999_Happy_Haunts
Been There, Done That Since 1972
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2017
It's the same wait time because X=X. Let's assume a situation where everyone must wait in line. You get in line and there are 200 people in front of you. You have no way of knowing if that is a single group of 200; if it is two groups of 100; four groups of 50; 50 groups of 4; 100 groups of 2; or 200 solo travelers. (Incidentally, this unknown pokes a huge hole in the argument that some are making here that they want everyone to be in line so that they can better judge the length of the line. Because we are talking about character photo ops, you have no clue how long the line actually is, because you have no way of knowing how many "groups" are in front of you. You only know how many "people" are in front of you and that doesn't tell you much at a M&G. This isn't Space Mountain.)I don't understand the logic of those who say it's the same wait time? Are you just figuring one group photo for each family? What if each family wants each member to have an individual photo? We haven't done character greets for a few years so I'm curious as to why it couldn't end up making the lines much longer if each child gets an alone picture?
So everyone stays in line. Turns out that the 200 people in front of you are actually 20 groups of 10 people each. Your wait time is going to be the amount of time it takes for the photographer to work her way through all of the photos that this group reasonably wants. You have no idea what that will be as you wait in line. But let's say it takes 7 minutes per group for a total of 140 minutes. X=140.
Now lets say that you arrive in line that uses placeholders. When you arrive there are 20 people in front of you. You have no way of knowing if that represents 20 placeholders holding spots for groups of 1, 2, 4, 8, 10 or more people. When it is the first person in line's turn to go, 9 more people join him to form a group of 10. They take 7 minutes to complete the M&G. Then it is time for the next person in line to go. She is joined by 9 more people to form a group of 10. That group takes 7 minutes. And this process repeats for all 20 people in front of you. Each person is joined by 9 other people to form groups of 10, and each group takes 7 minutes. Total time is 140 minutes. 140=X. So it doesn't matter if all 200 people stood in front of you or only 20 people stood in front of you. Either way, your wait time is 140 minutes. And in neither scenario could you have guessed that.
What people seem to be arguing is that: "Gee. If I saw a line that had 20 people in it, I would have thought that my wait time would be shorter than if I saw a line that had 200 people in it." But that fails for at least 2 reasons. First, unless you know how large each group is, you have no way of knowing how long your wait will be. A line that has 4 groups of 50 people (200 people total) will move faster than a line that has 20 solo travelers in it. (And if not faster, certainly not appreciably slower.) And when you join the line, you just don't know. The second reason why this assumption fails is that it assumes ignorance of the process on the part of the person joining the line. In the real world, this ignorance would vanish. You would get in a short line of 20 people and a CM or the person in front of you, or the person behind you would probably say something like: "Don't get too excited. These are only the placeholders in line. There are actually a lot more people in this virtual line than it appears. Oh, and by the way. Feel free to use a placeholder yourself. No reason why you shouldn't get the same benefit." Once the process is made known to you, the situation becomes clear and any "perception" of a short line goes away. Just like walking into the Dumbo tent. At first blush it might look like you could walk right on. But then you learn about how the system works and you realize that even though you cannot see a line, you will not be getting on the ride for 30 more minutes.
While the actual time for each group to finish can vary, and yes, larger groups can take more time, the time difference is not meaningful. And besides, even if a larger group takes more time, when you divide that time up among the people in the group, it can turn out to be a shorter wait. In other words. If there are 8 people in line all of whom are couples, and each couple takes 2 minutes with the character, the total time is 4 couples x 2 minutes, or 8 minutes. That works out to 1 minute per person. But if a group of 8 people takes 4 minutes to process, then the total time for 8 people to be processed is 30 seconds per person. (8 people processed in 4 minutes.) You are better off being behind a group of 8 than you are being behind 4 groups of 2. People seem to want to use "big groups" as an upsetting factor here, but in reality, the bigger the group, the better.Others will correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that the character handlers have a responsibility to keep each group within a specific time frame. There is a maximum amount of time a group, whether 2 or 10 will be allowed at a character meet and greet.
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