As you may recall from my previous trip reports in July, August, and December of 2020, I’ve been saying since Disney reopened that wait times are quite inflated in the app and on the actual signage at the rides themselves. Our experience has been that if a ride says a 10-20 minute wait, then it was actually a complete walk-on, whereas when rides say there is a 30-45 minute wait, the actual wait is typically half of that. I can’t speak to anything above 45 minutes because I’m a serial line avoider. No way would I be caught dead on a line that says 70-90 minutes (I’m looking at you slinky dog and mine train).
So how did our trip this past weekend in May 2021 compare? Ehhh I’m sorry to report that the wait times are a bit more accurate now. This may be because they’ve gotten the hang of estimating wait times with their new partial-loading system, or because many of the rides have returned to being fully loaded with riders now. Either way, our experience this week was that the posted wait times were much less frequently overstated. That being said, in general the wait times have been significantly lower than the posted wait times during our trips in 2020. Slinky Dog didn’t get over 70 minutes during our stay, and was often down to 40 minutes. I didn’t see MMRR get above 50 minutes during our stay either. So that is definitely a testament to the fact that these rides are being run nearly full now.
The biggest examples I have for wait time comparisons this past week are:
Toy Story Mania: posted wait time 15 minutes, actual wait time was the full 15 minutes. Previously this would have meant you could walk straight on to TSM (which we did half a dozen times last year and it was glorious). When we got off the ride the posted wait time was 30 minutes and the line definitely looked like it was a solid 30 minutes.
Frozen Ever After: posted wait time 25 minutes (at 9pm with park closing at 10), actual wait time 22 minutes. At least this ride didn’t have the 60-90 minute posted wait times I’ve been used to seeing all year!
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train: posted wait time 45 minutes (8:40pm with park closing at 9), actual wait time 15 minutes. This one was super overstated, but I’m not sure if it was just because it was so close to park closing and they got lazy with the signage or wanted to deter lots of last minute rides or what.
Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway: posted wait time 30 minutes, actual wait time just under 20 minutes. This one seems to be consistently inflated. It is such a fast moving line. I will say we were quite bummed that the ride broke down when we were literally stepping onto it. We were given “recovery” fastpasses good on any ride in the park though, so that is why I don’t have a Slinky Dog wait time comparison.
Alien Swirling Saucers: posted wait time 20 minutes, actual wait time 5 minutes. They are just really lazy about updating this wait time I think.
Soarin: posted wait time 20 minutes, actual wait time 10 minutes (right at park closing at 10pm).
Dinosaur: posted wait time 10 minutes, actual wait time just over 10 minutes. Again, not long, but I’ve gotten used to “10 minutes” signifying absolutely no line.
Buzz Lightyear: posted wait time 15 minutes, actual wait time 15 minutes.
Haunted Mansion: posted wait time 15 minutes, actual wait time 0 minutes. We walked right on to this one at around 8pm with the park closing at 9.
These are the only rides where I really paid attention to the wait times as compared to the posted wait times. My biggest takeaway is that wait times seem pretty nearly accurate earlier in the day now, whereas they still seem to be fairly inflated when you are in the last hour or two of park time. When the park is near closing, the posted wait times seem to be pretty overstated.