Is this not stressing anyone else out? I am not fond of the idea of fp+ at all and don't want to have to so intensely plan my trips! Can someone offer some of the positives of this system for people other than over planners?
I don't think it is something for "over planners", I plan but I don't consider myself an over planner and I can see many benefits to the FP+ system. The whole purpose the system has been designed is to improve guest experience, and I'll elaborate on that further in a moment.
I'm sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but is there any consideration for fp runners with the bands? I don't think DH will want to wear 6 bands, and I can't imagine dragging the kids to btmrr if we're in tomorrowland just to get a fp. I hope there is some way to link them!
This is what I was thinking. You'll be able to reserve up to 3 FP+ in advance per day, then complement these with in-park acquired FP's using the same guidelines as the current FP procedure(no new FP's until arrival time on the FP you're holding, etc).
One thing I haven't really seen mentioned is the possibility of scoring a FP for an attraction later on in the day that now is hard to get after a certain time. For instance, TSMM FPs are usually gone early, but if guests cancel an FP for say 7pm thru My Disney Experience, maybe it'll go into an inventory queue to be re-distributed to someone else searching for a FP for that evening for TSMM.
It may pay to re-check for unused FPs throughout the day instead of giving up like currently when the FP system shows they're all gone.
Now I haven't heard anything to this effect, but to me, it seems feasible with guests changing and cancelling their FPs on the run as this new system seems to be able to allow.
If the indicators are correct (and by that I mean the terms and conditions that have been made available to read) you won't be able to use the regular FP machines. It will be an either or choice. Either you stick with the old system (while it remains in place which won't be forever) or you go with FP+ and you book your FP's at the kiosk or on your device using the app. So there won't be a runner as such. You will either have the attraction booked using FP+, in which case, no run required OR you'll be on the old system, in which case you won't have the band.
Ok, now back to the other stuff... As a Disney shareholder, I listened to the live Q2 Financials conference call. 2 important pieces of information to take away from it were that they said very clearly that they expect to recovering the cost of MyMagic+ in Q1 2014. For them to be recovering the costs from it, it has to be up and running. The suggestion was that it will be rolled out completely by the end of the year.
Now to answer the questions about how it will benefit guests, there was more interesting information during that conference call that sheds some light on this. The entire system was designed with 3 objectives in mind.
1. To keep guests out of lines.
2. To keep guests out of the rival parks and staying longer.
3. To streamline and improve efficiency within the parks.
When you're talking about FP, the new system has been designed to be better than the existing system at keeping people out of lines for attractions. From that I think it is safe to say that they are not going to spend the kind of money and end up with a system that will make us all stay in line longer.
No one knows the full details yet and all the guessing doesn't help matters, but I think there is a lot of people getting very stressed and upset about the new system simply because they've "mastered" the current system and fear the unknown. Think about it like this, the same feelings and worries existed when computers started to replace typewriters, but everyone adapted and the world didn't end!