FP+ is Live! Magic Bands in the park!

Just because Disney to increase profits and that it might improve the guest experience doesn't mean it does. Not every idea is a good one.

Let's take a relatively recent example.
The problem: Disney buses were dedicated to a park/resort(s) loop. This resulted in many times where a bus would be running almost empty because there just wasn't anyone at those resorts at that time who wanted to go to that park but there would be some waiting for another park.
The solution: Put Disney buses on an open schedule so they would be redirected before each dropoff where they were to head next.
The intended result: People would be waiting less, buses would run fuller, and they wouldn't need as many buses.

Why this fails: The function they are optimizing just tries to minimize the total amount of wait time across all people. So if 99 people wait 1 minute less and 1 person waits 89 minutes longer, they have saved 10 wait-minutes. Sounds great unless you are that one person.

Before you could be assured that a bus would be along within 15 minutes (20 if you just missed it). With the new system, if your family was the only one wanting to go to MK while groups of 4-5 families kept coming out for AK every 10 minutes, your family would be sacrificed to keep waiting while each new bus arriving would be heading for AK since five families is greater than one. Eventually they would send an MK bus regardless but that is not what people expect or want. Now this isn't exactly how it works but that was the idea and the actual implementation didn't result in the theoretical optimal solution anyway so the new system is worse for guests. Maybe someone should have run the math that said "Even if we add more buses, the incremental cost of the bus is more than made up for the guests spending their time and money in the park rather than waiting for the bus."

FP+ has all the earmarks of unintended consequences that mathematically look good but guests' emotional human judgement rates it poor.

Yeah but that's the point of operations management, if you save time for more people than its worth it. If those 99 people are happier with their experience they are more likely to return and that outweighs the cost of the 1 person.

People all said the same thing about FP when it first came out. There were tradeoffs there too. In exchange for skipping the lines on FP attractions the standby times increased, but most people would say FP is worth that cost. FP dramatically changed the way people approach disney parks and likely FP+ will too. I agree that the touring plans designed to work with the FP system won't work with FP+ but that doesn't mean we can't come up with new touring plans. Most importantly, FP+ will allow disney to smooth out the flow of crowds in the parks which will benefit everyone...
 
I'm not an expert or insider, but I have been reading official and non-official information on this for awhile and I will throw my opinion into the mix on FP+.

First off...I have had problems with the My Disney Experience app/website. I'm an IT manager so I know about some of these issues. My problem is that I have about 4 log-ins for various Disney websites. I have an old login from 1998 for ESPN Fantasy Football all the way through a login for DVC. I'm thinking that this may be the cause for some of my problems. Reservations that are called in sometimes show up on a different log-in than when I make the reservations online with my "main" login. This may or may not be anyone's issue, but I just wanted to throw that out there for people having issues.

On the offsite vs onsite issue....it is my understanding that all ticket media at some point will be RFID enabled. From what I've read, onsite guests will receive the wristbands. Offsite guests will have the option to purchase the wristband (I think $5 was the initial price I remember reading about) and have your ticket transferred to the wristband. If you don't want to purchase the wristband, your ticket will be RFID enabled and you can use it exactly like the wristband (touch the silver reader to get into the park, reserve electronic fast passes, etc). Same thing for us Annual Passholders. They are currently exchanging passes for new passes that have RFID. I'm thinking that if you have an old ticket from 10 years ago or even a 10 day non-expiring pass that you have been using recently, you will be able to exchange it for an RFID enabled pass when FP+ goes live.

A few other thoughts...I don't think they will do away with the "day-of" fastpasses. I think you will be able to reserve 3 or 4 ahead of time from different tiers. I'm sure most of the popular rides will be in the same tier, so you won't be able to reserve Space, Splash, and Thunder with your 3 reserved fast passes. I'm thinking offsite people will be able to purchase tickets in advance and use the numbers from the tickets to reserve online. People that don't plan at all will still have access to the same system, only it will be paperless now and tied to your ticket. I'm guessing kiosks will be available in different areas to "get an electronic" fastpass and the rules will probably be similar to the current rules.

