FP+ - Concerned - Please Share Honest Experiences

[avery619]

My husband has heard FP+ "rumors" at work and he refuses to go to WDW again if I cannot convince him it is not so bad!. I need the lowdown so that I know what we are getting into. We are giving Universal a try in a few months. But we want to go to Disney for a week too if we get the facts straight. Disney is where our heart has always been.

This is the rumor my husband heard. FP+ is like an ADR for a ride. This can be good or bad. If it is bad weather on the day you schedule your ride, you are out of luck rescheduling. Same if you have transportation issues and your are late. Especially during a peak time of the year. You get 3 FP+'s. Most standby lines are much longer than have been in the past. People are basically just doing three rides, eating a meal and going back to the resort.

Our children will do single rider when available. Will this give us more flexibility.

Please share honest opinions from one Disney Lover to another. We have Premier AP's that expire at the end of June. We bought for the first (and probably only time last year when we went to Disneyland). I just want to get the facts straight and I trust the Dis Members.

Thanks for your feedback.

Avery

 

[smitch425]

My husband has heard FP+ "rumors" at work and he refuses to go to WDW again if I cannot convince him it is not so bad!. I need the lowdown so that I know what we are getting into. We are going to give Universal a try in a few months. But we want to go to Disney for a week too if we get the facts straight. Disney is where our heart has always been.

This is the rumor my husband heard. FP+ is like and ADR for a ride. This can be good or bad. If it is bad weather on the day you schedule your ride, you are out of luck rescheduling. Especially during a peak time of the year. You get 3 FP+'s. Most standby lines are much longer than have been in the past. People are basically just doing three rides, eating a meal and going back to the resort.

Our children will do single rider when available. Will this give us more flexibility.

Please share honest opinions from one Disney Lover to another. We have Premier AP's that expire at the end of June. We bought for the first (and probably only time last year when we went to Disneyland). I just want to get the facts straight and I trust the Dis Members.

Thanks for your feedback.

Avery

He is correct that it is similar to an ADR, but not much else is true. You can typically reschedule any FP. Some of the headliners may be tough, but most things can be rescheduled. If you get to your FP ride and the standby is short, just ride standby and change your FP. If you get stuck somewhere or don't feel like crossing the park to get to your scheduled FP ride, just change it. This can even be done if your time window has expired. Selecting your own times is a HUGE improvement from the old system. We love FP+. It could use some tweaking, but overall, we much prefer it to the old system. If you park hop, do rope drop at your first park and schedule your FPs for your second park. That is the best way to utilize FP+ when hopping. Singer rider lines will be a great option, as well.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

He is correct that it is similar to an ADR, but not much else is true. You can typically reschedule any FP. Some of the headliners may be tough, but most things can be rescheduled. If you get to your FP ride and the standby is short, just ride standby and change your FP. If you get stuck somewhere or don't feel like crossing the park to get to your scheduled FP ride, just change it. This can even be done if your time window has expired. Selecting your own times is a HUGE improvement from the old system. We love FP+. It could use some tweaking, but overall, we much prefer it to the old system. If you park hop, do rope drop at your first park and schedule your FPs for your second park. That is the best way to utilize FP+ when hopping. Singer rider lines will be a great option, as well.

This post has it right - someone is feeding your husband false information. But this system is pretty complicated, so I bet that many people are as poorly informed.

If you arm yourself by reading this board, you will be fine. If you don't take the time necessary to learn the new system, you will have the types of problems that led to the poor information that your husband received.

I should also note that I didn't reserve any FP+ before we went to Florida earlier this year, so we didn't plan weeks/months in advance and we still got the FPs that we wanted for the times that we wanted.

 

[Jeepin Dad]

I liked FP+ and found it easy to use. I liked being able to plan and schedule times before we got to the park that worked with our touring plan for the day. I was able to change times and rides in the park the day of using my phone, it was definitely easier to do in the mornings when there were more available options verses later in the day.

 

[sunkissed4]

In my experience, the one "rumor" your DH heard about longer standby lines is true.

You can switch your FP+ if you'd like, but you may not get the exact time you want or be able to switch to a very popular ride the day of.

RD is still very important. We ride all of our must-dos, do some FP rides, lunch and then leave. So maybe that part is true? lol

 

[mickeysgirl17]

My husband has heard FP+ "rumors" at work and he refuses to go to WDW again if I cannot convince him it is not so bad!. I need the lowdown so that I know what we are getting into. We are giving Universal a try in a few months. But we want to go to Disney for a week too if we get the facts straight. Disney is where our heart has always been.

