Disney was in the news recently because of media reports fewer people were visiting the Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando.

What’s interesting is how that news was broken. It wasn’t reported by Disney. It came from data gathered by an independent company that measures wait times for rides.

Touring Plans disclosed that the average time people stood in line for a ride at Disney on July 4th was 27 minutes, down from 31 minutes in 2022 and 47 minutes in 2019.

The slower wait times suggested far fewer people were attending the park, according to articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and on Yahoo.

It’s wild that people wait on average 27 minutes in line.

But even wilder that there’s a company that tracks waiting times for rides at Disney!

In typical American fashion it’s created a business opportunity: Touring Plans charges $17.95 for an annual subscription to analytics to tell you when lines are shortest.

The offering provides access to a “decade of scientific study of Walt Disney World wait times and travel logistics.” It’s a database of 8 million wait times.

Touring Plans scores wait times based on a scale of 1 to 10. It suggests the best times of year to visit and provides a real-time app you can use when at the park.

The factors in the company’s model include vacation schedules from 140 key school districts, weather patterns, new rides and maintenance schedules.

The model will save you four hours a day, the company estimates.

Disney posts wait times too, but Touring Plans says they tend to be inflated. The thinking is that people are happier when they wait less time than predicted.

Touring Plans takes wait time data seriously, going as far as disclosing the accuracy of their predictive models.

Yesterday, for example their model came within one minute in predicting the wait times for the Jungle Cruise and Dumbo the Flying Elephant rides. It was three minutes off for the Little Mermaid.

The estimate was nine minutes off forecasting the wait time for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.

I guess it’s harder to predict when you are going to infinity and beyond.