A few things I'm hoping for....I'm hoping you can "group" your family together and have fastpasses act like dining credits. So, if I have 4 fastpasses to Splash...two of us can go using our wristbands and it will deduct 2 fastpasses from the group. Then, the same two can go again without having to change wristbands. If we are able to use both FP+ to reserve a few fastpasses and pull electronic "day-of" fastpasses, I'm hoping we can do this without having to run all over the park. For example, I reserve my 3 attractions with FP returns later in the day. I arrive at park opening and want to pull a FP for Splash Mountain, but we are going to Tomorrowland first. I'm hoping to be able to do this from a kiosk location in Tomorrowland or from my phone since the GPS will be able to locate me as being in the park. I'm thinking it will be via kiosk so that I can't go to the park by myself and reserve fastpasses for the rest of my family that may be arriving later.

Anyway...those are my thoughts. I look forward to the new FP+ system. I'm a tech guy, so I love when technology makes things easier. I'm also the fastpass runner and I'm hoping I will have more time to relax between attractions instead of running for fastpasses all day.

Speed :teleport:
 
Yeah, now we can sit around all day and complain about other new things instead of typing up the documents we're supposed to be writing ;)

Totally an improvement... Really :)

In all seriousness, I think you're right, but from an engineering standpoint, I know how sometimes good intentions can really backfire, and the sketchy information is suggesting there is a big backfire coming, I think that is why people are worried. After all, there is a big difference between intended impact of a system change and actual impact :rolleyes2.

Matt

I see your point, but I don't see a company like Disney investing billions to let it backfire. It's just not something they could let happen. It's not merely a guest experience issue, it's an investor issue and it's a reputation issue. My instinct tells me that even if there are "problems" or "issues" with the system, they'll move heaven and earth to iron those out because they can not let this fail. Will it be all plain sailing? I doubt it. Will it be an awesome system that works in the end? ABSOLUTELY! They can not let this system go belly up, they have to make it work and they'll have to get it right.
 
I see your point, but I don't see a company like Disney investing billions to let it backfire. It's just not something they could let happen. It's not merely a guest experience issue, it's an investor issue and it's a reputation issue. My instinct tells me that even if there are "problems" or "issues" with the system, they'll move heaven and earth to iron those out because they can not let this fail. Will it be all plain sailing? I doubt it. Will it be an awesome system that works in the end? ABSOLUTELY! They can not let this system go belly up, they have to make it work and they'll have to get it right.

I completely agree there as well, they won't rest until it's working, but I still fear they're on a bad path. I've seen countless big companies make poor engineering decisions simply because they lack a key piece of information. It's one of those things that comes to light late in the game and has far reaching implications, it's generally unavoidable and usually cause for some hair loss :)

I am simply afraid they'd made some incorrect assumptions and they might be setting themselves up to blow this. From their point of view though, everything might look like smooth sailing, they may not realize there is a (potential) problem until it bites them, such is engineering. I am in agreement they'll make sure to fix it though, which is why I'm specifically worried about my trip getting caught in the roll-out debugging crossfire, not as much on the long term plan. I'm sure however it plays out, people will figure out how to work the system to their advantage, and we're all go one having a merry time.

Matt
 


I completely agree there as well, they won't rest until it's working, but I still fear they're on a bad path. I've seen countless big companies make poor engineering decisions simply because they lack a key piece of information. It's one of those things that comes to light late in the game and has far reaching implications, it's generally unavoidable and usually cause for some hair loss :)

I am simply afraid they'd made some incorrect assumptions and they might be setting themselves up to blow this. From their point of view though, everything might look like smooth sailing, they may not realize there is a (potential) problem until it bites them, such is engineering. I am in agreement they'll make sure to fix it though, which is why I'm specifically worried about my trip getting caught in the roll-out debugging crossfire, not as much on the long term plan. I'm sure however it plays out, people will figure out how to work the system to their advantage, and we're all go one having a merry time.

Matt

I REALLY wish they would just fix their WEBSITE first!!! They are spending millions of dollars on FP+, and I can't even get on the website to MAKE a reservation for dining (again!!). The website is a real mess and it seems that if they can't get that right, how are they going to get FP+ right??? I am not for or against FP+, just an observation about things they should clean up first in order for FP+ to work properly.
 
My personal opinion on My Disney Experience is pretty low right now, but I'll reserve final judgement until the app is fully rolled out.

I've been able to login no problem, link with DH's profile, add all my reservations (DVC and dining) and I'm able to view everything on Mac, iPad, and iPhone while I'm home.

