Crowd Blog – A Blog About Disney Stuff

On July 11, Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom will reopen after a four-month hiatus, but park operations will look a lot different. Disney announced several measures intended to control park attendance and increase physical distancing. You can read about all the changes here. Epcot and Hollywood Studios will open a few days later, on July 15.

We are updating the Disney World Crowd Calendar to reflect what we know about attraction wait times in the parks once they reopen. Remember that the calendar is based on standby wait times for key attractions during the busiest part of the day; it is not based on park attendance figures. This methodology will continue. As always, but even more than usual, the crowd calendar is subject to change.

Crowd levels are dropping significantly on most days as a result of this update. This is a result of the assumptions we have made about park operations when they reopen. Here is a summary of those factors and how the attraction wait times might be affected.

No FastPass+, Standby Only

Depending on the attraction, as much as 80% of a ride’s capacity can be used for FastPass+ guests. Obviously, this greatly increases the wait time for those in the standby line. Now that FastPass+ is suspended, 100% of the ride’s capacity will be used for standby guests.

Result: Large Decrease in Standby Wait Times

Limited Attendance

In the past, on an average day at the Magic Kingdom, somewhere between 30,000 and 45,000 guests would enter the park. On a night when the park hosts an evening party (e.g., Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party), that number is limited to something close to 15,000, depending on the event and the number of tickets sold. We know a lot about what the wait times look like during when attendance is limited and FastPass+ is not available. We expect the wait times to look more like party nights than average days, but that is yet to be seen.

Result: Decrease in Standby Wait Times

Spacing on Attraction Vehicles

In order to maximize physical distancing and cleaning, some attractions may be loaded with gaps or spaces. This will greatly reduce the attraction’s capacity per hour. In some cases, it may reduce it by as much as 50%. We have seen wait times affected by ride capacity before. Remember in 2014 when a guest injury on Pirates of the Caribbean led to the closure of the vehicle’s back row? Wait times went up. We have also recorded many days when Soarin’ and Tower of Terror operated with a portion of the ride closed. Wait times go up then, too.

Result: Large Increase in Standby Wait Times

Virtual Queues Without Posted Times

Disney World has made no announcement about using virtual queues when the parks reopen, but Shanghai Disneyland employed them when it reopened in May. If virtual queues are a part of the new park procedures at Disney World, that may make it difficult to measure the wait times. Let us cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it’s a wild card.

Result: Unknown

So, the no-FastPass+ and attraction spacing changes cancel each other out, leaving us with a decrease in standby times due to limited attendance. This crowd calendar update reflects that decrease. Crowd levels are dropping to the 1-5 range most days between now and Thanksgiving 2020.

I think it is a pretty good bet that guests will experience wait times similar to those during an evening party.

We don’t know how long these park procedures will last, and we don’t know how much demand there is for theme park touring with a mask in the heat of a Florida summer. Of course, we will be revisiting these crowd levels on a regular basis between now and July 11 as new information arises. Once we observe a few days of wait time data, more adjustments may be made.

2021

This update does not include days in 2021. With so many unknowns about park operations and the COVID-19 virus, we are not going to try to guess what next year will look like at this time. The next update will include 2021 predictions.

Do you have questions for the Crowd Calendar team? Let us know in the comments.

The post July 2020 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar Update appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Crowd Blog, Walt Disney World (FL), Crowd Calendar

We’re about to test Mickey’s theory in ways that he probably didn’t anticipate.

We now have a better idea what touring a Walt Disney World theme park might look like after the COVID-19 lockdown. Here are our first thoughts.

First, an acknowledgement. We aren’t saying that you should feel comfortable going to a theme park when they open and we aren’t saying you shouldn’t feel comfortable either. The fact is, people will be in the parks when they re-open and we want to provide the best touring advice we can for those that go.

Admission to the parks will be like a special event. Think Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party but during the day. So, that means:

No FastPass+
Limited admission
A subset of available attractions

That’s right, no FastPasses. For the first time since 1999, all Walt Disney World attractions will be standby only. This opens up the physical space in the queues which allows easier control of the spaces between guests in line. It isn’t clear whether or not some standby queues will use virtual queues. Limited admission is not a surprise, but the way to buy tickets is still a mystery. Some attractions may be closed or may operate with less than normal capacity.

Here’s the good news:

Our TouringPlans software is ready to handle these new park conditions. In fact, without FastPass+ the process of optimizing a touring plan becomes simpler. We know what wait times to expect based on our knowledge of the attractions, our database of wait times collected during normal hours, and wait times collected during party events with limited admission.

The touring plans have always had dedicated “day of” wait-time models, whose only job is to look at what’s happening a park right now, and make predictions for the rest of the day. Those models update every 5 minutes while the parks are open, so you’ll be able to react quickly to whatever changes happen. We’re already updating our long-term wait time forecasts to account for limited admission and changes to ride capacity.

Here’s the less-good news:

You’ll need a reservation to get into the parks. Pent-up demand for returning to the parks and a limited supply of reservations might make visits hard to come by. We don’t know much about the system that will be in place to get a park-entry reservation. If you’re able to get them, touring the parks with an optimized plan will be a breeze.

Stay tuned for more details as they arrive and watch for a crowd calendar update in the near future.

The post Disney World Touring Plans Without FastPass appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

From our friends at touringplans.com
Filed Under: Crowd Blog, Walt Disney World (FL), coronavirus, walt disney world