There is absolutely no down side to FP+ - just back!

[coozieman]

Let me start out by saying that all of the nay sayers that are putting down FP+ - fit into 1 of the 3 scenarios:

1. You have yet to visit WDW and use the system 1st hand
2. Use have visited WDW but didn't truly understand how the FP+ system works
3. You are old school - have been to WDW dozens of times and hate change!

Bought a 5 Day Undercover Tourist ticket, linked it via MDE and made all FP+ reservations with absolutely no issues - including pre-ordering BOG lunch. As DVC members are not part of the test, I made a call to tech Support inquiring as to whether we could become eligible to test for our entire stay as we already had bands and were able to make reservations for our last 2 days. They said we could speak to Guest services at AK upon checking in and see if they would be willing to "activate" our bands for the first 5 nights.

Arrived on 8/13 for a 6 nights stay - 5 at Jambo House using rented DVC points and the last night at Pop. We ( father/son trip with DS who is 10) immediately were able to use the bands to check in to Magical express with no issues.

Arrived at Jambo House, spoke to the shift manager, explained the details and she agreed to activate for us - as I seemed pretty "well versed" on the whole FP+ process

Checked in, got to our room, left our room, went back to our room but realized we were locked out. Both our bands and cards became de-activated due to a "system glitch" but after a quick re-activation(less than 5 minutes) we were back in action. This was the ONE AND ONLY issue we experienced all week!

8/13 Downtown Disney: Tons of room charges and Dinner all done with the swipe of the band and entering my 4 digit pin code.

8/14 Magic Kingdom: Arrived at Rope drop - crowd level was an 8 I do believe. Rode 11 rides before 12:30 with no FP+ reservations or paper FP. Came back at 6:00 - and rode the following with less than a 5 minute wait time:

• 6:30 - POC (Bonus FP)
• 7:30 - Peter Pan
• 8:30 - Haunted Mansion
• 9:30 - Buzz

8/15 - Hollywood Arrived at 10:00 with a crowd level of 8.5 I do believe. Rode the following with my FP+ res:

• 10:30 - Toy Story
• 12:30 - Great Movie Ride
• 1:30 - RNR
• 2:30 - TOT via a paper FP (only paper FP needed all day!)

8/16 - Epcot Arrived around 9:30 with a crowd level of about 7.5 I believe

• 10:00 - Soarin
• 11:00 - Test Track
• 5:00 - Spaceship Earth (my 3rd FP= was originally for Great Movie Ride - but was able to walk on, so I canceled it before the time slot leaving us with 1 remaining FP+ for the day. When it began to rain, I made this reservation "on the fly" as the stand by was rather long and walked right in.
  
  8/19 - Hollywood This is why I absolutely in love with this new system. This was our departure day - ME picking us up at 4:00 PM. Checked our luggage in, dropped off our carry on's at Bell services, ate breakfast then headed off to the park. (this is the cool part!)
  • Originally had Toy story res. at 9:30. slept in way late and changed to 10:30. Ran into long line at luggage check in, so once again made changes - this time to 12:30.
  • As we were running late - all reservations had to be changed - so made Star Tours at 1:30
  • Great Movie Ride at 2:30. Back on the bus to Pop by 3:15, grabbed our bags and off to the Airport
  
  The "on the fly" feature is simply awesome. I did this many many times throughout the week when our plans changed for either weather related (8/18 rained unbelievably from 8:30 - 10:00 PM - canceled our Wishes FP, walked up to PP, pulled out my phone and made a new reservation. Try doing that with the old system! Once the rain stopped and it was announced that Wishes was going to be performed, we once again walked over to the reserved section, pulled out my phone and made a reservation! And by the way, the reserved area was THE best viewing I have ever had ( this was my 10th trip) I know that the "straight on view" is fantastic - but sitting on the flower bed retaining wall with less than 100 people, no children on their father's shoulders, no crazy crowds and plenty of room to breather - simply priceless!!
  
