I’ve noticed the rope drop wait times go up significantly recently. For example, I saw the wait time for Peter Pan’s Flight go up to 17 minutes, even though it is the first item in my plan after park open. I could have sworn the wait time was much lower just a week or so ago. I find it hard to believe that I would wait that long if I walked straight to the ride first thing.
Does anyone have any insights into this? Thanks!
TP recently updated their program and models. When you go to the crowd tracker page on the website, it explains it in better detail.
I noticed the same thing happened before our trip (last week) - as DarthDopey said TP’s updates readjusted the opening waits using new stats.
In use in MK last week, they were pretty on the nose on Thursday - and sticking to our morning TP we hit everything as planned.
The wait times felt a tiny bit under on Tuesday, but that was Veteran’s Day and the crowds got thick quickly, and the walk between rides was go slowing.
I’m pretty sure the idea is that most people won’t be at the front of the line for rope drop, so they’ll end up with some wait when they finally arrive at their first attraction. If you expect to be at the head of the pack, then your wait time will probably be lower than predicted.
It also takes into account the fpp line where people arriving after you will ride before you. Previously there was no fp line until 45 mins to and hour after park opening.
Hey @DarthDopey, where is the info on the recent update? I’m a little dopey myself this morning, and can’t find it 
Ah, I see. That’s just the info they released when they introduced CC4 about a year ago. I thought that there was an announcement about the more recent wait time changes that people have been seeing in their TPs, such as RD wait times.
I should’ve looked at the date. My bad. @Len and @dave or @fred had posted something about it too. I’ll have to do a search.
@rustleund - post a link to your plan, please, and we can take a look at it.Depending on the day and walking speed, 17 might be a bit high.
Yes! Plenty of variability around the RD wait times. Especially and most importantly there’s variability around the first attraction. For example, IF you are with the rope at RD for SDMT, you will not have a wait. Just five-ish minutes later, the wait can balloon to 30min as was the case just a couple weeks ago. Betting it’s hard for TP to account for this so TP might say 30 (or whatever) minutes for the first attraction when the wait may actually be nothing.
Wow, thanks for all of the great responses, everyone.
@len - I’ve since changed my plan that had the issue, but I made another one the next day that has the same issue - here it’s 15 minutes instead of 17, but the same idea: Disney World Touring Plans
I guess I understand now that the model has to kind of play it safe and assume that I’m not going to literally be the one of the first 20-30 people in line for a ride, but I don’t really have any other way to fit more stuff into my plan if I really think I can get there first and ride without a wait.
Thanks again for everyone’s help.
If you are first on and there are no issues w the attraction, you’ll bank time! I did this w SDMT. Banked about 30min by being first on. Then, I marked it as done, reoptimized (b/c of the time savings) and was able to fit more in that day.