What would it be like to visit an amusement park with no lines for rides? That’s exactly the question Disney Imagineers are tackling. Orlando Attractions Magazine reports that Disney’s testing and preparations to introduce a new queue-less waiting system for their parks.
Soon to be a thing of the past?
The gist of the system kind of reminds me of waiting in line for a deli: Riders are given numbers corresponding to their place “in line,” and are free to wander around an area near the ride until their number is called. But that’s where the similarity to this and grocery shopping ends: the “holding area” for the ride contains games and other activities with which guests can amuse themselves while they wait for their number to be called.
Disney’s famous Fastpass system will still apply, however. Those with fast passes will be able to skip the holding area entirely and go straight to the ride. At least the new system will make the waiting process for everyone else more pleasant.
The system, as yet unnamed, has already been tested at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios Rock-n-Roller Coaster with Aerosmith ride. I’m assuming that since plans are going forward to integrate it into the parks, the tests went well. Park execs plan to roll out the first official queue-less system with the upgraded Dumbo attraction (which won’t actually have a Fastpass option) that’s part of the Fantasyland renovation.
No queues for rides sounds wonderful, making a day at an amusement park that much less stressful. Also, Disney’s plans for the waiting area at the Dumbo ride hint at further possibilities for patterning the wait around the ride itself.
Guests will wait under a gigantic big-top tent at the Dumbo ride, with circus-themed games available for play. If any future queue-less lines at rides follow suit, “waiting” for a ride at a Disney park will become an immersive experience in Disney’s famous stories.
I wonder, however, if the games and attractions in the waiting areas won’t soon develop little queues of their own. Lines for Disney rides sometimes seem to contain hundreds of people, and I can’t imagine that the holding areas for each ride will offer enough games for every single person waiting there.
So might we see a line start to form within the supposed line-free area? A bunch of people queuing up to take their turn at an arcade machine when really the whole reason they’re there is to ride Splash Mountain?
Questions like this that probably explain why the queue-less waiting areas won’t appear until 2012 with the rest of the new Fantasyland. I’m glad Disney’s taking a couple more years to keep tweaking the idea, because I could definitely imagine Disney execs desperate to debut such a novel concept. When the queue-less system finally appears, it’ll be game-changing.
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*(This image by Joe Shlabotnik is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
