Disappearing FP+ - Actual experiences

[mom2faith]

Looking for ACTUAL experiences of Disappearing FP+. Please do not post "I heard" or "I saw".

I am trying to determine how often it happens and what Disney did (or did not do) about it. I also am curious if we are just passing around the same story over and over again.

I also want to know if it happened Pre-Trip on At the Parks.

I am hoping this does not turn into a debate about FP+ and the Pros & Cons of FP+. We all know how we feel and why we feel that way. But this is what Disney is offering now and it is our job to determine strategies to work with it. There are plenty of threads that debate FP+. This Thread is to determine how often this happens and what was done (or not done) to correct it.

In Park Account (Third Party with link)
Here is an in park account of "Disappearing FP+". It is good and bad - good there was a resolution, bad was the insinuation of fraud.
Inside the Magic Experience


My personal Pre-Trip Experience

About 2 weeks ago I logged on to the website and everything was gone. I then logged on to the MDE app and same thing. I posted here to see if this was a update glitch, but it was not.
I called IT and 45 minutes later it was fixed. However, there was no explanation as to why they disappeared. They were gone and then they were back.

Prior to this experience I thought FP+ was AWESOME. It cannot get any better than this - pre-booking, pre-planning and then enjoying the trip. Now I am checking daily to see if they are still there. It is way more stressful!

I wrote to Disney two days ago:
What did I do if my Fastpass+ disappear again? This has happened and
took a lengthy call to IT to correct it. I heard that if they
"disappear" Disney will not honor them even if it is a
computer glitch. How do I ensure this does not happen to me again?

Here is their response:
Dear XXX,

Thank you for contacting the Walt Disney World® Resort. We are delighted
to hear of your upcoming visit with us!

We do apologize for the challenges you are facing with your Fastpass
Plus selections. While there is no way to guarantee that it won't happen
again, we would recommend that you contact our Internet Help Desk at
(407) 939-7765. We are open 7 days a week, 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M.
eastern time. One of our Cast Members will be happy to assist.

Again, we do apologize for this inconvenience, and hope that the issue
has been resolved.

We look forward to your arrival, and we know you will have a Fantastic
time with us!

If you have questions or need further assistance, feel free to contact
us.

Have a very Magical Day!

So, that leads me to this thread.

How often is this happening and what is Disney doing.

Again, please post your actual experience.

Thank you!

 

[BridgetR3]

This is older news I suppose because it happened Thanksgiving week 2013 and a lot has changed since then.

We had about 4-5 FP+ reservations disappear on our Thanksgiving trip. Each time we would simply show a screen shot of that days fast pass OR even open up the app and show that it was there for that person and we were allowed to go on the ride. I have heard recently though that screenshots no longer work for that so I'm not sure what we would do if we lost our FP+ res again.

 

[jimim]

Looking for ACTUAL experiences of Disappearing FP+. Please do not post "I heard" or "I saw". I am trying to determine how often it happens and what Disney did (or did not do) about it. I also am curious if we are just passing around the same story over and over again. I also want to know if it happened Pre-Trip on At the Parks. I am hoping this does not turn into a debate about FP+ and the Pros & Cons of FP+. We all know how we feel and why we feel that way. But this is what Disney is offering now and it is our job to determine strategies to work with it. There are plenty of threads that debate FP+. This Thread is to determine how often this happens and what was done (or not done) to correct it. In Park Account (Third Party with link) Here is an in park account of "Disappearing FP+". It is good and bad - good there was a resolution, bad was the insinuation of fraud. Inside the Magic Experience My personal Pre-Trip Experience About 2 weeks ago I logged on to the website and everything was gone. I then logged on to the MDE app and same thing. I posted here to see if this was a update glitch, but it was not. I called IT and 45 minutes later it was fixed. However, there was no explanation as to why they disappeared. They were gone and then they were back. Prior to this experience I thought FP+ was AWESOME. It cannot get any better than this - pre-booking, pre-planning and then enjoying the trip. Now I am checking daily to see if they are still there. It is way more stressful! I wrote to Disney two days ago: What did I do if my Fastpass+ disappear again? This has happened and took a lengthy call to IT to correct it. I heard that if they "disappear" Disney will not honor them even if it is a computer glitch. How do I ensure this does not happen to me again? Here is their response: Dear XXX, Thank you for contacting the Walt Disney World® Resort. We are delighted to hear of your upcoming visit with us! We do apologize for the challenges you are facing with your Fastpass Plus selections. While there is no way to guarantee that it won't happen again, we would recommend that you contact our Internet Help Desk at (407) 939-7765. We are open 7 days a week, 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. eastern time. One of our Cast Members will be happy to assist. Again, we do apologize for this inconvenience, and hope that the issue has been resolved. We look forward to your arrival, and we know you will have a Fantastic time with us! If you have questions or need further assistance, feel free to contact us. Have a very Magical Day! So, that leads me to this thread. How often is this happening and what is Disney doing. Again, please post your actual experience. Thank you!

