I was wondering what people think now that FP+ has been around a while. I was just booking FP's last night made my BRAIN HURT.
I booked a few of our 9 day trip but I am still not a fan. SO I am still in the HATE them category.
Just wished we could book MORE ahead of time at MK. That to me is the park that you need more and YES I know you can get the 4th, and 5th and so on at the kiosks but there was really nothing good left to choose from. I also KNOW that no one is forcing me to even book FP's but the standby option for the headliners is not gonna happen either. I am OLD SCHOOL I guess and loved the old system.
It's been a long journey to get here. Many battles waged on the Dis.
I've gone to DL quite a few times, WDW twice under FP-, and have to say we picked up in about 5 minutes how to optimally use the old system. Just by being observant, and watching what other ppl do, we were able to get on a lot of rides in very little time.
When FP+ came out, my initial reaction was that it was going to be fantastic. It's just FP-, but electronic, and done by your phone instead of with paper-printing-jamming machines. This could only be good right? Until I started thinking about how the new system worked. It was really designed from the ground up, to work
against people like me... who would get there early, queue up a bunch of FP- tickets, and then use them later in the day to fly thru ride after ride while everyone else stood around. By design, FP+ takes all of my excessive FP-'s that I got, and instead ensures that everyone in the world can pick 3 before I'll even get a shot at a 4th. And in practice, it does that. So then I started thinking it would be bad... i.e. ride some things at rope drop, ride a few more via FP+, and then that would be it.
But then we went in 2014, and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised.
Like with FP-, it was quick to figure out how to do better than the average guest by being resourceful. Then you have the flexibility to pull tickets well in advance of your trip. And, you can pick your return window, something you never could do with FP-. This allowed me to plan useful FP's instead of being stuck with whatever would be available that day.
This would give us a typical day with 3-5
really useful things planned in a day! Like we'd have the 3 rides, maybe an ADR, maybe an event like BBB, P&P, or PL. When you think about it, doing 5 major things like that during what would have been the busiest part of the day is pretty amazing.
So then we looked at just how much time we'd spend waiting for FP- tickets before. Like, to get a TSMM FP- ticket, you had to wait in the FP- line for it first, which got you into the line 20 min later, which meant that first riding took you 30 min instead of 10, which meant your 2nd ride took you then 40 min instead of 20, so pulling that first FP- ticket for a TSMM return window around 11 or 12 or whatever you get, cost you easily 40 min of time in the park. Now, you book that ticket from home, and have 40 min to spare. And if you wanted to do JTA, you were just plain stuck. Then, you couldn't do the rope-drop of the TSMM ticket, and ride... instead you'd have to do JTA, then get over to TSMM in time to get a late day return window and long line built up.
The time spent picking FP tickets from home is one of the biggest benefits -- that you have really slashed a big chunk of time out of ones' day which would have been spent pulling FP- tickets before. Ppl say they
have to plan from home... but really, if you want to pull tickets same-day at a kiosk, you can, but now you have the option to pick from home, thereby saving yourself massive amounts of time in the park!
That really impacted us.
Before, a day at EC would have been like us running to Soarin, pulling a ticket then getting in line, then waiting for its window to open, but running over to TT, to hover at the kiosks there till our window to Soarin would open... then pulling that ticket for later in the day, then running back to Soarin, then crossing back to TT... all up, we were able to do a lot... but much time was spent in FP- lines. Now, our day would look like... show up, ride Soarin, then... ENJOY. We'd just do whatever. There was no pressure to go pull that next ticket. We could ride Soarin a 2nd time if we wanted. Just wait standby. The line isn't bad at that time, and you're already out of the 1st riding quicker than you would have been under FP- cuz you didn't do the ticket line first.
So we'd enjoy our breakfast, knowing our next 3 rides were already ticketed. Or we'd go on Soarin again. Or LWTL. Or whatever. Under FP- at this time we'd be crossing the park to stand in line for a FP- ticket. Since we're
not doing that, doing anything else local to the Soarin pavilion is a bonus.
This is where the real savings comes in... It changes the flow at WDW from going from ticket booth to ticket booth seeing what rides you
could schedule, to getting 3 in advance, and then enjoying the time saved by not having to pull them in the park.
All up, I felt like we were A) able to get on just as much via FP+ as we did via FP-... and B) do so in more of a vacation style with less moving around and more free time on our hands.
Now I can see that for some who have come to look at their FP- strategy as wonderful, and is "how they did a Disney vacation", this is not going to be good... Because it really does change
how one gets on a lot of rides, and the perception of doing less, cuz you're not always looking for that next ticket to pull. It's like when you give ppl their tickets in advance, they don't know what to do w their extra time. They might talk about having to shop or whatever, but with time that previously they would have had to go get their next ticket. Also, we're into tech. If someone is just not, then this is not going to be an attractive system. It does require some computer and phone usage.
Anyways... by being flexible and taking advantage of the FP+ and looking at when you really are saving time, I think it can be beneficial. It is certainly more efficient... The actual act of pulling tickets, the paper / mechanical process of printing them, the conservation aspect of not spewing ink and tickets, and bringing the parks into the digital age are all great.
Those are all tangential benefits tho. To me, the real benefit was being able to do as much as before but having a more relaxed vacation. That's all that really matters, right? Does it get the results. To us, it did. It just felt like we spent less effort getting on the rides with more time enjoying. We'll have our second test later this year!
