Just back. Quick tip, for those going soon.

[DizzneyDi]

What I observed during my early December trip was that the Winnie the Pooh CMs were letting just one or two parties go through from the standby line, then closing it and letting long lines of fast passers through. It easily took us twice as long as the posted wait time to get on the ride. I'd never seen that happen before this trip and I assume it was because of increased numbers of fastpasses being issued. Not a good sign for the future!

 

[720L]

The Soarin fastpass line has always been like that, I don't think we've ever waited less than 15 minutes in the FASTPASS line. Very annoying.

 

[Lizziejane]

On the one hand, I can understand why they're letting the FP'ers through before standby - after all, the FP's can only be used during a limited window. However, why are they issuing so many FP's for that window?! are they not considering the stand-by's anymore when issuing FP's?

Also, I thought with the new Fastpass+ that you could only get up to 3 FP's in a day. So that means I can ride 3 times with a relatively short wait, and then the rest of the day will pretty much be a write-off. this new system is sounding less and less appealing to me everyday...

 

[KrazeeK120]

I was there 3 weeks ago (MLK weekend) and visited all parks except AK. All posted wait times were very close to the actual wait time, and the only FP line I waited more than 5 minutes in was TT.

I'm not disputing the OP's report, but they wait times aren't ALWAYS off.

 

[Notso]

Yeah, I didn't even insinuate that they are ALWAYS off. However, something is seriously up if JC is a 1.5 hour wait on a level 3 crowd day. I was just trying to make people aware that this seems to be an issue right now.

 

[cm8]

^^^^ Thanks for the heads up OP, I guess I will need to bring my POC to the park the first day and see how well I can manage on my O2 supply. I used to be able to get by with 4 tanks for about 5 hours but if the standby times are not holding true, I may need to come up with a better way of touring

 

[parkhopping]

OP, have you considered sending an email? It may not be as effective as a visit to GR during the trip, but it's something. The suits need to hear these reports.

 

[wilkeliza]

^^^^ Thanks for the heads up OP, I guess I will need to bring my POC to the park the first day and see how well I can manage on my O2 supply. I used to be able to get by with 4 tanks for about 5 hours but if the standby times are not holding true, I may need to come up with a better way of touring

Do you use a GAC? It might be beneficial to you if you don't. It would be worth getting more information about them.

To everyone else if you experience this often on your vacation with no excuse such as ride break downs etc go to Guest Relations on your way out or when you have some down time and tell them about it. Mention how you don't think that it is fair and that you will not be spending more vacations at Disney if this is what it will be like from now on. Mention that you do use fastpass when available but that you don't understand how standby times are consistently wrong and that fastpasses are getting an over amount of prefered treatment. It helps if you can best tell them how many fastpass you personally saw let go for every standby. This gives them more accurate information than just saying it was unfair. I know there are stages to fastpass and on a medium day it should be 3 for 1 or something like that but say you don't think it should be 30 for 10 if the ration is 3 for 1. It should be more like 18 for 6 or 15 for so 4 that more single rider families can get in.

 

[tinawv]

We ran into this exact same situation on our trip January 9-16th. When we first got in line for TOT the posted wait time was 20 minutes. That 20 minutes turned into 90 minutes. We didn't figure out what was going on until we got up to the CM and saw they were only letting 2-3 people in the standby line in to 20-30 people with fast pass. This also happened on Soarin and a few of the other big attraction rides. We usually do not get in standby lines unless the wait time is 30 minutes or less. Very disapointing to say the least.

 

[pigletto]

This would especially be the case with me if one of these extended underestimated standby waits caused me to be late for an ADR or FP return on another ride.

Ride breakdowns happen. But this is really getting to be far too common. Couple that with FP+ coming and the fact that many of us will be using standby more often, and it really becomes an important issue.

Exactly what I was just thinking. It's one thing that the stand-by lines are taking a beating with fastpass and potentially fastpass+ usage. It will become more important than ever to accurately report how long that standby line is. Especially when I may have scheduled a fastpass for my QS lunch

Maybe thats where the all important flexibility of being able to change your plans in the park comes in. You get stuck in standby so long you miss the other things you had to schedule

Well.. we leave in 11 days and I will be sure to bring back my completely subjective report for you all
As you can see I am not thrilled with this development.


You have to wonder if they don't know this is happening or the plan is to annoy people so thoroughly that they'll be thrilled when Fastpass+ rolls out.

 

[maxiesmom]

This happened to us in January on pooh, we walked up to use our fps just as the ride was reopening after a closure, and the cm at the entrance said to us that we should just save our fps and go standby cuz we'd just walk on. Well, there were 4 parties on front of us and we waited 30 minutes by the interactive honey screens as they would let everyone in fp line go, then 1 party from standby, then we'd have to wait for the line to get to a certain point before the cm would let anyone else go, by then the fp line would have built up again and 1 standby party would go after they all went. It was annoying because we had fps but didn't use them cuz the cm said not to (still our call, I know). I don't know if there were more fps in play or if it was people coming back to use theirs from the closure time period. Just our experience.

