Considered answers please...

[redrosesix]

I'd just like to thank those who have taken the time to reply. My question was in no way biased towards only wanting positive replies. I've never really been one for using FP's of the legacy or + kind. I am genuinely interested in how people feel their trips have been impacted.

I visited the world last week staying off site and used on day booking for MK only...the rest of the time I stood in SB lines or RD'd or single rider. As an on the day booker I had a 6 hour gap between my 2nd and 3rd FP+ so we hopped to another park for a while then came back. It was much busier than I expected and I was a little disappointed not to be able to ride Soarin more than once and the day I did do it the line was much longer than the posted 70 mins due to FP+ priority.

I can see both positives and negatives to FP+, none of us want an imposed limit put on us???whether we have historically used FP or not. What I'm looking forward to is my 14 nights in September where I can fully test out how F+ will impact our holiday.

This is us too -- FP- didn't make or break our vacation so same with FP+. But it is frustrating if you try to use them and either the system or everything else around you is not working properly, like ADRs, bus schedules, ride closures etc.

The one that worked the best for us was surprisingly for F! -- just like when you get the dinner package, you don't have to wait in the seats or in a line an hour before...just to get into it, let alone getting good seats. I think if you try to look at it as a free perk, it matters less if you have to miss them and/or can't change them when circumstances work against you. Our family feels that if there was more to do ie more rides or increased capacity, the FPs would be a nice thing to have.

 

[JennyDrake]

I am just back and I had a trip in December.

The MK was the biggest change for me--as I go to WDW 3-4 times per year, I will rarely wait in a line that is over 30 min. Once I had my FP+ attractions, every other line was 45-60 min, except IASSW, which was an unheard of 30 min. I was with a friend who doesn't do RD, so in the future, RD will be mandatory (for me) to optimize the number of attractions I can enjoy and once the waits become long, I'll do what I did last time and leave for Epcot.

I am solo or with another adult, so I never had runners for family FP situations.

 

[icecrystahl]

My family and I have been visiting WDW together since me and my siblings were babies in the 90s(I'm 22 now). We just returned from our first post-FP+ trip(2/28-5/5) so I have a lot to get off my chest about how I feel about it and how it changed my Disney experience.

Let me start off by saying that we were huge fans of the legacy fp system and took full advantage of it, garnering plenty of passes each day and definitely always made the most of our trips. Usually me and my siblings would get to the parks at rope drop, ride the e-ticket rides and grab fastpasses for my parents to ride later(They always liked to take their time and get to the parks when they felt like it). So by the time my parents would meet up with us it would be time for them to use their fp's, allowing us to get more. It was cycle like that, where we'd pretty much get to ride the bigger attractions in the morning, explore, eat, and ride smaller rides in the early afternoon, leave the parks when it got too hot or too crowded and just relaxed at the resort until we felt like coming back and getting to use whatever other fp's we picked up before leaving the parks. We also park hopped a lot and I've even done all of Disney in 2 days and felt like I got to see/experience almost everything thanks to FP's and park hopping. Whether we took it slow or crammed as much into a quick trip as possible, I always felt satisfied and happy with my Disney experience.

NOW, this new FP+ trip was verrry different. First-off, we travelled with another family making us a group of 12. We were also all on the DDP. Obviously I was bummed about the idea of FP+ for the obvious reasons of only 3 choices per day, tiering, and just the loss of spontaneity. But what I didn't really expect was the non-eticket rides to have much longer waits then ever. I didn't ride SO many attractions that I usually get to walk straight on. This is my biggest complaint, THE STANDBY LINES! They were just way longer than normal for this time of year and for the types of rides.

We missed a lot of our FP+s because of dining conflicts. And then once we missed them, there were no times left to reschedule for. It was very disappointing. I've never missed so many attractions during a stay, especially a 4 1/2 day one. I'm used to riding/seeing nearly everything and multiple times too. I was so stressed the entire trip because we were such a large group it was hard to all plan what rides and what parks to do. And all wait times were beyond ridiculous for the time of year it was. I blame FP+.

I will say, the FP+ lines were very short(besides Soarin', where we waited 30 minutes), and I liked how you could quickly and easily choose the FP+s on the app.

Overall, It changed my experience for the worst, I felt stressed and like I was missing out on something the whole time, I didn't do nearly as much park hopping as usual, barely went back to the resort to rest because there was always either a FP+ reservation or dinner reservation to get to and I also was trying to actually enjoy the parks! I felt the least in control of my trip than ever and it was a sad feeling. I miss the legacy FP days, they seem so simple and sweet to me now.

I do hope they make improvements to the system and that I'll one day feel like I'm in control of my trip once again!

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I'm so sad to hear the SB lines have gone risen dramatically. I knew that would happen.

My very first trip with my kids was such a miserable disaster before FP-. I had lunch and dinner reservations and little ones with NO INTEREST in doing RD. Walking with the stroller going from one ride to the next with SB lines too long to ride anything. Dumbo's line was so long it wound past the carousel to Snow White.

Low crowd times, when we didn't need FP at all might be fine. But I can predict, all of Soarin' FP+ will be gone before the park opens during peak and even at RD Soarin' with its FP's now starting at 9AM will start the day at 9AM with an hour wait.

 

[Goldilocks07]

Now that Legacy FP has been gone for a while I'd like to ask those of you that have been to the world how your experience has changed? I know there are a fair amount of people who are adverse to change and those who were determined that FP+ would be detrimental.....but my question is more about how different a legacy free trip was for you and yours. More stress or more relaxed than your previous trips?

Did you spend more time together rather than one person always running off to get the next FP? Did you have a massively different trip to your previous ones? Did you see/find/experience things you'd missed before?

I'm interested to know whether people were surprised at how much or little time that they were in lines. Essentially what impact has the removal of Legacy FP had on you....truthful answers about how you spent your time please....not ones that just say it was worse because I couldn't ride TOT 10 times a day!

Here's my experience:
The first time we used the FP+ system was last October, and it was STRESSFUL. I love the planning process, but found myself mentally exhausted and stressed out by the time I got to WDW. At the time, we were traveling with a 2.5 year old, and at the time of PLANNING she was 2. So trying to figure out what her schedule would be MONTHS in advance was horrible and stressful. Anyone with children will tell you they change every few months so that really made planning annoying.
Yes, you can change your FP selections via the app, but as a planner, I just wanted everything done, and didn't want any surprises.

Fast-forward to our current trip, we just got back yesterday (March 7).
This trip was A BREEZE. Our DD is now 3, and as long as I planned things in the early part of the day and/or second half of the day, I was in the clear. I know that around lunch time is no good, she usually passes out around then from all the activity she's doing. I was able to choose what was a priority, pick the times, and we were done. The return window was reasonable, and the one time we were off by a few minutes (on the Safari ride at AK) the CMs didn't care one bit and let us through.

Overall- because I was able to preselect our FPs, I went into the park MORE RELAXED. I didn't have to run all over the place collecting paper passes, losing KTTW key cards and fumbling for the paper passes- I found it a lot easier. We never had issues with the app, well, until we were at EPCOT and it was pouring rain- but turns out that the rides were all walk-on. I could have gone to any of the FP location help kiosks, but didn't need to because the park was quiet.

I like FP+ and the Magic Bands. They are easy, convenient, I don't have to worry about credit cards or losing the paper passes.