are there more FPs available under the new system?

[Hobbes]

Under the (good old) paper fastpass system, only a certain number of FPs per day were available for each ride. (Or so I understood) Under the new system are lots more available? I can't think of any other reason why the stand by line should increase so dramatically.

 

[Robo]

Under the (good old) paper fastpass system, only a certain number of FPs per day were available for each ride. (Or so I understood) Under the new system are lots more available? I can't think of any other reason why the stand by line should increase so dramatically.

Many observers say that Disney has increased the number of FP's per attraction,
but no hard numbers or official announcement have been made known.

Also, they have added FP+ to many attractions that did not offer (nor need) FP before
the new system began.

 

[Disneylover99]

I've been wondering about this as well. I bet they offer a lot more fp's per attraction now with FP+.

I'm sure there are a lot of people ignoring their fp's for the less popular attractions, so I was sort of thinking they could allow an unlimited amount of people to book fp's for Figment or Captain EO.

 

[RhodyJim]

Most importantly, there are only three attractions that people personally can use FP+, so they have to use standby more often. This is especially true in the tiered parks, where you can only get on headliner. You must use the standby for the other headliner(s).

 

[carebee21]

Based on what I have seen, yes, they have increased the number of FPs they're offering for each ride. But I think they're still testing how many people keep their reservation times, how many people miss it and how many people they can shove through that line each hour while still keeping the FP+ line fairly fast moving. I suspect they may decrease the numbers for some of the attractions, as the lines, even the FP+ ones, are getting quite long.

 

[Disneylover99]

Based on what I have seen, yes, they have increased the number of FPs they're offering for each ride. But I think they're still testing how many people keep their reservation times, how many people miss it and how many people they can shove through that line each hour while still keeping the FP+ line fairly fast moving. I suspect they may decrease the numbers for some of the attractions, as the lines, even the FP+ ones, are getting quite long.

I bet they also have to keep increasing/decreasing the ratio of FP people to standby people depending on how empty or crowded the FP lines get.

 

[ucfknight]

I bet they also have to keep increasing/decreasing the ratio of FP people to standby people depending on how empty or crowded the FP lines get.

Three times now, I've personally experienced the FP line being so long they basically cutoff the standby line for a time.

A few weeks ago, we had a Tower of Terror FP+. When we arrived, the FP line was backed up all the way past the first Mickey scanners. This wasn't a backup to scan MagicBands at that first scanner, the line was solid all the way into the hotel. The standby line was much, much shorter (it was only out to the very first dry fountain on the porch area) with a 20 minute posted wait.
They made an announcement saying something to the effect of "Due to an overwhelming number of prior reservations, your wait time to check-in at the Hollywood Tower Hotel will be longer than originally anticipated. We apologize for the inconvenience".
From that point, the FP line was the only one that moved. It took us 10 minutes to get to a pre-show room in the FP line. During that time, I never saw the standby line move even a foot.
By the time we got off the ride, we looked and saw the standby line now showing 45 minutes instead of 20.


A couple of days later, the same thing happened at BTMRR. The FP return queue was solid people all the way down the hill and out past the first scanners. There was even a queue line of about 50 people snaked outside just to even get to the scanners. It probably took us 3 to 4 minutes just to scan our bands for the first time. Meanwhile, the standby line was all of the way up inside the building and the wait was posted as 30 minutes.
After we got past the first scanner, we were standing at the bottom of the hill in the FP line and I overheard several people walking up the hill in the standby line wondering if they were in the wrong line since the FP line was just a solid queue all the way out of the door. One girl even told her father to turn around and go back down because they must have accidentally gotten into the FP line somehow.
There were no announcements this time, but all of a sudden the FP line started moving quickly. I don't think they let any standby guests past the merge point until the FP line was cleared. We ended up only waiting about 10 minutes total. By the time we got off the ride, the roles were reversed and the standby line was stretched to the bottom of the hill while people getting into the FP line were walking right up into the building.


