2 changes can take FP+ from ZERO to HERO!

[ExCMbeau]

Like most of us here my family goes to Disney A LOT! My wife is former cast member we are AP holders etc... We have a neutral opinion on the current FP+ system.

We do however have TWO suggestions that could make a huge positive impact on the current FP+ system.

1. Get rid of the tier system and use a 3 hour stagger time minimum for rides that are currently being tiered. So if you want to ride Soarin at 10am then the next FP+ for a major ride would be at 1 pm at the earliest. If you wanted a third major ride it would be at 4pm at the earliest. This would allow you to have all major rides as your FP+ and still keep you in the parks all day long.

2. When you use a FP+ you can re-book another FP+ with the rules of number 1 above applying. So if you are in the Magic Kingdom and use one FP+ for Peter Pan at 10 am you could add another FP+ to your day after 1 pm. So basically when you use a FP+ you can replace it with another +3 hours later. Depending on when your first FP+ time is and park closing you could get 5-6 FP+ in a day.


This would be the best of both systems. You get to plan ahead of time your FP+ times and know for certain your will get TSM at 10am! You will also get the ability to get FP's after they are used the day of your park visit (the way FP- worked).

Just thoughts on how to make the system better!

 

[v3rs3]

1. Get rid of the tier system and use a 3 hour stagger time minimum for rides that are currently being tiered. So if you want to ride Soarin at 10am then the next FP+ for a major ride would be at 1 pm at the earliest. If you wanted a third major ride it would be at 4pm at the earliest. This would allow you to have all major rides as your FP+ and still keep you in the parks all day long.

2. When you use a FP+ you can re-book another FP+ with the rules of number 1 above applying. So if you are in the Magic Kingdom and use one FP+ for Peter Pan at 10 am you could add another FP+ to your day after 1 pm. So basically when you use a FP+ you can replace it with another +3 hours later. Depending on when your first FP+ time is and park closing you could get 5-6 FP+ in a day.

IMO, this would just make it much, much worse. Every good FP would be gone very quickly, increase both FP and standby lines(standby exponentially) , and would give off-site people few chances to get to ride their favorite rides.

 

[Mamiamjo]

Like most of us here my family goes to Disney A LOT! My wife is former cast member we are AP holders etc... We have a neutral opinion on the current FP+ system.

We do however have TWO suggestions that could make a huge positive impact on the current FP+ system.

1. Get rid of the tier system and use a 3 hour stagger time minimum for rides that are currently being tiered. So if you want to ride Soarin at 10am then the next FP+ for a major ride would be at 1 pm at the earliest. If you wanted a third major ride it would be at 4pm at the earliest. This would allow you to have all major rides as your FP+ and still keep you in the parks all day long.

2. When you use a FP+ you can re-book another FP+ with the rules of number 1 above applying. So if you are in the Magic Kingdom and use one FP+ for Peter Pan at 10 am you could add another FP+ to your day after 1 pm. So basically when you use a FP+ you can replace it with another +3 hours later. Depending on when your first FP+ time is and park closing you could get 5-6 FP+ in a day.


This would be the best of both systems. You get to plan ahead of time your FP+ times and know for certain your will get TSM at 10am! You will also get the ability to get FP's after they are used the day of your park visit (the way FP- worked).

Just thoughts on how to make the system better!

I really hate the 3FP limit and the Tiering, so your suggestion sounds good to me. Now, how could we incorporate Park Hopping into the system?

 

[DebbieB]

I don't want to stay in the same park all day. We typically go in the morning, leave around 2:00, take a break, go to another park in the evening. I don't want to hang around for a fastpass time. That's why I like FP+, I can pick my 3 and do them either in the morning or the evening at the times that fit my schedule. I disliked the old fastpass system after they eliminated late returns. It made it hard to fit the 1 hour that was on the return clock around your other plans, like meals or shows.

I can see not liking tiering. But the reality is if everyone could pick unrestricted, the tier 1 rides would be gone early. So you want to be able to pick more than 1 but how will you feel when you get none?

 

[Luv0fDisney]

I agree . Usually we go to 2 parks per day. I don't want to spend all day in one park. I got the park hopper and now I think it's a waste if we didn't have dinner at Epcot the same day as extra magic hours in studios. I noticed that we can not make fast pass selections for the emh.

 

[ExCMbeau]

I don't want to stay in the same park all day. We typically go in the morning, leave around 2:00, take a break, go to another park in the evening. I don't want to hang around for a fastpass time. That's why I like FP+, I can pick my 3 and do them either in the morning or the evening at the times that fit my schedule. I disliked the old fastpass system after they eliminated late returns. It made it hard to fit the 1 hour that was on the return clock around your other plans, like meals or shows.

I can see not liking tiering. But the reality is if everyone could pick unrestricted, the tier 1 rides would be gone early. So you want to be able to pick more than 1 but how will you feel when you get none?

Yeah I would be shocked to see an unrestricted system. That is why if you take away the tiers you have to put some limiting factor like time staggering.

FP- didn't have tiers but you could only have 1 FP at a time. You had to wait at least an hour before your FP return before you could pull another one.

 

[DebbieB]

Yeah I would be shocked to see an unrestricted system. That is why if you take away the tiers you have to put some limiting factor like time staggering.

