BIG change to FP+ today

[Mel522]

Very possible. But with hordes of guests pre-booking FP+ ahead of time, what do you think will be available for same day offerings? Have you tried to walk-up to a popular TS restaurant in recent years? Pre-FP+, the FPs for popular rides ran out early in the day. That is ostensibly the "problem" that needed to be "fixed." But using that historical data, one can easily extrapolate that those same popular rides will "sell out" even earlier since people can now reserve their time 60 days in advance. So where are all these "same day" reservations going to come from?

Ride capacity is a constant. So the only way to ensure "same day" availability would be to hold back a certain percentage of the daily capacity which would reduce the number of FP+ pre-bookings available.

(WARNING: speculation follows)

Mark my words, WDW is not going to hold back a percentage (certainly not a meaningful or even statistically significant percentage) for "same day." They are marketing FP+ as the ability to pre-book your rides in advance. In order to deliver on that promise, they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they hold back available times. The guest who couldn't get a FP+ between day 60-1 because all of the "pre-book" slots were gone will be TICKED if the schlub who arrived 5 minutes before him on the "day of" is able to get the FP+ he tried for two months to reserve because it was "held back." At best, you will be able to choose from the picked over scraps (Stitch anyone?) and if you get really lucky, you might be able to snag a "no show" FP+ if those get dumped back into the pool.

P.S. Note the overt use of "mark my words."

You keep using that phrase. I don't think it means what you think it means.

 

[magicbob]

You keep using that phrase. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Mark my words... I don't think it means what YOU think it means.

 

[Jennasis]

Perhaps the MDE site was developed by the same folks responsible for the healthcare website? Frankly, this "testing" stuff is nonsense. Rip off the band-aid and get on with it already.

I am so glad I'm not going until later next year.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

With about 130,000 guests in the parks per day on average, and 25,000 hotel rooms with about 80% occupancy, I think 50/50 is a pretty darn good guess on onsite vs offsite visitors...

There may be more than 130,000 folks in all 4 parks Christmas week. MK alone is rumored to hold 100,000, and Epcot between 130,000 & 150,000. DHS & AK are smaller, so fewer people there. Of course the whole closure system would be implemented before they reached these numbers.

 

[ps17]

Read through most of this 30 page thread. Skimmed through others. Is this a good summary?:

Today, Disney introduced a two tiered FP+ selection system for EPCOT which essentially forces you to pick between either Test Track or Soarin' as one of your FP+ selections. After that, you can select from other second tier rides for your other two selections.

For those fortunate enough to have previously made FP+ reservations, the previous ressies still stand. All other new FP+ scheduling at EPCOT is subject to the updated two tier system.

If you have standing FP+ ressies for EPCOT, you should leave them alone or risk being subject to new rules or getting your FP+ses dropped due to system transition.

Is this an accurate state of the system statement?

 

[mh1973]

:-( And my tickets and MB came today....a day too late.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Read through most of this 30 page thread. Skimmed through others. Is this a good summary?:

Today, Disney introduced a two tiered FP+ selection system for EPCOT which essentially forces you to pick between either Test Track or Soarin' as one of your FP+ selections. After that, you can select from other second tier rides for your other two selections.

For those fortunate enough to have previously made FP+ reservations, the previous ressies still stand. All other new FP+ scheduling at EPCOT is subject to the updated two tier system.

If you have standing FP+ ressies for EPCOT, you should leave them alone or risk being subject to new rules or getting your FP+ses dropped due to system transition.

Is this an accurate state of the system statement?

Yes. I think someone should make your post a sticky at the front of this thread. Preferably not written in pink.

 

[mydisneykids]

There may be more than 130,000 folks in all 4 parks Christmas week. MK alone is rumored to hold 100,000, and Epcot between 130,000 & 150,000. DHS & AK are smaller, so fewer people there. Of course the whole closure system would be implemented before they reached these numbers.

I didn't even think of the holiday park closures.
Someone puts all their thought and planning into making holiday week fastpass plus reservations. They go to the MK on the day they have planned but not as early as they thought. They now cannot get into the MK due to capacity closures and are sent to another park where all of the fastpasses have already been booked up and cannot use the ones they planned because they can't get into the park at that time. Even if they can later their time slots may be passsed.

