WDWNT posted a video on Twitter of the line for 7DMT. They walked from the entrance to the end of the line and it took two minutes. They didn’t say what the posted wait was. It’s currently 90 mins.
The longest I’ve ever waited in line for any attraction at WDW is 70 mins. That was FOP and I deliberately chose the standby line because it’s so richly themed and I wanted to take it all in.
There are no circumstances under which I’d wait longer than 30 mins for 7DMT. And I’ve never had to.
I don’t understand why anyone does. First, it’s not that great and there are other attractions with shorter lines. Second, you can pay for a LL. If you can’t afford that then (a) I’m not sure what you’re even doing at WDW (the cost is marginal compared with the total cost of the vacation, so save up a bit more money before you go, or spend less on something else when you’re there) and (b) ride something else.
Waiting 90 mins in line for 7DMT makes no logical sense. I cannot understand why anyone does.
Not everyone in the park can buy an ILL though can they, there aren’t enough for everyone who wants to ride. I wouldn’t wait 90 mins for it myself, but not everyone has the same priorities. I’ve just been helping my friend plan her MK day, there are about 5 things she wants to do there so it’s no skin off her nose if she’s already ridden the first 4 to wait 90 mins for the last one.
I think there is also just the mindset that a wait is going to happen. Is it Shanghai Disney that [when it’s open] has an hour at least wait for everything. And everyone is just on their phones waiting. Smiling. Laughing. This is life.
People may value their WDW time differently on a $/hr basis. A working professional coming a long way might value their time much higher than a local, or a party with lots of kids or retirees that have more time than money.
A large party might not be able to pay for an $ILL on a cash-flow basis even though on a benefit-received per person basis the calculation is the same.
And non-Liners often don’t have the knowledge we do. They may not know enough about ILL’s, average wait times, or how to use MDE effectively, to make a well informed choice.
All of which combine to create arbitrage opportunities for Liners
I’m thinking along the lines of @janamelia - for the first 40 years of my life, my assumption was that all lines at WDW were 45-90 minutes as that’s what I experienced as a kid when we’d just show up with no plan… if someone hadn’t recommended this site to me, I’d still be waiting in long lines.
I really recall no lines much at all until maybe the last 10 years. We’ve pretty much always been rope drop and visited either right after Thanksgiving or early September.
And we were for many trips an extended family group meeting up at WDW from various states. Busses and lines were just more catching up time.
Tho our 90s trips were 3 sit down meals each day, ride every ride we wanted, look thru all the shops and play (fish, ski, ride, swim, nap) each afternoon. Fewer guests and rides, I guess.
I’m not much of a stand in lines person …but have ended up in over 2 hours waits for FOP and Rise. One time we waited 60 mins for Frozen - simply because we ate too much and just wanted to do nothing for awhile
I didn’t wait an hour for anything in Shanghai Disney but I did have the back door hotel entrance which may have also been early entry and I bought the “fastpass” package for the rides that offered it. But it felt very much like our WDW. I think Dumbo was our longest wait and it was like 45 min maybe and we rode in the PM not at rope drop
*Now what was diff was cultural like people pushing and shoving you out of their way in non regulated lines like the castle walk thru and children using the restroom on sidewalks (like in the middle of sidewalks). For that I made faces like your emojis. It was culture shock.
It may not be a matter of whether someone can afford it. You have to want to spend the money. We have a family of 5, and aside from GOTG none of the ILL rides would have been worth the cost x5 to ride. We could have afforded it, grudgingly. But our “paying extra after admission” tolerance threshold was reached with G+ so we found ways to get on the ILL attractions without paying and mostly without waits of even 30 min.
This I agree with 100%
Last edit: I feel the same way you do when I see people waiting in insane lines at our local, not-even-close-to-Disney-level amusement park. I will not wait longer than 20 minutes for any ride there, which means I rarely go on rides because they stretch to 30-60+ minutes on a regular basis. At that point I just bail and hit the waterpark. My kids can wait for the rides if they want to, and know where to find me.
60 is my limit and only for certain rides (SDD, ToT.)
For me, waiting can be a respite. I can update my trip report, people watch, take pics, etc. I’m willing to wait in at least one 60 minute ride per park. And in my mind I’m secretly hoping the wait is less than posted. Hey, it happens.
I think everyone has covered the different angles of this question except the matter of whether the ride is worth it.
Riding it Saturday night, I realized it really is quite fun, even for adults, especially at night. The swinging of the cars adds just the right amount of thrill. And it has a really cute show scene with the dwarfs in the mine and later with Snow White in the cabin. It is the quintessential Disney movie.
And most importantly, it can be enjoyed by almost everyone, with a relatively short height requirement and it isn’t as scary as BTMRR or Space Mountain. At Disney, that translates to long lines.
The only thing I can remember intentionally waiting almost 90 minutes for is FoP, but I think 7DMT is a really great combination of kiddie coaster and classic Fantasyland dark ride. I fully support proselytizing to people in the queue that they should go ride something else if it’ll help lower the wait times.
Absolutely. On Disney Dish they talked about how half the planned length of the ride was lost due to budget cuts. At double the duration it would be far more worth the wait.
Psychology. I was watching a tv show, I think it was Brain Games, and they went into a mall, set up one of those wait here signs and put one person behind it. Within maybe 30 minutes there was a surprising number of people on the line. None of them knew what they were waiting for. They got on the line because it was there and they thought they needed to stand on it. I think with a ride at Disney, it’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, particularly with newbies. If the line is long, it must be good and I don’t want to miss out on it.
