An honest FP+ assessment Feb 11-Feb 16

[summermac]

I kind of feel like we had the best of both worlds for me to assess FP+ as we had a combination of it being very slow and then busier than I'd ever seen EVER over the weekend.

I won't bore you with all the details (well actually I did but then lost the post and don't want to retype it all) but here's my basic rundown:

1. The ability to book three rides ahead of time is GREAT. It really is. It is particularly nice when you have a party similar to mine - my kids, DH and I were ready to hit the parks by 8:00/8:30 each morning whereas my parents and my sister like to sleep in. This was fantastic b/c we all knew we had FP+ reserved for at least 3 rides every single day that we could all enjoy together without forcing them out of bed. We hit the parks early to score extra rides or whatever and met up with them later for our FP times. Then toured together the rest of the time. It was also really really nice on our arrival day and in fact, due to FP+ we decided to add a 6th day to our ticket b/c we knew we'd have three headliners reserved for our arrival day.

2. Conversely, the ability to only pull three FPs is AWFUL. It is particularly upsetting on a day like Sunday at MK when the park was open from 8am until 3am. Granted we were only there from about 9:30 until 10:00 but to only have 3 FPs for the entire day when lines started swelling at about noon (BTMR was near an hour already, Small World nearing 40 minutes, Space 45 for example) and continued that way for the majority of the day was just downright maddening. Even at 10:00, after the first parade and the fireworks ended Haunted Mansion was still over 1/2 hour wait. And we were out of FPs. It just downright sucked.

3. I miss being able to pull a FP for wherever I am at that time. Yes having the times reserved was convenient but several times we were in another area altogether, thus having to rush to the other area to not miss our window. To me, this is no different than running across the park to pull legacy. And in fact, running across the park (if we chose to do so) was a little easier as we'd take turns running with our ticket/KTTW card while the rest of us would relax with a treat, hit a shop, ride something. Now our ENTIRE party had to leave the area to ride our reserved FP. Yes I realize the window is an hour but still we felt rushed with it at times. On previous trips, more often than not after we'd get our morning/commando FP we would then just opt to pull the nearest legacy FP to us and then do something else in that area. So for example we'd pull a Jungle Cruise FP with a return time of say 4:00 at 2:30. Then we'd stay in Adventureland to explore the treehouse, see the Tiki birds, ride the carpets and Pirates. Our runner would go over to BTMR at 4:00 pulling that FP for us real quick and then we'd all ride Jungle Cruise. And we'd then go to Frontierland and do the same thing. Yes you can change your FP now with MDE and I did that a couple of times as we were clear on another side of the park but multiple times during our trip MDE froze completely and I couldn't do that. It was so frustrating. And changing at the kiosk? Ha. That's laughable at best. During our entire trip, I only once saw a kiosk that wasn't a crazy line and that was on Wed evening near the Buzz kiosk AND a storm was rolling in.

4. Losing a FP due to ride closure is CRAP. This happened to us on Wednesday at Jungle Cruise due to weather. So not only did we lose our FP (b/c I couldn't get it changed as we had scanned our bands, we literally were the next ride) we basically lost a 2nd FP as we had to then FP Jungle Cruise on another day. That really stunk. I felt bad for those of us in the FP line as well as the standby line who really got screwed on that deal. I can't remember how Disney dealt with this before but I could have sworn they did something for when this happened. What we would have done before was pulled a new Jungle Cruise FP (if we wanted) or at least pulled a FP for somewhere else that day. Guess what? YOU CAN'T now.

All in all, I am feeling like FP+ has a lot of room for improvements. As I said, reserving three per day is pretty awesome. I personally think it should be used in conjunction with legacy FP as a resort perk. Allow resort guests to reserve THREE FPs of their choice, even keeping tiers in if necessary and then continue with the legacy FP as it was for everyone. If a park goer chooses to not utilize FP+ or legacy or learn about how it works together, well then that's their poor planning problem, not mine.

As I said, we really did enjoy our trip. It wasn't that we didn't. I felt like we had better trips though. And again, that may be partly due to the timing as we typically go in May. February just didn't do it for me and we won't go again in the winter.