 

[Sheilby]

Read through most of this 30 page thread. Skimmed through others. Is this a good summary?:

Today, Disney introduced a two tiered FP+ selection system for EPCOT which essentially forces you to pick between either Test Track or Soarin' as one of your FP+ selections. After that, you can select from other second tier rides for your other two selections.

For those fortunate enough to have previously made FP+ reservations, the previous ressies still stand. All other new FP+ scheduling at EPCOT is subject to the updated two tier system.

If you have standing FP+ ressies for EPCOT, you should leave them alone or risk being subject to new rules or getting your FP+ses dropped due to system transition.

Is this an accurate state of the system statement?

Yep, at least for today, tomorrow things may change

 

[mom2rtk]

I didn't even think of the holiday park closures.
Someone puts all their thought and planning into making holiday week fastpass plus reservations. They go to the MK on the day they have planned but not as early as they thought. They now cannot get into the MK due to capacity closures and are sent to another park where all of the fastpasses have already been booked up and cannot use the ones they planned because they can't get into the park at that time. Even if they can later their time slots may be passsed.

So much for sleeping in. Again. For a system touted as such a boon to the late sleepers, getting there at rope drop seems to keep coming up a lot.

 

[robpa]

I love it, because maybe all these people complaining about spending a bagillion dollars, etc, etc, will stay home and it will be less crowded for us that will still be going even with the changes.

Don't worry there will be a Brazillian tour group to take the place of every negative nancy that is cancelling their vacation over this so you will never have the park to yourself.

 

[BuzzBelleMom]

Believe me, it was not an easy decision to change the vacation, but he as well as I have been through this before and, unfortunately, have an experience-based gut feel for where this is heading for the next couple of months- especially with the holidays coming up.

I retired to get away from this type of systems implementation pain and am not willing to now pay to be a part of it.

I showed our posts to DH and he actually said that the Dark Side is looking pretty good right now. He also thinks Disney should have this down to a science by now.

I hope you and your family have a great trip in January!

 

[Mad Hattered]

Don't worry there will be a Brazillian tour group to take the place of every negative nancy that is cancelling their vacation over this so you will never have the park to yourself.

Let's not go down this path. Just sayin'.

 

[wisblue]

Very possible. But with hordes of guests pre-booking FP+ ahead of time, what do you think will be available for same day offerings? Have you tried to walk-up to a popular TS restaurant in recent years? Pre-FP+, the FPs for popular rides ran out early in the day. That is ostensibly the "problem" that needed to be "fixed." But using that historical data, one can easily extrapolate that those same popular rides will "sell out" even earlier since people can now reserve their time 60 days in advance. So where are all these "same day" reservations going to come from?

Ride capacity is a constant. So the only way to ensure "same day" availability would be to hold back a certain percentage of the daily capacity which would reduce the number of FP+ pre-bookings available.

(WARNING: speculation follows)

Mark my words, WDW is not going to hold back a percentage (certainly not a meaningful or even statistically significant percentage) for "same day." They are marketing FP+ as the ability to pre-book your rides in advance. In order to deliver on that promise, they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they hold back available times. The guest who couldn't get a FP+ between day 60-1 because all of the "pre-book" slots were gone will be TICKED if the schlub who arrived 5 minutes before him on the "day of" is able to get the FP+ he tried for two months to reserve because it was "held back." At best, you will be able to choose from the picked over scraps (Stitch anyone?) and if you get really lucky, you might be able to snag a "no show" FP+ if those get dumped back into the pool.

P.S. Note the overt use of "mark my words."

This inability to deliver on marketing hype is EXACTLY the problem with the current FP system, and I would bet Disney has gotten a number of negative comments about that over the years.

Look at this description of Fastpass on the Disney website:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/fast-pass/

Nowhere does it say "oh, by the way, if you are here on a busy day and want a FP for one of our most popular attractions, you'd better get to that FP machine within an hour or two after park opening".

The way I am picturing it, the same day passes will not be exactly the same as the advanced reservation ones. So, the same day passes would come from the current standby spots. Same day you would have to appear at the attraction and, if there is a long enough backlog, you would be given a time to return. When you return, you would still go into the standby line. But, instead of waiting in line for 90-120 minutes, you would only physically be in line for 30 minutes or so. This would only be needed for the most popular attractions (the few that get lines of 60 minutes or more even on moderately busy days) and, for some others, only at the busiest times of the year

This is just a concept so I don't want to quibble too much about the details. But, it isn't a matter of holding back reservations for same day as much as it is reducing the length of the standby lines. If they can turn a 2 hour standby wait into a 30 minute wait 90 minutes from now, that would be an improvement for a lot of people.

