We are in the middle of Presidents’ Weekend, a long holiday weekend, and we are seeing something we can’t believe in Animal Kingdom. Pandora‘s Avatar Flight of Passage is currently experiencing a six hour wait time. Yes, we said six-hour wait time!
This got us thinking, if this ride, which is nearing 2 years old, is experiencing this kind of wait time in what is just the beginning of the busy spring season in Disney World — what will it be like to get into and on rides in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge?
There is no argument Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a highly anticipated addition to both the Disneyland and Disney World Hollywood Studios parks.
People are in a holding pattern as they wait to book trips to make sure they are in either Anaheim or Orlando when the new lands are open. But, are they, or you, ready to wait in line five, six, or even seven hours for a ride?
When Toy Story Land opened in Hollywood Studios last summer there were lines just get into the Land. That was time spent in a line, that was then followed by even more time in lines for the new rides.
It is conceivable there will be waits to get into Disneyland and Hollywood Studios in the first weeks, maybe even months, of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge lands being open. Then there will be waits for the two rides, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance, plus waits to get into Oga’s Cantina.
Are you planning on and ready to dedicate a whole day to lines in order to ride one, maybe two rides, and sip on some Blue Milk when you visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge? Is this when that $12,000 a day World of Dreams tour starts to increase in value to families and become an appealing option over waiting in lines?
AllEars.net is here to help you with some of your planning — whether you’ll be in Disneyland or Disney World before or after Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens — and if you are in that Flight of Passage line right now!
- Have more FUN Waiting in Lines at Walt Disney World
- “Twos” in Queues — Tips for Waiting in Line with a Little One
- How to Escape the Crowds at Disney World
- 6 FastPass+ Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make
Be sure to follow AllEars.net for the latest news and updates including opening dates and FastPass+ opening window announcements for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland and Disney World!
Do you have a Disneyland trip booked for this summer or later, or a Disney World trip booked for this fall or later? Have you developed a Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge strategy? What is your time limit for waiting in line for a ride? Let us know in the comments below.
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I’m an accountant by trade and I disagree with your math on the cost of DVC being close to $1000 per day at a park. Too many factors play into cost averaging. Anyone thinking they are paying that much per day is doing incorrect calculations.
Gary, I never said that DVC cost $1,000 a day. I was saying that if Disney started raising prices to reduce attendance and crowds, they would have to raise them a whole lot, possibly as high as $1,000 a day, to get people to stop coming. That’s all.
We’ve been DVC members since 1994 and have never regretted it. We’ve gone to several places in the US as well as England and Hawaii using our DVC membership. Places that we wouldn’t go to if we didn’t have DVC. Not all DVC members run away to Disney World. My kids are adults now and they are using some of our points to go to DW with their families. Watching my granddaughter enjoying DW like her mother did is worth it to me. I’ve heard all the arguments about it’s not a good deal. However, vacation prices are never going to drop. At least we don’t have to worry about paying for the resorts when we do travel.
You might not be “worrying about paying”, but you are paying. You prepaid the resort costs (with even more in interest if you financed) when you bought your DVC. You pay, annually, with your maintenance fees and any extra point you might buy.
Also, all of the wonderful trips you have taken and great experiences you have had with your children and grandchildren could still have happened (at less expense) without the need to purchase a DVC. Not sure why you couldn’t go to Hawaii or England without DVC.
As DVC I agree with some comments above about not really caring about the new rides. My family and I do our 3xFP rides per day, then maybe, and that’s a big maybe, we do one or two non-wait type rides.
I could never imagine waiting in life for 30 minutes, forget anything longer than that.
The way I see it, it’s those who are making the once in a lifetime Disney trip and foreigners. I think a lot of people forget to do a time:money evaluation.
I was in Tokyo Disneyland 5 years ago, at DisneySea, on a random Monday in March, there were MULTIPLE rides with 4+ hour waits. And they have the old school paper FP system, so we were able to get FPs for at least 8 rides throughout the day. But there were things we still couldn’t go on, it was madness. I could not believe that people would go all the way there to ride maybe 2-3 rides in an entire day. I guess they’re willing to do it in Japan, but I can’t believe people would do it here.
