A few weeks ago, we posted about Tron: Lightcycle Run dropping its virtual queue (VQ) at the Magic Kingdom and going to a normal standby system. Now that we have a couple of weeks worth of data, I wanted to see how this major change has affected wait times at the park as a whole, as well as whether Tron has become the new "big bad" at Magic Kingdom, with the highest wait time throughout any given day.
My supposition in that earlier post was that Tron would indeed become the attraction with the highest wait time in the park, supplanting Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and would probably remain this way for years, until at least the new Cars rides if not Villains Land opened. I also posited that the average wait time at the park as a whole would increase, as heretofore there was no posted wait time for Tron, meaning that even if a lot of people rode it in any given day, it wouldn't get included in the crowd level posts because there was no way to simply wait for it. Throwing a major ride to the top of the wait times board would likely raise the average wait time since then (or so I figured).
Most of our wait time data, as usual, comes from Thrill Data. I'm also using some information gleaned from the Twitter account WDWWait. I believe their data both comes from the same place, which is the My Disney Experience app, which measures posted wait times at all attractions. Posted wait time and actual wait time will (likely) differ, but there's no true way to measure the latter, so we have the former as the basis for all of these numbers. I'm using WDWWait here because it's easier to look at a short time frame and see what attraction is the busiest at any park on any day (just search their posts for the park you want, as I did here for Magic Kingdom). There was also another reason, as I discuss below.
In any case, here is the wait time graph for all attractions at Magic Kingdom for September 2024 (so far), courtesy of Thrill Data:
What stands out here? It should be that big red bar at the top, which is indeed Tron, averaging a whopping 124 minutes this month (which really should only include 9/9 and forward, but that's why it's an average). A distant second there is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at 50 minutes. This is quite a difference!
However, when I dug into this a bit, I discovered that Thrill Data had wait times for Tron prior to 9/9. I'm honestly not sure what that was based on, as there was no measurable way to show crowd levels, unless they somehow extrapolated how many boarding groups were distributed each day. Regardless, when looking at that data, it appears the wait time they list was actually HIGHER before the VQ was dropped.
So I had to look at all the days from 9/9 and forward and do the math myself. I still come up with about 112 minutes on average, so the numbers I posted above don't change all that much. That's still a lot, and still well clear of the rest of the field. WDWWait confirms that Tron has been the attraction with the highest wait time since the day it went to standby. Interestingly, I looked at Mine Train both before and after 9/9 and the wait times there are quite similar, meaning that Tron would have had little impact on the next biggest attraction's wait times.
With that in mind, how do the wait times at Magic Kingdom as a whole compare?
There really isn't a difference here. The staggered ups and downs you see here largely reflect the fact that party season has begun, and any time there is a party such as Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, the park closes at 6:00 on party nights. That accounts for the really low numbers you see here. But in general, this is just a slow time of year for Disney World, probably still the most consistently slow time you will find. Whether this changes or not as it gets busier remains to be seen.
So as far as my original assessment goes, I was (not surprisingly) correct that Tron has taken over the highest wait time at the park and will likely do so for the foreseeable future. That's not to pat myself on the back, as that was hardly a bold prediction. But the second half of my theory seems to be incorrect, as the park average hasn't moved much. Perhaps it's because of the way Thrill Data has put out this data, though a quick look through WDWWait seems to confirm that there hasn't been all that much of a difference.
The question about Early Entry remains, and I haven't had a chance to dig too much into that so far. But as it stands, Tron has taken its place at the top of the wait times and this is now the number one attraction to plan around at the park. The impact to Mine Train and other "lesser" rides has so far been minimal, though I do suspect that to change as the park gets busier over the holidays.
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