And, I am not saying "mark my words" because this is just a suggestion for something that COULD be done, not something that WILL be done.

 

[mom2rtk]

This inability to deliver on marketing hype is EXACTLY the problem with the current FP system, and I would bet Disney has gotten a number of negative comments about that over the years.

Look at this description of Fastpass on the Disney website:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/fast-pass/

Nowhere does it say "oh, by the way, if you are here on a busy day and want a FP for one of our most popular attractions, you'd better get to that FP machine within an hour or two after park opening".

The way I am picturing it, the same day passes will not be exactly the same as the advanced reservation ones. So, the same day passes would come from the current standby spots. Same day you would have to appear at the attraction and, if there is a long enough backlog, you would be given a time to return. When you return, you would still go into the standby line. But, instead of waiting in line for 90-120 minutes, you would only physically be in line for 30 minutes or so. This would only be needed for the most popular attractions (the few that get lines of 60 minutes or more even on moderately busy days) and, for some others, only at the busiest times of the year

This is just a concept so I don't want to quibble too much about the details. But, it isn't a matter of holding back reservations for same day as much as it is reducing the length of the standby lines. If they can turn a 2 hour standby wait into a 30 minute wait 90 minutes from now, that would be an improvement for a lot of people.

And, I am not saying "mark my words" because this is just a suggestion for something that COULD be done, not something that WILL be done.

And nowhere will the description of FP+ say oh by the way if you want a FP+ for TSMM or the Mine Coaster you better be staying onsite and schedule exactly 60 days out, perhaps deep into your +10.

And what you are proposing is really just a complete rollout of the new DAS system, but to all guests. I'll go out on a limb and say "mark my words.... not gonna happen."

 

[clsteve]

I showed our posts to DH and he actually said that the Dark Side is looking pretty good right now. He also thinks Disney should have this down to a science by now.

I hope you and your family have a great trip in January!

BuzzBelleMom, thanks so much- it will be a new experience for us - maybe good/ maybe bad. But at least I'm going to bed in a minute knowing I am now no longer paying $5000+ for the privilege to be a FP+ tester.....

 

[wisblue]

So much for sleeping in. Again. For a system touted as such a boon to the late sleepers, getting there at rope drop seems to keep coming up a lot.

People who want to sleep in would still get to do at least one major attraction at a park, which is one more than they can do now at a busy time of the year. They can decide for themselves what is worth more to them- 3 hours of sleep or a ride on Test Track.

People willing to arrive at opening have always been able to do more attractions than those who don't, and they always will, unless or until Disney completely eliminates standby or same day passes. I don't see that day coming, at least not in my lifetime.

 

[lugnut33]

I wonder how many pre booked FP are going to go to waste (even though I know there will be somebody in the standby line to take their place)? Will missed FP times be dealt with like missed ADRs?

 

[wisblue]

And nowhere will the description of FP+ say oh by the way if you want a FP+ for TSMM or the Mine Coaster you better be staying onsite and schedule exactly 60 days out, perhaps deep into your +10.

And what you are proposing is really just a complete rollout of the new DAS system, but to all guests. I'll go out on a limb and say "mark my words.... not gonna happen."

Of course not. Which is why Disney would not be"shooting itself in the foot" any more than it is now.

As for the DAS comment, I am not familiar with the details of that, but I assume that when those people return they will go into the FP return line, or something similar (like going through the exit) and not into a 30 minute or longer standby line.

Your assumption is that the end result of this is going to be that the only way to ride will be with a FP+ or by literally standing in a traditional standby line that may mean physically being in line for 60 or 120 minutes or more. I am suggesting that more creative minds are working on ways to make the park experiences more enjoyable for more people.

 

[Q-man]

There may be more than 130,000 folks in all 4 parks Christmas week. MK alone is rumored to hold 100,000, and Epcot between 130,000 & 150,000. DHS & AK are smaller, so fewer people there. Of course the whole closure system would be implemented before they reached these numbers.

I believe 100K was the Fire Marshall's MK max capacity before the FLE and it reaches that over Christmas week.