Disney builds a smartphone app for wait times.....get with the times CP

Kevinj said:
The park is not big enough, and it is very easy to visually estimate a wait time.

I don't know why you would say that, the Magic Kingdom at Disney World is only 107 acres. CP is probably 2.5 times the size of that, and the entire peninsula is about 3.5 times the size of the Magic Kingdom. If the Disney park is big enough, CP certainly is.

Well, people have made apps for far more worthless things, but I still don't think it's necessary. If you know how crowded CP is in general, you basically know how long the major lines will be. Plus, you're talking about a major ongoing investment by the park to create and maintain this system; it's much more than the cost of keeping a photo under a counter! And how exactly would this bring enough of an increase of people through the gates to justify the cost?

Disney is somewhat different because it has a large percentage parents and kids, and avoiding long lines with small child is a concern for many parents. CP is mostly young adults, who (for the most part) don't have to be placated while standing in line.

Actually, the Dragster Cam tells me pretty much all I need to know about whether it will be worth going to the park on any given day.

factory81 said:
Like I said why have electronic billboards, when everyone has a billboard in their pocket? You can make a cool web app, and you can make it a text message service you could message and they reply back with current information.

Everyone does not have an I phone.

I've gone to plenty of parks that doesn't even have the wooden signs. That'd be a step-up from anything. Thank God CP atleast has these!

I played around with Google Maps one day. Found out a way to draw a line for distances. I first mapped Epcot, from the entrance to the American Adventure (the app even curved it to correspond to the midways) was a little over 1.5 miles. Then I went to CP and while I could not get it to corespond to the midways, I was able to draw a straight line back from the Main Gate to Maverick and guess what it was a little over 1.5 miles away (and the exact same length as Epcot.)

Epcot has the largest "front stage" of any Disney park, the joke is that Epcot stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired. Cedar Point is the exact same size, no other park I have ever been to comes close to these two.

Epcot takes longer because you have to stop at every country to have a local drink.

It would be nice to have an informational sign indicating wait times. However, this idea is just another sign of how lazy society is at this age. Sure, this technology would save you a trip to the ride if it's a long wait or broken down, but is it going to kill you to do a little walking and get some exercise? As someone stated already, this might be effective for closed attrations.

Some exercise? Dude, people already walk plenty at any park. Knowing an attraction is closed before trekking to it would make already-tired legs a bit less worn by the end of the day.

Pleading ignorance, Pete...but at Disney isn't it more than just the MK? It's been along time (over a decade), but I thought that Epcot, the MK, and Animal Kingdom were seamlessly transitioned to, like one big park.

But I still don't get it (the need, that is). In going to CP for 3 decades, I never once wasn't able to estimate a wait-time visually, nor have I ever longed to know the wait time for an attraction on the other side of the park.

Maybe I sound like an old curmudgeon here, but nothing I have ever heard tells me there is a need for billboards, or an I-phone app.

CP has a mobile site optimized for iPhones. And they may or may not at some time in the near future have ride wait times on that site I don't know but it seems like that would be easy to do, beyond that they don't even have data lines in the park everything is done by telephone modems, (credit card authorization), I don't think rides have data lines as they have to dial in to connect to rides. Kevin is right, extra tech at CP is unnecessary and would be too expensive.

check it out http://mobile.cedarpoint.com

Kevinj said:
In going to CP for 3 decades, I never once wasn't able to estimate a wait-time visually...

And clearly, you're not the target for such a service. This is something that would be helpful for those who don't visit often enough to be as awesome as you.

Less tired legs generally make for happier guests who will stay in the park longer, and thus (theoretically) spend more money. It is a guest service, not about laziness, since everyone is generally going to be walking at least two miles (again, that's the most likely bare bones minimum, I know I usually get at least 4 to 6 miles as many times as I go back to front and everywhere in between) in a normal day at the park.

^^ My awesomeness aside, that is a valid point. That is, most of us here know the park well enough to not even be at the park when something like this would be needed. It's also not for me since I have no interest in owning an I-phone (if we are talking about the "app").

I'm just too awesome to need one ;)

You don't need an Iphone or smartphone to get updates from a park.

You could text a number and a computer at the other end texts you a list of rides with wait times......easy as pie

Just in 140 characters or less.....

^Universal already does this. It was a nice feature during Horror Nights getting house wait times sent to my phone.