FP+... who hates it

[SmithSmith]

I can't remember where I found that out...somewhere on here probably? I think it was age 7 anyway...whatever it was, it was still a child age (nothing that would change their ticketing, room or dining costs at all!)

7 is the age Disney allows a child to be escorted by a 14 year old. So that makes sense.

 

[Shaden]

Legacy didn't require a lot of "learning". It just required a lot of time and even more decision making then the new system. Yes, it was easy to go to the kiosk and get a FP, if they were available, but that was a big if. If the time on the FP conflicted with say an ADR, then you had to wait for the time that would work to come up and/or leave and come back later to get a better time. There's enough walking around that place as it is and the worst part is that you could take all that time and still not get one because they were out of the one you wanted and had no way of knowing that until you got back to the kiosk. It was easy to understand, but, it was a PITA to always be gearing up to get another one.

Sorry but this is absolutely laughable. Have you SEEN the amount of planning and thinking and effort some people are now putting into the new system ? All the old system required was that you walk around the park as you chose, and if you saw an attraction with an SB line that seemed too long, you instead pulled and FP, and then returned when it allowed you to.

It wasn't a big IF, not at all. Now of course you sometimes have to walk halfway across the park to find out if an FP is available, and since less are, its more of an IF.

And now you might even have a conflict with and ADR 60 days out, let alone day of. You can still spend a ton of time and get nothing, only now it probably doubly true. You can spend that time 60 or 30 days out, and then try again day of and strike out AGAIN.

So what, now you get 3 pre-booked, assuming you don't run into any difficulty doing so, which many people here have reported. Lets assume you get 3, no problem, for exactly what you want, when you want. Then what ? SB lines on many of the secondary attractions are up, pulling your 4th and beyond FP requires MORE work than it used to, and offers even more uncertainty while the option of not having FPs looks worse (due to increased lines). How is this a better situation exactly ?

 

[AriesAriel]

Thanks for clarifying! Okay, I think I got it now.

One more question. IF you had the child's age set at 7 and IF you hadn't accidentally cancelled their A&E FP+, then would you have been able to modify just their selection even though everyone else in the party was scheduled for a different attraction?

I hope that made sense...

TIA

If I had known the age trick that for sure would have probably been the fastest solution.

But even still, it won't let you just make ONE selection. You have to go through all these screens saying if you change this you're going to lose these. So you HAVE to pick 3 at a time. I still would have had to cancel the other two FP selections I had already made for our family of 4.

Even if I hadn't cancelled him off A&E, and even if he was 7 it still would not let me just modify him to another attraction. I would have to do it for all 4 of the family members. The only way it wouldn't have mattered is from the beginning if I had grouped us 2 (mom +kid) and 2 (dad+kid).

Easiest would have been to tell him to suck it up buttercup and make him meet A&E!

 

[Shaden]

Well, in the MK ppl are reporting pulling FP+'s all day long. But 8 FP-? I dunno... that could be done, but it would take some serious know-how. That's more than one every 2 hours, and the time delay on pulling one after another is 2 hours. In a 10 hour day, that would be 5. To get 8 you'd have to have studied unlinked systems and other caveats that are against the rules as published but not enforced. Very few guests got this many. I'd guess less than 0.1% of guests consistently pulled 8 FP-'s in a day at the MK..

I can't tell you about %s ... though clearly yours is just a guess, and probably not accurate. But as I have stated elsewhere, on our first couple trips we pulled more than 8 multiple times, we hadn't been to this or any other site, we consulted no guides. It was pretty fricken simple actually. We figured it out on our first day there.

Of course, the new system is FAR more complex to maximize ...

 

[Hokie2000]

Sorry but this is absolutely laughable. Have you SEEN the amount of planning and thinking and effort some people are now putting into the new system ? All the old system required was that you walk around the park as you chose, and if you saw an attraction with an SB line that seemed too long, you instead pulled and FP, and then returned when it allowed you to.

It wasn't a big IF, not at all. Now of course you sometimes have to walk halfway across the park to find out if an FP is available, and since less are, its more of an IF.

