Fastpass+ is cramping my style

[sersee05]

I honestly cannot understand for the life of me why so many of you have trouble with lines on "lesser" rides. In my experience, there was no wait at all on IASW, Philharmagic, Magic Carpets, Monsters Inc, TTA Monorial, C of P, the Train, Stitch (but yuck) and less than 15 minutes on Buzz, Barnstormer, 20 minutes on Speedway, Astro Orbiter. The only things at MK that had any real lines were 7DMT, A & E, and for some strange reason I just don't understand, PP. you guys must all be hanging out at MK from 1:00-5:00. We go on the headliners in the morning or at night and haven't experienced long wait on anything.


And for the person that says, "now I have to choose between eating or riding 7DMT." Really? You can't ride and then walk over to Ray's and eat? Or Pinocchio's? Why not?

My point was for MY family. So no.. I don't want to walk over to Ray's or Pinocchios to eat. I am talking about an ADR. I am saying that the only time available for my fp interferes with me making reservations at a restaurant I WANT to go to . So yes really. It is a decision I need to make . I was sharing my point of view about fp and how it is cramping my style also(like the op) because it doesn't fit well with MY family's way of doing things. That doesn't mean I am condemning fp. I just noticed for us, it did mess some things up and I became a slave to the fp instead of doing what I wanted to do.

 

[sersee05]

oh man

The expense and the fact im not confident driving in America (only just passed a couple years ago) means we have stayed in a resort which is cheaper and allows us to get a shuttle to all parks inc universal and sea world (not just Disney). Its feels a bit unfair that if u havent been able to fork out for on sight u get the scraps in terms of fast passes.

I am offsite and made my fps 30 days out and had no problem getting the fps I wanted. ....except A and E ..that was gone. I got a late time for 7dmt and when I tried to change it...they were all gone. Those were my only issues. I logged on every night at midnight to schedule.

 

[grimley1968]

Yeah. You can get them for awesome things like Figment, Small World and Great Movie Ride. I'm sure you'll love it.

I just saw a thread where the OP has to decide between a FP+ for IASW or Under the Sea. It doesn't surprise me that the OP in that thread has to make a choice in the days of FP+, but before FP+ I never once waited more than 5 minutes for IASW no matter how crowded it was and never more than 10 minutes for UTS even when it was relatively new. Before FP+, legacy FP's just weren't necessary for either ride (can't even remember if either ride had legacy FP); we just rode them with small to no lines while waiting for the next legacy FP window.

 

[Robo]

I just saw a thread where the OP has to decide between a FP+ for IASW or Under the Sea. It doesn't surprise me that the OP in that thread has to make a choice in the days of FP+, but before FP+ I never once waited more than 5 minutes for IASW no matter how crowded it was and never more than 10 minutes for UTS even when it was relatively new. Before FP+, legacy FP's just weren't necessary for either ride (can't even remember if either ride had legacy FP); we just rode them with small to no lines while waiting for the next legacy FP window.

UtS offered (legacy) FP (but virtually never needed it.)
iasw did not offer (legacy) FP.

 

[JoshuaShaw]

I just saw a thread where the OP has to decide between a FP+ for IASW or Under the Sea. It doesn't surprise me that the OP in that thread has to make a choice in the days of Frozen, but before Frozen I never once waited more than 5 minutes for IASW no matter how crowded it was and never more than 10 minutes for UTS even when it was relatively new. Before Frozen, legacy FP's just weren't necessary for either ride (can't even remember if either ride had legacy FP); we just rode them with small to no lines while waiting for the next legacy FP window.

Fixed.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

I think FP+ actually works as intended for most of the Disney visitors that use it. It really seems like there are only a handful of DIS boarders that think it is the work of the devil.

Except, it's been almost 2 years since FP+ rolled and these threads are still popping up. And they aren't all being started by the same people, which indicates that it's not just a small handful of people who have a problem with it.

You are attributing the longer lines on a few rides to the advent of FP. You are dismissing the heavier crowds that started at the same time because of the Frozen craziness. WDW in general is far more crowded; of course there are going to be longer lines.

As a PP pointed out, there are plenty of sites that crunch numbers and crowd levels. The increase in attendance alone does not support the increase in wait times.

