All FP machines to be removed from Animal Kingdom by next week and....

[wordwitt]

Realistically think about it? How can they hold back fastpasses for day of when demand far exceeds capacity for those rides? If they do that then somebody making their FP appointments a few weeks out may not get them. How do you think that will be perceived?

It's going to go the same way as ADRs, first come first served. If you miss out, then too bad. I cannot foresee it going any other way.

As for the current day of, it's completely possible that when that happened they took those from the allotment of FP- for the day and made them available to FP+. However, when there are no FP- to take from, then what does Disney do?

And FP+ being there the day of goes directly against EVERYTHING Rasulo said, which is you lock the guests in as far in advance as possible in order to get more money out of their wallet.

I understand your concerns, but FP is different than an ADR in terms of capacity (and demand). So the FP/ADR analogy can only be done very loosely. It is apples and oranges.

FP capacity has always been an issue with the rides you mentioned, but maybe Disney believes that FP+ and holding back a certain percentage of day-of slots is a more effective distribution method.

I will say again that while Disney is certainly in the business of making $$$, it knows it can't make money if the guest experience is diminished significantly.

 

[rebbyparker]

What exactly would be wrong with spending money to build more headlining attractions that take pressure off the current headliners? Or, in the case of TSMM, what would be wrong with building more tracks? Instead we get his huge behemoth of a software and hardware package that is supposed to make things better, which clearly it doesn't for those wishing to ride a headlining attraction more than once. And the last time I checked those people's wants are just as important as those guests who don't mind sitting at Casey's eating hotdogs and people watching.

 

[lugnut33]

I understand your concerns, but FP is different than an ADR in terms of capacity (and demand). So the FP/ADR analogy can only be done very loosely. It is apples and oranges.

FP capacity has always been an issue with the rides you mentioned, but maybe Disney believes that FP+ and holding back a certain percentage of day-of slots is a more effective distribution method.

I will say again that while Disney is certainly in the business of making $$$, it knows it can't make money if the guest experience is diminished significantly.

And do you not agree that if somebody can't get TSMM or Soarin' fastpasses 2 weeks out that their guest experience is diminished significantly? How do you think that guest will feel? You think they will be fine with Disney holding fastpasses for day of when they have been proactive enough to book a trip in advance? There is no way Disney holds FP back, just like they don't hold ADRs back.

And the comparison is valid, especially when you think about restaurants where demand far outpaces capacity.

It's certainly possible that someday you'll have to put a CC hold on your FP appointments.

 

[wisblue]

Realistically think about it? How can they hold back fastpasses for day of when demand far exceeds capacity for those rides? If they do that then somebody making their FP appointments a few weeks out may not get them. How do you think that will be perceived?

It's going to go the same way as ADRs, first come first served. If you miss out, then too bad. I cannot foresee it going any other way.

As for the current day of, it's completely possible that when that happened they took those from the allotment of FP- for the day and made them available to FP+. However, when there are no FP- to take from, then what does Disney do?

And FP+ being there the day of goes directly against EVERYTHING Rasulo said, which is you lock the guests in as far in advance as possible in order to get more money out of their wallet.

See Wordwit's response to you above.

You might be right about how it will end up, but you might be wrong. It is still conjecture on your part.

Part of what Disney is selling to people is the ability to make some attraction reservations in advance AND the ability to make changes. They are in total control of how many FPs to allocate to each attraction and how to release them, and I do not think it is certain that it will all be first come, first served. Once paper FPs are gone, they will have that many more FP+ reservations to play with.

 

[lugnut33]

It is relatively slower now, but I just went online and was able to get a TSMM FP+ (I did not follow through and confirm) for 4 different times of the day for today. As early as noon and as late as 7 tonight.

I know, I checked the current wait times and TSMM is only 50 minutes, that is unheard of.

That said, I was there during a busy time (thanksgiving) and there was no way you would be able to change your FP times for TSMM.

 

[lugnut33]

See Wordwit's response to you above.

You might be right about how it will end up, but you might be wrong. It is still conjecture on your part.

Part of what Disney is selling to people is the ability to make some attraction reservations in advance AND the ability to make changes. They are in total control of how many FPs to allocate to each attraction and how to release them, and I do not think it is certain that it will all be first come, first served. Once paper FPs are gone, they will have that many more FP+ reservations to play with.

You did not answer my question though, do you really think Disney will hold back FP for day of and allow the person pre-planning their trip to go without FP reservations?

