A Crowded Weekend, FP+, And An Offsite Stay-Reporting Back (Very Long)

[conniehar90]

Thank you very much for the review. We are headed down in 5 weeks and are staying offsite. We go every year and have a great time but trying to have an open mind on this trip as I am not excited about these changes.

Really, really appreciate you sharing your experience.

 

[frozengurl]

Really great post! Thanks for sharing your experience, explaining in details the negatives yet staying as positive as possible! I also appreciate that you treat and teach your daughter to treat people in any kind of service industry with respect! I seriously think people forget how to treat others sometimes! I do feel for CM right now... It's got to be so hard to maintain a positive attitude when so many guests are so angry! I really am sad bout this system right now bc I truly love Disney so much! I hope they work the kinks out ASAP! However, I will maintain a positive attitude and be thankful that I am able to visit Disney as often as I am.... I will also most definitely be staying onsite!

 

[Porsche44]

I am so sad to have read your report. I have always loved going to WDW for the magic and most importantly the ambience and that is partly created by the visual aspect of the park. It sounds like now that visual appeal is being affected which will certainly make my visit less enjoyable. I am hoping by the time our planned Jan 2016 trip arrives they will have sorted a lot of this out but I am struggling to see how they are going to do this. As you rightly state the ratio of FP's they are now handing out makes it almost impossible to ride SB without a huge wait and as they encourage people to take FP's for lesser rides that have always been walk ons these too will be affected and start to have longer lines than before. I just cant see how they can claim that this new system will make a better touring experience for all. The old system worked so well. My other huge concern is that the cost of this new system has already blown out by huge proportions and is going to cost even more money to get right. As a business person I know that this means cuts will have to be made elsewhere and extra income generated. We have already seen the extra money bit as they have increased prices yet again only a short period after the last increase. As for the cuts well I think part of the reason for ride breakdowns is maintenance cuts. I am betting all departments will be expected to make budget cuts so we will probably see less staff around the parks and more importantly they will leave longer gaps between regularly planned maintenance schedules which will ultimately result in more break downs.I think overall this new system will have to have a negative impact on WDW in so many ways because if they try to absorb the extra cost of this system it will affect their profit margins and there is no way they will ever do this, so the obvious answer to keep the profit ticking over is cuts, cuts, cuts and if you think this isn't already happening or won't keep happening then you are a true optimist. I am trying to keep an open mind but it is getting increasingly more and more difficult.

 

[ucfknight]

I don't understand why they haven't done this. I'm not a programmer, but it doesn't seem difficult to set the system so it could be accessed by anyone at exactly 9:00am. Or it might be more difficult, but maybe they could fix it to be accessible once your tickets have been activated for the day.

The old FastPass system was tied in with entrance gate ticket scanners. You couldn't pull a FastPass unless your ticket was used for entry at that park that day.

It would be a rather trivial matter to add in a function to perform a similar check with the new system to unlock same-day online FP+ booking once a ticket linked to a MDE account was used for entry to a park.

 

[kapoof]

Great report and thanks for sharing

I found what you experience at test track very true...as it happened to us last fall.

This system is headed for disaster...I can't help wondering how non English speaking guest will begin to decipher this mess.

Also very good to remind guests not to take it out on the cm's

 

[g-dad66]

The bottom line came from my daughter who said: “It is clear that this new system is designed to take Fast Passes away from people like us who used to use 5-6 a day and redistribute them to people who didn’t used to use them.

Agree, and hence it's not surprising that a lot of us DisBoard regulars are less than thrilled with FP+.

 

[velvetsqueeze]

OP, I want to give you a special thank you for your post. You explained yourself and your observations well. We are staying offsite in less than 2 weeks, and I was wondering what the perspective would be in the detail in which you gave. You didn't just crab and gripe; you gave excellent advice and a well-worded point-of-view perspective.

My original plan was to ignore the FP+ system and just ride SB on everything. Now I know that will actually hurt us based on how the FP+ to SB ratio has changed to the detriment of SB.

I especially appreciate the info on the CMs with iPads. Up until now, I thought there were only kiosks for FP+, and I didn't want to use them since I have no idea how to operate them (I wouldn't want to be the 20-minute clueless person getting dirty looks from those behind me).

 

[damo]

Hi Everyone,

We just booked a spur of the moment trip and have not used the FP+ system at all. Know nothing about it.

We have very old paper tickets and plastic ones( Will they combine the 2 ?)

We stay off site and have no clue how to use the FP+ Kiosks. Would anyone care to brief me on the process.

I appreciate the help
Liz

THis should help: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3143281

 

[princessekrus]

And here are a couple of other random thoughts posted separately so as not to make an already overly-long post even longer.


As mentioned in another thread by someone who was at the MK on the same day as us, there were many, many problems with the rides. We missed out on Peter Pan by mere seconds. We were literally the next people to board when the ride went down and stayed down for a good bit of the day.

I was about 20 people behind you!

We were on-site, but I felt so, so bad for off-site folks waiting in those FP+ kiosk lines.

