Using the TP WDW Lines app and at 2:45pm the expected wait time for BTM was 39 minutes and the app said to wait till 3:15pm, lines dropping 19 minutes.
It is now 3:20pm and the expected wait time is now 63 minutes with Ride Now.
Am I using the app correctly? Should I have ridden at 2:45pm? I am trying to use the app to minimize wait times but it doesn’t seem to be working.
It seems like something happened and Touring Plans adjusted the prediction. I think you are using the app correctly. The attraction might of gone done for a while, or another attraction might have gone down and added FP guests to Big Thunder.
I’m just guessing, but does the wait for Big Thunder drop off when the Festival of Fantasy parade starts (around 3:00) and then spike up as soon as the parade passes? I could see where a lot of people might rush over there and Splash Mountain as soon as they’re done watching the parade.
Generally speaking, I don’t put a whole lot of faith in those exact times for when Lines predicts wait times will drop or get worse. The personalized touring plans are great for figuring out what attractions you can see in a day and what order to visit them (and you can re-optimize them during the day to adjust for outages and actual crowd levels). I use those a lot more than I use app just to decide when to ride an individual attraction at any given moment.
I don’t think its an exact science - too many variables and its based on statistics. I would look at the expected wait time and if it seems to be at a reasonable time that you are good with then I would ride the ride and not wait. kinda like hoping that stock price goes up just a little bit more before you sell and then drops like a rock!
I’m not an expert though. But I don’t think its reasonable to expect it to be perfect all the time too many variables. But the app gives you educated information based on data which is better then being willy nilly (is that a word?).