The problem starts when in the park. Most of the time we were in WDW this past weekend we could not login to the system to view anything. When we couldn't remember a specific dining time, we thought no problem, we'll just login to My Disney Experience and double check the time. Wrong! The app on the iPhone was unavailable and there is no 'offline' version, you can only view your info while you are logged in.

We tried both the Disney wifi and our carrier, neither could connect to the app. Thankfully I use Tripit so I had all the info there.

Here's a screen capture of the error:


Untitled by tsciolla, on Flickr

So right now I'm not feeling the love for Disney IT :-)

Coming from a couple that are both IT geeks for a living.
 
I REALLY wish they would just fix their WEBSITE first!!! They are spending millions of dollars on FP+, and I can't even get on the website to MAKE a reservation for dining (again!!). The website is a real mess and it seems that if they can't get that right, how are they going to get FP+ right??? I am not for or against FP+, just an observation about things they should clean up first in order for FP+ to work properly.

Well, in all fairness.

It's only an issue if you want to do rides in the parks.

;)
 


I REALLY wish they would just fix their WEBSITE first!!! They are spending millions of dollars on FP+, and I can't even get on the website to MAKE a reservation for dining (again!!). The website is a real mess and it seems that if they can't get that right, how are they going to get FP+ right??? I am not for or against FP+, just an observation about things they should clean up first in order for FP+ to work properly.

Exactly! They had a website that worked badly, rolled out a new website that works even less often and now they have an ap that limps along. Heck, our KTTW cards had issues linking to the data base on our trip in March. I have no faith they can make FP+ work any better.

That alone is my issue with it. They seem to have zero sense of beta testing or how to roll out something. Their idea of a beta test appears to be throw it out see what works and what doesn't.
 
Yeah but that's the point of operations management, if you save time for more people than its worth it. If those 99 people are happier with their experience they are more likely to return and that outweighs the cost of the 1 person.
I have spent much of my professional life doing these type of optimizations (not buses though) and your statement is just like most management I deal with. The problem is that people don't notice waiting 14 minutes versus 15 minutes (they had to wait about 15 minutes) so those 99 people are not happier but there is one person is really mad. And one really mad person tells lots of people about their unhappiness.

People all said the same thing about FP when it first came out. There were tradeoffs there too. In exchange for skipping the lines on FP attractions the standby times increased, but most people would say FP is worth that cost. FP dramatically changed the way people approach disney parks and likely FP+ will too. I agree that the touring plans designed to work with the FP system won't work with FP+ but that doesn't mean we can't come up with new touring plans. Most importantly, FP+ will allow disney to smooth out the flow of crowds in the parks which will benefit everyone...

You do realize that FP+ has the capability to eliminate allstandby lines? FP+ could be used to require an appointment for all rides to eliminate all but about 5-10 minutes of standing in line. This would seem great to Disney and mathematics because all those people would now be spending money shopping or eating. The problem is that most of the people are contained in the lines themselves. If everyone wasn't in a line there would be no room for people in the park. The stores would be overwhelmed and no one could eat sitting down. So people wouldn't be standing in the ride line but would be standing in the "I just want to get out of the sun and sit down" line.

The point is that FP+ could really make a mess of things from the guests perspective even if mathematics says it must be greatly superior because they are optimizing the wrong function.
 
I called old key west's off site call center to ask about the roll out. She said it was for select resorts at this time and they are changing them but didn't know how often and that she didn't even know if Old Key West was part of it right now or will be. She said it was totally random on how people are selected before and on check in.

That's it. From her conversation I kinda "assumed" that u were picked before check in based on ur package so maybe they are looking at people who have tickets purchased already or are AP holders so they can have it set up in the system before check in?

Just a though.

She did say it was a very limited number at his time and will be ongoing.

Just what I was told. . .

jim
 
They seem to have zero sense of beta testing or how to roll out something. Their idea of a beta test appears to be throw it out see what works and what doesn't.

This thread is about a beta test going on right now with only 100 guests a day, not throwing tens of thousands of guests to the wolves to see what happens.
 
This thread is about a beta test going on right now with only 100 guests a day, not throwing tens of thousands of guests to the wolves to see what happens.

True, but the new website and the MDE app are thrown out to everyone and seem to be at a beta-test (or worse) level of readiness.
 