This is the rumor my husband heard. FP+ is like an ADR for a ride. This can be good or bad. If it is bad weather on the day you schedule your ride, you are out of luck rescheduling. Same if you have transportation issues and your are late. Especially during a peak time of the year. You get 3 FP+'s. Most standby lines are much longer than have been in the past. People are basically just doing three rides, eating a meal and going back to the resort.

Our children will do single rider when available. Will this give us more flexibility.

Please share honest opinions from one Disney Lover to another. We have Premier AP's that expire at the end of June. We bought for the first (and probably only time last year when we went to Disneyland). I just want to get the facts straight and I trust the Dis Members.

Thanks for your feedback.

Avery

I am no fan of the new fp+, however, you can reschedule your fp reservations while in the park IF there is availability from the My Disney experience mobile app or at a kiosk within the park. Keep in mind, people cancel and switch fp reservations all the time so something might become available for the number of people in your party.

Also, new changes are coming to fp+. We don't know when these changes will take place as of yet, but you will be able to stand in line at a kiosk within the park and get more fastpasses after you use the 3 you reserve from home. Apparently, Disney is also "holding" some fastpasses for day guests and for cast members who cannot or do not reserve from home in advance.

I personally have not been to Disney since the new system took effect, but I've heard lines are generally longer for standby and fp return lines are also longer. As someone else mentioned above, getting to the park at rope drop has never been more important because if you book your 3 advance fp earlier in the day, you have a higher advantage of getting several more fastpasses from the kiosks within the day. This only works well if the kiosk lines aren't very long or you may actually waste more time. Also, there are far less people in the park at rope drop than later in the day so more attractions will be walk ons.

 

[redsbe]

When crowds build through the day and on biggest park days, yes SB lines are getting longer. Saw plenty of that yesterday (4/7) in MK. But using RD and booking FP+s for mid day/afternoon when crowds are peaking is still good strategy, essential when parks get to 8+ levels.

Biggest impact from current FP+ structure is on those who always preferred to ride most popular attractions several times a day and pulled 6+ FP- to do so, and those who would hop mid day to another park and once there pull additional FP- for that park.

So it really depends on when you go, if you RD or not, and whether a WDW vacation for you and your family depends on riding the most popular attractions many times on same day.

 

[redsbe]

"getting to the park at rope drop has never been more important because if you book your 3 advance fp earlier in the day, you have a higher advantage of getting several more fastpasses from the kiosks within the day"

That may be the case if and when system allows you to pull additional FP+ once you have used your original 3 FP+s. But for now since you are limited to 3 only, best approach is to book them for periods of peak crowds (after 11am) and use RD to ride before lines get longer by mid day.

 

[avery619]

Thanks everyone! I am starting to get a clearer picture of FP+. I still have a few questions if you don't mind. Our normal routine was to go in the park and obtain a Fast Passe for a headliner when the park opened. Can this still be done? Or does FP+ have all of the regular Fast Passes accounted for ahead of time. Am I making sense???

ETA: You guys are great! You answered my rope drop FP question while I was slowly typing. Thanks again!

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Thanks everyone! I am starting to get a clearer picture of FP+. I still have a few questions if you don't mind. Our normal routine was to go in the park and obtain a Fast Passe for a headliner when the park opened. Can this still be done? Or does FP+ have all of the regular Fast Passes accounted for ahead of time. Am I making sense???

The old machines are gone. Generally, not all of the FP+ reservations will be gone when the park opens, but you only get 3 per day, so best to reserve them at least the day before. Wait until you walk into the parks and you take your chances with what is left, both in terms of rides and time slots.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Speaking of ADRs, remember that if you miss an ADR now for any restaurant it's a $10-per-person no-show fee on your CC. (another change that happened since your last trip according to your signature)

 

[redsbe]

The old machines are gone. Generally, not all of the FP+ reservations will be gone when the park opens, but you only get 3 per day, so best to reserve them at least the day before. Wait until you walk into the parks and you take your chances with what is left, both in terms of rides and time slots.

especially on days when crowds will hit level 8 or above

 

[bookluvingbabe]

The old machines aren't gone. Just covered up. I can't decide if that gives me hope or not.

I didn't find the lines longer for FP+ last week. But the standby lines were longer and earlier than what I had experienced previously, especially for the "second-tier" rides.

Changing on the fly is possible but we had a terrible time doing it in the MK on my ipad. Had to go to a kiosk to do it.

 

[brenda1966]

I believe some of the old FP machines are indeed gone! Like the ones by Toy Story -- I don't recall seeing them.

We were just in the parks for 2 short days last Thurs and Friday. We did the suggested method of selecting FP+ for the afternoon when ride lines would be at peak length. Thurs we went to MK for early entry and rode a ton of things with reasonable waits. Hopped over to AK to ride Mt. Everest by single rider. Back to MK to use our FP+ on Belle's enchanted Tales, Space, and BTMRR. Even rode BTMRR again by standby. This all worked out quite well.