FP- didn't have tiers but you could only have 1 FP at a time. You had to wait at least an hour before your FP return before you could pull another one.

FP- you could pull another one at the return time of the first one or 2 hours after you pulled your last one. So if your return time was 9:45am, you could pull another one at 9:45am. If you pulled one at noon for a 7:00pm return, you could pull another one at 2:00pm. You could have more than 1 at a time.

 

[ExCMbeau]

FP- you could pull another one at the return time of the first one or 2 hours after you pulled your last one. So if your return time was 9:45am, you could pull another one at 9:45am. If you pulled one at noon for a 7:00pm return, you could pull another one at 2:00pm. You could have more than 1 at a time.

So the concept of staggering as a way to limit availability has always been a part of FP!

 

[TLSnell1981]

Zero to hero..

1) No tiers

2) Allow repeats

3) Increase FP allowance

4) Additional FP for hopping

Just my 2 cents..

 

[magicbob]

Zero to hero..

1) No tiers

2) Allow repeats

3) Increase FP allowance

4) Additional FP for hopping

5) Register thousands of complaints from guests who weren't able to get any FP+s for the most popular rides.

The sad truth is that the tiers are necessary if the goal is to ensure that every guest gets at least one decent FP+. Otherwise, the "early birds" will pick popular rides for all three of their FP+ and they will run out three times faster, meaning lots of people will only have Captain EO, Figment, and Living with the Land to choose from.

 

[dreamer17555]

Why not have everyone start off with four tier 2 fast passes. You can choose to give up two tier 2 passes for one tier 1 pass. That way you could do:

a) four fastpasses for tier 2 attractions

b) two fastpasses for tier 1 attractions

c) one fastpass for a tier 1 attraction, and two fastpasses for tier 2 attractions (basically what we already have)

It allows some flexibility of the system while allowing those who choose to forgo fastpasses for tier one attractions some added benefit.

 

[cigar95]

. . . . .
2. When you use a FP+ you can re-book another FP+ with the rules of number 1 above applying. So if you are in the Magic Kingdom and use one FP+ for Peter Pan at 10 am you could add another FP+ to your day after 1 pm.

As of this week, you can do this now - provided that your original three were pre-booked, not same-day.

No promises that it won't change again next week, as things are changing quickly throughout the testing and shakeout process.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

IMO, this would just make it much, much worse. Every good FP would be gone very quickly, increase both FP and standby lines(standby exponentially) , and would give off-site people few chances to get to ride their favorite rides.

If there are any changes to the 3FP+ limit and tiers, I don't think they will happen until after offsite guests can prebook.

 

[Ametista]

That would never work for us. We are in and out of the park in 4 hours. We have an attack plan and we go do it, then we leave and swim, etc. No way would I wait 3 hours btwn FP+s.

 

[JimmyV]

If there are any changes to the 3FP+ limit and tiers, I don't think they will happen until after offsite guests can prebook.

...and the day off site guests can pre-book is the day that the "60 Days Out" mark becomes the new Rope Drop. Unless they program the system to intentionally leave some FPs available for the day of arrival, the combination of on site guests, off site guests and AP Holders will blow through the total number of FPs available for a given day well in advance of that day's arrival. Mine Train FPs will be gone by 9:00 a.m. on the 60th day out, every day for the forseeable future. Toy Story Mania as well. bcrook has estimated that TSM can dole out 12,000-15,000 FPs each day. On a day when 35,000 people go to DHS, that means that a third to a half of all people can get a FP. As soon as all guests can pre-book, the race will be on!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

good suggestions ... I had some similar thoughts, and also add the caveat that the technology needs to work efficiently as well (i.e., IT kinks worked out)

1. Allow park hopping

2. Keep only allowing 3 pre-booked FP+ only for people who stay on site as an additional attraction to staying on site. Day of allow people to book 3 at a time "day of" FP+ ... so for people staying on site this would be a total of 6. Then, after you use up a "day of" FP+ you can book another (possibly with a time delay) - so if there are still openings you can get even more FP+'s

3. Not sure about Tiering - I get that it might be necessary, so perhaps only allow one Tier 1 as a pre-booked FP+ but maybe allow another "day of"

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

I'm in favor of an idea someone posted awhile back - make it like the dining plan - give us 3 FP credits per day for the length of our stay and let me decide how to use them

We've got an 8 day (7 night - onsite) stay coming up in May - give me 24 credits per person for the whole trip and I'll book them for the parks / days I'd like to use them for. Some days we may only use 1 or 2 per person and other days we'll use more. That would make me a happy camper.

 

[Rebekkap]

As of this week, you can do this now - provided that your original three were pre-booked, not same-day.

No promises that it won't change again next week, as things are changing quickly throughout the testing and shakeout process.

That's exciting! Is there more info about this somewhere?? I'm going to book my FPs tomorrow (60 days, yay!!) and this might change my strategy slightly...

 

[portocall]

I only do one park per day and stay all day. Works for me. I really like the length of stay idea. We are going to stay five days and only do two parks next time. There should be added benefits for paying Disney resort prices.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

That's exciting! Is there more info about this somewhere?? I'm going to book my FPs tomorrow (60 days, yay!!) and this might change my strategy slightly...

I keep seeing rumors like this but haven't seen anyone confirm that they were actually able to book more. I don't believe it's actually true, at least not yet.