At the park now, FP+ lines are snaking through the park

[bcrook]

Now this is valuable, and terrible, information ....

 

[huhwhat]

Only in WDW could a 2 hour wait be considered a fast pass !!!!!!!!

 

[MermaidMommy]

Our upcoming trip is for the second week in March -- the first week of Spring Break -- which is predicted to be crowd level 9. The crowds will be bigger than they are today, and, with it only being a few weeks away, there's not much they could change to prevent even larger lines and waits than today. President's Day is a couple days of high crowds, and then it will settle down, but I'm dreading to see what happens with an entire week of crowd 9's.

Usually I love planning for my Disney trips almost as much as I love going, but I can't remember ever being less excited for a trip than this one. I resent paying thousands of dollars to be Disney's guinea pig during their "test."

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Haven't finished reading the thread yet, but it's getting late so I just wanted to point out that this year Mardi Gras is much later than President's Day, so the Gulf Coast crowds aren't there this weekend like they would be normally.

 

[PirateD]

Here are some I found.

https://twitter.com/mist3rm4tt/status/435501713311936513/photo/1
https://twitter.com/spchampion/status/435480451554480128/photo/1
https://twitter.com/kelbelle/status/434800115619217408/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Libsterdoodles/status/434803700113346560/photo/1

And one for the kiosk line

https://twitter.com/AutismAtThePark/status/435090271441661952/photo/1

I have stood in that FP line for TT before only it was on New Year's Eve 2011. Since New Year's is the 10 of all 10's, we weren't too upset by it. We actually laughed about the FP line being so long because it was the exception to all of the experiences we had ever had even during that busy week. Now it looks like more the norm for any FP during any holiday. What a shame!

 

[Tomh]

Disney's new slogan to be immediately posted at every FP+ line:

"At least you're not shoveling snow. Deal with it."

Can't wait to see that in the park!

 

[leebee]

This is why until they improve FP+ you will find me on my next trip, at Epcot, World Showcase, FPing thru some drinks If anyone wants to join me come on over.

Honestly, the day my sister-in-law turned 21 and we could eat and drink our way around the WS together was my favorite WDW day ever, lol

I will be doing the same, but I think I am going to JUST miss you

May 2 - 16 ...

This is what we are doing for DD's 21st birthday in October- extra fun as it's during the food and wine festival! Hopefully this FP+ nonsense will be sorted out by then.

 

[Planogirl]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet...

We usually visited during hot summer months in the past. I wouldn't love the idea of standing outside in the heat in long FP lines. At least if you waited inside it was (usually) cooler.

 

[perkinsrose]

I think shoveling snow might be preferable to standing in a FP+ line.

Seriously???

Come to Michigan with history making snowfall. I just looked out this morning and the thankfully the snowplow came by my street but now I have not hope of getting out of my drive to work until I shovel and shovel and shovel...

Standing in land amidst the magic in Florida weather sounds a bit better

 

[perkinsrose]

Disney's new slogan to be immediately posted at every FP+ line:

"At least you're not shoveling snow. Deal with it."

 

[lucyem]

So let me get this straight. Many Disney workers told us that the limit of 3 Fast Passes with FP+ was because studies showed that the average guest only used 1.3 FPs a day. So, they give us 3 a day, essentially doubling the number the average guest used. Then, they did what they could to get the word out so that more people would use the system. Then, they allowed more FPs than they have in the past for any given ride. BUT they put nothing in place to help with crowd or line management? What could possibly go wrong?

This.

Reminds me (slightly and on a much smaller scale) of a local food store. You need to be a member and have a number. You could speak the number to the cashier. As of Feb 1 they started a rule you had to have your card and could not say your number. Probably a good things because if you get the number wrong someone else got credit for the food you bought and got the cash back at the end of the year. The board thought that maybe at most a couple hundred people would need new cards. In reality over 10,000+ members so far needed new cards. And if you did not have a card yet you had to wait at the front desk to have a temp card made. Front desk was not happy. Members not happy. Board surprised and now having to pay for all these cards. I was there last week and they are still allowing people to say their numbers.

The point is the upper management has an idea. Maybe in the long term a good idea. But it seems like there was some disconnect between the great idea, current situation and implementation. I'd like to spend a day at the park with one of these "managers".

I hated FP+ at first. Now I see some benefits. But I still prefer the old way. Nothing is perfect. And long term, with some more rides/tweaking it could work out. We will deal and have a good vacation. But this totally changes how we go to WDW. I do hate all the preplanning. I hate the loss of spontaneity. If we did not have PAP's this year we would not have gone in Dec and we would not be going in April. I still want to cancel the April trip but was outvoted. Due to the late Easter I expect it will be an interesting trip with crowds. I also expect to spend little time in the parks. Lots more water park time this trip and my oldest is a Quest fanatic so he is already excited. They are waving another good DVC PAP deal at us and I am seriously thinking we will skip it and go elsewhere next year.

As for shoveling, well I'd rather stand in line at TSMM for 200+ minutes.

 

[maybeecatlady]

No FP+ required to shovel my snow. No wait.

Same here! My kids are on their 13th day of cancelled school in the last 6 weeks.

 

[mom2rtk]

The crazy thing is... There are no solutions. This whole problem is shortage of rides. By increasing the percentage of people using the system to 90%, they can now only further ration rides. There simply isn't enough capacity.

This is what I meant on previous occasions when I mentioned that Disney had let the FP Genie out of the bottle. There's just no going back. All they can do now is just deal with it. And it's clear they are short on the one thing that will fix it.......... more ride capacity. And there's not enough in the pipeline to fix this any time soon.