Day 2 was epcot for rope drop. I had reserved FP+ for later in the day for Studios. Rope Drop at Epcot was not a huge success. Got there a few minutes late and had to wait 45 to ride Soarin. Got out of there around 10am and test track was 110 minutes, 30 minutes single. And yes, it took the 30 minutes. I had read that the issuing of FP+ for the first hour was messing up rope drop and I have to agree. The standby lines should have been moving along quicker that first hour, but were slowed by FP+ holders.

Later we had no trouble using our FP+ at Studios for Star Tours (not even needed ) Toy Story, and tower of Terror, which we rode again by standby. We found all the FP+ lines were 5-10 minutes. Rocking rollercoaster had the longest single line I've ever stood in, probably 30 minutes. I'm not used to spring break type crowd levels.

What I dislike about FP+ is the lack of hopping options and the limit of 3 and the negative effect on rope drop lines.. I'm hoping to see improvements in this by the time we return. Well, except for the rope drop issue, which is disappointing.

 

[minmate]

I was terrified too and tried to talk my family out of visiting WDW this year and only do Universal. We compromised by doing 2 days at WDW last week.

Compounding my fears, we were staying offsite for the first time and driving/using the parking lots was another new wrench in the plans for us to figure out. We prebooked our FP's when they opened to offsiters on March 31 (for 4.2 and 4.4.). Got everything I wanted with plenty of times to choose from.

The app did not work on the day we were in Epcot so I couldn't change a couple FP's that I wanted to change but it worked great the Friday we were in MK. I switched our FPs that day a couple of times.

Honestly, the new FP+ system is just a shift in thinking mostly. Instead of physically going to the ride to grab your FP, you can do it online. It's much more convenient and after you get used to it, makes the idea of FP- seem pretty archaic and redundant. In fact, I'm planning a trip to Disneyland with my sis and nephew and am feeling exhausted thinking about running around gathering FP's from the rides as they still have the legacy FP system there.

The issues with FP+ come in because it's technology and technology doesn't always work smoothly (glitchiness/not working, etc), and because it IS so much easier and is being heavily promoted, more people are using the system, making supply and demand a little more challenging.

We employed the same strategy we usually do -
1) Show up early for Rope Drop, do our fave headliners

2) Mid-afternoon is for secondary attractions, scheduled FP+ and/or a break
2a) If you plan to park hop, strongly encourage Rope Drop first park and use FPs in the second park.

3) Hit headliners again during/after evening entertainment (at DHS in the evening, we rode walk-on TOT 2x, RNR 3x during early F! and walked right into second F! and sat center section, about 8 rows back. At MK on Friday night we watched early parade/Wishes and walked onto HM, BTMR, Space during second parade, along with a few other secondary rides we like)

It's much easier to decide where to head next if the app is working because you can check wait times right on your phone/iPad, versus going to the actual ride or the wait times board.

Don't give up on it yet. We were able to ride things more than once and still did exactly what we'd hoped to each day. We did set realistic expectations based on crowd predictions and I think we ended up pleasantly surprised at how smoothly it all went.

Five years ago we spent 9 days at WDW and this year, only 2 in the parks, one night at DTD and one out of park day we had dinner at Chef Mickey's. Although we didn't get to AK, we felt like we had a complete Disney vacation with how much we did, saw and experienced. There was plenty of magic and memories.

I suggest holding off on passing judgment until you've had your own firsthand experience. As for multiple rides, we went on TOT 4x, RNR 5x, Star Tours, Soarin', TT (single rider), M:S, Star Tours, Figment, Spaceship Earth, Sum of All Thrills, Nemo, Turtle Talk, Maelstrom, Gran Fiesta, and saw F! all in one park hopping day, along with walking World Showcase twice, hopping time from DHS/Epcot/DHS again and lots of putzing around, watching bits and pieces of shows, stopping at 4 places to eat in WS as well as a long counter service dinner at DHS.

At MK, we hit all the mountains (Space 2x), and several other rides, watched both parades and Wishes and took a 4-hour break outside of the parks.

Don't give up on WDW just yet! And if you're really concerned about FP+, consider a trip to Disneyland.

 

[minmate]

I just wanted to add, there were only two FPs that we used that we felt saved us significant time, our Splash FP and our Soarin' FP. The others, when we got to the rides, had SB waits of 10 minutes or less. Now, with that said, I saw on the app that SB lines did grow to 40 minutes for some rides and for the headliners 60+, but we'd already done them all, had plans to do them later, or in the case of Splash and Soarin', used our FP's.

