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My Friend Ridge over at Growing up Disney wrote a review a little while back about the I-Phone app from touringplan.com called Lines, that you can get to tell you about the wait times for the lines in Walt Disney World. The article was very informative. (For the article, go HERE) There are a lot of different Apps out there that he did not talk about for the smart phones that tell about the line situation in all of the Disney parks. But what do you do if you don’t have a smart phone with you when you are in the parks? Every Park has help for you, even if you don’t have the smart phone. Each of the parks makes line information available for you in a couple of different ways. These ways are the Unknown Magics of knowing how long the wait will be.
In each of the parks, there are Tip Boards that tell you what the wait times are for the major attractions and also for when parades, fireworks and special shows will be held. They also give you times for street performers and where they will be. These boards tell about any attractions that open or close at times that are different from the park hours. The Boards can help you to create Magical Experiences, because they will help you to know when different things are occurring in each of the parks.
In the Magic Kingdom, the Tip Board is at the end of the shops on Main Street USA. It lists the entertainment for the day as well as attraction information and special events. It is a nice three faced glassed in presentation board that fits in perfectly with the Man Street USA Theme.
The Tip Board in Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park is located on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. This sign is fashioned after the old time Hollywood Clap Board that they used to mark the shots in the movies. This board is very helpful, as there are quite a few “shows” in Disney Hollywood Studios, which you can catch throughout the day.
The Board in Epcot is behind Spaceship Earth, before you get to the Fountain of Nations. It is very futuristic compared to all the others because it is large and electronic. There is also a smaller one over near Mission Space that gives information about Test Track and Mission Space wait times.
The tip board in the Animal Kingdom I think is the neatest one. It is located in front of Discovery Island, before you get to the Tree of Life. It is so well themed into the surrounding area, that at first you think it is a board telling the prices of produce on a cart at a market. But just like the other Tip Boards, it tells you the information you need to know for your day in the park.
The Tip Boards are great ways to find out about attraction waits and also about when shows are going on during the day, but if you are not around the boards, they can’t really help you. So Disney has another way of making you aware of show, fireworks and parade times. With the park guide maps that you can get on the way into any park and at most merchandise areas, they have sheets that tell you the times of special activities for the day. These Times Guides will help with you to plan for the shows, parades and fireworks, so that you have Magical
Experiences, but they will not help with the line times.
The Attractions do however have signs that tell you how long of a wait you will have before you can take that ride. These signs are updated throughout the day by a card system. Sometimes a Cast Member will ask a guest to take a red card on a lanyard through the queue line with them. They then ask you to turn it in to the person as you get on the ride vehicle. They scan it and then the time on the sign changes out in front of the attraction. I have found in the recent past that the times they post are actually a lot longer than you actually wait. 
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