No, it doesn't AT ALL. It absolutely supports exactly what I was saying. Astro Orbiter before noon....no more than 20 minutes, after 8:30, again, no more than 20 minutes. Philharmagic...no more than 10 minutes all day. This chart exactly supports my experience. We did not wait for more than 20 minutes all day for anything. And again, the published/posted wait times for the rides, including headliners, at night were WAY HIGHER than actual wait times.

But you can't ride everything before noon or after 8pm (assuming the park stays open late) unless you are planning a long trip and only want to ride things one time. There are only a small handful of items that don't have waits longer than 20 minutes at midday. How many times are you going to watch the Hall of Presidents?

 

[GaryDis]

As a PP pointed out, there are plenty of sites that crunch numbers and crowd levels. The increase in attendance alone does not support the increase in wait times.

I hunted for one of these sites and found this one: http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/04/03/how-fastpass-plus-affects-your-wait-update/. I'll admit that this is a commercial site which may have its own biases, but I don't see any obvious biases coming through.

Their result is that the wait times for some rides increased and some decreased. This makes me question the conclusion that FP+ has made wait times increase. Are there other sites that might better support that claim?

Also, this site did something obvious but questionable: They assumed that an 8% increase in attendance made an 8% increase in wait times. Now queuing theory was my worst subject in grad school, so I won't claim to be able to analyze this any better, but I'm pretty sure of one thing: Wait times are not always linear in proportion to demand. We can see this in rush hours, where sometimes a small increase in the number of cars creates a big slowdown.

So I don't know the answer. I'd love to see an analysis from someone who both has more data (such as attendance and ride capacity settings) and is skilled in queuing theory. I think it's perfectly fine for the average guest without such data and skills to question the effectiveness of FP+ on wait times, and even report their own correlations, but I'll remain reluctant to stand behind any conclusions like that.

I'm pretty sure that WDW has both the data and the queuing theory expertise. Whether they have the business motivation to improve things is a different question. Indeed, whether it's even possible to improve wait times with any sort of plausible business plan is questionable.

 

[JoshuaShaw]

From 16 months ago: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/

Overall, FP+ is causing wait times to increase at most secondary attractions, while having a less substantial impact at the most popular attractions with the longest wait times.

I'll see if I can't find a more recent analysis.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

I hunted for one of these sites and found this one: http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/04/03/how-fastpass-plus-affects-your-wait-update/. I'll admit that this is a commercial site which may have its own biases, but I don't see any obvious biases coming through.

Their result is that the wait times for some rides increased and some decreased. This makes me question the conclusion that FP+ has made wait times increase. Are there other sites that might better support that claim?

Also, this site did something obvious but questionable: They assumed that an 8% increase in attendance made an 8% increase in wait times. Now queuing theory was my worst subject in grad school, so I won't claim to be able to analyze this any better, but I'm pretty sure of one thing: Wait times are not always linear in proportion to demand. We can see this in rush hours, where sometimes a small increase in the number of cars creates a big slowdown.

So I don't know the answer. I'd love to see an analysis from someone who both has more data (such as attendance and ride capacity settings) and is skilled in queuing theory. I think it's perfectly fine for the average guest without such data and skills to question the effectiveness of FP+ on wait times, and even report their own correlations, but I'll remain reluctant to stand behind any conclusions like that.

I'm pretty sure that WDW has both the data and the queuing theory expertise. Whether they have the business motivation to improve things is a different question. Indeed, whether it's even possible to improve wait times with any sort of plausible business plan is questionable.

I have to look it over more when I am not at work. But outside of MK, the parks have only had 1-2% growth in attendance each year.

 

[socrateze]

I hunted for one of these sites and found this one: http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/04/03/how-fastpass-plus-affects-your-wait-update/. I'll admit that this is a commercial site which may have its own biases, but I don't see any obvious biases coming through.

Their result is that the wait times for some rides increased and some decreased. This makes me question the conclusion that FP+ has made wait times increase. Are there other sites that might better support that claim?

Also, this site did something obvious but questionable: They assumed that an 8% increase in attendance made an 8% increase in wait times. Now queuing theory was my worst subject in grad school, so I won't claim to be able to analyze this any better, but I'm pretty sure of one thing: Wait times are not always linear in proportion to demand. We can see this in rush hours, where sometimes a small increase in the number of cars creates a big slowdown.

