If there’s one thing fans know they’re going to have to do when visiting Disneyland or Walt Disney World, it’s wait in line. Whether you’re waiting for attractions, in line to get food, or just in line to get inside the park, lines are everywhere. They cannot be escaped. It’s not hard to guess where you’ll find the longest wait times at Disney Parks. The newest and biggest and coolest new attractions tend to have longer lines than small, older rides, but are wait times really the determining factor in what’s “popular” at a Disney Park?
For reasons passing understanding, the Splash Mountain war of 2020 is still being fought. This comes five years after the decision was made to retheme the attraction and a year after Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opened at Walt Disney World. Some people are still salty that Splash was replaced and have continued to argue the replacement was a bad move, while others, myself included, have argued that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is a great ride in its own right.
However, a recent interaction on Twitter regarding this topic broke down into a discussion about wait times. One person pointed out that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure still has one of the longest wait times at Magic Kingdom, indicating it’s clearly a popular ride that people want to ride. The response was that wait times are not a fair metric of popularity, and the bigger issue is that “Disney builds new attractions to get guests in the park” and that TBA did not succeed by this metric.
Wait Times Are Not The Best Determination Of A Ride’s Popularity, But They Are A Determination
To be fair, the initial point — that wait times are a bad metric to determine popularity — isn’t wrong. There are a lot of facts that determine an attraction’s wait time, many of which are simply a function of the type of ride that you’re dealing with, the number of guests it can accommodate and how quickly it can be unloaded and then loaded with new riders. The Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland tends to have long wait times, not because people love it, it’s hardly the best ride at Disneyland, but because it’s a very slow ride to load.
Having said that, wait times are certainly one indication of how popular a ride is. People have to be willing to wait in the line in the first place, otherwise there would be no line at all. If people are willing to stand in a line that’s 45 minutes or an hour long, when that time could be spent doing anything else, including waiting for something else, it means there is interest. People want to ride it.
Nobody Goes To Disney World To Go On One Ride
The broader point here is also true. Disney absolutely builds new attractions to get people into the park. That goes without saying, but a brand new attraction, or in the case of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, an updated old one, isn’t meant to sell an entire vacation on its own. It’s an incremental improvement, designed to make a trip that much more enticing. It’s there to give you another reason to come.
Just like there are a lot of factors that create wait times, there are a lot of factors that determine whether or not people are going to spend money on a Walt Disney World or go on a Disneyland vacation. With that in mind, I can firmly say no single ride is responsible for that. I can’t imagine people were spending thousands on a Disney World vacation in 2018 specifically to ride Splash Mountain.
It may be true that few, if any, people are booking Disney Parks vacations specifically to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but I’m not sure that’s any different than most attractions. If you’re a particular fan of a specific Disney franchise or a particular type of ride, a new attraction that hits your fandom may be enough to get you to visit on its own. However, for most people, it’s the totality of the experience.
Disney Parks are incredible places with so much to do that no one thing deserves all the credit, or all the blame, for your experience. If you’re looking for one ride to make or break your entire trip, you’re missing out on everything else there is to do.