Also, I somehow was able to salvage this part of my original post so I will leave you with a quick recap of our Saturday at AK if you wish to read it:
The only day that was really awful so to speak was our AK day, which I will preface this by saying we did not arrive until 12:00 due to a late breakfast. We had our three FP - EE, Dinosaur and Safari and thank god we did b/c AK was completely insane on Saturday. I have never ever seen that place that crazy. The FP line for Safari (12:30) was unlike anything I'd ever seen. In fact our party got separated b/c of all the confusion - we lost my sister who then left the line and we were not allowed to stop and wait for her on the side. CMs were "yelling" to keep the line moving and then one was quite curt with my daughter b/c she stopped to scan her band, you know what we had been doing for FOUR days by then and she was told: "DO NOT stop to scan - just keep GOING." Um, okay. Yeah hot mess doesn't begin to describe the disaster that was the FP line at Safari. We had intended on staying until AK closed that evening at 9:00 but by 5 we were over that place. You couldn't get anywhere - it was nothing but wall to wall people. I know it would have cleared out soon but we just couldn't take it any longer. The FP line for Safari pretty much "ruined" our entire day there. Not being dramatic - it just is what is I guess.

 

[JennyDrake]

Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I was there in December and had numerous technical issues w/ MB, AP and FP+. But it wasn't crowded and we could still do legacy FP. I'm back in 9 days--we'll see what happens!

 

[buzzrelly]

Ys, thank you for taking the time to post this. It sounds like your family used FP- much in the same way my family did. I'm not going until June and I am hoping they have most of these kinks worked out by then!

 

[AThrillingChase]

4. Losing a FP due to ride closure is CRAP. This happened to us on Wednesday at Jungle Cruise due to weather. So not only did we lose our FP (b/c I couldn't get it changed as we had scanned our bands, we literally were the next ride) we basically lost a 2nd FP as we had to then FP Jungle Cruise on another day. That really stunk. I felt bad for those of us in the FP line as well as the standby line who really got screwed on that deal. I can't remember how Disney dealt with this before but I could have sworn they did something for when this happened. What we would have done before was pulled a new Jungle Cruise FP (if we wanted) or at least pulled a FP for somewhere else that day. Guess what? YOU CAN'T now.

This was not my experience. They told me when it started running again (EE at AK, not JC though) to just come back when I saw it running again and they would honor it. They did not make an announcement, I just walked up to a CM and asked her.

 

[summermac]

We asked a CM about returning when it reopened and were told we could not do that. Of course, as we all know CMs say what CMs say. I was more frustrated that we basically lost the ability to FP something else that evening. Before FP+ we would have just moved on with our life and FP'ed something else and probably pulled a FP for Jungle Cruise later on if we were back in Adventureland. Oh well...such is life. We did ride it on Sunday instead, at night which was pretty cool. We've never ridden it at night before.

 

[Cibahwewah]

We were at AK that day too and arrived at 12noon too. We did everything we wanted and had FP+ for Safari at 5pm. Their scanners weren't working so they just waved us through. I thought "ooh, I'll reschedule that FP+ for something else," but everything was already gone for the day. It was busy, yes, but you sound like you were stressed.

 

[squirrel4569]

We had that happen to us at Space Mountain with the FP- system. We were next to get on, had already turned in our paper passes and the ride went down. They sent everyone out and handed out paper Anytime passes to everyone that went out. I'm surprised they don't have that still as a backup for situations like that.

Also, didn't think about adding extra days for our arrival and departure days to get the FP+ reservations. Knowing that I could show up at 5pm and still get to do 7DMT, PPF, ETWB would be nice. Same thing with our departure day. If we had a later flight out we could book FP+ for the morning (yes, I know sometimes you don't need it) and know that we had 3 things already setup and anything else would be gravy before we headed home. That's worth the extra $10/day/person.

 

[summermac]

Yes I was very stressed. Our party of 7 got completely separated with my husband, son, father up ahead, my daughter and I behind them and my mother and sister somewhere else. I somehow found my mom and reunited with my husband, son and father but my sister was missing. She's an adult and capable of taking care of herself but it was still stressful and frustrating.

That said, the line was crazy long but the wait was maybe 10 minutes at the most which is why it was stressful to lose people - the FP queue was moving so quickly and we were being told to keep it moving/hurry up by CMs...it was just a bad experience. And as I said, kind of "ruined" AK for us that day unfortunately.

