Waiting in line can be one of the least enjoyable parts of a Disney theme park visit. No one likes waiting an hour or more for a two minute ride. Waits for food, restrooms or even the tram back to the parking structure are even more frustrating.
The New York Times recently had an article about the science behind keeping people happy while waiting in line and cited Disney as being the “universally acknowledged master of applied queuing psychology.” While this may have been the case in the past, the article’s science actually shows how Disney has missed the mark in recent years.
Under promise, over deliver
The New York Times writes:
Beating expectations buoys our mood. All else being equal, people who wait less than they anticipated leave happier than those who wait longer than expected. This is why Disney…overestimates wait times for rides, so that its guests…are pleasantly surprised when they ascend Space Mountain ahead of schedule.
At one time this may have been the case, but in recent years Disney has prided itself on giving accurate wait times. Just ten years ago, most posted wait times were an estimate by the employees working at the attraction. You knew that if the line stretched to a certain point in the queue that it meant a 15 or 20 minute wait. The cast member would then update the dial on the wait time board accordingly. Usually this was updated once an hour or so, depending on staffing. Because of this manual process, the wait times often gave inaccurate wait times.
Disney schedules the ride operations to ramp up around 10:00 am, which is when more ride vehicles are often added to the attractions. Soarin’ Over California would start loading the second theatre, Big Thunder Mountain would run additional trains, and Pirates of the Caribbean would begin loading two boats at a time. As the ride capacity ramped up, and the posted wait time remained the same, there would be periods of time where the posted wait time was longer than what you actually experienced waiting in the queue.
In more recent years, there has been a focus on giving accurate wait times because of the Guest Relations wait time board and the Disney mobile apps. Guests now change their behavior and plan their visit around the accuracy of the wait times posted on the central wait time board and on what they see on the phone apps. Over estimating wait times isn’t a psychological tactic. It would actually be frowned upon in the current age where accuracy is king.
“It was a long line, but at least it kept moving.”
The New York Times writes:
Professors Carmon and Kahneman have also found that we are more concerned with how long a line is than how fast it’s moving. Given a choice between a slow-moving short line and a fast-moving long one, we will often opt for the former, even if the waits are identical. (This is why Disney hides the lengths of its lines by wrapping them around buildings and using serpentine queues.)
I think the article missed the mark with this observation. When Disney introduced Fastpass, it changed the way that people wait in line for rides. Guests had become accustomed to queues that were long, but kept moving at a decent pace. Now, the standby queue often moves at a much slower pace and gives people the perception that they are waiting for a much longer period of time. It isn’t the length of the line that bothers people, but standing in one place sure does make people unhappy.
Disney realized this fact early on, which is why they designed the rides with the serpentine queues. The switchbacks keep people moving because it breaks up the line. Instead of people crowding into one another, as you would with a long queue in a straight line, the switchbacks create small gaps in the line as people round the corners. This creates a constant source of movement as you snake through the queues.
The other trick is with the width of the queues. In the older style queues, the railings were intentionally given a narrow spacing so people were forced to stand in single file (check out the Haunted Mansion or Fantasyland dark ride queues). More modern rides have wider queues so that wheelchairs can maneuver (think Indiana Jones Adventure), but this allows people to stand two or three wide. The single file lines were longer in length, but would move more quickly. As long as the line kept moving, people were happy. On rides like Tower of Terror or Indiana Jones, it can feel like you are waiting much longer because the wide queues move at a slower pace.
I’ve often heard people say, “the line was long, but at least it kept moving.” With Fastpass this all changed. The standby queues were shorter, but moved at a much slower pace. As you stand in one place for several minutes, your feet get tired, you start to lean on the walls and railing, and you get bored. Even with a physically shorter line, there is a perception of a longer wait because the line never seems to move.
It isn’t fair that Fastpass gets to cut in line
The New York Times writes:
Perhaps the biggest influence on our feelings about lines, though, has to do with our perception of fairness. When it comes to lines, the universally acknowledged standard is first come first served: any deviation is, to most, a mark of iniquity and can lead to violent queue rage.
In the traditional single queue model, there was a sense of fairness. We all had to wait our turn for the same ride. The exception was when guests with disabilities would be given priority access. When the occasional group of teenagers would rent a wheelchair just to skip the queues,you would often hear people yell at them for taking advantage of the system. There was a sense of order and fairness with the single queue model and line cutters would not be tolerated.
Radiator Springs Racers is a great example of how much things have changed. The attraction has a single rider queue, a Fastpass queue, a standby queue, child switch passes, attraction readmission passes, VIPs slip in through the exit, and guests with disabilities board in a few different ways depending on their condition. This is a far cry from the old single queue model.
If you are standing in the standby queue, it can be frustrating to see people strolling by in the Fastpass line while your line seems to barely move. Those who are unfamiliar with Fastpass often think others are cutting in line. The single rider line might boost Disney’s overall rider numbers, but can upset those who see people circumventing the traditional line.
The New York time writes:
Surveys show that many people will wait twice as long for fast food, provided the establishment uses a first-come-first-served, single-queue ordering system as opposed to a multi-queue setup. Anyone who’s ever had to choose a line at a grocery store knows how unfair multiple queues can seem; invariably, you wind up kicking yourself for not choosing the line next to you moving twice as fast.
While Fastpass and single rider queues might seem like great ideas on paper, they go against the psychological sense of fairness that comes with a single queue approach.
Occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time
From the New York Times:
This is also why one finds mirrors next to elevators. The idea was born during the post-World War II boom, when the spread of high-rises led to complaints about elevator delays. The rationale behind the mirrors was similar to the one used at the Houston airport: give people something to occupy their time, and the wait will feel shorter. With the mirrors, people could check their hair or slyly ogle other passengers. And it worked: almost overnight, the complaints ceased.
This is one area where Disney still gets it right. Waiting in line goes by much faster if you pull on the rope in the well in the Indiana Jones queue, listen to Buzz Lightyear’s preflight briefing, or talk with Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story Spin queue. Disney masterfully incorporates distractions into the queue, which helps take your mind off waiting in line. Elements like the humorous tombstones in the Haunted Mansion queue are a low tech example, but still effective at distracting you from the actual wait.
Waiting in line is torture
No one likes waiting in line, but there are tricks to making the queue less noticeable. The New York Times may call Disney the master of this slight of hand, but the psychological impacts of Fastpass and multiple queues puts some tarnish on the crown. Maybe we would be better off with the old model of a single, long queue that snakes its way around a building.
Photos via JontheGM, Starberryshyne, DisneyPhilip, Stecki3D