When PP went down, the CM told us that we could re-book our PP fastpass for later in the day. When I went to MDE, it wouldn't let me do anything. So I went to a kiosk by Jungle Cruise (no line), and talked to a CM who said that it wouldn't let me book anything until the ride was back up and running (incorrect info, as it turns out). In fact, I got an e-mail about 12:15 (the ride went down somewhere around 10), saying that I could go back to PP anytime, and would get a bonus FP+ for later from a selection of 4 or 5 listed rides). All of that was fine but:

1) I had no idea to check my e-mail, because no one told me about this
2) I was already done at MK by 12- we left about 11:30 since we had been there since 8am, and we were headed back to the resort for some pool time.

Now - this didn't ruin anything. We had another day at MK, and I have missed rides on every trip due to malfunctions - but the lack of correct information was a little irritating.

I also agree with the lines of people in walkways seriously impacting how the parks feel. Everything FELT so crowded, but it wasn't really. Almost all of the non-headliners I rode standby had hugely inflated wait times. Jungle Cruise was posted as 30 minutes - took us less than 15. In AK on thursday 2/20 Primevil Whirl was posted as 30 - took us 7 - we did it twice in a row, and this was mid-day. Spaceship Earth was posted as 30, and was much closer to 15, despite the line looking astronomical. Now, even having to wait 15 minutes for SE is a little crazy, since I have always walked right on... but it was President's day, so I decided I could stomach a 15 minute wait

At BTMR, the FP+ line looked really long and snaked out into the walkway.... because of the first set of MB scanners. It creates a major choke point at the very beginning of the line. Once through those first scanners, it was less than 7 minutes before we were riding. But the placement of the scanners forces the FP+ queue into the walkways, which is ridiculous. In AK at the Safari - they were having so much trouble scanning the bands, and the line was getting so long, they just started waving people through. I think our FP+ for Kali actually took us the longest, probably waited 20 minutes (although it could have seemed longer because I was dealing with two hot, tired kids at the time ). Still, the standby time was 70 minutes, so I was really happy I had a fast pass.


Also - on Friday or Saturday I noticed a dedicated table, right as you entered from the international gateway with 3 CM's with ipads that had signs on it for the Swan and Dolphin. I am guessing this is Disney's way of addressing the Swan/Dolphin issue. There were never any guests working with them, so I don't know how successful that was. They definitely weren't there earlier in the week though, so I'm guessing they got a lot of guest complaints.

 

[clsteve]

I don't understand why they haven't done this. I'm not a programmer, but it doesn't seem difficult to set the system so it could be accessed by anyone at exactly 9:00am. Or it might be more difficult, but maybe they could fix it to be accessible once your tickets have been activated for the day.

If off-siters could use smart phones to make reservations once in the park, it would eliminate at least 50% of the people in these kiosk/iPad lines. (And as we all know, you can't spend money when you're waiting in line.)

Hopefully, we'll see something soon. But this would just eliminate for those off-siters that now have MDE accounts. Until they supply an option for off-siters to reserve in advance-with time-delimited tickets or MB's, they're not going to get the first time or casual guests away from the CM's and kiosks

The old FastPass system was tied in with entrance gate ticket scanners. You couldn't pull a FastPass unless your ticket was used for entry at that park that day.

It would be a rather trivial matter to add in a function to perform a similar check with the new system to unlock same-day online FP+ booking once a ticket linked to a MDE account was used for entry to a park.

Yep, they'd all need to have one of those first....

 

[practicallyperfect77]

OP- thanks for your review. I am currently struggling with whether or not to pony up the $$$ to stay onsite for my next trip (hopefully in Oct this year). It helps to understand the current pros and cons of onsite vs off site.

 

[FlipHipster]

Someone had posted in another thread that Josh at EasyWDW was told they're distributing FP's at 75% capacity for some rides. That would change the whole dynamic, quite a bit. You're spot on about needing to give offsite advance ressie capability asap. It's gonna get hot soon- standing at a kiosk line or a FP+line out in the sun is going to get old really quickly....

At 75%, how much farther do you have to go before it officially becomes a ride reservation system? At that point if you don't have a coveted golden ticket booked 60days out, sorry you no soup for you.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

I've heard many times on the boards that paper FPs were not used by many guest but with the reports of the long FP+ kiosks by what I would assume were mostly off-site guest having little contact with Disney beforehand, maybe paper FPs were a little more used by guest than some on the boards believe.

 

[clsteve]

At 75%, how much farther do you have to go before it officially becomes a ride reservation system? At that point if you don't have a coveted golden ticket booked 60days out, sorry you no soup for you.

Starting to look like it a bit, isn't it?

At least then they can just flip the queues for a lot of rides so everyone can get out of the sun.......

 

[Mommy2Corinne]

Thank you, OP for writing this detailed and well thought out (although totally disheartening) report. I'm still kind of in awe that the execs didn't think FP+ line spillover was going to be an issue!?!? I agree that the "feel" of the parks will be forever negatively changed if they don't do something to address this. (And this doesn't even begin to express my thoughts on the limited number of FP, tiering, increased SB waits, etc.). What.A.Mess.