In addition to the uneducated, now fastpass users are competing with people who chose not to get in early enough to grab fastpasses, they are in play now (with advance online). And people who never even wanted fastpasses are given three and now they are perceived as paid for entitlements that they are not going to waste.

This would be a fantastic system if capacity was doubled in each park and attendance didn't increase. But with 40,000 people showing up to the three "minor" parks and 70,000+ rolling into MK with the current limited ride selection, the numbers can't possibly work out. Even with an 80% FP allotment. The parks don't even have three FP to give out to 40000 guests counting everything in the park.

Yes to all of that! And I might add that the problem really started with FP time enforcement. It used to be that if you came back and the line was crazy long, you could just come back later. In that way it was self-regulating. Not so any more. When it takes half of your window just to get through the line, there isn't any wiggle room left at all!

How did the imagineers miss the memo to HIDE the FP lines from view?

For this reason, I predict there is no way we will ever see FP+ at DLR! Even less room to hide the lines there.

I wonder how many more FP's are actually being used now compared to the old system? Before it was nice to have in hand but if you were getting tired you might leave the park figuring you could do it again the next day. Now, after planning weeks in advance you're darn well going to keep those tired kids at the park and use your FP's!

Spot on!

There definitely seems to be some signs of over allocation of FP's. I hope the next tweak isn't going to be decreasing FP's to 2 per person because everyone keeps using them.

I'm concerned about how bad the lines are. But I'm also concerned about what Disney proposes to "FIX" the problem. Because I'm pretty sure even the Fairy Godmother won't be able to conjure up ride capacity fast enough to fix this turkey.

Not sure if I can link to another site here, but this is a blog with comments from 2011 about the longest FP lines people waited in. To be fair, most mentioned Soarin and some mentioned ride malfunctions as a cause but Splash, Space and Toy Story Mania also got mentions of long FP lines without those kinds of issues.

http://www.themeparkinsider.com/news/response.cfm?ID=945508447

What was notable about the pictures and stories from yesterday is that they included lines to Jungle Cruise, Star Tours and the kiosk line itself.

 

[surferdave]

New WDW slogan: "FastPass Plus -- It's better than being set on fire!"

What WDW is better than varies wildly from "It's waaay better than Universal because MAGIC!" to "Hey, at least that's better than shoveling snow in my driveway."

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

Seeing some talk about the PR from all of this, I thought I would check out what was being said on Disney's facebook page. When I pull the page up, the reviews are gone. I can't find the place where you could read all the reviews. Now my computer and facebook has been acting a bit wonky so it very well could just be on my end. But if that really is the case then that could be very telling in what they believe guest satisfaction is right now. Maybe some others could check the page to see what they find.

 

[mom2rtk]

What WDW is better than varies wildly from "It's waaay better than Universal because MAGIC!" to "Hey, at least that's better than shoveling snow in my driveway."

I now see another way MM+ can save Disney more money. They can now lay off their entire marketing staff and just use the DIS!

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

Something I noticed on my recent trip was that there were lines for rides I had never seen rides for before. Remember, this was the last week in January which is supposed to be a dead time. It seemed like FP+ made it so people were riding rides that they didn't normally ride (which I'm sure Disney wanted). The only problem is, that ended up making lines for rides. So, adding Fast Pass+ to something like Imagination seems great when you think about how now people will actually ride it. Then you realize that those people with FP+ are going to end up backing up the stand by line creating a wait for that ride. And it might actually take people from, for example, the Soarin' line, but that just knocks the wait from Soarin' from 80 minutes to 65 minutes and increases Imagination from a walk-on to a 10-15 minute wait. Well, most people who aren't willing to wait 80 minutes for Soarin' aren't willing to wait 65, either and now, those who were used to a walk-on Imagination are going to think a 10-15 minute wait is ridiculous. Now there are two rides they don't want to do because they think the line is outrageous and they are likely to say, "This is nuts. Let's just go back to the hotel." And when people are at the hotel, they are usually swimming, hanging out in their room, or playing the games that are going on at the pool. That's not making Disney money.

 

[Vidia2]

Seeing some talk about the PR from all of this, I thought I would check out what was being said on Disney's facebook page. When I pull the page up, the reviews are gone. I can't find the place where you could read all the reviews. Now my computer and facebook has been acting a bit wonky so it very well could just be on my end. But if that really is the case then that could be very telling in what they believe guest satisfaction is right now. Maybe some others could check the page to see what they find.

I don't see the reviews either. If people have something to say, they'll start posting in the comments. Can they delete negative ones? I rarely use FB so I don't know much about that.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

I don't see the reviews either. If people have something to say, they'll start posting in the comments. Can they delete negative ones? I rarely use FB so I don't know much about that.

You can delete any comment you want from your own facebook page. You can also ban someone from commenting again. Disney deletes negative reviews from their website so I'm betting they also delete the negatives from their facebook page.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

I don't see the reviews either. If people have something to say, they'll start posting in the comments. Can they delete negative ones? I rarely use FB so I don't know much about that.

I manage the facebook page for my DS's school PTO. Post are very easy to delete. Just hit the little "x". I own a business and have a facebook page for it also. I am unable to do anything about reviews. I couldn't even find out who left a 1 star review. I tried because I had hoped to approach that customer to make things better. Of course, the rules could be very different for a big business like Disney.

Anyone one want to try and leave a bad post about FP+ and see if Disney deletes it??