Then, just last week, the same thing happened at Soarin'. Standby was posted as 75 minutes when we got into the FP line. The FP line was backed up so far we stopped before even getting to the area where the giant screens are in the standby line. The end of the standby line was about even with the first screen at that time. Not long after getting in the FP line, they made an announcement apologizing for the fact that the estimated wait time was being increased to 100 minutes. After that, they didn't completely cutoff the standby line, but I would estimated they were letting in at least 50 FP guests for every 2 standby guests. We ended up waiting 15 minutes before getting to the second Mickey scanner, and about 20 minutes total.

 

[Meriweather]

I didn't make any Fast Pass + reservations until we got there and still was able to get TSMM and Illuminations. It didn't seem to be a problem.

 

[SleepDoctor]

I think a many of the initial reactions to increased standby times are due to simultaneously running both the legacy FP along with FP+. Ride capacity for any given attraction is pretty much fixed (i.e. a ride can only accomodate XXX number of people per hour) regardless of FP or not. With all parks and attractions now using FP+ for both resort guests and offsite guests, you should expect to see crowd patterns change along with the standby wait times.

 

[Disneylover99]

Three times now, I've personally experienced the FP line being so long they basically cutoff the standby line for a time.

A few weeks ago, we had a Tower of Terror FP+. When we arrived, the FP line was backed up all the way past the first Mickey scanners. This wasn't a backup to scan MagicBands at that first scanner, the line was solid all the way into the hotel. The standby line was much, much shorter (it was only out to the very first dry fountain on the porch area) with a 20 minute posted wait.
They made an announcement saying something to the effect of "Due to an overwhelming number of prior reservations, your wait time to check-in at the Hollywood Tower Hotel will be longer than originally anticipated. We apologize for the inconvenience".
From that point, the FP line was the only one that moved. It took us 10 minutes to get to a pre-show room in the FP line. During that time, I never saw the standby line move even a foot.
By the time we got off the ride, we looked and saw the standby line now showing 45 minutes instead of 20.


A couple of days later, the same thing happened at BTMRR. The FP return queue was solid people all the way down the hill and out past the first scanners. There was even a queue line of about 50 people snaked outside just to even get to the scanners. It probably took us 3 to 4 minutes just to scan our bands for the first time. Meanwhile, the standby line was all of the way up inside the building and the wait was posted as 30 minutes.
After we got past the first scanner, we were standing at the bottom of the hill in the FP line and I overheard several people walking up the hill in the standby line wondering if they were in the wrong line since the FP line was just a solid queue all the way out of the door. One girl even told her father to turn around and go back down because they must have accidentally gotten into the FP line somehow.
There were no announcements this time, but all of a sudden the FP line started moving quickly. I don't think they let any standby guests past the merge point until the FP line was cleared. We ended up only waiting about 10 minutes total. By the time we got off the ride, the roles were reversed and the standby line was stretched to the bottom of the hill while people getting into the FP line were walking right up into the building.


Then, just last week, the same thing happened at Soarin'. Standby was posted as 75 minutes when we got into the FP line. The FP line was backed up so far we stopped before even getting to the area where the giant screens are in the standby line. The end of the standby line was about even with the first screen at that time. Not long after getting in the FP line, they made an announcement apologizing for the fact that the estimated wait time was being increased to 100 minutes. After that, they didn't completely cutoff the standby line, but I would estimated they were letting in at least 50 FP guests for every 2 standby guests. We ended up waiting 15 minutes before getting to the second Mickey scanner, and about 20 minutes total.

I will most definitely be avoiding standby lines at the more popular attractions mid-day. That's for sure.

 

[shalom]

I suspect they may decrease the numbers for some of the attractions, as the lines, even the FP+ ones, are getting quite long.