I know Jay Rasulo's answer to this question, and that's a pretty important person within Disney.

 

[squirrel4569]

Someone mentioned wanting a CC reservation for FP+. I think they will require you to link a ticket to reserve FP+. The downside to this, for many, will be that they don't buy their tickets until they arrive if they are staying off-site. Then they are showing up at noon, buying their tickets and getting the talk about how to setup their FP+ selections, etc. Probably no MB or just a gray one if they do get one, although I would assume just an RFID card would be given.

But kind of like with ADRs, off-site or on, you have an MDE account, book your reservations at the window and go on your way. Some will do it and some won't. I think there is the possibility that some selections will be gone immediately and some headliners will still have availability after the 60 day window. Day of for headliners will be tough except for the slow times (are there really any slow times anymore?) but will still be available for other things.

As an example, last year we decided at the 4 month mark to go at Thanksgiving. We booked our trip and then started making ADRs. We were still able to book Thanksgiving Day dinner at CRT despite not booking it at 180+10. I know that some places like BOG go right away and hopefully as attractions get added (I know they aren't real fast on that) availability for existing rides will improve.

I do feel bad for those going in the midst of all of this testing and changing. For those here with plans that has to be incredibly frustrating. I'm kind of glad my wife vetoed the Christmas trip this year. I'm still interested in seeing how this will work when fully implemented. Will standby be obnoxious or more manageable? Will off-site guests be totally shafted? Will PH still be useful or desired? Will tiers be removed? Will FP+ get more than 3? I hold out hope that when fully rolled out Disney will make it an excellent experience, but nobody knows yet. Give it a few months to be fully implemented, no more FP- and marinated with all guests and we can make a judgement. Right now it's working well for some, not for others. It's like the saying "you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

Is it too early for popcorn? or should with stick with coffee and irish creme?

 

[wordwitt]

Hey Word,

We have hashed this out several times, but I will sum up the general consensus for you. (though some disagree, although some also disagreed when I as adamant that FP- would be going away ... )

Now we don't KNOW how they will roll the system out, but these are the thoughts.

If they are pushing FP+ and claiming people can reserve their favourite rides 60 days in advance, they are going to need to make as much capacity available for the prebooking. Imagine how people will react if they go online at their 60 day mark, or their 50 or 45 etc etc ... and try to book, but all FP+s are gone ? I for one, as well as many others, would cancel my trip, probably after some long and hostile conversations with Disney CMs.

The pressure is to make pre-booking available.

If a day visitor walks into the park and can't book FP+s because they are gone, well, they are already in the park, they will just ride standby.

Disney's whole goal (as stated by Disney Execs) is to have people LOCK in to their Disney vacations, to have their FP+ selections made as far out as possible so they spend more time at Disney and less at other places. They can only accomplish this if you are able to select your FP+s. In advance.

We KNOW, there isn't enough capacity for everyone to book the FP+s they want for everything they want (heck that's why they brought in tiering). If they are holding back FP+s, this leaves even less capacity for pre-booking. They can not achieve the goal of the system, if they are holding back FPs for the same day, and in fact, will encourage people to go to other places if they are holding back for same day FP booking.

Is it possible they will continue to hold out FP for same day ? Yes, it is. As was noted I think they are currently doing this, I think the Hub mentioned something. So maybe they will continue this, but it appears to go against the entire premise of the program.

Yeah, I don't exactly know how things will get rolled out in the end, and I do understand why people are upset. Basically, I think Disney botched the testing and roll-out process because they either couldn't or wouldn't be transparent.

 

[amylevan]

I can't get past arriving at a theme park on a vacation that you dropped significant cash on, to find that the fastpass machines are gone, or covered, or whatever with no warning. I thought the elimination of the KTTW cards at Pop 2 days before arrival was bad. This is absurd.

I feel awful for the CMs scheduled to work because I think the s**ts going to hit the fan.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

I can't get past arriving at a theme park on a vacation that you dropped significant cash on, to find that the fastpass machines are gone, or covered, or whatever with no warning. I thought the elimination of the KTTW cards at Pop 2 days before arrival was bad. This is absurd.

I feel awful for the CMs scheduled to work because I think the s**ts going to hit the fan.

Well, this seems to be three day's notice, if not a little longer.

 

[rebbyparker]

I can't get past arriving at a theme park on a vacation that you dropped significant cash on, to find that the fastpass machines are gone, or covered, or whatever with no warning. I thought the elimination of the KTTW cards at Pop 2 days before arrival was bad. This is absurd.

