... In addition, we as AP holders would still have to carry our "deactivated" paper pass to get 10% discounts. Does not seem to be an enhancement to me...
Why would you need to carry the old paper AP? WDW's system would see that your are an AP when you swiped your bracelet and automagically give you your discount (and prompt the cast member to call you by name and thank your for being a passholder).
The answer we need is will the current FP attractions also get a RFID reader/issuer for use once inside the park.
Smart phone users should be able to simply go into the app and schedule those FP+ times. I imagine that these same-day FP+s will only be generated if the system shows that you are currently in that park.
Also, I'm sure that I've read somewhere that there will be kiosks in the parks to allow you to make reservations if you don't own a smart phone.
... Unless they change the FP+ "one park per day" limitation OR allow use of regular FP, I don't want any part of it...
I suspect that the '1 park' rule is only for advanced-scheduled FPs. This actually makes quite a bit of sense since park hopping is fraught with peril and many people would end up missing FP+ times at the second park. Once people arrived at the second park, they could likely see about getting same-day FP+s.
Stand-by lines will be much worse because people won't know they were somehow "automatically" transferred to FP+ or didn't schedule in advance.
The same could be said about current visitors who don't 'get' the FP system. Either way, it's to the benefit of those of us who take the time to learn how things work.
As the plan stands now, Annual Passes should now be advertised as "one park per day" plus additional parks in stand-by lines only. The only way for this NOT to be the case is preventing AP holders from some of the nice benefits of the new system by staying with "only" the old FP system with park hopping. Maybe Disney is trying to lower the number of annual passholders? Seems crazy but I'm starting to wonder.
I think that the stated plan might work, if same-day FP+s are offered.
For several years, we were passholders. We would 'advance plan' WDW trips a few times per year, but mostly we would go with no more than about a week's notice. We would discover that we had a few days to kill and that cheap airfare was available and we'd show up. When we lived in the area, it was with even less advanced planning. It was basically "I'm bored, lets go to WDW."
As such, twenty FP+ per quarter to preschedule and then whatever we can make work at the parks sounds pretty good.
I totally agree. I think it is silly for people to think that they are going to reserve there 3 or 4 FP+ in advance and then, when they arrive at the park there is going to be more availability for more FPs. Just not going to happen...
Why not? The airlines do it. WDW does it with 60+ ADRs, if I'm not mistaken.
Imagine that the 'regular' FP machines were removed and FP+ was the only game in town. Disney has calculated how many FP+s to make available for each attraction. They don't have to make them all available at 60 days out. They could release 25% of them at 60 days, 25% at 40 days, 25% at 20 days, and the rest save for same-day.
I believe that same-day FPs must be somehow available to serve those people who buy their tickets when they arrive at the park or AP holders who go to the parks on a whim.
We aren't going until Dec so hopefully things will be a little clearer than mud by then, but I think if Disney is going to announce a change this big it should have all their ducks in a row and be able to address concerns BEFORE any announcement is made!
