Plenty of free sites tell you the wait. We tell you what to do about it.
We put queue-times.com, Thrill Data, LogRide, the official Disney/Universal/Six Flags apps, TouringPlans, and Ride Ready side by side. Here's what each one actually does, feature by feature, no spin.
| Feature | queue-times.com | Thrill Data | LogRide | Official Apps | TouringPlans | Ride Ready |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live wait times | ✅ (web) |
✅ (web) |
✅ (50+ parks) |
✅ (their parks only) |
✅ (Lines app) |
✅ (in the app, free) |
| Wait forecasts for later today | ◐ (crowd calendars) |
◐ (crowd calendars) |
— | — | ✅ (predictions) |
✅ (full-day curves, Premium) |
| A plan that rebuilds itself during the day | — | — | — | ◐ (Disney Genie, Disney only) |
✅ (Disney & Universal Orlando) |
✅ (all 15 parks) |
| Per-ride drop alerts | — | ◐ (dining & Lightning Lane texts) |
— | ◐ (varies by park) |
— | ✅ (3 free per park) |
| Ride log and lifetime stats | — | ✅ (trip reports) |
✅ (its specialty) |
— | — | ◐ (your rides at our 15 parks) |
| Tickets, maps, mobile dining | — | — | — | ✅ | — | — |
| Regional parks (Cedar Point, Six Flags, Dollywood) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ◐ (own chain only) |
— | ✅ |
| Free to use | ✅ (no account needed) |
✅ (free account) |
✅ (free, Pro optional) |
✅ | — (subscription) |
◐ (free tier, plans are Premium) |
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Note: features, pricing, and park coverage change over time. This reflects what each app publicly offers as of July 2026.
queue-times.com is free and you don't need an account to check a wait. It covers 146 parks, builds its crowd calendars with machine learning, and pulls from the wait times parks publish themselves. That's genuinely useful if all you need is today's number. The gap: it tells you the wait right now, not what to do about it. There's no plan for your day and no alert that pings you when one specific ride drops.
Thrill Data goes deeper than most free wait-time sites. You get live and historical data with charts, predictive crowd calendars, and trip reports where you can log your own ride times. It's free to make an account, and it covers Disney, Universal, Cedar Fair, Six Flags, and SeaWorld parks. It even sends free text alerts for Disney dining reservations and Lightning Lane availability. What it doesn't do is build a plan that orders your whole day, or alert you the moment one specific ride's wait drops.
If you want a running count of every coaster you've ridden, LogRide is the app to get, and it coexists fine with Ride Ready. It tracks the parks you've visited and the attractions you've ridden, and keeps a lifetime coaster count against a database of more than 5,000 parks worldwide. It also shows live waits at 50+ parks, and it's free with an optional Pro upgrade. The catch is direction: LogRide looks backward at what you rode. It's not built to tell you what to ride next.
You need your park's official app no matter what else you install. My Disney Experience, the Universal Orlando app, and the Six Flags app handle tickets, interactive maps, mobile food ordering, dining reservations, and real-time waits for their own rides. Disney's Genie goes further and builds a personalized itinerary inside Disney parks. The gap is scope: each app only covers its own chain, and none of them forecast where a line is heading an hour from now.
For a Disney World or Universal Orlando trip planned months in advance, TouringPlans is hard to beat. You get more than 115 premium touring plans that adjust during the day using real-time data, their own crowd calendars, and even a hotel room finder with over 30,000 room photos. It runs on an annual subscription per destination. If you're planning a once-a-year Disney trip down to the hour, that depth of research is unmatched. The gap: it stops at Disney and Universal Orlando. There's nothing here for Cedar Point, Six Flags, Dollywood, or the other regional parks.
Every app above does one piece of this well. None of them does all three: a day plan that rebuilds itself when a ride goes down or a line spikes, full-day forecast curves for every ride, and per-ride drop alerts, all in one app, across all 15 parks we support: Epic Universe, Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, SeaWorld Orlando, Busch Gardens Tampa, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Cedar Point, Dollywood, Kings Island, Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, and three Six Flags parks.
Ride Ready is free to download and needs an account. The free tier gets you live waits in the app, one day plan per day, three ride alerts per park, and a queue timer. Unlimited plans with automatic replanning and forecast curves are part of Premium: Day Pass $7.99, Trip Pass from $19.99, or Monthly $19.99.
Honestly, queue-times.com is hard to beat for this exact job. It's free, you don't need an account, and it covers 146 parks. But checking a wait and knowing what to do next are two different jobs. That's the gap Ride Ready is built to close.
Thrill Data and queue-times.com both show waits for Universal and regional chains like Cedar Fair and Six Flags on the web. Ride Ready is the one that builds and rebuilds an actual day plan at all 15 of the parks it supports, from Epic Universe to Cedar Point to Dollywood.
Not really. My Disney Experience, the Universal Orlando app, and the Six Flags app advertise real-time waits, not forecasts. Disney's Genie personalizes an itinerary, but only inside Disney parks.
Yes, to download. You'll need a free account, and the free tier includes live waits in the app, one day plan per day, three ride alerts per park, and a queue timer. Unlimited plans with automatic replanning and forecast curves are Premium: Day Pass $7.99, Trip Pass from $19.99, or Monthly $19.99.
Use your park's official app for tickets, maps, and dining. Use Ride Ready, or TouringPlans if you're all in on Disney and Universal Orlando, for the plan that actually saves you time. For the other 12 parks we cover, from Cedar Point to Dollywood, we're the only one here building that plan.
Download Ride ReadyJust want Ride Ready vs your park's official app? See that comparison. Or check which of the 15 parks we cover.
Ride Ready is an independent app and is not affiliated with Universal, Disney, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, SeaWorld, or any park operator. Feature information for other apps reflects their public listings and is subject to change.