bmalonef45
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 14, 2005
We just arrived home tonight from a quick 4 day President's day weekend trip to WDW and while we had a good time our experience wasn't the same due to the new FP+ system.
To be fair I've been reading about all the negatives of this with very few positives over the last few months. I thought to myself that it couldn't be that bad and all I'm hearing is the negative side as the ones having a positive aren't writing as they don't have anything to complain about.
I was wrong.
This trip was just the kids and I, my wife had to work and wanted a break (and we all know that Disney isn't a relaxing experience). I have an PAP that I activated on our trip last summer. The kids had two no expiration Park Hopper passes that were left over from the same trip. I had linked these all to our Bands and it seemed like everything was set when we left.
We are DVC members and were staying at OKW, one of our favorite resorts. When we checked in on Thursday night I immediately went over to concierge to validate that the magic bands were working and how many days were left on the kids' tickets. I was told 4 days and that everything was linked and ready to go. We didn't go to the park that night as it was already nearly 8:00.
Friday morning we arrived at MK around 9:00, just after rope drop went through bag check and when we got to the gate my MB and finger print worked but neither of the kid's did. It was pretty crowded and the second tier CM with the iPad tried to help us first with the MB and second with the PASS cards I had smartly carried with us. They said that the kids weren't linked and I needed to go into GS to figure it out. Since we had planned our FP for later in the day this was kind of a problem since we were hoping to ride some of the big rides early without them. But off we went to City Hall to stand in a medium line for 15 minutes. Once we talked to the CM she scanned the MBs and the Cards and said they were all good, 4 days on the kids passes and maybe the scanners up front were to blame. We took that as a good sign and moved on.
We did a few big rides but it was getting crowded so we left a little before noon to go get lunch and do a couple of other things. We wanted to go to the Poly resort to shop and ride the monorail but of course we had to take the boat as the resort monorails don't operate currently during the afternoon due to maintenance. (another inconvenience)
Later that afternoon we came back to enjoy the rest of the day and to stay late as closing time was 1:00 am. When we arrived at the gates the kids had the same problem. Back to City Hall! I stared to feel like it was a real city hall and I was there for real city issues! This time I was a little frustrated but kept my cool, you get more bee's with honey! I told him of our issues and told him how this time I didn't want the same answer that it must be the scanner up front. We stepped over to a computer and he worked through it. He basically reset them entirely and again confirmed how many days were left on the tickets and linked them with the MBs. He felt bad and for our trouble we were given an extra "anytime" fast pass for the rest of the day to be used wherever we chose. I thought that was a nice gesture so off we went.
Our first FP is at BTMRR. We head over and once again same issue. Mine works fine, kids not so much. We talk to them and they send us onto the ride by overriding the system. We're really beginning to hate blue lights on the posts. We road the ride and had a great time. After dinner we decide to do the same ride again and when we get to the entry none of them work and they told us we'd already used our turn on this ride. During dinner I had looked on the App (which I really did like btw) and the new FP was showing up. So at the ride entry I showed the CM who said I've never seen that before but let us ride. It seemed they were overriding the system a lot during this trip which is good but still frustrating. Later in the evening we do our other FPs and they worked so maybe they finally got it fixed!
Next day we were at Epcot and mostly everything worked. Still had trouble every day with my DD's fingerprint not working but again they would over ride and we'd move on. All of our FPs worked that day and we finally started to hit our stride. Still had to do single rider on TT because of the stupid tiering but we made it work.
My biggest complaint at Epcot (at least today) was the character meet experience with the sisters from Frozen. We got to the park around 9:45 and went directly to Norway. When we arrived we were told there would be a 3 hour wait. On a short trip that wasn't going to happen so we decided that we'd wake up early the next day and be there at RD and try to make the wait a little better before we headed over to HS for the day. To me, if there is ever a wait for a character that consistently goes more than 2 hours they need to figure out a better solution. There is no reason that they couldn't put them in HS (they are in a movie!) and at MK at least for a while due to their popularity. During the day the wait gets up to 4 hours and that is just not cool Disney is better than that.