When PP went down, the CM told us that we could re-book our PP fastpass for later in the day. When I went to MDE, it wouldn't let me do anything. So I went to a kiosk by Jungle Cruise (no line), and talked to a CM who said that it wouldn't let me book anything until the ride was back up and running (incorrect info, as it turns out). In fact, I got an e-mail about 12:15 (the ride went down somewhere around 10), saying that I could go back to PP anytime, and would get a bonus FP+ for later from a selection of 4 or 5 listed rides). All of that was fine but:

1) I had no idea to check my e-mail, because no one told me about this
2) I was already done at MK by 12- we left about 11:30 since we had been there since 8am, and we were headed back to the resort for some pool time.

I know this I sort of a little thing in the grand scheme of how horrible FP+ has been overall, but COME ON, Disney IT! Are you kidding me? How hard would it be to program push notifications (like millions of other Apps do) to let guests know of changes like this directly on the App itself. Give me a break. It's like they have monkeys running their IT department or something. Ugh.

 

[mesaboy2]

JV, thanks so much for taking the time to share your observations. I think posts like these are a tremendous help and inure new visitors as to what they might expect when they get there.

Well done!

 

[DizzneyDi]

Thanks for the update, OP. I had the chance to test FP+ back in late October/early November while staying at OKW for a week, and it worked fine for me. Since I've been to WDW more than 20 times, my touring style is very relaxed. I never depend heavily on FPs, and if I miss riding BTMRR it's no big deal--there's always next time. I assumed that things would get busier once the system opened up to off site guests, but since I always stay on site I didn't think anything would really change for me. After reading this post, though, I realized that isn't true. As I said, I'm not a ride commando--for me, WDW is all about wandering through the parks taking pictures, or parking myself on a bench with a drink and just soaking in the atmosphere. The thought of encountering long lines of frustrated, unhappy people everywhere I turn is very disturbing. My DS and I have been discussing when to take our next trip, and I'm starting to think that this might be a good year to head to DLR instead of WDW. I'll just have to hope that by the time I'm planning my 2015 trip the FP+ system will have been fine-tuned to the point where the lines have been dealt with and I can actually enjoy watching the World go by!

 

[Meggysmum]

Call it "guessing" or call it deductive reasoning. But I think the change is coming soon. Why? Because there were so many CMs with i-Pads and so few actual kiosks. I was expcting to see kiosks everywhere, especially where old FP machines had been. But there has been no effort to install rows and rows of machines, and instead they are paying CMs money to stand around with tablets. That tells me that booking at kiosks is seen as a very short term option and that kiosks will be used in the future mainly for making changes.

On MDE I know some UK guests are being offered the opportunity to prebook FP+ when staying offsite from the end of April.

 

[Love Tink]

Hopefully, we'll see something soon. But this would just eliminate for those off-siters that now have MDE accounts. Until they supply an option for off-siters to reserve in advance-with time-delimited tickets or MB's, they're not going to get the first time or casual guests away from the CM's and kiosks.

Right, people would need the MDE account. But even first-time or casual guests do research, and those guests can be plenty tech savvy. If you allow guests to register ahead of time, then make their FP+ choices when their ticket activates, I think a large percentage of guests would use that route - especially if the marketing works and people get intrigued by this new program and look into it before coming. (i.e. "I looked into it and we can't reserve rides ahead of time, but we can register ahead of time.")

As I said, I'm not a ride commando--for me, WDW is all about wandering through the parks taking pictures, or parking myself on a bench with a drink and just soaking in the atmosphere. The thought of encountering long lines of frustrated, unhappy people everywhere I turn is very disturbing.

This is interesting to me because so much of what I've read from people who are fans of FP+ is that WDW is not about the rides and it is about soaking up the magic of the park and atmosphere and so forth. Here's an unintended consequence of FP+ that is going to affect the enjoyment of even those who say they don't care about rides. Hmm.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Thanks for the detailed write-up.

Just a point of clarifications... the Swan and Dolphin are not "Walt Disney’s Swan and Dolphin Resort". They are the the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin. There is no possessive. "Walt Disney World" is a location reference. The true Disney owned and operated resorts are officially named "Disney's" <enter resort name here>.

It is up to the owners of the Swan and Dolphin to pay The Walt Disney Company for the use of onsite FP+ benefits. They would have to shoulder the cost of any retrofitting needed for their door locks to work with MagicBands, as well as the cost of producing and delivering the MagicBands to their guests. They probably will at some point in the future, but for now they haven't.

Magic Bands aren't a requirement for FP+. Disney already has RFID enabled cards that can use the technology (the cards that offsite guests get as tickets).

On top of that, Disney has written in various locations that all guests will get access to the FP+ system (and they, themselves, in the vacation planning dvd define the system as prebooking) with their theme park admission and that MagicBands will be able to be purchased by those staying offsite if they wish.

Swan and Dolphin do not need to retrofit their door locks at all.