I’m DVC so I basically just avoid the new stuff until the interest has died down, knowing i’ll be back again so it’s not a big deal. I’ve been down there 3 times since Avatar opened and still haven’t been on it, and I don’t really care. I don’t have much interest in Star Wars, so i’m hoping that when I go in the fall this year everyone will be using their first tier Studios FP+ for that and i’ll be able to get one for the Slinky Dog for myself and my 4 year old without issue. I don’t think the long lines are the result of DVC members feeling like they need to be there for new rides to open – most members I know think like I do and don’t have an immediate urge to check it out because they know they’ll be there eventually. I think most of the waiting is happening because of the people who can truly only afford a Disney vacation as a Once In A Lifetime event, so they know they either wait or they may not have a chance to do it again. It is sad that Disney has made it so that people who look forward to their visit for years and years have to spend HOURS waiting in a single line. You’d think they would be able to figure a way around that, like more ride tracks and vehicles, but I guess not.
It’s called supply and demand. The “only way around that” is for WDW to increase prices so high that attendance decreases about 50% and they still make their profit. As addicted as WDW people are, the tipping point could easily be as high as $1,000 per day per park. Which, coincidentally, is almost what DVC owners are paying now if you average their total costs by the life of a 30 year contract.
We were there Jan 21st to Jan 28th … there is no slow season. Lines were 85 minutes!
You ask what a 6 hour line for Flights of Passage means. The bottom line is it means one or more of the following:
They gave out too many FP+ reservations and everyone showed up, remember FP relies on there being a certain percentage that doesn’t return.
The ride broke down for a bit, which means anyone who had a FP+ now has an anytime FP that is actually valid for Flights of Passage since it was to begin with.
The ride is running on reduced capacity, this could be due to technical, maintenance or staffing issues or any combination of the three.
But in your article you don’t seem to explore any of these possibilities and instead jump straight to see how long the wait is and this must mean Galaxy’s Edge will have long waits. The reality is you will see long waits for a couple weeks at Disneyland, then it will taper off to a more normal crowd level, which will still be crowded, but it won’t impact much of the rest of the park and will be substantially less crowded than most think simply because Disneyland has raised prices too high with the most recent price increase and we all know there will be another one before Galaxy’s Edge opens, Apple fell victim to the idea that they could raise prices as high as they want a d people would pay it, well they didn’t with the latest iPhones, Disney risks the same thing happening to them.
All we have to do is look at Carsland, yes for the first month or so it was busy, but then it died down to normal levels, I mean you can quite often get a FP for Racers at 2 in the afternoon now. And Disney thought it would be bringing the high level crowds for years.
How many years have people been saying that WDW will eventually raise their prices higher than what people will pay. Never going to happen because WDW is an addiction.
Just look at the irrational behavior of Disney addicts. They’ll stand in line for 6 hours, pay hundreds of thousands for DVC, plan an entire trip around the opening of one ride, continue to go over and over long after the initial high has worn off. Disney knows this and Prices and markets to a consumer that is hooked and will continue to pay up.
You and me can just not go to WDW as the crowds become insane. But those poor DVC renters will be paying for the privilege of standing in line for the next 30 years.
Ken, at first I thought it was a mistake, but you keep repeating false information. DVC contracts are for 50 years, not 30. It’s also insanely affordable if you do the math properly.
contact periods have changed over the years. At one point they were only 20 years. I use 30 years because the most accurate spread sheets I’ve seen were based on a 30 year contract. Still does not change the average annual cost or averaged projections.
I can’t really respond to your comment because I don’t have a clue what “insanely affordable” means. That sounds like the exact words the guy who sold you the timeshare would have used. It’s just an emotional term.
Affordable is completely irrelevant as to weather something is a bad financial deal or not. I can afford buy a car for twice it’s worth, but that would still be an ill advised, and bad financial transaction. Even if I’m happy with the car.
All I’m saying is that timesharing at DVC or any other place has been proven over and over for the last 50 years to be the worst real estate purchase there is. And it’s driven purely by emotion.
Ken, I use personal experience. I spend 2-3 weeks per year in Disney. Have done so for 20+ years now.
For the first decade I didn’t have DVC and I know exactly what I spent. ~$3500 for room only at GF per trip, almost $11k annual.