Later this day we headed over to AK without any FPs since apparently park hopping isn't cool enough to make it to the FP+ MB world. They were open later till 9:00 and the kids had never been to this park late. Our big target was EE. We arrived in park about 7:00 and looked at the App (it is a good tool now) and saw a 15 min wait. So we headed back figuring we'd ride once and then eat. We get to the ride and the wait had jumped to 25 min and it looked worse than that. Turns out the ride had stopped for a bit due to difficulties so we decided to go eat. Once done eating we saw that the ride was up again and we headed back. We ended up closing the park here riding EE over and over again. We had a blast! The kids and I would do different poses at the camera and we loved it. Yes we only road one ride, but we sure had a good time on it.
We were back to the room by 10:00 and ready to get rest for the early start at Epcot. The next morning we arrived at the ropes at EP at 8:10. We were about 3rd in line and waited patiently for our chance at Frozen. Before I had left, I had read on this board that they had opened these characters up at 9:00 to help with the flood of people. As the ropes dropped we stepped to the poles and guess what? Kids aren't working. UGH!!!! They bring the iPad guy in and he scans their cards and says both have been completely used and aren't valid any longer!!!!! I had the fear of the Frozen mess in Norway making me want to do a sprint in that direction and this guy is telling me we had no tix for the kids. I told him what I'd been through and he was nice enough to let us go to get in line but said our FPs wouldn't work, I knew we didn't have them planned till later so I said I'd get it fixed after we met the girls from Frozen.
Once we get to Norway the line isn't that bad. Its 9:10 now so I feel lucky. Its Sunday morning now so maybe God is looking down upon us.
My DD asks the CM outside the line how long is the wait and he promptly says you have 2.5 hours ahead of you. I asked about the new earlier hours and he tells me that was a test only and stopped the day before. I can honestly say I may have missed this and it may have been plainly posted but REALLY???? You have a character that is commanding 3 to 4 hour waits and you don't add more time you take it away? Dumfounded we decided that we wanted to do more park work and not set in line for that long so we decide to move on. DD is crying now (she's 11 BTW) and drama is her friend but I really felt bad for her. This isn't being handled very well and Disney will hear from me.
We decide to head over to Guest Relations at the International Gateway to get the ticket thing figured out AGAIN!!!! I show up and start the discussion and the CM tells us the cards are correct and that they have been used. I'm really trying to stay calm and go through the entire story of what I've been told multiple times by various people at various locations. She wonders if there is an issue with the system. We had problems with these cards last summer but nothing like this. She ends up comping us a day each for the kids, gets us new cards and links them with the bands and we're on our way. From here on the bands work well but it took way too long and we actually lost a day based on having 4 days to start with on this trip.
This wasn't one of our best trips but we made the best out of it and still had fun. I will say that in its current format the new FP+ system was a pain and really limited the way we toured the parks. I was happy I was able to set the FP+ system up before our trip. Judging from the length of the lines at the FP+ stations that would completely push me over the edge. Some of these lines were 40 people long. I'd be so frustrated!!!!
My suggestions:
1. If you keep FP+ then open it up a bit and let people schedule their entire day. If I had 10 FP+ options and even if they limited me to only using them once per ride I'd still be able to schedule my day and get the rides I wanted in. If I wanted to ride them more than once I can come back last.
2. Park Hopping!!!! If you're going to charge extra for it, give us a reason to pay the extra!
3. Tiering - If this is only due to the roll out part of the process I get it but even it so fix it. On a busy weekend like this if we didn't have a FP we'd spend all our time in long lines thus limiting our experience.
4. FP+ lines were way too long (the ones for those setting them up or getting them fixed.)
This is my experience. Like I said we still had fun but there were too many bugs in the system. I hope they can work them out because I'm not sure I'd enjoy it again. Once is bad enough. Thanks for reading!
