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BJW
03-22-2005, 07:52 PM
Last week at the resort I started walking up the steps to the Orange Stinger and was stopped by a cast member. He asked me what my watch said and I told him it doesn't talk. (Just joking) Actually, he wrote the time down that I gave him on a paper called "Resort Utilization Study" and handed me the piece of paper and told me to hand it to the CM operating the ride when I get up there. The paper had the Disneyland logo at the top with a bunch of blanks on it for the office workers to use. When I handed it to the CM at the top he again asked me for the time on my watch and filled it in. When I asked him what it was for he said they were just trying to see how long it took people to get to the ride from the moment they got in line.

What do you guys think this is for? Could the rumours about them reconsidering the route 66 area be true?

Drince88
03-22-2005, 07:56 PM
Wow, that sounds really low-tech.
At WDW they have a card they swipe and hand to you when you enter the line that you hand to the "loading" CM that they swipe again, and it tells the "this long from this point" system how long it took you to get on. It even has a lanyard on it so you can put it around your neck if you don't want to hold it. And no watch required!

Is that what they were doing?

JeffG
03-22-2005, 08:34 PM
I've encountered this a few times at the DLR parks as well as at WDW (we were handed one of those counters at the entrance to "Mickey's Philharmagic" during our last trip). Basically, it is a low-tech (but probably effective and inexpensive) way of checking the accuracy of posted wait times or ride counts.

-Jeff

Opus1guy
03-22-2005, 08:38 PM
Gosh, they were doing these all the way back in the 60s and 70s. And I got one on some attraction I can't recall about 5 years ago.

They're low tech, but they're cheap and they apparently do the job of giving them the info they seek on attraction wait times.

The higher-tech part most likely occurs in some office where some computer model probably selects the date and time of doing the survey, which would give them an accurate sampling for the kind of data they're looking for.

sdfilmcritic
03-22-2005, 11:36 PM
They do this for several rides, including the big name ones like Indy. It doesn't mean they are trying to remove rides, it just means they are just trying to get an accurate judgement of how long people wait in line. It's simplistic, yes, but it's effective.

BJW
03-23-2005, 12:28 AM
I see what you guys are saying but Orange Stinger never has a wait. Only four minutes had elapsed since I was given the paper. I could see testing the wait for a ride with a posted line like Mulholland or Screamin that uses the digital wait time display, but this is a ride that usually never has a line. I guess they have to be impartial. :confused:

sdfilmcritic
03-23-2005, 12:59 AM
I guess they have to be impartial. :confused:In the words of Gary Oldman's character in the film Leon: The Professional -- BINGO!

DCAWhites
03-23-2005, 01:22 AM
These cards have nothing to do with the posted wait times. They are used to collect data on how long wait times are thoughout the day for both standby and fastpass lines.

sdfilmcritic
03-23-2005, 01:26 AM
These cards have nothing to do with the posted wait times. They are used to collect data on how long wait times are thoughout the day for both standby and fastpass lines.Hmm. Interesting. At LLC they were used to better gauge wait times throughout the day so it was easy to judge how long guests were waiting in line.


Are we saying the same thing but with a different arrangement of words?

Tiger W
03-23-2005, 08:28 AM
They asked me to do the same thing on TOT around christmas time. They mentioned something about updating the wait times.

marktips
03-23-2005, 09:13 AM
This card with "guest times" method was used for every ride at WDW during the Extra Magic Hours evening testing period. Any rides that didn't reach certain requirements for guest interest didn't end up being offered during the EMH.

"FLIK" cards, the white plastic scanned ones, are used on a daily basis at WDW to guage waits time tipboard purposes.

In short, research uses the hand out cards, one roughly every 10 minutes, and operations uses FLIK cards and the old standby - looking at where the line is.

Drince88
03-23-2005, 04:10 PM
Thanks, Mark --- it didn't seem like the two systems were for the same purpose!

DisneyDustin22
03-23-2005, 04:14 PM
I say next time this happens to any of us, set your watch ahead 17 minutes from when you recieve the card. Then act really P.O.'d when you hand the card off the second time. If questioned, just say, "It's been long enough can I just get on the ride now!?" :D