Tip Of The Tail: Don't Be A Foolish Mortal - Avoid Long Queue Lines

Everyone loves a parade. Especially Walt Disney World Parades. Spectromagic, Jammin' Jungle Parade and Move It, Shake It all bring something special to the table. But they are good for a lot more than just having the opportunity to sit in wide-eyed wonder at the spectacle as it goes by. It's also good for a lot more than the frustration of having someone try to shoehorn their way in front of (or into!!) your spot, even though you've been standing there for half an hour to make sure you can see.

One other thing they are good for is for lightening up the attraction wait times. For example, this past Saturday night, we were at the Magic Kingdom for our WDW fix. We were walking out of Fantasyland and past Columbia Harbor House when we noticed that the wait time for the Haunted Mansion was only 10 minutes. We also noticed people were lined up in droves along Liberty Square down toward Frontierland in anticipation of the Spectromagic parade that was making its way from Main Street toward our location.

Past experience has told us that hitting attractions during parades and fireworks shows is a good idea because a hefty percentage of the guests in the park will be giving their attention to those shows and not the attractions - meaning much shorter wait times.

We mentioned this in our Tip Of The Tail article on October 25 regarding Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade at the Animal Kingdom (the perfect time to ride Kilimanjaro Safari). Also, the 15 minutes before Illumination: Reflections Of Earth begins at Epcot is a GREAT time to visit Test Track or Soarin. And there's no better time to ride Rock N' Roller Coaster or Tower Of Terror at Hollywood Studios than when Fantasmic is getting ready to start. Wait times are cut WAY down.

This theory was proved out again regarding the Haunted Mansion this past Saturday night. We decided to take advantage of the 10-minute wait time and do this WDW classic. In fact, it wasn't 1o minutes - it was a literal walk-on. After having less than 1-minute out in the queue area with the cemetary, the doors opened, and into Master Gracie's waiting room we went, then on to the Stretching Room, then on to the ride.

After exiting the ride we decided to take in the magnificence that is the exterior of the Haunted Mansion at night - take some photos, wait for the ghosts to walk by the windows and check out the pet cemetary. While relaxing there, we saw the queue line increase. And increase. And increase. Sprecto was coming to an end, and before long, the Haunted Mansion queue line stretched back out past the wait time clock. When we left, it was up to a 45 minute wait.

So the moral of the story is, unless you really want to see the parade or end-of-night fireworks show, you can take advantage of the situation by hitting up your favorite 5-Mouse Ear attractions while everyone else is standing along a curb or sitting in a bleacher seat to see that show. If you're at a Disney park for a day, and you've seen these shows before and/or don't mind missing them, you can utilize Fastpass throughout the day and this strategy to knock down those attractions with minimal wait times - freeing up your time to do other things. Give it a try next time you're at The Mouse.