I feel awful for the CMs scheduled to work because I think the s**ts going to hit the fan.

You couldn't pay me enough to be a CM in the parks while this is going on. Poor things. I think we should start a "Hug a CM Today" movement.

 

[lugnut33]

Well, this seems to be three day's notice, if not a little longer.

I believe she is saying that e-mails have not been sent out to all guests making them aware of the situation. Not everybody is like us Disney uber-geeks. LOL

 

[momof2n2]

Three days is not nearly enough to change plans.

 

[sixxmum]

I will admit that, as the mother in a big family (8) that stays off-site due to the need for such a large unit, I do feel a little alienated by being told that I can't use FP+ until the day of, and maybe will have to at that point.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

Three days is not nearly enough to change plans.

No, of course not. But it's been obvious to those paying attention that this was all going to happen very quickly and on no notice.

 

[wordwitt]

And do you not agree that if somebody can't get TSMM or Soarin' fastpasses 2 weeks out that their guest experience is diminished significantly? How do you think that guest will feel? You think they will be fine with Disney holding fastpasses for day of when they have been proactive enough to book a trip in advance? There is no way Disney holds FP back, just like they don't hold ADRs back.

And the comparison is valid, especially when you think about restaurants where demand far outpaces capacity.

It's certainly possible that someday you'll have to put a CC hold on your FP appointments.

From what I understand, ADRs do get held back. Also, yes, of course they will hold them back for FP. But again, Disney knows the metrics. If 50K people are staying on-site on a particular day, and they are scattered among the 4 parks and 2 water parks, and their FP selections are distributed among attractions at each park, Disney knows how many advance FP selections it can allow while still ensuring adequate day-of selections for guests. Again, this is a very basic calculation. Sure, demand for headliners will almost always exceed capacity, but maybe Disney believes FP+ is a better way to manage this distribution.

And personally, I do think it is more fair to limit guests to one FP per headliner per day than to have guests pulling 4 or 5 FP for each person in their party per day for a headliner. I know this will not make me popular among FP super-users whose touring experience will inevitably be diminished, but just in terms of general fairness, this is a better system, I believe. And who knows? Maybe you will eventually be able to pull more than one FP for a headliner in a day.

I understand that I am generally a FP+ supporter. I liked FP-, but it had some limitations, as well. It was obviously pretty low tech, and I just think the potential for a better guest experience is there with FP+. I could be wrong, though, and I admit that freely.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

From what I understand, ADRs do get held back. /QUOTE]

If you check out the Restaurants board, there are a slew of us who changed our BOG reservations for the first few weeks of January because a TON of reservations just opened up this morning.

 

[amylevan]

I believe she is saying that e-mails have not been sent out to all guests making them aware of the situation. Not everybody is like us Disney uber-geeks. LOL

This. There has been no official communication from Disney. I'm not surprised because this whole process has been some sort of secretive clusterf**k, but how is the average guest supposed to know this. I'm willing to bet that FP is even still mentioned on the guide maps.

And this is what, 3 days before the start of THE busiest time to visit WDW all year???

It's like these people have never run a theme park before.

 

[Shaden]

I can't get past arriving at a theme park on a vacation that you dropped significant cash on, to find that the fastpass machines are gone, or covered, or whatever with no warning. I thought the elimination of the KTTW cards at Pop 2 days before arrival was bad. This is absurd.

I feel awful for the CMs scheduled to work because I think the s**ts going to hit the fan.

I have had issues with the rollout in general, particularly when pulling the rug out from under people at Pop and All Stars ...

But this, this is a dramatic change for just about everyone going to WDW. Onsite and off. And, its beyond the cancellation date.

I get that Disney had to do something to test this system change (or they could have just built more rides instead ) ... But there are much better ways to go about it.

For instance, they could have offered incentives to people to OPT into testing, instead of forcing people, quite often long after they have booked and paid for their trips, Flights, vacation time reserved etc, into being Guinea Pigs. Paying to be guinea pigs. This is absolutely unacceptable, unless it is your choice to do so.

 

[rebbyparker]

This. There has been no official communication from Disney. I'm not surprised because this whole process has been some sort of secretive clusterf**k, but how is the average guest supposed to know this. I'm willing to bet that FP is even still mentioned on the guide maps.

And this is what, 3 days before the start of THE busiest time to visit WDW all year???

It's like these people have never run a theme park before.