We had a similar problem on Winnie the Pooh last year. A short stand by line that took forever, as they would keep the FP line totally empty. I did send off an e-mail about how frustrating that experience was. They replied that they are always looking at and adjusting how they handle the lines.

Maybe if enough people complain they will really do something. Can't hurt to try.

 

[DebbieB]

Yeah, I didn't even insinuate that they are ALWAYS off. However, something is seriously up if JC is a 1.5 hour wait on a level 3 crowd day. I was just trying to make people aware that this seems to be an issue right now.

That surprises me too. I don't think JC is a popular ride to pull a FP so they must be issuing too many.

 

[dadddio]

Also, I thought with the new Fastpass+ that you could only get up to 3 FP's in a day. So that means I can ride 3 times with a relatively short wait, and then the rest of the day will pretty much be a write-off. this new system is sounding less and less appealing to me everyday...

With FP+, you are apparently going to be limited to prescheduling three FP+s 60 days prior. It is not known whether additional FP+s will be able to be scheduled in the park.

Maybe if enough people complain they will really do something. Can't hurt to try.

It seems that this occasional problem is some evidence that they are doing something. That being said, as FP+ gets rolled out and the current FP system goes away (or changes to the new FP+ system, depending on how you look at it), this issue will change.

That being said, I don't for a moment see the problem as a FP+ thing or a problem with how they are issuing FPs or merging FP guests with the standby line. The only issue I see here is that the given wait time is incorrect. To me, this just highlights a known proble with how they determine line wait times. The problem with this method has always been that the data is stale by the time that it is retrieved as it only tells you how long a preious line-waiter had to stand in line. It is not completely helpful to know that the person who got on the ride ten minutes ago had to wait an hour because you have no idea how much the line has changed in the intervening 70 minutes.

 

[erinkpoole]

We visited the first week of January and noticed when using our FPs at Space Mountain that they were loading the FP line into 3 out of the 4 trains. So 75% capacity to FP and 25% capacity to standby. The standby line was very short but they had to wait 90 minutes!

We rode SM three times and that was the ratio each time.

 

[sjreed]

Our experience the second week of January this year was completely different. We found that posted wait times were exaggerated. I don't think we ever waited as long as it was posted. We followed Josh's Best Park Days (at EasyWDW) and he was spot on. I will say we encountered alot of mechanical issues. The worst of which was when we rode Pirates, the ride shut down while we were on it for 45 minutes. Wouldn't have been so bad except that our boat was right in the middle of the battle scene. They never shut the water bombs off, we were soaked by the time we got off!

 

[Mad Hattered]

We are headed down in a few weeks and if I experience anything like this you can be sure I will make my voice (and opinion of FP+) loud and clear at Guest Relations.

 

[dadddio]

We visited the first week of January and noticed when using our FPs at Space Mountain that they were loading the FP line into 3 out of the 4 trains. So 75% capacity to FP and 25% capacity to standby. The standby line was very short but they had to wait 90 minutes!

We rode SM three times and that was the ratio each time.

I can see this being the new normal once FP+ is completely rolled out. I don't see that as a bad thing. It would just mean that people are being 'pushed out' of the standby lines and into the FP lines. Thereby giving them more time to not wait in lines.

To me, this entire concept is only hampered by our thinking that the standby line is the 'normal' line while the FP line is some kind of rare benefit. If, with FP+, we are all pretty likely to be able to get a single FP for every ride we want to ride and have the ability to wait standby if we wish to ride a ride multiple times, I think that FP+ will be a huge winner.

 

[shademan]

Those times you posted are awful! Don't worry if you forgot to go to Customer Relations. I'm sure a number of other guests didn't forget.

 

[sigepmike]

We are here now and were in MK yesterday. We used FP for the bigger rides, but it seemed like the posted wait times on the others were accurate or actually too long (our wait was shorter). However, all of the posted wait times were a lot higher than I am used to at this time of year. Small World was 40 minutes at one point. So was Pirates.

 

[ManyMinnie]

On the one hand, I can understand why they're letting the FP'ers through before standby - after all, the FP's can only be used during a limited window. However, why are they issuing so many FP's for that window?! are they not considering the stand-by's anymore when issuing FP's?

Also, I thought with the new Fastpass+ that you could only get up to 3 FP's in a day. So that means I can ride 3 times with a relatively short wait, and then the rest of the day will pretty much be a write-off. this new system is sounding less and less appealing to me everyday...

Once your fastpass has been checked at the beginning of the line and you enter the line, your time on the fastpass is no longer relevant.