There is absolutely ZERO indication that you will be able to reserve FP+ slots six months out. Everything from the interview with the VP to the Terms and Conditions (yes UNCFanatik, I know they can change) have indicated a 60-day window for FP+ reservations. Which makes sense now that you can check into your resort online at 60 days out now too.

OK 2 month rather than 6 months. I still see the same problem arising, with little quantitative difference. The people who do plan every step will be jumping on the site at exactly 60 days, and then other people will be seeing that FP+ are hard to get close to the time, so they will start putting in their FP+ earlier and earlier to get a slot and pretty soon we are where we are with ADR -- You need to get your FP+ reservations in exactly 60 days out, or you're going to be standing in the stand-by line. And I don't want to have to plan every step I take that long in advance, be it 60 days or 6 months! Not to mention that medical problems mean I can't even guarantee 60 days out if or when I will be able to make it to the parks that day.

So I see this, for me and probably many others like me, the end of FastPass. Not this next trip, but soon. And I can NOT see that as a good thing!

And by the way, regardless of what many say, those of us who are not wild about this are not just change phobic. I have been a professional programmer for 35 years, I know how things can change, and you just have to ride out the changes and adapt. I've gone from typewriters to dumb terminals to smart terminals to laptops without complaint. But new things are not always and consistently good. Even successful companies can massivly screw things up in the pursuit of the fancy new tech. I am not a Luddite, but I definately think that while some people will be excited with this, for most people it's going to be one more blow against the magic, and a major pain in the butt.
 
Different people are certainly having, and will continue to have, different experiences with the technology. I've had zero problems with the website or MDE app either at home or at the parks. I was able to book my trip, search ADRs, etc from home, on the road and elsewhere. I made changes to my information on my computer and checked it on my phone immediately after and it matched.

That being said I have noticed buttons being in strange places when I was using Internet Explorer but have had zero issues with Chrome or Firefox on my Windows systems and no problems with Safari on my Mac. (I'm required to use IE at work, ugh)

When we were at the park last Thanksgiving week and the wi-fi worked great everywhere except for MK. Cell signal for Verizon and AT&T was fine and the apps on Android and iPhone worked fine. The only issue I had was my Android phone battery didn't last hardly at all. My iPhone was almost dead by the end of the day due to taking lots of pictures.

Having the maps, times, etc all in the palm of my hand was nice and we're looking forward to it next time.
 
I am going to ask a question...probably crazy but something I just thought about. Do we know if you actually have to have a time frame for your return time? I know the reg FP has an hour return time on it, however do we know if we have an hour or is it "9-12", "12-3" type of return for FP+? Or could it be "May 15, 2013". I know we don't know a lot but just something I was wondering.
 
I am going to ask a question...probably crazy but something I just thought about. Do we know if you actually have to have a time frame for your return time? I know the reg FP has an hour return time on it, however do we know if we have an hour or is it "9-12", "12-3" type of return for FP+? Or could it be "May 15, 2013". I know we don't know a lot but just something I was wondering.

I don't expect a change to the one-hour return window.
 
I completely agree there as well, they won't rest until it's working, but I still fear they're on a bad path. I've seen countless big companies make poor engineering decisions simply because they lack a key piece of information. It's one of those things that comes to light late in the game and has far reaching implications, it's generally unavoidable and usually cause for some hair loss :)

I am simply afraid they'd made some incorrect assumptions and they might be setting themselves up to blow this. From their point of view though, everything might look like smooth sailing, they may not realize there is a (potential) problem until it bites them, such is engineering. I am in agreement they'll make sure to fix it though, which is why I'm specifically worried about my trip getting caught in the roll-out debugging crossfire, not as much on the long term plan. I'm sure however it plays out, people will figure out how to work the system to their advantage, and we're all go one having a merry time.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ssssssssseeeeeeeyyy
 
I've seen a couple of posts in this thread that seemed to reference FP+ will eventually replace fast passes completely. My initial understanding was that regular fp's would stay and FP+ would just supplement them since it's only for 3 attractions per day. Was I wrong about this? Is it going to be just FP+ in the future, with only the ability to reserve for a few rides per day? Sorry if I missed the answer in any of the previous posts in the thread.
 
My initial understanding was that regular fp's would stay and FP+ would just supplement them since it's only for 3 attractions per day. Was I wrong about this?

Maybe.

Nobody knows.

And, it may be that over time (how much time is also unknown) the initial rollout "rules"
(such as current "legacy" FP availability) could change.
 

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