h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Disneyland has perfected the art of making the ques look a lot shorter and a lot more interesting than they actually are - cleverly placed pictures of cartoon characters and lots of corners are decieving, while the neatly-placed 'Exit here' signs try and trick you into giving up your hard-won space.

I wonder....the one and only time I was there I saw signs at various points in the queue stating how long the wait was at each posting: usually 2 hrs or so...and for some reason, the 5 minute ride was "worth" the wait 'cos I waited.

Mind you, I spent the waiting time noticing the architecture of the ride structure, which wove the queue in and around and behind itself to make us feel we were making progress, especially when we weren't.

Fruitbat

Never been to any of the Disney sites. But over here in England at our theme parks (Alton Towers for example), we also have the stupid "45 mins to ride" signs. Most of these seem completely irrelevant to the actual time taken to get round the zigzagging route to the ride. Some of the rides you've walked around most of the ride before even finding out where the queue is supposed to start - probably designed so that you don't see the 300 people in front of you all at once, or even worse they lead you to beginning only to walk you right past it on so you can see other people getting on the ride.

To help you keep your sanity (and the kids amused) they have wooden posts lining the path, which are covered with midly amusing/offensive graffitti, suggesting such hysterical (!!) comments as how many members of each group died whilst waiting for this #expletive# ride. Some are followed by drawings of said incident. Somehow I find the fact that every other person who queued here was also bored senseless quite comforting, or is it just me?

Anyway back to my original point - does the timescale signs take into account how many queue jumpers will push infront? Or are they simply produced by timing how long it takes some old woman (who smells like cats) to walk around this tease-ridden trek towards the beginning.