 

[ktlm]

3. I miss being able to pull a FP for wherever I am at that time. Yes having the times reserved was convenient but several times we were in another area altogether, thus having to rush to the other area to not miss our window. To me, this is no different than running across the park to pull legacy. And in fact, running across the park (if we chose to do so) was a little easier as we'd take turns running with our ticket/KTTW card while the rest of us would relax with a treat, hit a shop, ride something. Now our ENTIRE party had to leave the area to ride our reserved FP. Yes I realize the window is an hour but still we felt rushed with it at times. On previous trips, more often than not after we'd get our morning/commando FP we would then just opt to pull the nearest legacy FP to us and then do something else in that area. So for example we'd pull a Jungle Cruise FP with a return time of say 4:00 at 2:30. Then we'd stay in Adventureland to explore the treehouse, see the Tiki birds, ride the carpets and Pirates. Our runner would go over to BTMR at 4:00 pulling that FP for us real quick and then we'd all ride Jungle Cruise. And we'd then go to Frontierland and do the same thing. Yes you can change your FP now with MDE and I did that a couple of times as we were clear on another side of the park but multiple times during our trip MDE froze completely and I couldn't do that. It was so frustrating. And changing at the kiosk? Ha. That's laughable at best. During our entire trip, I only once saw a kiosk that wasn't a crazy line and that was on Wed evening near the Buzz kiosk AND a storm was rolling in. .

This sounds a lot like how we like to tour. We hated FP+ because it did prevent us from pulling based on how our day was doing. We liked having that 1st FP+ of the day for the thing I usually made the FP= run to, but that was it. Most of the FP- we pulled like Jungle Cruise, would kick in between 45 minutes to an hour and half later. We loved hanging out in the area for that time doing all the other attractions and shopping, maybe having a Mickey Head Ice Cream bar or a snack. Then after the ride we would move on to the next area or finish up that area. With FP+ we did feel like we had to stop what we were doing and run from one place to the next. I also found that because we weren't doing "areas", it really infringed on my shopping time. A lot of the stores that I generally browse through and maybe pick up something, I didn't even get a chance to go in on our last trip because we were having to run across to somewhere else for the next FP+ before we got all the rides/attractions in an area finished.

MDE froze constantly on us when we were in the parks too-- or we would get the famous message "a blip has occurred". It was next to impossible to change anything in the parks. Now, I imagine it will be even more so even if MDE works as we were there before offsite had kiosk access.

Allowing everyone to book 3 at one time seems to really be overloading things. I think it was much better when you had one- and then a waiting period for the next. It disbursed people depending on their day. Plus people only pulled what they needed. If you got to a ride and the line wasn't bad, you would just get in. You didn't have every one booking everything up immediately, because you were limited to one at a time (with the exception of TSM as the only small kid absolutely friendly ride at DHS- and even then you could usually pick up a FP anytime in the first hour or two before they ran out) I wish they would change the FP+ system to allow you to book 1 in advance and then treat the rest of the day like the old system.

4. Losing a FP due to ride closure is CRAP. This happened to us on Wednesday at Jungle Cruise due to weather. So not only did we lose our FP (b/c I couldn't get it changed as we had scanned our bands, we literally were the next ride) we basically lost a 2nd FP as we had to then FP Jungle Cruise on another day. That really stunk. I felt bad for those of us in the FP line as well as the standby line who really got screwed on that deal. I can't remember how Disney dealt with this before but I could have sworn they did something for when this happened. What we would have done before was pulled a new Jungle Cruise FP (if we wanted) or at least pulled a FP for somewhere else that day. Guess what? YOU CAN'T now. .

So you had been through both scanners already? We had this happen after we had been through one scanner and had no problem using the FP+ again later when the ride came back up. We also had the option of using it on several other rides instead. We were told that if we had been through both scanners, there would be an issue. (Also had it happen when the ride went down before we got there and the same thing). I'm surprised they weren't giving paper passes to people that had scanned both if they knew they were losing the FP+. We have been given paper rest of the day passes at attractions that have gone down while we were in line before.

 

[AThrillingChase]

We had that happen to us at Space Mountain with the FP- system. We were next to get on, had already turned in our paper passes and the ride went down. They sent everyone out and handed out paper Anytime passes to everyone that went out. I'm surprised they don't have that still as a backup for situations like that.

From what I put together, they can see in their system when you scan that you had a FP+ for the time period it was down (used or not used). So they should see it fell within that time and let you through. Unfortunately, this sounds like a case of a CM not familiar. But then, JC isn't a ride that shuts down constantly like Splash, so I could understand why it wouldn't be as common to know. If it happens again I'd either go back when it opens and request they let you in, and if they are still declining, I'd hit guest relations at town hall the next time you are close to it, or on your way out, and request a FP explaining the situation. They do have the little slips still that are used when there is a problem, like say you are stuck on the monorail for hours.

 

[summermac]

We had been through both scanners. I thought about going to Guest Relations but having been there once already on our arrival day to add an extra day to our ticket (it was quite the wait!) did not want to deal with it. Again, that was my choice but it was just not worth it to me, particularly when I was able to get a FP+ on Sunday and really we had our must do's at MK done (except JC of course) by then. I wasn't happy about it but it wasn't a vacation ruiner or anything. However Sunday was a little busier than I expected having never been there on a holiday weekend before so hindsight says it would have been nice to be able to have that JC FP back on that day so we could have used our Sunday FP to ride something for a 2nd/3rd time. It wasn't a vacation ruiner, just a slight blip.

 

[robinb]

Thanks for your review. I feel much the same way about FP+, but we can only go when the crowds are 9's and 10's while you were there for a couple 4's and 5's days and Small World was *still* 45 minutes long!

FWIW, you could have gone to the FP+ station up at the front of the park at the Town Square Theater and they would have been able to give you an "anytime" FP+. Back in December when a ride would go down our FP+ would automatically turn into an "anytime" FP+.

 

[summermac]

Small World was walk on Tuesday and Wednesday of our trip. The 45 min wait was on Sunday which was a 9 day. I just want that to be clear.

 

[pharaoh]

4. Losing a FP due to ride closure is CRAP. This happened to us on Wednesday at Jungle Cruise due to weather. So not only did we lose our FP (b/c I couldn't get it changed as we had scanned our bands, we literally were the next ride) we basically lost a 2nd FP as we had to then FP Jungle Cruise on another day. That really stunk. I felt bad for those of us in the FP line as well as the standby line who really got screwed on that deal. I can't remember how Disney dealt with this before but I could have sworn they did something for when this happened. What we would have done before was pulled a new Jungle Cruise FP (if we wanted) or at least pulled a FP for somewhere else that day. Guess what? YOU CAN'T now.

Wow, that's inconvenient and bizarre. I didn't have that experience in January. I had a FP+ for Under the Sea at 11:55AM, but the ride broke down. At 10:15AM, I got this email:

We're sorry, your previously confirmed FastPass+ selection for Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid from 11:55 AM to 12:55 PM on 01/15/2014 needs to be changed because the experience is temporarily unavailable.

As a replacement, you may now visit any one of the following FastPass+ experiences on 01/15/2014, starting at 11:55 AM through anytime during normal Theme Park operating hours (Valid Theme Park admission is required and your FastPass+ selection cannot be redeemed during Extra Magic Hours):

Experiences*
Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
"it's a small world"®
Mad Tea Party
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Mickey's PhilharMagic®
The Barnstormer
Dumbo the Flying Elephant®
Peter Pan's Flight®


There is no action needed to select the experience in advance. During the designated day and time, just arrive at the FastPass+ entrance to one of the experiences above and touch your MagicBand to enter!

I ended up just asking the CM's at Under the Sea when they thought the ride would be back up and they didn't have an ETA but told me to check back in 90 minutes or so. I did that, it was back up, and I went through the FP line with no problem or extra action necessary.

 

[pharaoh]

Oh, crud. I just noticed the OP had already been through the scanners.

That really stinks! I know the CM's can override the blue mickeys, one CM did that for me when I arrived to one of my FP+ choices a few minutes early. They should be able to override in the case of a closure. What the heck

 

[CassieF]

If you've already scanned through both scanners you won't get a replacement FP, as it assumes you've already been on the ride. They really should give out re-admit FP for those in this situation

 

[summermac]

I did not receive any email. Granted I wouldn't have thought to check my email while there but no email came.

 

[AlanPeterson]

Hmm very precious thoughts..

 

[skater]

Ugh. Makes me a little worried about upcoming trip.

 

[summermac]

Ugh. Makes me a little worried about upcoming trip.

I was very anxious for our trip. I even toyed with cancelling it. But we made the best of it that we could. In the future (and it's what some DISers have been saying) I would hit rope drop at park 1 and ride, ride, ride. Then go to the 2nd park for your FP+ choices. However b/c of some in my travel party being mid-morning risers I chose not to do that. I think in the future my plan will be to have the spontaneity be in the morning, swim at resort with our planned park in the evening now. We used to tour the opposite way - planned morning through a TS late lunch, swam and then went wherever in the evening instead. I would take this advice into great consideration for your upcoming trip.