PDA

View Full Version : the growth of the Virtual Queue tickets



olegc
11-07-2014, 12:51 PM
this is a small rant - but I just read on twitter that by 1:10pm all virtual queue tickets for the AP Baymax meet and greet scheduled for today have been distributed. According to the posting on the parks blog - that means I, as someone who has to work, leave early, and come to the park around 330pm, can not even go try and see him by 530pm. No walk ups is what I thought was intimated by the post.

2 weeks ago I noticed during the day at Village Haus that the Frozen meet and greet virtual line was empty, and no one was inside with the characters - yet there were little girls outside with costumes really, really, really wanting to see Elsa and Anna - but told no, sorry, if you did not have a virtual queue ticket you could not see them, and all tickets had been distributed for the day.

how this plays out in the future will be very interesting. See mickey? virtual queue. go on this attraction because its so popular? virtual queue. Isn't that kind of what FP+ only is anyway?

Maybe its just me - but I sometimes wonder what kind of "experience" that provides for the guest. I know its not the majority because there are not enough queue tickets...

Exclusivity, exclusivity, exclusivity. It was previewed a few years ago at one of the Shareholder meeting - that Disney Parks will be all about delivering Unique Experiences to Guests.

katiesue
11-07-2014, 01:19 PM
If there's no one waiting and the characters are there I don't see why they couldn't let a few in at a time until the people with virtual tickets showed up. Little extra pixie dust.

olegc
11-07-2014, 01:22 PM
If there's no one waiting and the characters are there I don't see why they couldn't let a few in at a time until the people with virtual tickets showed up. Little extra pixie dust.

I agree - but in this instance they did not - and I can see from a theoretical standpoint why you may not want to (if I let you do it, I have to let others do it, and its a judgement call as to what is "busy")

I thought it was interesting that once they went to the virtual queue there was not even anyone waiting in that queue for their slot. TDA got what it wanted - no clogging of visible walkways.. and that's good for those walking around. Not so good for those wishing for a certain experience.

This on the heels, of course, of the Fantasmic virtual queue and fastpass.

MadasaHatter
11-08-2014, 10:47 AM
I am against it too. But I don't think there should even be meet and greets. Magic is when the characters happen to walk by and you happen to see them. I miss those days.

BUT with that said there was a time when the MEET AND GREETS were so popular that you never saw the characters out and about and then they started having more strolling characters.

I think this VIRTUAL queue-ing will take time to get right but it is here to stay I am afraid and we just have to get used to it.....Now if you would like to virtually sign up for my next Tea Party go to madasahattervirtualqueueohdontletsbesillythiswatch isthreedaysslowchangecupschangecupsmoveddownmovedo wn.com to sign up for a reservation.....the next availability is June of 2018, That is all.

candles71
11-08-2014, 03:34 PM
I actually like that there are both meet and greets and strolling characters.

MadasaHatter
11-08-2014, 11:33 PM
I actually like that there are both meet and greets and strolling characters.

I think that is great that there are both too....it is so much more magical meeting the characters by happenstance though....( I was dying to use that word......)

AnotherJenny
11-09-2014, 08:19 AM
I was there at around 2:30, and yes, all passes had been distributed, but there was definitely a line. It extended past the entrance to the bathroom at the Space exit. It was kind of a cluster. Honestly, if you had gotten there at 3:30, virtual queue or not, the line would have been full and you would not have had a chance anyway.

currence
11-09-2014, 08:38 AM
We did the not AP meet & greet yesterday morning. My son decided that was what he really wanted to do, so we got in line around 9:15 for a 10:30 opening. By the time 10:30 rolled around, the line was a lot longer than they had ropes set up for. It looked like it went down toward the bathroom and then doubled back. I wouldn't have wanted to know how long the line was at its longest.

That said, my daughter wanted to wear her Elsa dress yesterday, and there was probably no way that we could have met the Frozen sisters since we didn't arrive until 8:15 and had to leave by 1:00. We assumed that by the time we could have gotten to the distribution station they would be passing out times after when we needed to leave.

The virtual queues are interesting because each family takes a different amount of time, but they all average something fairly consistent. I'm sure Disney combines that information with the expected no-show rate to determine how many tickets to pass out. When those statistics change, Disney may not always adapt appropriately. If the AP lines were consistently long, I would guess that Disney used their regular meet & greet return ratios and more AP holders came back than normal. Plus, these are new characters so people wanted to take more pictures than normal, which takes longer.

Sansarc
11-10-2014, 07:52 PM
What IS a virtual queue ticket? Are these really being used within the parks? I feel as if I've missed something new, huge announcement and now I'm struggling to keep up.

olegc
11-10-2014, 08:15 PM
What IS a virtual queue ticket? Are these really being used within the parks? I feel as if I've missed something new, huge announcement and now I'm struggling to keep up.

It's a fastpass for character meet and greets but I guess they did not want to call it fastpass. At Disneyland started with Frozen meet and greet.

queenbetsey
11-13-2014, 03:44 PM
I have mixed feelings on this topic. I didn't even know they had one for Baymax (guess I need to check the dpl more) but after seeing the huge line for elsa and anna I agree that something needed to be done. the nice thing about meet and greets is that when you kid has a favorite you pretty much know where to go to get that autograph and pic. when we had the granddaughter (which we do quite often) she is still young but there are some she really wants to see. we did the virtual queue. I waited in line and hubby took her on dumbo. we got our tickets and went on some more stuff, checked out pixie hollow and went back and waited around 15 minutes. she is only a year and a half so it was just about right for her. but a couple of weeks later we went in the early evening and saw the same thing as op stated. no one in there anna and elsa just hanging out and (ok I'm gonna go there) chillin and folks asking if they could pop in and say hi/ I agree that they could have let them in. but also understand they are trying to train the park guests with new ways to experience things. but hey we don't have to run after characters this way and scarlett gets to meet Minnie or daisy back at dca in the chase area. no matter what system they use there will be issues good and bad.

currence
11-13-2014, 03:57 PM
a couple of weeks later we went in the early evening and saw the same thing as op stated. no one in there anna and elsa just hanging out and (ok I'm gonna go there) chillin and folks asking if they could pop in and say hi

This seems like Disney needs to do a better job figuring out their timing/return yields if they are constantly running empty. It shouldn't surprise them that if all of the return tickets are gone by noon (and in some cases significantly earlier), the early return times will have the greatest yield and thus they should give out fewer of them, and the later return times will have smaller yields, and thus it is okay to give out more of them. yes, there may be times when the math is off and people will have to wait in the return time longer than Disney would like and/or Anna and Elsa will have no one to visit with, but Disney should be able to extrapolate the yields with reasonable accuracy using regression analysis or similar.