I'm not sure why we had the luck we did with lines because I was under the impression that last week was still part of the spring break crowds, but honestly, the only time it felt crowded to me was while waiting for parades and when walking through Fantasyland midday (in the walkway between Small World and Peter Pan). I think picking a recommended park is still important.

 

[rlh75]

We stayed offsite and FP+ worked fine for us.

We missed a morning FP for BTMRR because we got there too late at rope drop and it took to long to get in...but when we went back to the resort for afternoon break...I was able to reschedule them, and the ones we did not use for space for later that night.

I think FP+ is a good thing...just still working the bugs out.

The kiosks are a good idea...some of the lines were crazy...but if you look there are cast members, and other FP+ kiosks available through out the park.

The one thing I noticed....and I notice this everywhere though...is everyone has their noses stuck in their smart phones,Ipads, tablets and what nots, and they are missing the world around them. That makes me sad...especially in Disney. Planing planing planing and no just discovery and enjoying what is around you....end rant. LOL!

But yea, don't pass up disney if you love it just because of FP+ rumors....

 

[xie]

We have done FP+ for two trips now, a total of 12 in-park days. Here is what we experienced.

1. We walk more than we used to. WDW is always a lot of walking - but if you do rope drop and hit all the things you want, then you go back and re-circle the park doing the 3 Fast Passes later in the day, you just naturally end up re-covering a lot of ground. Prior to FP+, we would simply start in one area, pull a fast pass if needed, ride the low-queue rides while we waited for the FP to open, move on to the next land/area, etc. We didn't backtrack across the park very much prior to FP+. Now, we backtrack for fast passes and sometimes we backtrack to take advantage of a low queue time for an e-ticket.

2. Right now, park hoppers are somewhat less useful. If you want to rope drop and standby one park, and then use your FP+ later in the day at a different park, that works ok. Just know that everything else at your second park may have long standby lines. We found ourselves riding ONLY the 3 FP at the second park, then leaving because standby lines were bonkers. Again, just a lot more walking, as you have to include hiking into and out of 2 parks, for less benefit since unless it's a low crowd time you are probably not going to ride as much at the second park.

3. #2 also applies to APs. We have APs and we don't really use them to park hop much anymore because standby lines. It is still worth it to buy APs if you are going to spend enough days in the parks (without the park hopper option applied to your ticket) that it is cheaper to buy the AP, though. Or to get TiW if you are big table service junkies and shun DDP (we were, TiW saved us quite a bit of money).

TL;DR - Yes, lines are longer. The phone app is better than it was, but it is still buggy. The WiFi in the parks has also improved in recent months, but is still not great yet (it's gone from virtually unusable in mid 2013 to about 50-60% of the time working for us as of last week). You will have to plan more than in the past.

 

[ZoZo]

I used FP+ for my trip in February. I, too, was nervous about the changes, but didn't dislike FP+ as much as I had expected to. I still greatly prefer the old ("legacy") FP system, but FP+ was okay.

In my opinion, I think it all depends on what you want/expect from your WDW vacation. Some folks didn't use the "old" FP system very much, if at all -- and for them, the changes to FP don't impact them much.

But for me -- well. I'm what I would consider a "legacy FP power user." I would pull multiple FPs a day, often using five or six (or more!) a day. When my window opened up to get a new FP, I would immediately get a new one. I would often repeat my favorite headliner rides (TSM, Soarin') multiple times in a day. I would often park-hop, and get FPs at each of the parks I went to each day.

So for me, it was pretty disappointing to only have three FPs a day. and have to use them all at one park. I was also disappointed not to be able to repeat my favorites rides as often. But I learned to work with the FP+ system and accomplish my goals, to some extent. Since I like to ride Soarin' multiple times, this trip I arrived at rope drop, rode standby, and rode again using FP+ later in the day. Maybe I couldn't ride it three or four times like I had in the past, but that's okay! I did have to adjust my expectations somewhat, but figured out in the grand scheme of things, it's not the end of the world if I can't ride Soarin' several times in one day.

And, to be honest, I did like the flexibility of changing our FP+s "on the fly" when our plans changed. I did end up spending lots of time on the MDE app on my friend's phone, though, because we kept changing our plans! And it was nice to know that, if we missed using our FP, we could reschedule it to a different time.

One other thing - your husband's worry that "everyone" now goes to a park, ride three FP rides, eat a meal, then leave are unfounded. There are still tons of things to do at each park, and this might give you a chance to try some things you've never done before! We discovered "One Man's Dream" for the first time in February, and I loved it!

 

[rluey29]

During our busy spring break week we tried to reschedule several rides day of and had no luck. Unless you wanted to trade TT for Captain EO. Just not very happy with the system right now. There are changes coming but again how much availability is there going to be? We also walk more and just sit around more than we used to.