We were in HS on Monday 1/10. The park closed at 9PM. We were getting ready to leave the park around 8:45 or so and thought we would ride TSMM before we left because the line is usually short at park close. I looked at the Disney app and it listed the standby line as a 70 min wait. We had just ridden Smuggler’s Run standby and it was only a listed 35 minute wait with an actual wait of 15 mins. RotR was an 80 min standby wait so the 70 min TSMM wait just didn’t seem right. We decided to walk by the ride as we were leaving to see if maybe it was a glitch. But sure enough the ride had 70 mins posted under standby. We kind of shrugged and kept walking, but then my liner-Spidey-sense just knew something was off. I looked at my sister and said, “let’s just get in line. If it’s long, we’ll know when we see it and we can just bail.” She agreed so we walked back to the ride. As we entered the line there was a young CM standing there and I cheerfully said, “Hello!” She responded, “Hello! There is a 70 minute wait right now.” I nodded and we kept walking. There was no line in the outside que. There was no line in the first inside room que. We finally saw a line by Mr. Potato head. I started the timer and we waited a total of 10 mins.
The way wrong time was weird enough. But even weirder was the CM who felt the need to tell us, unsolicited, that the wait was 70 minutes.
Anyway, thought it was bizarre and thought I’d share to see if anyone has experienced this or had any theories on what was going on??
I had heard this was happening and to disregard posted time for near-close and wait anyway, especially if you’re familiar with the queue and can gauge whether it would be remotely close to accurate
At least for that night, in that park, it seemed like they were targeting TSMM because Smuggler’s Run and RotR seemed more like the “normal” wait time inflation.
Back in the dark ages of pre-lockdown, when I was still very new to researching WDW, I learned that the Lines App had much more accurate wait time, particularly at the end of the day when Disney inflated them. Basically, they want you to give up and go home. Can’t say I blame them, and I’m happy if they discourage other people who would otherwise get in line in front of me.
I noticed the same thing at 7DMT right before the fireworks. Posted wait time was 60 minutes … but there was no line outside, so I knew it wasn’t true.
I walked right to the ride. No wait.
Between actual rope drop and evenings, we did everything we wanted to do our trip. We tried G+ once for MK, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary. We didn’t use it the rest of the trip. This was the week after Thanksgiving and was pretty busy.
Dont believe the posted times near the end of the night. We got on line for RotR at 8:10pm for a 9pm close. I think the posted time was 70 minutes .
It took us as long as it takes to walk the queue to get on the ride.
We also.did SDD one noght right at closing. The CM told us we everyone in line be through in less than 30 minutes. He said this is because there are no more LL at the end of the night.
It goes to show you how much of an impact LL has on the standby wait tines.