So I don't know the answer. I'd love to see an analysis from someone who both has more data (such as attendance and ride capacity settings) and is skilled in queuing theory. I think it's perfectly fine for the average guest without such data and skills to question the effectiveness of FP+ on wait times, and even report their own correlations, but I'll remain reluctant to stand behind any conclusions like that.

I'm pretty sure that WDW has both the data and the queuing theory expertise. Whether they have the business motivation to improve things is a different question. Indeed, whether it's even possible to improve wait times with any sort of plausible business plan is questionable.

There's been a decrease in headliner wait times, a substantial (IMO) increase on secondary attractions that never had FP+. On legacy FP trips, I never experienced a wait longer than 10-20minutes on HM or POC. With FP+ those attractions have waits of 30-60 minutes. I am speaking about my experiences on my trips. I really don't care about the data, even though it supports the longer secondary ride lines. What I care about is my trip and how FP+ has negatively impacted my trips to WDW.

 

[itchin2go]

From 16 months ago: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/

I'll see if I can't find a more recent analysis.

There was a discussion on here with Josh of easywdw more recently. I remember it was started by wisblue, but I can't recall the name of it. Wisblue was commenting on one of the recent posts on easywdw .... I'll try to remember more ....

 

[LOL!]

There was a discussion on here with Josh of easywdw more recently. I remember it was started by wisblue, but I can't recall the name of it. Wisblue was commenting on one of the recent posts on easywdw .... I'll try to remember more ....

I remember reading that post - and if memory serves Josh confirmed that FP+ has had a significant impact on wait times for secondary attractions. Slightly dampening the wait times for headliners while substantially increasing the wait times for secondaries. Again, if memory serves correctly.

Edit: Found it. FP+ has affected wait times in a variety of ways.

There also seems to be a growing number of people returning from the parks commenting that it didn't seem as crowded. Yet wait times haven't fallen in a corresponding manner, most likely because WDW is an expert with it's own data and knows exactly how to fine-tune park capacity in response to daily attendance and realize a significant labor/overhead savings. Unfortunately what that means for us is lines would never be eliminated even on the lightest of days because from Disney's perspective that would be a waste of resources.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I just saw a thread where the OP has to decide between a FP+ for IASW or Under the Sea. It doesn't surprise me that the OP in that thread has to make a choice in the days of FP+, but before FP+ I never once waited more than 5 minutes for IASW no matter how crowded it was and never more than 10 minutes for UTS even when it was relatively new. Before FP+, legacy FP's just weren't necessary for either ride (can't even remember if either ride had legacy FP); we just rode them with small to no lines while waiting for the next legacy FP window.

On the positive side how else would you know that Living with the Land and Great Movie Ride were top tier attractions! For years I just thought they were space and time killers.

 

[GaryDis]

Edit: Found it. FP+ has affected wait times in a variety of ways.

So I took a look at this, and what it boils down to is this:

• People who don't use FP will wait longer because of people who do. No foolin. In other words, he leaves out the part where instead of waiting 45 min for Splash Mountain and 45 min for Space Mountain, people who could only get FP+ for Splash Mountain are now waiting 5 minutes for Splash Mountain and 60 minutes for Space Mountain. I'm making these number up because he didn't do that part of the analysis - which is my point. Not that he's wrong, but that we don't know because the analysis doesn't take into account that the poor people on the SB lines may have gotten FP/FP+ for different attractions.
  
• The impact of FP+ is greater because Disney has gotten more people to use it. True again, but hard to argue that it's a bad thing or that it's a flaw in FP+.
  
• The impact of FP+ is greater on busier days. True again, and still hard to argue against. We want any such system to have a bigger impact on more crowded days.
  
• The impact on the less popular attractions is greater because a) they didn't have Legacy FP (true enough), and b) FP+ encourages the people slow to sign up to book FP+ for them. Unclear, because we don't know how many people don't use all their FP+ slots, nor do we know what they would have done under legacy FP. Spent more time in the SB lines for the popular stuff? Maybe. Gotten in line ahead of you at Imagination because the TT line was too long? Maybe. It's certainly a theory worth analyzing, but I don't think there's enough data to be conclusive about it.
  
• FP+ breaks the rope drop strategy because a 9am FP encourages more people to show up at rope drop time without exploiting the rope drop strategy. In other words, legacy gave the rope droppers about 45 minutes to ride quickly before their first FP kicked in, while FP+ takes that away because the times start at 9am. Even if I accept that analysis as correct, and it may well be, I'm still not sure I want to criticize a change that only impacts the small percentage of people who show up for RD. I get how that can really bother the many people here who are inveterate rope droppers, and it's reasonable to be upset over it - but don't expect non-rope-droppers to have a huge amount of sympathy.

