wait Time 30 / Expected 14 / Actual less than 10 minutes
• Soarin’
  • Posted Wait Time 15 / Expected 13 / Actual 13
  • Due to Soarin’ being a film, it loads intermittently so 12- 13 minutes is generally the lowest wait time possible
• Living with the Land
  • Posted Wait Time 10 / Expected 10 / Actual 7
• Mission SPACE
  • Posted Wait Time 15 / Expected 13
• All other attractions were 10 minutes or less

 

A few pieces of insight can be gained by looking at these Expected and Actual wait times. It’s pretty obvious that midweek is a very low attendance time for the theme parks, especially EPCOT. Midday continues to be the peak for wait times, but for EPCOT this peak time is right around 2:00 p.m. as the park opens very late at 11:00 a.m., plus it is a heavily dined park. With dining being most popular from 11:30 – 1:00 p.m. and again at 6:00 p.m. onward, the hours in between would lead to more demand for attractions.

For those that are curious, let’s see how yesterday, a Wednesday, compares to a Saturday earlier this month. I pulled up Saturday August 1, 2020 rather than this most recent Saturday as it was an anomoly and quite busy thanks to it being back to school weekend. From this comparison of Saturday August 1, 2020 versus yesterday, Wednesday August 12, 2020 you can see wait times are higher on a standard weekend, though not a drastic increase.

We all know this year is dramatically different than any other time in Walt Disney World’s history. But, since we have the data (we’re nerdy and scientific that way), let’s take a look at the wait times for this equivalent day last year (the second Wednesday in August 2019).

Seeing this comparison does emphasize just how dramatically slower this year is at EPCOT. It is disappointing that Disney is shortening EPCOT’s hours by two hours after Labor Day, but it is also not hard to see why they would want to cut back.  If you’re interested in viewing EPCOT’s actual wait times from yesterday and other past days, check them out on our site.

On our site you can view graphs with observed wait times compared to expected wait times for any past days. Anytime you see a green dot, that is an actual wait time submitted by a “Liner” (a Lines app user). One of the insights you can gain from the above graphs is that Test Track consistently has a much lower actual wait time compared to what is posted by Disney. One theory for this particular attraction could be that it does face downtime quite often and perhaps Disney is building in some padding in the posted wait time for any downtime.

We are constantly evaluating data and observing the Disney theme parks. Stick with us on our social media channels and our blog for helpful planning information and news.

You can also check out yesterday’s wait times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom – all of which were some of the lowest we’ve seen during this time of reopening.

We’re also testing out different content to find new ways to help our readers.

What do you think of this style of post? Would you like more in-park observations? How about pairing those observations with data from our Lines app and website?

Thanks for reading!

The post Midweek Wait Times at EPCOT Continue to Be Minimal appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Dos and Don’ts, Epcot, In the Parks, Trip Planning, disney reopening, epcot attractions, epcot wait times

I’ll be real honest here: I miss Disneyland. I miss the sights, the sounds, the smells, and just the whole energy of the place. There’s something about walking down Main Street U.S.A. with that super-charming castle drawing me in that’s good for the soul, and knowing that it’s not even an option right now kinda stings.

With that in mind, it got me to thinking: there IS another Disney resort that IS open, and it’s got a lot of the same attractions. Also, we’re all about creating touring plans here at TouringPlans, so why not try to take a day and approximate a day at Disneyland by doing all of the Disneyland attractions that exist in some form at Walt Disney World? Would it serve as a reasonable substitute for the real thing while we wait for Disneyland to reopen? And would it be possible to do everything in one day? Let’s find out!

First and foremost, an acknowledgement: The attractions at Walt Disney World that also exist at Disneyland are spread across three parks in Orlando (all of the parks except for Animal Kingdom have an attraction that you can find at one of the two Disneyland Resort parks), and as we all know, park hopping is currently not permitted. There are 17 Disneyland attractions at Magic Kingdom, however, and considering the very low crowds we’re seeing these days, you can very easily knock them out in a day. Here’s a public custom plan I’ve created that identifies the attractions and shows how it will play out — and it still leaves ample time to experience other Disneyland staples, like grabbing a corn dog, or taking in a show by the Dapper Dans.