To be fair I've been reading about all the negatives of this with very few positives over the last few months. I thought to myself that it couldn't be that bad and all I'm hearing is the negative side as the ones having a positive aren't writing as they don't have anything to complain about.
I was wrong.
This trip was just the kids and I, my wife had to work and wanted a break (and we all know that Disney isn't a relaxing experience). I have an PAP that I activated on our trip last summer. The kids had two no expiration Park Hopper passes that were left over from the same trip. I had linked these all to our Bands and it seemed like everything was set when we left.
We are DVC members and were staying at OKW, one of our favorite resorts. When we checked in on Thursday night I immediately went over to concierge to validate that the magic bands were working and how many days were left on the kids' tickets. I was told 4 days and that everything was linked and ready to go. We didn't go to the park that night as it was already nearly 8:00.
Friday morning we arrived at MK around 9:00, just after rope drop went through bag check and when we got to the gate my MB and finger print worked but neither of the kid's did. It was pretty crowded and the second tier CM with the iPad tried to help us first with the MB and second with the PASS cards I had smartly carried with us. They said that the kids weren't linked and I needed to go into GS to figure it out. Since we had planned our FP for later in the day this was kind of a problem since we were hoping to ride some of the big rides early without them. But off we went to City Hall to stand in a medium line for 15 minutes. Once we talked to the CM she scanned the MBs and the Cards and said they were all good, 4 days on the kids passes and maybe the scanners up front were to blame. We took that as a good sign and moved on.
We did a few big rides but it was getting crowded so we left a little before noon to go get lunch and do a couple of other things. We wanted to go to the Poly resort to shop and ride the monorail but of course we had to take the boat as the resort monorails don't operate currently during the afternoon due to maintenance. (another inconvenience)
Later that afternoon we came back to enjoy the rest of the day and to stay late as closing time was 1:00 am. When we arrived at the gates the kids had the same problem. Back to City Hall! I stared to feel like it was a real city hall and I was there for real city issues! This time I was a little frustrated but kept my cool, you get more bee's with honey! I told him of our issues and told him how this time I didn't want the same answer that it must be the scanner up front. We stepped over to a computer and he worked through it. He basically reset them entirely and again confirmed how many days were left on the tickets and linked them with the MBs. He felt bad and for our trouble we were given an extra "anytime" fast pass for the rest of the day to be used wherever we chose. I thought that was a nice gesture so off we went.
Our first FP is at BTMRR. We head over and once again same issue. Mine works fine, kids not so much. We talk to them and they send us onto the ride by overriding the system. We're really beginning to hate blue lights on the posts. We road the ride and had a great time. After dinner we decide to do the same ride again and when we get to the entry none of them work and they told us we'd already used our turn on this ride. During dinner I had looked on the App (which I really did like btw) and the new FP was showing up. So at the ride entry I showed the CM who said I've never seen that before but let us ride. It seemed they were overriding the system a lot during this trip which is good but still frustrating. Later in the evening we do our other FPs and they worked so maybe they finally got it fixed!
Next day we were at Epcot and mostly everything worked. Still had trouble every day with my DD's fingerprint not working but again they would over ride and we'd move on. All of our FPs worked that day and we finally started to hit our stride. Still had to do single rider on TT because of the stupid tiering but we made it work.
My biggest complaint at Epcot (at least today) was the character meet experience with the sisters from Frozen. We got to the park around 9:45 and went directly to Norway. When we arrived we were told there would be a 3 hour wait. On a short trip that wasn't going to happen so we decided that we'd wake up early the next day and be there at RD and try to make the wait a little better before we headed over to HS for the day. To me, if there is ever a wait for a character that consistently goes more than 2 hours they need to figure out a better solution. There is no reason that they couldn't put them in HS (they are in a movie!) and at MK at least for a while due to their popularity. During the day the wait gets up to 4 hours and that is just not cool Disney is better than that.
