I have a confession.... I LOVE FP+

[rangermom]

I have to admit, I'm a huge fan. We have been using FP+ since October and it we love it!

A little info on our family. We are a family of five (DH, me, DS 15, DD 11, DS 9). We are DVC members and annual passholders. Our 9 year old does use a wheelchair to tour the parks due to mild CP. Currently we live in SE GA so we are only 3 hrs away allowing for quick two day trips, but the first time we used it we were AZ residents and that trip was a more planned 7 day trip. I am a compulsive planner when we lived further away, but now that we are so close are trips are more spontaneous and usually I don't get FPs until the day before I leave. This past year we have experienced the parks staying on and offsite. (DVC points don't seem to last as long when you at least one weekend a month ). I use the app on my iphone and have never had any problems with it working. I have changed FPs all the time while in the parks and never had an issue with it.

I keep reading that since FP+ there is no way that you can ride more than 3-4 rides a day. I really beg to differ. That has not been our experience.

We just got back from a weekend trip. We were in MK this last at. It was a very last minute trip meaning we booked SSR and the FPs on that Thursday. We got to the park at opening and was on 7DMT by 8:16. We had FP's for for BTMRR between 9:20-10:30, so we decided to ride what we wanted in FL then be at BTMRR by 10:30. In this time we were able to ride PP (new queue is AWESOME!), IASW, Little Mermaid, Dumbos including sometime to play in the play area, Barnstormer. We also walked around a few shops and had a snack. After BTMRR, did the Hall of Presidents, had lunch then used FPs for Space Mtn, then walked on to Pirates, used last FP for HM, rode Jungle Cruise, got a Dole Whip, rode Carousel of Progress, watched the Dreams show at the castle, did Monsters Inc and did some shopping at the candy store and ears shop on main street. We were out of the park by 4 in the afternoon. We were never rushed and I felt that we got to do quite a bit. DD had a friend that had never been, so we tried to let her experience as much as possible.

What I like about FP+ is that I can ask my kids what they want to ride and usually I can get he FPs. At some point in our trip, so they know they WILL get to ride it.

This is an example of most of our park experiences with FP+. We love it!

 

[cakebaker]

Your WDW experience as far as when you go, how often and for how long is totally different from ours- but we love it too!

 

[first state]

When crowds are low I see it working great. We are here this week and used 8 fastpasses sunday. The app did work great, but after your 3rd FP you have to use the kiosk. The lines for the kiosks were longer then some standby lines. I can't imagine when it is crowded how long those line get. The kiosks is the only negative i had. There was a rain day and we had to switch days in MK. So we had to give up our fastpasses and pick new ones. The only 1 we lost was SDMT the rest were no problem to book 24hrs ahead of time.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I'm right there with you on loving it. We have been twice since was implemented. I do have to say though, it wasn't during super busy times though.

 

[Planogirl]

I'm happy for those who love it. I do believe that success depends on crowd levels though.

I do have a question. It sounds like you used the kiosks quite a bit. How busy were they?

 

[Hokie2000]

I love it too, we have had two great trips with FP+. Thanks for posting your experiences.

I'm jealous that you live so close, our drive is 12 hours!

 

[LilyWDW]

I also quite enjoyed it. I was there in mid October which, while not holiday busy, is not a slow time of the year at all. I was able to do pretty much everything I wanted with minimal waits. Using how I used to tour before FP+ also helped 100%. I also never used a 4th FP+ as I got a lot done during the mornings (just like every other trip I have been on) and had my FP+ reservations for a bit later in the day (after lunch). The one thing I would like Disney to do is to make their app and their wifi a bit more dependable and allow the 4th+ FP+ to be done on the app instead of a kiosk.

That all said, I can see how some people may not like it. Holiday times would limit the amount of the slow morning hours and would make it nearly impossible to change FP+ as you go due to availability day of.

 

[MycatlovesEeyore]

We were there the week after Chrismas......busiest week of ther year per cast members. We LOVED HAVING 3 fast passes in our pocket walking into the parks. Removed so much stress to not have to worry about running around and getting FP. 2 trips with FP+ and I honestly cannot understand what is so bad. We already have ours for spring break too.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

When crowds are low I see it working great. We are here this week and used 8 fastpasses sunday. The app did work great, but after your 3rd FP you have to use the kiosk. The lines for the kiosks were longer then some standby lines. I can't imagine when it is crowded how long those line get. The kiosks is the only negative i had. There was a rain day and we had to switch days in MK. So we had to give up our fastpasses and pick new ones. The only 1 we lost was SDMT the rest were no problem to book 24hrs ahead of time.