I just paid off a $35k loan for DVC in a 6 year span… and now only pay annual taxes…which gives me 2-3 weeks of vacation for the next 44 years at Disney!!
Timeshares are insane money savers for travelers like myself who frequent the same location annually and continue to do so for decades. If you don’t travel like that, perhaps it doesn’t work for you. But the way it is intended to be used is cost effective.
Going Sunday before New Years, plan is to get fast pass for one ride and getting there at “ rope drop” to try to get on the other, don’t care about blue milk.
I would never wait in a line that long. We will sometimes utilize concierge rooms for a couple days to get benefits and extra fast passes. Otherwise we find other things to do. We are DVC, so this is our second home.
So you are trying to equate a 6 hour wait time to insane crowding and not understanding that FastPass is the cause of this, not insane crowds. Remove FP and that same wait drops to about 2 hours which isn’t unreasonable. I’m assuming here the FP ratio is about 66% which may actually be low. Some rides at Disneyland have over a 70% FP to standby ratio.
This simply does not add up. Where are you getting these facts and figures? They do not appear to br accurate.
Well then, please give us your accurate facts and figures to counter his argument. To just say something is not accurate, or a fact, does not make it so.
WDW has always been crowded and it has gotten more crowded over the last 2 decades. You need to resign yourself to the fact that you are only going to be able to ride certain rides with your Fastpass unless you are willing to either wake up very early on vacation or pay the extra fee for WDW’s newest money-grabber, i.e., we are going to charge you extra money to get into the park either very early or late with less people. You also need to plan out a WDW vacation, i.e., if you are a spontaneous type of person going to WDW may not be the best use of your vacation funds.
As a Disneyland visitor, I imagine the Stars Wars lines will be like the wait times for Radiator Springs Racers. Its been almost 7 years and the line is almost always an hour plus wait.
What I think WDW has in its favor its Star Wars will be at Hollywood studios, spreading out the chaos.
Our WDW annual passes expire in April and will not be renewing for a year or two. Not only will Hollywood Studios be crazy buys when Star Wars opens, all of the parks will increase in crowd size. Star Wars fans will be descending on Orlando from all over the world and they will likely visit several of the parks—not just Hollywood Studios. I love Walt Disney World and Star Wars, but this seems like a good time to take a break.
I currently have a booking for first two weeks of december. I am seriously considering cancelling! Yes I am that worried about insane crowds!
The beginning of December is a good low-crowd time (unlike Christmas/New Year’s weeks or Presidents Week). You should be good, and get your fastpasses as soon as available.
Early December was a “slow” season just 2 years ago. As a annual passholder, I can tell you there is no longer a slow season. It is crowded all of the time. No longer is January and February slow, plus they still close the parks early during the “slow” seasons, which is one of our biggest complaints.
Not me. Plenty of other attractions to take in!
When we were there last September the wait was never under 2 hours and Fast Pass was not possible. For me, anything over 60 minutes and I’ll find something else to do – I have no patience for long lines. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be amazing but there is plenty to do in WDW without spending over 30% of my day in line.
It means two things.
1. Get a Fast Pass
2. When Star Wars opens, there won’t be a wait time for Flight of Passage anymore. ?????
People will be visiting from all over the world to see Star Wars land and will visit multiple parks. Unfortunately I don’t think you will see a decrease in FOP wait times for several years.
You will see a decrease in FOP lines simply because Disney will keep increasing their prices until people are no longer willing to pay.
Keep dreaming
1. Good luck with that. Unless you’re staying at a Disney resort, your chance of getting a FastPass for FOP (and most likely the new Star Wars rides) are basically zero. The only time I’ve ever seen a FastPass availability for FOP was in the aftermath of a hurricane.
2. Yeah, I had that some bit of optimism with the opening of Toy Story Land. Clearly it didn’t work, and I’m doubtful that Star Wars Land will change that either. Worse, I fear Star Wars Land will be an overcrowded mess like the Harry Potter areas in Universal.
Yes and you point out a major problem with the FP+ nonsense. If everything were day of only and worked like at Disneyland where you don’t get to pick the time, then everyone would be on equal footing and have a fair shot.
Of course the current system works in my favor since we are from the west coast and always stay on property at Disney World.
Anyone standing in this line for six hours need to be standing in the line for brains.
Too funny!