Actually it does still benefit the planner. Because the planner will fuss and fume about it, but will indeed keep checking back until they get what they want.
Most newbies aren't going to go to that trouble. You can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Many of us planners are apparently thirsty enough to not only seek out the water, but drink quite heavily once we get there!
But there IS a point at which even I will decide it just isn't worth the effort. Bringing it down to the individual ride level could prove to be that point.
So true.
See this is why I think it's a risky idea.
What is the point of this system if it ends up benefitting the planners (which current FP does now,
without limits) and just being a gimmicky app for newbies to be amused by (but rarely use to it's potential), is it really worth it? Will it have the kick that Disney needs?
I just can't imagine myself at Disney sitting down at the table in a year to review the financials and liking what I see.
"This $1BN... must have been a pretty big park expansion you did! Ought to get you well in front again, eh? Guests love a good old expansion."
"Actually... no. We switched to RFID and made rides prebookable... and you can get the parrot in the Tiki Room to say your name too! And we get data on guests purchases!"
"Didn't you also get data with the old KTTW card? And, does this solve the problems with the old fastpass system we were having?"
"Kind of... we have had to splurge on some itsy bitsy IT fixes. And... well... it still has some issues. Turns out fastpasses still sell out whenever they come online at busy times, and guests still complain."
"Ah. So... did a lot of people take it up? Did you at least make more money from guests?"
"Well..."
And then come the charges and price rises.
As for Universal charging for passes, we usually stay offsite and have yet to buy them. With proper planning, it's still possible to see what we want without them. Will that be possible when (if) Disney starts to charge? MK gets so crowded, can it be toured in a reasonable way without fastpasses?
This. You don't need FOTL passes to ride everything within reason at US in a couple of days.
Disney is bigger and more popular as they would like to boast, but unfortunately this means more people in queues, and you can't give FOTL pass to everyone staying onsite without creating huuuuge FOTL-equivalent lines at Disney. That's not even counting offering it to offsite guests.
Trying to give an prebookable Diet version of the FOTL pass at Disney (which is what I see this as) might not actually take off, will hurt non users worse than FOTL does and certainly won't please the users as much.
Disney should not be competing on this ground. They won't win. If they aren't trying to compete with Universal with this, what the heck
are they going to do to compete with them? They've blown staggering amounts of resources on this, purchasing lisence rights and revamping areas. How much money can they reasonably afford to throw at projects any time soon without worrying the money men?
This seems like either a knee-jerk reaction of a policy or a hasty acceleration of an already existing long term plan, and neither of those are good.
)