I agree when crowds are low FP+ works great. I love having 3 really desirable rides/ attractions prebooked and the ability to get more FP if necessary. I've found that MK is by far the best park to add FP in. We had a day on our recent trip when we used 8 FP in one day - it was great to walk by the standby lines.

I can't say I love FP+ but I do like it more and more...that said we do go during low crowd seasons.

 

[rajak73]

How did you get all that done standing in huge SB lines that FP+ has created? I thought you couldn't ride over 3 attractions a day? I love the argument that "well you were there during a slow time" Yea, telling me that with old FP you needed them during a slow time? Glad you had a great trip, we had the same experience in early December. The longest SB line was POTC and 25min. I wait 30min to get out of a parking garage after a basketball game so not a huge deal. We loved the FP+ option, rode everything we wanted to ride in all 4 parks and had a great time, already talking about when we can return to WDW.

 

[Laketravis]

I love the argument that "well you were there during a slow time"

Watch what happens starting next weekend.




.

 

[acwsmom]

I have to admit - I've been pleasantly surprised so far. We're going in March for Spring Break and had absolutely no problems finding really good FP for all of the rides we wanted. We even have FP for SDMT for all three days we're at MK. We almost canceled the trip but changed our minds at the last minute, so we were late to booking our FPs. I wasn't expecting to find anything left, but had no problems at all

 

[Golden Rose]

We loved it for our first trip, but we had 2 days in Magic Kingdom and so were able to book 6 FPs for MK. That was just about perfect for us. We have them booked for our spring break trip, but we have the DVC one day in each park tickets, so we can only do one day in MK and I'm more concerned. (DS wouldn't let me "waste" one of his for A&E, so we have FPs that split our party for much of our MK day.) We really did love them first trip, but we're a little nervous about our trip next month. I have both A&E and Mine Train, and the kids don't care about the Mountains, but I'm concerned that even non headliners like Small World will be bad during spring break without a fastpass.

 

[momtosam]

I agree when crowds are low FP+ works great. I love having 3 really desirable rides/ attractions prebooked and the ability to get more FP if necessary. I've found that MK is by far the best park to add FP in. We had a day on our recent trip when we used 8 FP in one day - it was great to walk by the standby lines.

I can't say I love FP+ but I do like it more and more...that said we do go during low crowd seasons.

Agreed. On our trip we did MK on a Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesday we could have pulled fast passes till the cows came home, often getting them to be used instantly. By Friday we should have had a FP just to access the FP kiosk. We couldn't get any headliners until much much later in the evening.

 

[Oswin]

I love the new FP+ system too. My family never really used FP until this rolled out. We are not rope drop people so all the fast passes for headliners would always be taken by the time we got to the kiosks in the park. Now we can schedule the rides we love the most, but not really feel stressed to run across the park to go get them. We go to our local Six Flags a ton, so we are used to waiting an hour or two (or longer) in line for rides, so we don't mind doing standby at Disney. But we found that we were able to use all of our FP+, then go to the kiosks and find FP for at least 4-5 other rides in a day when we went last June. On our December trip we didn't get as many each day but that was due to us wanting to look at all the Christmas sights instead of hitting up the rides. Even still, we had options when we visited during both busy times. We're going again this year for the 4th of July and figure it'll be just as busy as when we went for Christmas, but we'll still be able to get 4th+ FP each day.

 

[SuperTink]

For people pulling 4+ Fastpasses, I would also like to know how much time you spent in line at a kiosk(s).

I really hope people start including this in their reports.

 

[dkrauss]

I had no problem with FP+ either. I'm a planner so it didn't bother me to set things up 60 days in advance. During our Sept 2014 trip the only issue we had was the lines at the kiosks were long.........so we used the app. Nice to see a thread with some positive feedback on FP+................

Doug

 

[prudence64]

When we went the week of Veterans Day there was not a line at the kiosks anytime I went to use them. Did not try at Epcot though.

 

[lsumommaof4]

Watch what happens starting next weekend.




.

what? we will be there.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

For people pulling 4+ Fastpasses, I would also like to know how much time you spent in line at a kiosk(s).

I really hope people start including this in their reports.

For us we spent only a minute or 2 in kiosk lines - each time. They were very short on the day we used 8 FP. Went to AK for morning EMH, hopped to DHS and used our 3 original FP then hopped to MK and picked up the other 5. Some kiosks were walk up others we had to wait for someone in front of us to finish. We did aim for FP that could be used basically immediately (ended up with Jungle Cruise, BTMRR, Small World, Buzz and Pirates)