I think they'll be fiddling with that for some time to come. Going in, they could only make educated guesses about a lot of the rides that didn't have FPs under the legacy system -- estimates on how many people would actually use those FPs, along with estimates on how that would influence the legacy FP rides. The fact that people could "double dip" until legacy FPs were entirely phased out made those numbers suspect, although probably less so with first timers.

But it's only since the change over to FP+ only that the data has been very solid, so it's early days yet. I don't think they're going to make any serious changes until they get a good baseline, and would guess they're hoping to use the spring break crowds to get everything shaken out for summer. There are people saying the spring break will demonstrate whether it's going to work or not; I'm not so sure.

Of course Disney hopes it'll be going smoothly by then, and hopefully in terms of the IT stuff it is. But traffic patterns are a much more complex thing to be playing with than computer systems, because computers are a lot more predictable. Traffic patterns depend on people's choices, and companies can't always predict why people chose what they choose. For instance, people will lobby for another road somewhere that's high traffic, but adding a new road often brings in more traffic, meaning the new road is even busier than the old one was!

OTOH, taking out a heavily trafficked road can cut the number of people on the roads during rush hour, and relieve traffic stress all across the system. Since a (to me) high percentage of people on the roads at rush hour don't "have" to be (they're not there because they're heading into or out of work or in any other sense tied to a schedule), theory is that cutting back the number of roads actually encourages them to stay home during rush hour or to otherwise work around it (dawdle in town instead of heading home at five, for instance). Disney understands pedestrian traffic about as well as anybody, but that doesn't change the fact that traffic is tricky. They've just added a ton of variables to their traffic system, and I think it's going to take them a while to figure out what variable is connected to this or that result.

 

[Queen2PrincessG]

Well to me its not there that is more its just that they are better organized and so it gives more opportunity to get one.

 

[Disneylover99]

OTOH, taking out a heavily trafficked road can cut the number of people on the roads during rush hour, and relieve traffic stress all across the system. Since a (to me) high percentage of people on the roads at rush hour don't "have" to be (they're not there because they're heading into or out of work or in any other sense tied to a schedule), theory is that cutting back the number of roads actually encourages them to stay home during rush hour or to otherwise work around it (dawdle in town instead of heading home at five, for instance). Disney understands pedestrian traffic about as well as anybody, but that doesn't change the fact that traffic is tricky. They've just added a ton of variables to their traffic system, and I think it's going to take them a while to figure out what variable is connected to this or that result.

Tricky is right! I can see this being in "test" mode for years.

 

[shalom]

Tricky is right! I can see this being in "test" mode for years.

I don't expect it'll be that long. When it comes to pedestrians, Disney knows more about traffic management than anybody. But they do need data to work with, and they may need to change things to clarify that data ("is this happening because of x, or because of y? Let's change x first, then if that doesn't work, reset x and change y").

Doesn't look like offsiters will be registering before-day-of with FP+ until April, so some of the spring break crowds are going to hit before the thing's even fully implemented. I'm sure Disney's hope is to have it pretty much figured out before the summer crowds hit. Whether they'll make that, I dunno. But I would guess it'll be a matter of months, not years, before they're down to the kind of fine tuning guests won't even notice.

Guests just need Disney to minimize chaos; that's the part Disney needs to get down ASAP. Just keeping the FP line moving while giving accurate wait times for the standby line will make a huge difference in guest experience.

 

[doconeill]

Anecdotally (as Robo mentioned, Disney has never released numbers and we don't expect them to) they increased the number of Fastpasses offered some time before they started testing Fastpass+ itself.

Although they could reduce it again, especially now that they don't have to carry both systems, they may find it difficult as they need to at least give guests options for booking FP+ in advance, and if you still can't get at least some of their desired choices, the system will fall apart...

 

[photo_chick]

Three times now, I've personally experienced the FP line being so long they basically cutoff the standby line for a time.

This happened on our last trip a couple times, which was before FP+ was even being tested, so it's not a new occurence.