  Bottom line - I rate FP+ a 5 out of 5. I can't find one bad thing to say about it. I've spent hours and hours reading everyone's posts here - about being afraid, system is full of bugs, not wanting to be a guinea pig etc......well guess what? The system works - yes there are a handful of bugs - yes the website is still a bit slow - but this was by far THE best trip we ever had due to the new FP+ system.
  
  Thanks Disney for paving the way to the 21st Century Disney and can't wait to use it next year!
  
  Any questions please feel free to fire away!
  
  

 

[Benihana]

Awesome. Thanks for posting. We will be trying out the new system in two weeks and after reading your positive experience I am more excited than ever. Sounds like fastpass plus is everything I've been hoping it would be. Can't wait!

 

[palmtreelover08]

Respectfully disagree- Disney vet here- no opposition to change when it is a positive change. Spent 4 hours dealing with band issues in last two days. Standby lines are longer earlier in the morning due to sooner fast pass times being issues for the bands (even at rope drop). Longer standby lines in general due to there being fast passes for most attractions now (haunted mansion for example). Having only three fast passes for a whole day vs the six to eight I would generally use from park opening to closing, only being able to ride your favorite ride once with a fast pass. Those are just some minus "things". Hopefully they will add additional passes- but we will see.

 

[coozieman]

Respectfully disagree- Disney vet here- no opposition to change when it is a positive change. Spent 4 hours dealing with band issues in last two days. Standby lines are longer earlier in the morning due to sooner fast pass times being issues for the bands (even at rope drop). Longer standby lines in general due to there being fast passes for most attractions now (haunted mansion for example). Having only three fast passes for a whole day vs the six to eight I would generally use from park opening to closing, only being able to ride your favorite ride once with a fast pass. Those are just some minus "things". Hopefully they will add additional passes- but we will see.

Interesting Palmtree - we rode 11 rides at MK - all before 12:30 with no FP+ reservations or paper FP.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I'm happy it worked out for you on this trip, but the fact you're ignoring is that the test only involved maybe 5-10% of guests visiting the parks those days. Of course there is going to be plenty of same day/"on the fly" availability when so few people are using it. My biggest concern upon full roll out if that your "on the fly" changes that you experienced during the test might not be possible.

 

[Greaser69]

Don't forget: You TESTED FP+
So for sure you easily could change and switch and did your reservations on same day... But when it is in use for all, this will change. You have to make all the reservations for the cool rides many many days in advance and you will not be able to change them easily for the Major Rides.
3 Fastpasses a day? A joke for me. No park hopping? A joke for me.

 

[wiigirl]

Awesome....thanks for sharing.

 

[JanaDee]

The "on the fly" feature is simply awesome. I did this many many times throughout the week when our plans changed for either weather related (8/18 rained unbelievably from 8:30 - 10:00 PM - canceled our Wishes FP, walked up to PP, pulled out my phone and made a new reservation. Try doing that with the old system!

Try that with the new system once it has rolled out to the masses and let us know how it worked for ya.

Once the masses start using FP+, there will be very little availability for "on the fly" changes to your own FP+ reservations.

 

[RedHeadedFairy]

I'm happy it worked out for you on this trip, but the fact you're ignoring is that the test only involved maybe 5-10% of guests visiting the parks those days. Of course there is going to be plenty of same day/"on the fly" availability when so few people are using it. My biggest concern upon full roll out if that your "on the fly" changes that you experienced during the test might not be possible.

Exactly. You aren't testing the same system that the end user will be working with. Outside of outrageous glitches that consume large amounts of trip time to get fixed (which doesn't happen to every user) who WOULDN'T love FP+ in the testing stages??

This is a test for Disney's IT, not for those that will ultimately be USING the system.

I also don't fit into any of the 3 scenarios you describe.

I'd be interested to know which 11 rides you managed without FP in the 3.5 hrs between RD & 12:30pm...

