With attendance back up at Walt Disney World, more and more guests are pushing for the return of FastPass+ to alleviate wait times for rides and attractions. In the meantime, one option for avoiding long Standby lines is using the Single Rider Line.
While we’ve certainly enjoyed shorter waits with Single Rider in the past, we were curious if it still saved time in the reopened Parks.
Testing Single Rider on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
We decided to conduct tests to see if Single Rider is still the way to go when Standby lines are backed up. We conducted our test at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Our first stop was Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster which had a posted wait time of 70 minutes.
As we got in line we noticed a new sign giving us a foreboding message of what was to come. It’s important to remember that choosing the Single Rider Line means you will likely be separated from anyone else in your party who may also be in the Single Rider line with you.
Also key: the warning that Single Rider can be just as long a wait as the Standby queue. But we stuck it out — for science! Once in line, the warning seemed to be coming true: we had bouts of not moving, and guests all around us starting to take seats on the ground.
Just as we were about to head inside to the AC, we heard another announcement that the wait time could be the same or longer than the posted Standby wait time. They also stated that Single Riders will be split up. If you didn’t know by this point, it was really too late for you.
We finally made it to the front of the line to board our limo after a 79-minute wait. By the time we were off the ride we noticed the posted Standby wait time had even dropped to 60 minutes.
Testing Single Rider on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
While Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster wasn’t the best Single Rider experience, we wanted to test out another ride before coming to our conclusion. Our next stop was over at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to see if we could catch a ride on the Millennium Falcon and ride Smugglers Run!
The standby line extended pretty far today with a 90-minute posted wait. We hopped in the Single Rider line right at 1:32PM to see how long it would take us.
Instead of having to wait outside like the standby line, we were able to head directly inside to the AC which made a HUGE difference in terms of comfort.
After a short 15-minute wait we were ALREADY with a boarding group! The line here for Single Rider was a MUCH better experience.
Conclusions
We have had varying success with the Single Rider line since its return. When some of our reporters were over in Animal Kingdom they had mixed experiences with Expedition Everest. Some waited around ten minutes, and others waited over 30 minutes. In both instances, the Standby line was hovering around 35 minutes.
Based on our experiences recently, it appears Single Rider can be hit-or-miss — which, in all honesty, it often was pre-closure and -reopening also. You may want to gauge whether the line appears to be moving before you jump in it, accepting that you have no way to know if it’ll really be faster or not.
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Do you typically have success with Single Rider lines? Let us know what you think about them by commenting below.
Single rider line used to work great until the Disney employees collectively decided “it’s not fair!” and then INTENTIONALLY started sabotaging the SRL. Yes, an employee told me they are doing this and then I witnessed it on several rides last July (2021). Funny thing, if Disney would just educate their employees on how the SRL is a benefit to all guest then it would work great again. Now, those refusing to be separated??? Well they just need to exit the ride and stop arguing with the employees. There are signs posted that you WILL be separated. I’m not a fan of those guests either….