And now you might even have a conflict with and ADR 60 days out, let alone day of. You can still spend a ton of time and get nothing, only now it probably doubly true. You can spend that time 60 or 30 days out, and then try again day of and strike out AGAIN.

So what, now you get 3 pre-booked, assuming you don't run into any difficulty doing so, which many people here have reported. Lets assume you get 3, no problem, for exactly what you want, when you want. Then what ? SB lines on many of the secondary attractions are up, pulling your 4th and beyond FP requires MORE work than it used to, and offers even more uncertainty while the option of not having FPs looks worse (due to increased lines). How is this a better situation exactly ?

I think the operative phrase in your post is "some people." Yes, absolutely, some people put many hours into planning their trips, including FP+ selections. What's laughable is suggesting that this amount of planning never occurred with FP-. Some people made detailed plans, down to the minute, using historical data to make an educated guess as to how their FP- situation would play out.

Now some people make detailed plans, but their first 3 FPs are known and can be planned around. Can you see how this situation could be better for these types of planners?

For casual planners, some of them will feel forced into the crazy planning and see that as detrimental. And some will just pick 3 FPs and roll with it. It is easy to get the passes, the difficulty comes from making the decisions. If one is not terribly worried about maximizing their trip the decisions become less important and therefore easier.

 

[Mkrop]

I have read most of this thread, I am not real tech savvy so I dont know how to post quotes. several people said they would be much happier if they could make additional fast passes on their phone... Someone else said waiting in line for a kiosk kind of defeats the purpose of spending more money because your standing in line.. Maybe I'm cynical but I think these are tied together. I dont know if they will ever let you make additional fast passes on phone, they have had a year and a half to do this, shouldnt be that hard.. Just my take but you get on your phone and find nothing that you want, may be you will go back to resort and sit by pool, or leave property to find something else to do. Are if you just used your last fp on TOT and walk to the fast pass kiosk and theres a 20 or 30 minute wait, (which I have seen), your wife says you go ahead and get in line, theres a place to get ice cream right over there I will get the kids some ice cream while you are in line.. Kaching!!! Or you finally get to kiosk hey what do you know we can get fast pass for RNR in 3 hours, well I've stood in this line for 30 mins. I'm going to take it. now maybe you are going to stay in park longer than you planned, to kill time you may go into shops, or end up having to get snacks, drinks, or even feed the family... Kaching!!!
Another thing people were talking about was the planning, I work in a school and have personally talked to 3 familys that had no idea what fast pass was 2-3 weeks before their trip, I did explain it to them, kinda late for them though. 2 of those familys say they will never go back third one says they may but will have to do a lot more planning.. Fourth family I didnt talk to till they got back, I asked how fast pass worked for them, she said we were trying to figure it out the first day we went, but never really could get any of the big rides.. Another casual friend of mine knowing I go to Disney a lot asked me what rides would I think his 13 year old daughter would like. I gave my suggestions , then he asked what resort would I suggest.. This was second week of july, their trip was third week of august... they hadnt even booked a resort yet, this isnt a stupid guy, he is the head of IT for a very sucessful company.. My advice was go to the disboards... we that or on the boards just dont realize that some people dont plan and dont have a clue of the planning you have to do....

I can only say the Kaching scenarios did not happen for us. We did not go and get ice cream while DH stood in line for scraps of FP+s. We either got in line with him or sat on a bench. Once again how much can one eat or shop!!! We stood in lines for the FP+s and got frustrated that there was nothing left, lines were way too long for standby so we left, figured the next day might be better and we would get to bed early and start the day early. So we did not spend an additional dime and left frustrated...I dont think that is what WDW wants but maybe this experience was unique for us.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Just a friendly reminder of how easy it was to pull Legacy FPs. And these are just the ones we brought home and didn't use. This is from DL last year.

 

[mom2rtk]

Just a friendly reminder of how easy it was to pull Legacy FPs. And these are just the ones we brought home and didn't use. This is from DL last year.

You are clearly part of the 0.1%

 

[Mad Hattered]

You are clearly part of the 0.1%

Or maybe I'm really a rocket scientist.