Or to put it more simply, he's looked at the data, he's come up with some theories that might explain the data, but he hasn't proven them, and most significantly, he hasn't balanced the extra time you spend on lines without FP/FP+ against the savings you get on the attractions with FP/FP+.

There will always be tradeoffs in changes. Creating the green side of Mission Space means longer waits for people who want the orange side. FP+ has tradeoffs against FP. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

So I took a look at this, and what it boils down to is this:

• People who don't use FP will wait longer because of people who do. No foolin. In other words, he leaves out the part where instead of waiting 45 min for Splash Mountain and 45 min for Space Mountain, people who could only get FP+ for Splash Mountain are now waiting 5 minutes for Splash Mountain and 60 minutes for Space Mountain. I'm making these number up because he didn't do that part of the analysis - which is my point. Not that he's wrong, but that we don't know because the analysis doesn't take into account that the poor people on the SB lines may have gotten FP/FP+ for different attractions.
  
• The impact of FP+ is greater because Disney has gotten more people to use it. True again, but hard to argue that it's a bad thing or that it's a flaw in FP+.
  
• The impact of FP+ is greater on busier days. True again, and still hard to argue against. We want any such system to have a bigger impact on more crowded days.
  
• The impact on the less popular attractions is greater because a) they didn't have Legacy FP (true enough), and b) FP+ encourages the people slow to sign up to book FP+ for them. Unclear, because we don't know how many people don't use all their FP+ slots, nor do we know what they would have done under legacy FP. Spent more time in the SB lines for the popular stuff? Maybe. Gotten in line ahead of you at Imagination because the TT line was too long? Maybe. It's certainly a theory worth analyzing, but I don't think there's enough data to be conclusive about it.
  
• FP+ breaks the rope drop strategy because a 9am FP encourages more people to show up at rope drop time without exploiting the rope drop strategy. In other words, legacy gave the rope droppers about 45 minutes to ride quickly before their first FP kicked in, while FP+ takes that away because the times start at 9am. Even if I accept that analysis as correct, and it may well be, I'm still not sure I want to criticize a change that only impacts the small percentage of people who show up for RD. I get how that can really bother the many people here who are inveterate rope droppers, and it's reasonable to be upset over it - but don't expect non-rope-droppers to have a huge amount of sympathy.

Or to put it more simply, he's looked at the data, he's come up with some theories that might explain the data, but he hasn't proven them, and most significantly, he hasn't balanced the extra time you spend on lines without FP/FP+ against the savings you get on the attractions with FP/FP+.

There will always be tradeoffs in changes. Creating the green side of Mission Space means longer waits for people who want the orange side. FP+ has tradeoffs against FP. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

I'm not sure how anyone can look at how it works at EPCOT or HS and try to put any kind of positive spin on the system unless they're just happy to roll into the park and ride one thing then leave. Skip the line at Soarin then you get to wait for Test Track but as a positive you can skip lines for Journey Into Immagination and Spaceship Earth. Fun part is you're now skipping lines that didn't exist prior to FP+ so you've not gained anything other than feeling like you've accomplished something by walking past an artificially inflated line. Then for skipping those lines you get to wait for other stuff that didn't have lines so now you've actually lost time but at least you didn't have to get up early to accomplish this feat.

I'm not sure if they just didn't factor in the wasted time everywhere else or if they thought people would ignore all the negatives if they could just sleep in a bit longer and get to ride that one popular ride.

 

[GaryDis]

I'm not sure how anyone can look at how it works at EPCOT or HS

I'm not trying to put a spin on anything, other than separating the hard data, the theories (which might be correct), the opinions, and the "this is bad for my style, therefore it's bad, period" verbiage. (I think many people understand that they're only representing their particular approach to the parks, but that doesn't always come through in the way they say it.)

I do consider the tiers a separate issue from FP+ in general. They seem deliberately intended to get more people into the less popular rides, though it's hard to understand why Mission:Space is tier 2. The problem with Epcot is, well, it's Epcot, not Six Flags, and nothing about FP will change that. But let's not exaggerate by saying it's only one ride, unless you're one of the people who can't tolerate M:S(green). DHS is even better, with two E rides in each tier.

