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Predicting Disneyland: Strategies to Better Your Disney Day

I used math to make your Disneyland trip more efficient

All images provided by the author
All images provided by the author

Introduction

How does your group size affect the amount of rides you will get on? Which ride should you go to first? How important is your walking distance around the park? I hope to answer all of these questions in this second installment of "Predicting Disneyland".

In the first article of this series, Predicting Disneyland Wait Times through Population Simulations, I showed how minute-by-minute simulations of the park can be used to prove that walking towards rides with higher wait times could actually save you time in your day. This left me with some unanswered questions about group decision-making in the park and how certain group attributes affect the experience.

Group Size Analysis

Bigger groups (5+ people) get on less rides than smaller groups (1–4 people). It makes sense. More people equals more bathroom breaks, slower walking speeds, and therefore, less rides. Just how much does group size affect ride total though?

Left (21,000 people in park) is post-COVID average attendance, Right (51,000 people in park) is maximum capacity. Image provided by the author.
Left (21,000 people in park) is post-COVID average attendance, Right (51,000 people in park) is maximum capacity. Image provided by the author.

For the current park attendance, the left graph is more accurate since the park is being capped at some percentage of the maximum capacity. This shows us that for every additional person in your party, you will ride 0.33 rides less on average. For days at maximum capacity, it is around 0.28 rides less on average for every person added to your group. This makes sense since these days result in less rides for everyone, and slower walking speeds as well.

Best First Ride

This one is a bit tougher, just because everyone has their own favorite ride that they put above all the others. To measure the best first ride, I will be looking at how many rides each group went on after that first ride, for all 30 rides. The x-axis is each ride, 1–30, in alphabetical order.

For 21,000 people in the park. Image provided by the author.
For 21,000 people in the park. Image provided by the author.

The top 5 first rides are as follows:

  1. Space Mountain – 16.26 Expected Total Rides
  2. Matterhorn – 16.23 Expected Total Rides
  3. Indiana Jones – 16.15 Expected Total Rides
  4. Big Thunder Mountain – 15.44 Expected Total Rides
  5. Jungle Cruise – 15.24 Expected Total Rides

The top 3 are some of the busiest rides in the park, and are towards the front of the park, so it makes sense that they would be the first ride choice for most people. This also shows that getting the big rides out of the way early can increase the amount of rides you get to go on. This is because you are riding the bigger rides when their wait times are far below the average for the day, so you are saving time compared to everyone else.

But what about the worst 5 rides to start with? (Excluding the 7 rides not chosen as a first ride by anyone in the Simulation)

  1. Autopia – 13.25 Expected Total Rides
  2. Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin – 13.14 Expected Total Rides
  3. Gadget’s Go Coaster – 12.93 Expected Total Rides
  4. Astro Orbiter – 12.75 Expected Total Rides
  5. It’s a Small World – 12.45 Expected Total Rides

Rides further away from the entrance will result in less expected total rides, since during the time you are walking to them, all the other big rides are seeing more people hop in line. Also, rides with long ride times like Small World (10+ minutes) should not be chosen first, just due to missing out on the low wait times at the big rides.

Arrival Time and Distance Walked

Does an earlier arrival time (or staying later) determine the amount of rides you will go on? How much do you have to walk to call your Disney day a success?

To determine how well a group did at the park, I added all of the ride scores from their day to one big score. This can be compared to everyone else at the park to see how the group did. I also totaled the amount of walking that a group did, using the distance matrix developed from Google Earth. I used this information to make a scatter plot, with the colors ranging from dark to light to show the differences arrival time can have on a score (brighter colors mean more time in the park, darker means less time).

Image provided by the author
Image provided by the author

Generally speaking, it looks like higher scoring days do have to walk more. This makes sense because a higher scoring day requires more rides, which requires more walking. You should also note that those groups with more time in the park (yellow circles) generally had higher scores.

Distance Walked Between Rides

Do groups who walk less between rides have higher scoring days?

I used roughly the same scatter plot, but with average distance between rides as the x-axis instead of overall distance.

Image provided by the author
Image provided by the author

It appears that average walking distance between rides only mattered for the groups who showed up a little late to the park (or left early). The dark blue group (least amount of time in the park), had a large variety of walking distances with little change to their average day score. On the other hand, those with the most time in the park averaged a lower walking distance and a higher day score.

Conclusions

How does your group size affect the amount of rides you will get on?

Actually, not as much as I thought. For an average crowd, every extra person in your group will decrease your day by 0.33 rides. If that extra 0.33 rides matters to you, then you should definitely make a solo Disney trip. Single rider lines, bathroom breaks for just yourself, and mobile ordering for one will end up saving you lots of time.

Which ride should you go to first?

The big 3: Space Mountain, Matterhorn, or Indiana Jones. Knocking out two of those in the first hour will surely make your Disneyland trip much easier. Getting on these rides when the wait times are far below their average can literally save you hours.

How important is your distance walked around park?

Total distance for a day at Disneyland does have some correlation to a better score. If you want to get on more rides, you are going to have to do a good 7–10 miles. There was also some correlation between average walking distance between rides and higher scores. On average, those who are more efficient with where they walk get on more rides, and have better days. Those with later arrivals should consider choosing their next ride closer to the one they just got off, since the scores dropped a considerable amount as the average walking distance between rides increased.

I think some of the next questions that should be asked are, what makes those groups seen at the top of those scatter plots so successful? What is their first ride, arrival/departure time, or ride order? All of these factors could show us what an ideal Disneyland plan looks like, and it could be something you could implement on your next trip.


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