7 Rides That Are Never Worth the Wait (According to Our Data)

Meet Anna and Elsa at Royal Sommerhus at EPCOT averages a 33.7-minute wait for a character meet-and-greet — and its worst hour comes at 9am, not midday, so arriving early doesn't save you the way it usually does.

That's the pattern behind this list: attractions where the wait is long relative to what you actually get at the end of it. The numbers below come from the wait patterns we track.

The 7 rides

1. Meet Anna and Elsa at Royal Sommerhus — EPCOT (Norway). Averages 33.7 minutes. Oddly, its worst hour is 9am (52.9 minutes) rather than midday — arriving early doesn't save you here the way it does elsewhere.

2. Meet Disney Stars at Red Carpet Dreams — Hollywood Studios (Commissary Lane). Averages 31.6 minutes, climbing to 39.8 minutes by 8pm. A photo-op line that gets worse, not better, as the night goes on.

3. Meet Princess Tiana and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall — Magic Kingdom (Fantasyland). Averages 23.2 minutes and tops out at 29 minutes around 5pm.

4. Kali River Rapids — Animal Kingdom (Asia). Averages 31.8 minutes and spikes to 49.4 minutes at 2pm for a short rafting circuit — with a real chance of getting soaked right before your next line.

5. Meet Toothless and Friends — Epic Universe (Isle of Berk). Averages 45.9 minutes, peaking at 65.6 minutes during the 12pm hour. It's a meet-and-greet, not a ride, and it's one of the most heavily visited spots we track.

6. Pteranodon Flyers — Islands of Adventure (Jurassic Park). Averages 26.1 minutes for a ride most adults in a group can't even board — it's height- and capacity-restricted to riders under 56 inches or an accompanying adult. Worst hour: 34.1 minutes at noon.

7. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls — Islands of Adventure (Toon Lagoon). Averages 34.7 minutes, worst hour 55.2 minutes at noon. Same trade as Kali River Rapids: a brief water-ride payoff for a wait that regularly climbs past half an hour.

The data at a glance

Attraction	Park	Avg wait (min)	Worst hour	Worst avg (min)
Meet Anna and Elsa at Royal Sommerhus	EPCOT	33.7	9am	52.9
Meet Disney Stars at Red Carpet Dreams	Hollywood Studios	31.6	8pm	39.8
Meet Princess Tiana at Princess Fairytale Hall	Magic Kingdom	23.2	5pm	29.0
Kali River Rapids	Animal Kingdom	31.8	2pm	49.4
Meet Toothless and Friends	Epic Universe	45.9	12pm	65.6
Pteranodon Flyers	Islands of Adventure	26.1	12pm	34.1
Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls	Islands of Adventure	34.7	12pm	55.2

What they have in common

Four of the seven are meet-and-greets: a fixed, slow interaction with no way to add capacity. Three are low-throughput water or kid-restricted rides where the vehicle only holds a handful of riders per cycle. None of them are headliners that justify a 30-plus minute commitment on their own merits — they're bottlenecked by format, not by being uniquely popular.

If a meet-and-greet or a soaking water ride is genuinely on your must-do list, that's a different calculation. But if you're deciding what to cut when the day runs long, this list is where to start. For rides that actually reward the wait, check our data on Flight of Passage and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind — both post big averages too, but for headliners that deliver.

For a broader view of which hours are worst across an entire park rather than one ride, see the worst hour to be in a theme park and how to read typical wait time data.

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