I'll admit to being a little jaded about Test Track, because the times I visited, it was still breaking down often. I don't remember ever having luck on TT with legacy FP, at least not first time. I think I've only been on it twice, and the only luck I had was coming when it reopened after a rain shutdown. The other time was SB, and that was legacy FP days.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I'm not trying to put a spin on anything, other than separating the hard data, the theories (which might be correct), the opinions, and the "this is bad for my style, therefore it's bad, period" verbiage. (I think many people understand that they're only representing their particular approach to the parks, but that doesn't always come through in the way they say it.)

I do consider the tiers a separate issue from FP+ in general. They seem deliberately intended to get more people into the less popular rides, though it's hard to understand why Mission:Space is tier 2. The problem with Epcot is, well, it's Epcot, not Six Flags, and nothing about FP will change that. But let's not exaggerate by saying it's only one ride, unless you're one of the people who can't tolerate M:S(green). DHS is even better, with two E rides in each tier.

I'll admit to being a little jaded about Test Track, because the times I visited, it was still breaking down often. I don't remember ever having luck on TT with legacy FP, at least not first time. I think I've only been on it twice, and the only luck I had was coming when it reopened after a rain shutdown. The other time was SB, and that was legacy FP days.

I'm not saying EPCOT or HS are one ride parks but that you are forced to choose one at those parks. Even more ridiculous is having to choose one of those rides or a show/fireworks. To me M:S as tier 2 makes way more sense than Living with the Land and Great Movie Ride as Tier 1. I'm still curious if anyone actually takes those over other things or if they get picked because people can't actually get one of the big rides.

As for TT I loved it before it became Tron Track. Yes it took forever to open and it certainly was sketchy at times to operate for long periods but it was still fun and had interesting things inside. That's now gone so essentially it's a bland tour in a 6 passenger convertible so I'm also jaded towards it but for a different reason.

 

[socrateze]

I'm not trying to put a spin on anything, other than separating the hard data, the theories (which might be correct), the opinions, and the "this is bad for my style, therefore it's bad, period" verbiage. (I think many people understand that they're only representing their particular approach to the parks, but that doesn't always come through in the way they say it.)

I do consider the tiers a separate issue from FP+ in general. They seem deliberately intended to get more people into the less popular rides, though it's hard to understand why Mission:Space is tier 2. The problem with Epcot is, well, it's Epcot, not Six Flags, and nothing about FP will change that. But let's not exaggerate by saying it's only one ride, unless you're one of the people who can't tolerate M:S(green). DHS is even better, with two E rides in each tier.

I'll admit to being a little jaded about Test Track, because the times I visited, it was still breaking down often. I don't remember ever having luck on TT with legacy FP, at least not first time. I think I've only been on it twice, and the only luck I had was coming when it reopened after a rain shutdown. The other time was SB, and that was legacy FP days.

Does anyone really care about hard data when they are on vacation? When my family has spent $5000 on a vacation, all I care about is my vacation and if my family finds value in visiting WDW.

 

[socrateze]

There also seems to be a growing number of people returning from the parks commenting that it didn't seem as crowded. Yet wait times haven't fallen in a corresponding manner, most likely because WDW is an expert with it's own data and knows exactly how to fine-tune park capacity in response to daily attendance and realize a significant labor/overhead savings. Unfortunately what that means for us is lines would never be eliminated even on the lightest of days because from Disney's perspective that would be a waste of resources.

LOL, this is a great observation and the saddest part of the whole FP+ situation. Disney is "right sizing" staff and attraction capacity, so everyone can experience a Level 7 day even when the park crowds are at a level 3.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I do consider the tiers a separate issue from FP+ in general. They seem deliberately intended to get more people into the less popular rides, though it's hard to understand why Mission:Space is tier 2. The problem with Epcot is, well, it's Epcot, not Six Flags, and nothing about FP will change that. But let's not exaggerate by saying it's only one ride, unless you're one of the people who can't tolerate M:S(green). DHS is even better, with two E rides in each tier.

The tiers are the foundation upon which FP+ lies (in those parks). You can't separate them out. You can't say, I like FP+ (in Epcot and DHS) but I don't like the tiers. Tiering is part of FP+, it's all ride allocation, all the same thing.