A Wait Time Analysis of Thursday 9/12

[zombieman]

[EDITED following my HHN visit this weekend]

 

Hello all,

As many of you know, I have been collecting wait times posted on the Orlando and Hollywood Apps during the season, and have been asking you to post your snapshots.

 

On Thursday 9/12, I did a crazy thing.  I collected data every 10 minutes for both events.  That is a total of 12 straight hours between the two events.

I'd like to share that data using a few graphs, and provide some analysis.

 

Hopefully after seeing this, someone out there will find a way to automatically obtain this data for me direct from the app.  I can easily plug it into my existing spreadsheet.

I know someone out there has the ability.  Surely someone will take it on?

 

In these graphs, I show wait time versus time, over the duration of the evening.  I have some shaded areas that indicate showtimes for AOV and Marathon of Mayhem.

My shaded area includes about 15 min before and after the show.  The intent being that during these times, we would theorize there would be certain traffic patterns before, during, and after the show in certain areas of the park.  The wait times may or may not confirm these suspicions.  I did not set out to confirm my theories; I wanted to see what the data showed.

 

Keep in mind this is a snapshot of ONE NIGHT of the event.  A low attendance night at that. 

It does not account for such things as:

• Weather
• Unexpected closing of houses for technical reasons
• Cast changes
• Number of guests in park during the evening (people coming and leaving)

 

Here are some facts about the evening:

• Average house wait time over entire event: 40 minutes.
• Max wait for the evening: 100 min (Stranger Things, preloaded at start of event)

This first graph shows the average wait time of all houses during the evening.  Although Ghostbusters sand Stranger Things were preloaded with a wait time of 80 min and 100 min respectively, most of the other houses were closed at pre-opening time.  So the average wait time was mathematically not high.

What is interesting to note here is the jump at 8PM.  Personally, I believe this is the second rush of people coming into the park and hitting houses hard.  We can see what I believe is proof of this in later graphs.

Also interesting to note that the park started to clear out starting around 10PM (it was a Thursday).  Note the blip around 11:30 once the two overlapping shows let out.  Other graphs can show us where people went.

 

 

 

This next graph attempts to answer the question: "I've entered the park.  Do I go straight (to the Soundstages), or to the right (Shrek and Parade Buildings)?"

The green line is the average wait time of the Soundstages and the blue is the average wait times of Shrek and two Parade Building houses.

I don't include the MIB tents as being to the right, as they tend to open later and they don't affect the trend line much.

Remember that two of the SS houses are preloaded with Stay and Scream guests, so ignore that drastic drop off before 6PM.

What I see here is that going Right is clearly the way to go.

Also notice that sharp increase at about 8PM.  Again, I'm theorizing that those are the second rush of people into the park - and they, too, are naturally going to the SS houses (because they don't realize that even arriving late, going Right is better).

Also see how after the AOV shows people head toward the houses.  

 

 

Next is a very busy graph.  What I am trying to plot here are the clusters of houses - EXCLUDING the SS houses, as the graph just gets too busy.

The clusters are:

• Barney Area (Graveyard and Universal Monsters)
• Tents (Nightengales and Depths)
• Shrek (Killer Klownz)
• MIB (House of 1000 Corpses)

Things of note:

• HOTC and KKFOS open late
• At 8:00 (my theorized second rush of people) everything but KKFOS starts to rise.  This is not consistent with my theory, but look at the KKFOS wait time by itself.  It never really peaks until very late.  Not sure why.  Maybe it's people entering the park and seeing a decent wait, but deciding to go the houses farther int the back first ("we'll hit KKFOS on the way out").  We definitely see KKFOS with a higher wait time as we would expect as people file out of the park and get in one last house.
• I can't explain the burst of traffic to KKFOS after the second AOV show lets out.  It's on the other side of the park, and HOTC is right there. 
• We do see HOTC jump after every AOV lets out; however, not necessarily from AOV traffic.  When AOV lets out, they usually force traffic leaving the theater to go to the right - toward San Francisco.  The traffic is one-way, so people walking from MIB toward SF would not get turned back, but they might see the walker horde ahead and decide to hit HOTC since it's right there.  So there might be a delayed pop in HOTC wait times once the theater has let out.  The people forced to the right would either make their way slowly to Stranger Things and Us, or cross the bridge toward KKFOS.
• I'd expect to see the tents near AOV also jump after AOV lets out, but this only happens after the second show.
• Following Mayhem, we see the Tents and HOTC jump a bit.  I think this makes sense but I'm not totally sure where viewing is yet for Mayhem.
• I understand how Mayhem viewing area works now, and it seems to me that as you exit Mayhem, (Graveyard and Universal Monsters) or KKFOS would be the closest houses depending on which exit you use.  It's possible that some people would watch from the SF or London area, but the show doesn't make sense from that angle, and they do a great job of cancelling noise on that side.  Having said this, I don't see wait time trends that support that theory.

 

I can do more graphs that anyone wants to see.  Just let me know.

Can't do more right now because I have to get home to pack.

Leaving for Orlando tomorrow morning!!

[LilPetts]

This is so interesting and will be really helpful to a lot of people, thank you for your dedication & enjoy your Orlando trip, i fly out next Thursday! 

[Albertsands]

I was there , this past Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday was so much more busier then Thursday. A couple employees I mention it too said there were 30,000 people there Wednesday the 11th. There was a Mickey Not So Scary party going on Thursday which may have effected both nights.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Albertsands

[zombieman]

I believe this coming week is the official Hell Week, when nearby schools let out.  It is an aptly named week.

 

I tried finding a way to automatically pull wait times from the app, to no avail.

Was oping there would be an iOS emulator I could run on my PC and than use a macro record on that to pull info.  Nothing that would work.

Back in the day when they posted wait times via webpage, it could be done, but now that it is entirely in their app, I don't see a way.

 

Still, I bet there's someone here who could figure out how to do it...

I'd love to be able to post a years worth of graphs.