 

[ArwenMarie]

I think it's nice that you liked it, but I think your list is kind of unnecessary.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Let me start out by saying that all of the nay sayers that are putting down FP+ - fit into 1 of the 3 scenarios:

1. You have yet to visit WDW and use the system 1st hand
2. Use have visited WDW but didn't truly understand how the FP+ system works
3. You are old school - have been to WDW dozens of times and hate change!

Uhhhh....yeah, mkay. And you DO realize we are already in the 21st century, right?

 

[ArwenMarie]

Try that with the new system once it has rolled out to the masses and let us know how it worked for ya.

Once the masses start using FP+, there will be very little availability for "on the fly" changes to your own FP+ reservations.

Exactly. And it might not be that easy to even get your picks ahead of time.

 

[KristinU]

Thanks for posting your first hand experience!

 

[Princess Katherine]

Our testing was different I see. They lost all our reservations. Have a magical day.

Katie

 

[luvmy3]

Bottom line - I rate FP+ a 5 out of 5. I can't find one bad thing to say about it. I've spent hours and hours reading everyone's posts here - about being afraid, system is full of bugs, not wanting to be a guinea pig etc......well guess what? The system works - yes there are a handful of bugs - yes the website is still a bit slow - but this was by far THE best trip we ever had due to the new FP+ system.

You should change that to the best trip ever due to the testing of the new FP+ system. Like the pp's have mentioned, when full roll out happens it may not be the best trip ever for alot of people.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

You should change that to the best trip ever due to the testing of the new FP+ system. Like the pp's have mentioned, when full roll out happens it may not be the best trip ever for alot of people.

I don't fit into any of your 3 scenarios either. And I see that you didn't ride your favorite rides more than once? In the trip we just returned from (as non fp+ testers) my kids rode EE - their favorite- 12 times in one day in addition to all of us still being able to ride Dinosaur multiple times as well as KRR, safari, Primeval Whirl, ITTBAB. All of this was done before 5:00. In no way do I see this day every happening again with the use of fp+ once it's FULLY rolled out to all park-goers.

 

[robinb]

I'm happy it worked out for you on this trip, but the fact you're ignoring is that the test only involved maybe 5-10% of guests visiting the parks those days. Of course there is going to be plenty of same day/"on the fly" availability when so few people are using it. My biggest concern upon full roll out if that your "on the fly" changes that you experienced during the test might not be possible.

This is my biggest concern as well. Once everyone gets on FP+ I think it will be a nightmare.

 

[luvgoing2disney]

Adding my doubts as to how the new system will be when guests are out of the testing phase and everyone is scrambling to get and FP for an attraction. We book very few ADR's because of not knowing what parks we will be at 180 days out, Now, add attractions to the mix as well??????

 

[txted]

I am trying to keep an open mind about the new FP+ concept. We are not in the test group. Here is the difference I see with how you were able to use FP+, and how it may work when everyone has FP+. It rains ~ the ride you have reserved is stopped due to the weather. You were able to switch to another ride, but when the whole world is reserving FP+s a switch may not be available. You overslept ~ bingo an easy change for you just cancel the FP+ and get a later FP+, but this may not be possible when the program is in full swing. You were running a little late ~ no problem you just reserved a later FP+ time, but a later time may not be available when many more folks are using the system.
But, I appreciate you sharing your first hand experience and am glad things went so well. Sounds like you and your son were very busy and had a wonderful time. We will be there in 9 days ~ very excited.

 

[linmarinelli]

Coozieman, I just returned from out trip also and used the fp+ , I too would give it a 5 out if 5. Seems everyone replying to you just wants to be negative. Yes I know its still in testing but not every single person is going to use Fp+ when its fully rolled out, just like everyone doesn't use regular fp now. Being able to schedule your favorite rides ahead of time instead of running to get regular fp and then waiting for the time was a plus to me! Just get to the park and on the ride! And you definitely can parkhop! We went to a patk at ropedrop rode everything we wanted then to our Fp+ park in the afternoon/evening. I'm interested to know how many of you who replied with the goom and doom actuslly experienced using Fp+?