I thought this blog post was interesting. I thought I’d make a thread that can be used to share posts from the blog generally rather than having a new thread for every post.
When we were testing in Hollywood Studios a few days ago, our rope drop goal was for Slinky Dog Dash. Our tester was scurrying over to Toy Story Land along with lots of other guests. When it was time to enter the queue, Cast Members were insisting that the entire party enter together. That’s not uncommon. What is new is that a guest was advised to move to the side of the entrance until her party could join her. They did not make her go to the back of the line, but they also didn’t let her continue in the queue with the assumption that the rest of the party would join her.
I like this approach. Not too draconian, but strikes a balance between accommodating stragglers without disrupting the corralled portion of the queue.
I can’t picture this? If she’s moved the the side, others are passing her. Will her family come connect with her where she is and bypass the back of the line? How does this new group enter.
Like I said - I just can’t picture. Can anyone explain it?
Yeah she is standing there at the gate into the major portion of the queue. There is a line backed up into the sidewalk. Her family bypasses the exterior portion of the queue and the CM admits her with her family when they are all together.
I picture it as the cast member is standing just to the side of the main queue entrance. If someone has rushed there without their whole party, bypassing others who were at rope drop, then they have to go stand by the cast member. When the rest of their party appears and starts entering the official queue, the waiting person steps back into line with their family. Thus there’s no benefit to walking briskly ahead if you have a person in your group who can’t keep up. You will get to enter the queue when the slowest group member arrives.
This doesn’t really solve the whole problem though, because as soon as the queue winds out of site of the cast member at the entrance, there’s nothing stopping people from claiming they need to go ahead to join their family.
How do they define “entire party” ? I could easily leave behind the rest of my family, still sleeping. Or perhaps, some of the guests on my reservation, went to a different attraction.
No I took it as they are specifically saying they do skip the outside portion of the queue. It’s not unusual for it to be backed up / static so the family could have time to bypass the outdoor queue and meet the member of their party that was stopped.
In the quoted portion of the article, they were asking people if they had their entire party with them, meaning others who are intending to ride with them at that time. You would have discretion to answer that question appropriately.
I like this approach as well. Altho it barely applies to us. Some of our group are faster and go on ahead but usually I’m not riding those rides anyway. There are very few rides that riding together is a thing. It’s not like there are family raft rides on Toy Story Mania or Dumbo.
Shane and I had a fairly big disagreement at HS some years ago when at rope drop he ran way ahead (with Julia) for Slinky. He insisted that Luke and I come up with them; we did not. We rode separately. I was livid with him.
This sort of reminds me of when we were lined up for the Candlelight Processional. We had been waiting awhile and Maggie needed to use the restroom. Of course we started moving while she was gone. You can’t enter the seating until your whole party is there so we had to step aside. That is where she met us and we could go in, without is having to go to the very back of the line.
First - my day is already going to be great just because of your pictures, @Jeff_AZ. Not only did they help me understand, but I giggled. This is Liners helping Liners in the nutshell.
Second - I do think the bathroom thing is a little different as Maggie HAD been waiting in line. I like that the CMs helped. @heathernoel
Finally - I think this process is the CM’s looking for a way to not create an uproar with the Entitled Guests in our midst. Because they are still rewarding their behavior to some degree.
We often travel in a larger group and often we do get separated by a party or two right at the entrance even at NOT rope drop, bc some of my family members have less spatial awareness or something and don’t notice others also approaching. Or they assume all of the group has been walking at the same speed and/or haven’t been cut off. If the first part of my party is a few people ahead and they wave me up, I won’t go. I just won’t. I am with you @OBNurseNH They can let the party(ies) between go and meet me where I am. Now, at WDW often the parties in between will turn and encourage the lagging group to head up. But if I am at the head, I will just invite those parties to move ahead to join my second batch.
In 2019 we RD SDD with me, my mom, my sister, and my four girls, one with a stroller. We rode in three separate groupings, and I rode alone, because of how we arrived to the queue. The same had happened at AK and KS.
would it matter? If anyone comes later and says, “May I go ahead to my family/party?” The CM will now say, “I’m sorry only complete parties are allowed to enter” there could be a back and forth but in the end the CM simply states that I’ve only allowed full party groups through and they will deny “late” arrivals entrance. This will prevent liars too that use this ruse to push to the front of the line.
I try not to be too much of a stickler about it one way or the other. My tendency is to have my party wait and let people pass us until we are all together. But if a majority of the party is ahead and there are only a few people between, I will have the stragglers join us. This is especially true if we were separated during tap in or preshows, or if it’s clear that individuals from multiple parties are interspersed and we all need to extract ourselves.
The worst is when you let one or two people ahead only to find out that the bulk of their party was behind so you end up letting like 10 people ahead of you.
New post today about how the new loading procedure at Everest is making the single rider line take longer to ride. This is mostly just confirming what was reported a month or so ago. They also mention that they stopped allowing SRs from requesting to ride together. I didn’t realize they ever permitted that.