And I truly believe WDW has sucked the spontaneity out of the experience. We obviously were spontaneous when we decided to do something else rather than use those FPs. We probably used spontaneity to use one of our other FPs during those time frames.

 

[wisblue]

It is not hard to see how it would have been possible for SOME guests at MK to get 8 FPs in a day, or even more, by making most efficient use of the system to get a new FP as soon as the window opened up. And, of course, it was much easier to get more FPs when the crowds were lower and FP return times stayed closer to the distribution times.

But the simple math of the number of people in the park and the number of total FPs available dictates that only a minority of people could do it on the same day. Maybe I'm forgetting one or two, but I think the MK only had 7 FP attractions: the mountains, Buzz, Pooh, Pan, and Jungle Cruise. The number of FPs available for any attraction is, of course, a function of the ride's capacity and the percentage of that capacity allocated to FPs. Just for the sake of illustration, if each attraction had 15,000 FPs available in a day, the total for the 7 attractions would be 105,000.

Now, the average attendance at MK is about 50,000 and I have seen in some articles that on the busiest days it can reach 75,000. Even if that total FP capacity were 150,000, which is probably too high, that would translate to 3 FPs per person per day on an average day and only 2 on the busiest days. Even at the higher capacity of 150,000 FPs, fewer than 20,000 guests could get 8 FPs in a day, and that is if everyone else in the park gets none. Beecause there were obviously a lot of guests getting 1 or 2 or 3 FPs each, the number who could have gotten as many as 8 drops that much lower.

Nobody on this board knows exactly how many guests were getting 8 FPs a day, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was significantly less than 10% of all guests. The pure math says that more people were getting 3 or less per day than were getting more than 3.

I understand why the small minority that were getting 6-8 FPs per day are unhappy that Disney has derailed their gravy train. But, I have a much harder time understanding why they have trouble seeing why Disney put a different system in place to ensure that FPs would be distributed more evenly to all guests.

 

[cakebaker]

Just a friendly reminder of how easy it was to pull Legacy FPs. And these are just the ones we brought home and didn't use. This is from DL last year.

Nice pic, but it doesn't prove the ease of paper fp usage. It would appear these are spread over 2 days and consist of fp's for at least 2 people each. So in effect, over a period of 2 days you gathered 5 fp's per person. Was the physical act of pulling a piece of paper easy? Yes. But to say that's all there is to it would be equivalent to saying it only takes a click of a mouse to use fp+. When we schedule our fp+'s, we'll have more than 120 "pulled" all at one time, but that really doesn't mean much. If we want to dumb it down that far, click over pull wins.

 

[wisblue]

Just a friendly reminder of how easy it was to pull Legacy FPs. And these are just the ones we brought home and didn't use. This is from DL last year.

I think it is also a good illustration of why Disney might want to put a system in place that would distribute FPs more evenly and get them in the hands of people who actually wanted to use them instead of keeping them as souvenirs.

 

[mom2rtk]

Or maybe I'm really a rocket scientist.

And I truly believe WDW has sucked the spontaneity out of the experience. We obviously were spontaneous when we decided to do something else rather than use those FPs. We probably used spontaneity to use one of our other FPs during those time frames.

Who knew the guy from Sea World was such a Mickey fan?

 

[Mad Hattered]

Nice pic, but it doesn't prove the ease of paper fp usage. It would appear these are spread over 2 days and consist of fp's for at least 2 people each. So in effect, over a period of 2 days you gathered 5 fp's per person. Was the physical act of pulling a piece of paper easy? Yes. But to say that's all there is to it would be equivalent to saying it only takes a click of a mouse to use fp+. When we schedule our fp+'s, we'll have more than 120 "pulled" all at one time, but that really doesn't mean much. If we want to dumb it down that far, click over pull wins.

That is what we didn't use! We pulled at least 8 per person every day for a week. That is way more than you can "click" per person per day. Pull wins every time...no argument to be made.