Later this day we headed over to AK without any FPs since apparently park hopping isn't cool enough to make it to the FP+ MB world. They were open later till 9:00 and the kids had never been to this park late. Our big target was EE. We arrived in park about 7:00 and looked at the App (it is a good tool now) and saw a 15 min wait. So we headed back figuring we'd ride once and then eat. We get to the ride and the wait had jumped to 25 min and it looked worse than that. Turns out the ride had stopped for a bit due to difficulties so we decided to go eat. Once done eating we saw that the ride was up again and we headed back. We ended up closing the park here riding EE over and over again. We had a blast! The kids and I would do different poses at the camera and we loved it. Yes we only road one ride, but we sure had a good time on it.
We were back to the room by 10:00 and ready to get rest for the early start at Epcot. The next morning we arrived at the ropes at EP at 8:10. We were about 3rd in line and waited patiently for our chance at Frozen. Before I had left, I had read on this board that they had opened these characters up at 9:00 to help with the flood of people. As the ropes dropped we stepped to the poles and guess what? Kids aren't working. UGH!!!! They bring the iPad guy in and he scans their cards and says both have been completely used and aren't valid any longer!!!!! I had the fear of the Frozen mess in Norway making me want to do a sprint in that direction and this guy is telling me we had no tix for the kids. I told him what I'd been through and he was nice enough to let us go to get in line but said our FPs wouldn't work, I knew we didn't have them planned till later so I said I'd get it fixed after we met the girls from Frozen.
Once we get to Norway the line isn't that bad. Its 9:10 now so I feel lucky. Its Sunday morning now so maybe God is looking down upon us.
My DD asks the CM outside the line how long is the wait and he promptly says you have 2.5 hours ahead of you. I asked about the new earlier hours and he tells me that was a test only and stopped the day before. I can honestly say I may have missed this and it may have been plainly posted but REALLY???? You have a character that is commanding 3 to 4 hour waits and you don't add more time you take it away? Dumfounded we decided that we wanted to do more park work and not set in line for that long so we decide to move on. DD is crying now (she's 11 BTW) and drama is her friend but I really felt bad for her. This isn't being handled very well and Disney will hear from me.We decide to head over to Guest Relations at the International Gateway to get the ticket thing figured out AGAIN!!!! I show up and start the discussion and the CM tells us the cards are correct and that they have been used. I'm really trying to stay calm and go through the entire story of what I've been told multiple times by various people at various locations. She wonders if there is an issue with the system. We had problems with these cards last summer but nothing like this. She ends up comping us a day each for the kids, gets us new cards and links them with the bands and we're on our way. From here on the bands work well but it took way too long and we actually lost a day based on having 4 days to start with on this trip.
This wasn't one of our best trips but we made the best out of it and still had fun. I will say that in its current format the new FP+ system was a pain and really limited the way we toured the parks. I was happy I was able to set the FP+ system up before our trip. Judging from the length of the lines at the FP+ stations that would completely push me over the edge. Some of these lines were 40 people long. I'd be so frustrated!!!!
My suggestions:
1. If you keep FP+ then open it up a bit and let people schedule their entire day. If I had 10 FP+ options and even if they limited me to only using them once per ride I'd still be able to schedule my day and get the rides I wanted in. If I wanted to ride them more than once I can come back last.
2. Park Hopping!!!! If you're going to charge extra for it, give us a reason to pay the extra!
3. Tiering - If this is only due to the roll out part of the process I get it but even it so fix it. On a busy weekend like this if we didn't have a FP we'd spend all our time in long lines thus limiting our experience.
4. FP+ lines were way too long (the ones for those setting them up or getting them fixed.)
This is my experience. Like I said we still had fun but there were too many bugs in the system. I hope they can work them out because I'm not sure I'd enjoy it again. Once is bad enough. Thanks for reading!