With that said, we embrace challenge here, so we’re going to take a look at this as if park hopping was still a thing and see if it’s possible to knock them all out under current operating hours and conditions. Again, most of the attractions we need to hit are at Magic Kingdom, and that park opens an hour earlier at 9 a.m., but a few of the biggies are at Hollywood Studios, including the toughest get of them all, Rise of the Resistance. Moreover, a boarding group is required to do Rise, and they are only available at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., so we need to physically be at Studios at one of those times for this to work. I’ve run the plans in several different ways, and the reality is that starting at Magic Kingdom and doing everything there first puts you at Hollywood Studios too late in the day to get a boarding pass. On the other hand, if you use the later start at Hollywood Studios and begin your day there, it’s very unlikely that you’ll get done in time to get back to Magic Kingdom and do what you need to do there before the 7 p.m. close.

With that in mind, I’m going to suggest something that seems to be the opposite of the efficiency we strive for here at Touring Plans, and that is doing a lot of park hopping to try to make this happen. We’re going to start at Magic Kingdom, do as much as we can before hopping over to Hollywood Studios to get a 2 pm boarding pass for Rise, popping over to Epcot to check the Soarin’ box when we can, and then scrambling back to Magic Kingdom to round out the day. Even then, it’s going to be tough, but this isn’t a leisurely day at the park–it’s a fantastical attempt to recreate the Disneyland experience in Orlando in a day, and we’re going to have to do some gymnastics to even have a chance. It’s going to be a challenge regardless — albeit a fun challenge — but this gives us our best shot.

So, here’s the plan: we’ll be at Magic Kingdom for park opening, and will take advantage of the early part of the day to knock out as many attractions as possible before about 1 p.m.-ish. Here’s how our software shows the morning playing out:

For a little bonus injection of Disneyland, make sure you take note of Mr. Toad passing the deed to Owl when you’re on Winnie the Pooh!

Anyway, this has us wrapping up the first leg right around 1, because it’s absolutely critical that we have time to make our way over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios by 2 p.m. to grab a boarding group for Rise of the Resistance. The boarding group thing is obviously a huge wildcard here, but we’re going to assume for the purposes of this exercise that we get one within a couple of hours and can squeeze it in before 4 and then work the other attractions around it — the wait times noted below shouldn’t dramatically change during this window.

At some point during the afternoon, we’re going to need to make our way to Epcot to experience Soarin’. Ideally, we’ll be able to get a boarding group and knock out the things at Studios seriatim and then bounce to Epcot to knock that out en route back to the Magic Kingdom. If, however, things really go sideways with the boarding group — for example, you get one after 4 p.m. — it might be necessary to immediately go to Epcot to experience Soarin’ first (expected wait — 16-23 minutes) and then circle back to the Studios. The goal is to wrap up the four Studios attractions, plus Soarin’, in three and a half hours, returning to Magic Kingdom by 5:30.  This leaves us 90 minutes to finish the last 4 attractions, 3 of which are headliners. Given the crowds we’re seeing right now, however, it should be doable.

So, like most completist challenges, this Disneyland-in-a-day at Walt Disney World challenge isn’t going to be easy, especially on account of the shortened hours, and a little bit of bad luck could scuttle the effort, but it’s completely doable. And I know, I know, some of the Disneyland versions of these attractions are different (or, ahem, clearly better) so it’s not exactly the “same,” but I would 100% love to give it a try right now. There are far worse ways to spend a day.

What do you think? What do you think would be the most noticeable difference? Do you think it would feel enough like a Disneyland trip to scratch that itch? Let us know in the comments!

 

The post A Day at Disneyland… At Walt Disney World appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Attractions, Disneyland (CA), Just For Fun, Magic Kingdom, Trip Planning, Walt Disney World (FL), Disneyland, Ultimate Touring Plan

If you like to have some Disney magic wherever you go, consider picking up a shoulder buddy. These little plush dolls attach to your clothing with magnets so they can sit on your shoulder. At Magic Kingdom’s Main Street Emporium our team found some new shoulder buddies including Mushu, Bruni, Groot, a Porg, and Remy. Each one is $9.99.

Over at EPCOT, at Mouse Gear, our team found FIGMENT! Just like Dreamfinder, you can have Figment come along with you on all your adventures. He too is $9.99.

You can also find a Pascal shoulder plush on shopDisney online. A few weeks about you could also find The Child as a shoulder plush on shopDisney online, but it appears to be sold out.

Would you have one of these tag-alongs with you on your next trip to Walt Disney World?

The post New Disney Shoulder Buddies Arrive at Magic Kingdom and shopDisney Online appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Merchandise, disney plush, groot, mushu, remy