 

[Mad Hattered]

I think it is also a good illustration of why Disney might want to put a system in place that would distribute FPs more evenly and get them in the hands of people who actually wanted to use them instead of keeping them as souvenirs.

Nah. Some people were just stupid. Disney has taken the philosophy that "every kid deserves a trophy" for just showing up.

 

[cakebaker]

That is what we didn't use! We pulled at least 8 per person every day for a week. That is way more than you can "click" per person per day. Pull wins every time...no argument to be made.

Again, a good example of why a new system was needed so badly. You got at least 8 per day, a lot of people got much less. You even managed to pull fp's for more than you wanted to ride while others were undoubtedly completely shut out. The ability to do that should be limited and now it is. You make think those others are just stupid while you are savvy and smart, but I doubt Disney wants their system based on winner take all.

 

[Cormoran]

Sorry but this is absolutely laughable. Have you SEEN the amount of planning and thinking and effort some people are now putting into the new system ? All the old system required was that you walk around the park as you chose, and if you saw an attraction with an SB line that seemed too long, you instead pulled and FP, and then returned when it allowed you to.

It wasn't a big IF, not at all. Now of course you sometimes have to walk halfway across the park to find out if an FP is available, and since less are, its more of an IF.

And now you might even have a conflict with and ADR 60 days out, let alone day of. You can still spend a ton of time and get nothing, only now it probably doubly true. You can spend that time 60 or 30 days out, and then try again day of and strike out AGAIN.

So what, now you get 3 pre-booked, assuming you don't run into any difficulty doing so, which many people here have reported. Lets assume you get 3, no problem, for exactly what you want, when you want. Then what ? SB lines on many of the secondary attractions are up, pulling your 4th and beyond FP requires MORE work than it used to, and offers even more uncertainty while the option of not having FPs looks worse (due to increased lines). How is this a better situation exactly ?

If FP+ were so easy, why are so many new threads on the board asking for advice? Why was Mesa Boy's FP+ thread #1 for last year? I'm glad people love FP+, but I just don't understand why it is defended for reasons that are completely false:

1. FP+ does require more pre- planning than legacy ever did.
2. It requires a lot of tribal knowledge to book FP+'s for a given day since you have to know when the booking window opens. Then you have to select your ride choices and start tweaking the times since the Disney site does not offer a drop down box of available times.
3. It has not been responsible for increasing the spontaneity since it locks you into a specific park 30-60 days out, unless you're willing to risk standing in long lines at a different park.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Again, a good example of why a new system was needed so badly. You got at least 8 per day, a lot of people got much less. You even managed to pull fp's for more than you wanted to ride while others were undoubtedly completely shut out. The ability to do that should be limited and now it is. You make think those others are just stupid while you are savvy and smart, but I doubt Disney wants their system based on winner take all.

The ONLY FPs that ran out during our entire week there was Radiator Springs. Do you see any FPs for that ride in the picture? Nope. We didn't screw anyone else out of anything. Besides, since there were only 0.1% of the people pulling as many as we did means we couldn't undoubtedly completely shut others out. I wonder how many "pulls" we will get on our upcoming trip?

 

[Jennytoon]

I think it is also a good illustration of why Disney might want to put a system in place that would distribute FPs more evenly and get them in the hands of people who actually wanted to use them instead of keeping them as souvenirs.

I liked this post Wisblue because I agree that Disney has motivation to want to see FP more evenly distributed than the extreme case. But I think you should be careful about the presentation of your argument. There was nothing at all about the old system that prevented a FP- holder from passing on one they weren't going to use to someone else in the park. And there is nothing at all (conceptually) about the new system that prevents a FP+ holder from skipping a FP+ they have reserved without modifying or canceling it so that someone else can have a shot at it. The cheap hit that you took on MadHattered weakens your otherwise strong point, IMO.

 

[SmithSmith]

That is what we didn't use! We pulled at least 8 per person every day for a week. That is way more than you can "click" per person per day. Pull wins every time...no argument to be made.

For clarity, I think it may be wise to point out that you had intended to pull as many FPs as possible during that trip. A few days before you left for DL you posted this: