Apparently I dislike FP+...alot

[flicx]

Even when limited to just that statement you show that you have cherry picked that report to suit your agenda. Most of the discussion on this board focuses on the MK because of its significantly larger number of attractions. As I said in my earlier post, the other 3 parks present a completely different picture because most guests can avoid the standby lines at the popular attractions by using FPs and/or arriving early or staying late. And, even in those parks the increases are not that great.

Josh's exact quote relating to the MK is:

"Magic Kingdom is perhaps the most interesting, where median and peak waits have actually gone down significantly at the headliners and up considerably at several of the secondary attractions, most notably it’s a small world, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s hard to say how much of an effect FP+ has had at Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise in particular. It might seem obvious that FP+ is directly responsible for the uptick, but those two attractions had oddly increasing wait times over the months leading up to the initial implementation of FP+. Nonetheless, expect to wait a lot longer at both in the afternoon."

This has nothing to do with math, it has to do with understanding plain English. It isn't a matter of "same plus increase equals longer lines", unless you think that "down significantly" is a synonym for "the same".

I also wonder why you consider easywdw to be so reputable, but reject Touring Plans out of hand even though their data is more recent.

Josh hangs around these boards occasionally, so I wonder if he would agree with me that you have taken his data and observations and twisted them into a different conclusion than he intended. Especially when you say how much extra time a typical guest should expect to spend in standby lines in a day in the park. I think he would agree with me that if you follow a lot of his (and Touring Plans) suggestions for touring the parks, your extra time in standby lines should not be that dramatic.

Do the math! Please do the math before you respond. When you take the times listed as median times and subtract the ones with less waits and add the ones with more waits you come up the numbers I posted earlier. Its not hard, please quit trying to dismiss the actual numbers! 30 to 50 minutes more in wait time per park! That means a higher wait time!!!!!!!

 

[cakebaker]

Again if you and others disagree with easy wdw, fine. His findings are very simply put. Median times at headliners are virtually the same, median times at non headliners have significantly increased/ ie. longer waits. That about as simple as it gets!

And when you dumb it down that much, you don't get an accurate picture of what is really happening. You can't take a single sentence, no matter how much you like it and say- there- that's your answer.

 

[flicx]

Overall, they have not, and touringplans says so. Whether the sites agree or not, it's overall that matters.

See the post above. DO THE MATH!!!!!

 

[wisblue]

Do the math! Please do the math before you respond. When you take the times listed as median times and subtract the ones with less waits and add the ones with more waits you come up the numbers I posted earlier. Its not hard, please quit trying to dismiss the actual numbers! 30 to 50 minutes more in wait time per park! That means a higher wait time!!!!!!!

Apparently you ignored my earlier post in which I addressed why this line of analysis is way off. Putting more exclamation points at the end of your post doesn't make your point more valid.

Simply stated, nobody has to wait in the standby line at every attraction unless they choose not to take the FPs that Disney is handing them AND chooses not to visit the park early or late in the day when wait times are below their median averages for the day.

Let me go back to my DHS example and see if that helps you to understand what I'm saying. Using the 6 attractions listed (which account for almost all of the rides in the park these days) , the total increase in median wait times from 2013 to 2014 is 50 minutes. So, you are saying that a guest should expect to have to spend 50 more minutes waiting in line for those attractions.

What I am saying, is that if I wanted to do those 6 things once each, I would get FPs in advance for TSMM, TOT, and ST, meaning that I would have no standby wait for any of those. I would also arrive at the park at opening and go directly to RNRC and ride that with no wait, then go to GMR where the wait would almost certainly be less than the 20 minute median for the day, but for the sake of discussion I will wait 20 minutes there, and then go to Muppets where I would have my usual 5 minute wait. So, I would not be waiting 50 MORE minutes to ride those things. I would be waiting 25 minutes or less TOTAL, which is about the same as always.

 

[cakebaker]

See the post above. DO THE MATH!!!!!

I did, thanks.

 

[flicx]

Apparently you ignored my earlier post in which I addressed why this line of analysis is way off. Putting more exclamation points at the end of your post doesn't make your point more valid.

Simply stated, nobody has to wait in the standby line at every attraction unless they choose not to take the FPs that Disney is handing them AND chooses not to visit the park early or late in the day when wait times are below their median averages for the day.

Let me go back to my DHS example and see if that helps you to understand what I'm saying. Using the 6 attractions listed (which account for almost all of the rides in the park these days) , the total increase in median wait times from 2013 to 2014 is 50 minutes. So, you are saying that a guest should expect to have to spend 50 more minutes waiting in line for those attractions.

What I am saying, is that if I wanted to do those 6 things once each, I would get FPs in advance for TSMM, TOT, and ST, meaning that I would have no standby wait for any of those. I would also arrive at the park at opening and go directly to RNRC and ride that with no wait, then go to GMR where the wait would almost certainly be less than the 20 minute median for the day, but for the sake of discussion I will wait 20 minutes there, and then go to Muppets where I would have my usual 5 minute wait. So, I would not be waiting 50 MORE minutes to ride those things. I would be waiting 25 minutes or less TOTAL, which is about the same as always.

So you wish to cherry pick out what you wish to ride and try to get the best results? Hardly a realistic approach. So out of all the parks and all the rides listed 21 median wait times went up, 16 times stayed the same and 4 were lower. During peak times 23 wait times were higher, 12 were the same and 6 were lower. You guys call it what you want. I say its higher!

 

[Laketravis]

....out of all the parks and all the rides listed 21 median wait times went up, 16 times stayed the same and 4 were lower. During peak times 23 wait times were higher, 12 were the same and 6 were lower.....

I ran that by DS9 and he applied several common core methods.

He determined the results were always the same - more were higher than lower.

 

[Laketravis]

...Although we did get most of the rides we wanted we had to do so over a longer period of time ie; we actually had to go to MK 3 times(including 1 emh night) in order to accomplish what we wanted without crazy lines. The upside is we spent a lot less time in the parks than usual and we were more like 3 or 4 then done. Gave us more time to do other things like Universal and the Mall at millennia

I've been hearing that more and more.

....On any of the 3 visits when we tried to utilize the kiosks we could never get anything we wanted. All of which is why we would never go back unless we have at least a week in Orlando because, as I said in another post, when we have to have waited 45 minutes for its a small world (had we chose to have waited) is when it is time for us to find something else to do.

Wow - my experience in late Nov/early Dec is that IASM was walk on more often than not; I'll be curious to see how that has changed this year.

 

[BroganMc]

Simply stated, nobody has to wait in the standby line at every attraction unless they choose not to take the FPs that Disney is handing them AND chooses not to visit the park early or late in the day when wait times are below their median averages for the day.

SNIP

What I am saying, is that if I wanted to do those 6 things once each, I would get FPs in advance for TSMM, TOT, and ST, meaning that I would have no standby wait for any of those. I would also arrive at the park at opening and go directly to RNRC and ride that with no wait, then go to GMR where the wait would almost certainly be less than the 20 minute median for the day, but for the sake of discussion I will wait 20 minutes there, and then go to Muppets where I would have my usual 5 minute wait. So, I would not be waiting 50 MORE minutes to ride those things. I would be waiting 25 minutes or less TOTAL, which is about the same as always.

Hang on, I love the assumptions and judgments you make in your reasoning.

People chose NOT to use the FP+ Disney is handing them? Well what if they don't have park tickets until a week before their arrival, or heaven forbid they purchase tickets at the gate the day they arrive. By then FP+ for the most popular attractions are gone or only exist for much later, inconvenient times (during an ADR, in the last hour of park opening, during Fantasmic or whatever other evening entertainment the guest would like to see).

You're logic seems based on the idea that Disney has an express entry FP+ waiting for each and every attraction and each and every guest at each and every time period the day they visit the park. They don't. So now it is the guest's fault because they "chose" not to take advantage of something Disney didn't offer?

I guess those guests should just be prepared the enter the park early every day and stay until park closing so they'd be able to wait about the same amount for each ride. We just conveniently ignore all the wasted hours inbetween waiting for those lines to die down.

I think you're forgetting the average guest who doesn't stay onsite (no advance FP+ booking), doesn't buy tickets in advance and doesn't treat a Disney vacation like a commando conference. Those are the ones who are more likely to be waiting in lines longer because of FP+.

The old system had shorter Standby waits and no early booking of FP. The only difference guests experienced was in that first couple hours of a park opening (or for onsite guests the last couple hours of an EMH). Now we have a much sharper divide between the 60-day preplanner onsite guests vs everyone else.

 

[wisblue]

So you wish to cherry pick out what you wish to ride and try to get the best results? Hardly a realistic approach. So out of all the parks and all the rides listed 21 median wait times went up, 16 times stayed the same and 4 were lower. During peak times 23 wait times were higher, 12 were the same and 6 were lower. You guys call it what you want. I say its higher!

Cherry pick what I want to ride and try to get the best results?

Isn't that what everyone who does even the slightest bit of planning try to do? What I described is what I would do if I were going to DHS (except that I would probably skip the Muppets). It doesn't matter to me (and I suspect the vast majority of guests on this site) what the standby line at TSMM is at 2 PM because I'm not going to be waiting it.

Tell you what. If you want to claim a victory on an irrelevant point, I agree that the easywdw report says that the average waits for more rides went up than went down. But, the relevant question is how much of a real impact that has on a guest's experience. And I don't think it's that great.

But, you have still not addressed why the easywdw report is the last word on the subject, while you treat the Touring Plans report that came later as irrelevant. That report said that average waits for 15 attractions went down, 8 went up, and 2 stayed the same. Using your logic, why can't someone conclude that standby waits looked at as a whole have gotten LOWER. Maybe even Lake Travis's son would agree with that.

I'm willing to look at both reports, consider their timing and the methods used, and draw a conclusion. And that conclusion is that standby lines are higher at some rides and lower at others and the net result is that it isn't that significant. If someone comes up with more or better data, I will be happy to consider that too.

 

[flicx]

Cherry pick what I want to ride and try to get the best results?

Isn't that what everyone who does even the slightest bit of planning try to do? What I described is what I would do if I were going to DHS (except that I would probably skip the Muppets). It doesn't matter to me (and I suspect the vast majority of guests on this site) what the standby line at TSMM is at 2 PM because I'm not going to be waiting it.

Tell you what. If you want to claim a victory on an irrelevant point, I agree that the easywdw report says that the average waits for more rides went up than went down. But, the relevant question is how much of a real impact that has on a guest's experience. And I don't think it's that great.

But, you have still not addressed why the easywdw report is the last word on the subject, while you treat the Touring Plans report that came later as irrelevant. That report said that average waits for 15 attractions went down, 8 went up, and 2 stayed the same. Using your logic, why can't someone conclude that standby waits looked at as a whole have gotten LOWER. Maybe even Lake Travis's son would agree with that.

I'm willing to look at both reports, consider their timing and the methods used, and draw a conclusion. And that conclusion is that standby lines are higher at some rides and lower at others and the net result is that it isn't that significant. If someone comes up with more or better data, I will be happy to consider that too.

The touring plans report I saw had no individual ride data just a conclusion. If you have a link that shows the same type of data offered by easywdw I'll gladly look it over. Honestly though if the numbers that Disney uses itself is what easywdw is supposed to get its results from it should show the same thing.

 

[wisblue]

Hang on, I love the assumptions and judgments you make in your reasoning.

People chose NOT to use the FP+ Disney is handing them? Well what if they don't have park tickets until a week before their arrival, or heaven forbid they purchase tickets at the gate the day they arrive. By then FP+ for the most popular attractions are gone or only exist for much later, inconvenient times (during an ADR, in the last hour of park opening, during Fantasmic or whatever other evening entertainment the guest would like to see).

You're logic seems based on the idea that Disney has an express entry FP+ waiting for each and every attraction and each and every guest at each and every time period the day they visit the park. They don't. So now it is the guest's fault because they "chose" not to take advantage of something Disney didn't offer?

I guess those guests should just be prepared the enter the park early every day and stay until park closing so they'd be able to wait about the same amount for each ride. We just conveniently ignore all the wasted hours inbetween waiting for those lines to die down.

I think you're forgetting the average guest who doesn't stay onsite (no advance FP+ booking), doesn't buy tickets in advance and doesn't treat a Disney vacation like a commando conference. Those are the ones who are more likely to be waiting in lines longer because of FP+.

The old system had shorter Standby waits and no early booking of FP. The only difference guests experienced was in that first couple hours of a park opening (or for onsite guests the last couple hours of an EMH). Now we have a much sharper divide between the 60-day preplanner onsite guests vs everyone else.

Every guest has the right to at least 3 FPs, whether they can get them in advance or at the park. By all accounts, with very few exceptions like TSMM and 7DMT, FPs for all rides are available same day. If TSMM is not available, take RNRC and go to TSMM right at opening. Time of day and inconvenient times for FPs do not belong in this discussion because that was a much bigger problem with paper FP when NOBODY could choose a convenient time for anything. You were stuck with what happened to be available when you got to the machine.

Do you really think that the "average guest" has no right to advance FP reservations? I would think that onsite guests and offsite guests that have tickets in advance represent a significant majority of guests.

If nothing else, a vast majority of the posters on this board who dislike FP+ dislike it because of how it affects THEM, and there's nothing wrong with that. Many of them dislike FP+ because it prevents them from getting multiple FPs for their favorite rides and that they might have to spend a little more time in standby lines for secondary attractions. See Lake Travis's post in this thread as an example. I'm not hearing a lot compassion for the poor guests who can't make FP+ reservations in advance and don't have good touring plans, and I wouldn't really expect any.

I guess it's not hard to come up with a profile of a guest who will be significantly and adversely affected by longer standby wait times at some attractions. But, for every one of those, there are probably a lot more who are getting an advantage from their FP+ reservations that more than offsets the occasional longer standby line.

 

[wisblue]

The touring plans report I saw had no individual ride data just a conclusion. If you have a link that shows the same type of data offered by easywdw I'll gladly look it over. Honestly though if the numbers that Disney uses itself is what easywdw is supposed to get its results from it should show the same thing.

Because I posted this link earlier in this thread (see post #78), I guess that shows that you really haven't read what I posted.

But, here it is again:

http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/06/23/fastpass-lowering-waits-disney-world-popular-rides/

I'll be interested in your interpretation of this. But, as I said in that earlier post, you shouldn't expect the results to be identical because they cover a different time period and use a different methodology.

 

[Luckybee]

I've been hearing that more and more.




Wow - my experience in late Nov/early Dec is that IASM was walk on more often than not; I'll be curious to see how that has changed this year.

Our experience was just 2 weeks ago .

The one thing I am finding interesting is the idea that Disney may well be introducing a different amount of fp's on different days. With almost every fp we used (Big thunder being the exception....the big exception ) we had no one at all in front of us...perhaps they were not using enough fp's at the time ?We were not there at a normally busy time and yet most people who were there then(end of Sept early Oct) with the exception of one on these boards noticed much longer standby lines without a serious increase in overall crowd volume, yet 2 weeks later people are saying standby lines are walk ons again. Ive seen various recent crowd videos and if anything at mk it looks more crowded now then when we were there. Could the manipulation of the quantity of fp's be causing these remarkably different experiences ? Food for thought .

 

[flicx]

Because I posted this link earlier in this thread (see post #78), I guess that shows that you really haven't read what I posted.

But, here it is again:

http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/06/23/fastpass-lowering-waits-disney-world-popular-rides/

I'll be interested in your interpretation of this.

As I stated before they don't give you enough numbers to draw a conclusion from. Where are the average wait times from the year before, they are taking into account an attendance increase? How? Those numbers for this year aren't available yet from TEA. Too many areas of unanswered questions for me! They are drawing the conclusions for you not presenting the actual numbers to draw conclusions from. Just as I have stated before. I guess that shows you really haven't read what I posted. Wait I heard that somewhere before.

 

[wisblue]

As I stated before they don't give you enough numbers to draw a conclusion from. Where are the average wait times from the year before, they are taking into account an attendance increase? How? Those numbers for this year aren't available yet from TEA. Too many areas of unanswered questions for me! They are drawing the conclusions for you not presenting the actual numbers to draw conclusions from. Just as I have stated before. I guess that shows you really haven't read what I posted. Wait I heard that somewhere before.

All of the questions you are asking about their methods are addressed in that article. They also say that the attendance adjustment does not have a significant impact on the results.And, why do you need the before and after numbers to accept their conclusions? If they wanted to make up numbers they could make up those too.

I give up with you. If you are going to accept the easywdw report as definitive and reject the later Touring Plans report out of hand, you obviously are not approaching this with an open mind.

 

[flicx]

All of the questions you are asking about their methods are addressed in that article. They also say that the attendance adjustment does not have a significant impact on the results.And, why do you need the before and after numbers to accept their conclusions? If they wanted to make up numbers they could make up those too.

I give up with you. If you are going to accept the easywdw report as definitive and reject the later Touring Plans report out of hand, you obviously are not approaching this with an open mind.

Touring plans site makes to many assumptions for me. Have nice evening!

 

[Planogirl]

For us it had the opposite effect . We waited in lines less than we did prior to fp+. Although we did get most of the rides we wanted we had to do so over a longer period of time ie; we actually had to go to MK 3 times(including 1 emh night) in order to accomplish what we wanted without crazy lines. The upside is we spent a lot less time in the parks than usual and we were more like 3 or 4 then done. Gave us more time to do other things like Universal and the Mall at millennia
On any of the 3 visits when we tried to utilize the kiosks we could never get anything we wanted. All of which is why we would never go back unless we have at least a week in Orlando because, as I said in another post, when we have to have waited 45 minutes for its a small world (had we chose to have waited) is when it is time for us to find something else to do.

I see this new system as a distinct advantage if you want to visit Universal and other attractions. I saw us as spending the day at Universal and visiting say MK at night to ride our three attractions. I wouldn't do this every day but I could see us doing it a few days here and there.

 

[Planogirl]

Interesting discussion about wait times. I see that one has to decide whether touring plans or Josh know what they're doing because the results differ. Personally I'll go with Josh but of YMMV.

 

[cakebaker]

Touring plans site makes to many assumptions for me. Have nice evening!

Of course it does. Lol

They don't for me- so as far as I'm concerned the increase in overall standby waits have not increased enough to cause any issues whatsoever. Both sites support that position.