I'll post what has been actively happening to me. I'm in the parks now and when I'm on my phone I only see certain people having fast passes. Meaning sat I have 4 people for the safari. It only shows that I have 1 person. This makes it diff to remember what people have what fast passes. They are always for the past 4 days showing that one person has a fast pass for each ride. Had been the case all week. Also I had 7 fast passes for Elsa and Anna. All overlapping. Probelm was only one was coming up so I had to go to a cast member and go on the computer to check the overlap. Pain. They said there have been a lot of glitches the past few weeks with the app.

Those are my right now facts. Back to the safari. Showed only one person had it bit when all 9 of us checked our bands we found out which 4 actually had it. So they were deff still in the system just not showing on the app properly.

Personally I think the app is useless in the park. Way too slow on wifi and my data. I pull up our fast pass list for each day in the room on my phone so I at least know the times and do t move it from that page till we use them so I remember the times.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[gonnago]

When we were there last week our BTMR FP+ just disappeared have no clue as to why that happened but it did and no we didn't try at the ride to see if it would work it just disappeared on our MDE app and never gave us another FP+ so we just lost one.

 

[PlutoTheDog89]

This happened to me Christmas week. We decided later than usual to do our trip. As part of the agreement, I took the reigns this year to book and plan everything (and will be taking over once again this year.)

I'm incredibly detail-oriented. I even bought a cork board to list every reservation and FP+. Between the high-crowd levels and the new FP+ and MDE features, I knew this was necessary.

I did everything right and I was tremendously dedicated to getting my family set up and reserving everything. Reservations were booked and I was up at 12am every night to book our FP+ within the 60-day window.

During the trip, I started to notice some glitches. Like a previous poster mentioned, I started to see some FP+'s missing. I would just "copy" over the FP+ to the other members of the family and we never had a problem checking in.

On the third or fourth day of our trip we had a bit more complicated reservations. We would spend the day at DHS. My mom and dad do not go on rides like RnR or ToT, so my sister and I would capitalize on their MB to get double the FP+.

We went on RnR successfully to start the day. My parents met up with us and we had a FP+ for the entire family on TSMM. Walking over I checked the app. All of our reservations were gone. I knew that the app had been glitching, but my immediate instinct was that our ONLY FP+ for TSMM was gone. I wasn't sure if Disney had "caught on" to my sister and me using my parents MB, or if there was a system-wide problem. Regardless, I was furious.

My family acted like it was no big deal. The line was already at 110 minutes (as usual during Xmas week) and growing. The FastPasses were gone. I freaked out. It resulted in my family getting aggravated with me (they didn't understand how much I planned the trip!!)

Finally I checked back around 30 minutes later and they were back. But the morning was ruined and my family was aggravated with each other.

Anyway, the glitches are normal. It's a new beta and it's bound to happen.... But I'll give you an example. I used to work in search media buying for an agency. My client was a Fortune 100 wireless phone company. A certain popular search engine was launching a new Beta and sold us on it. There was a glitch which led to my client losing a lot of data (marketing results, not consumer data, etc.) Anyway, the Search Engine was quick to fix it and refund my clients... but the glitch was not forgotten.

If you're that Search Engine or Disney and you're THAT big, and you know that clients (or consumers) are investing and buying into your product, you better make sure it's perfect - beta or finished product.

 

[Julylady]

I was at WDW the first week of April. I also had trouble accessing/changing fast passes while in the parks. That always required a stop at a Fastpass kiosk. Many times the fastpasses only showed they were for one person, but when we actually got to the first Mickey, the light turned green for all four of us.

I did bring a paper copy of our fast passes with us since I couldn't always access the app in the park. And when I visited a kiosk it was always suggested to me to take a cell phone photo of our passes and times.

I am not surprised that they are no longer accepting the paper copy, however. It would be really easy to select fast passes and print a copy. Then go ahead and change to a new set of fast passes. While at the park, when your band spins blue (legitimately) at one of your original set of rides, you then show your paper copy and are let in the line. I suspect people are running this scam and WDW is trying to put a stop to it.

 

[mom2faith]

This happened to me Christmas week. We decided later than usual to do our trip. As part of the agreement, I took the reigns this year to book and plan everything (and will be taking over once again this year.)

I'm incredibly detail-oriented. I even bought a cork board to list every reservation and FP+. Between the high-crowd levels and the new FP+ and MDE features, I knew this was necessary.

I did everything right and I was tremendously dedicated to getting my family set up and reserving everything. Reservations were booked and I was up at 12am every night to book our FP+ within the 60-day window.

During the trip, I started to notice some glitches. Like a previous poster mentioned, I started to see some FP+'s missing. I would just "copy" over the FP+ to the other members of the family and we never had a problem checking in.

On the third or fourth day of our trip we had a bit more complicated reservations. We would spend the day at DHS. My mom and dad do not go on rides like RnR or ToT, so my sister and I would capitalize on their MB to get double the FP+.

We went on RnR successfully to start the day. My parents met up with us and we had a FP+ for the entire family on TSMM. Walking over I checked the app. All of our reservations were gone. I knew that the app had been glitching, but my immediate instinct was that our ONLY FP+ for TSMM was gone. I wasn't sure if Disney had "caught on" to my sister and me using my parents MB, or if there was a system-wide problem. Regardless, I was furious.

My family acted like it was no big deal. The line was already at 110 minutes (as usual during Xmas week) and growing. The FastPasses were gone. I freaked out. It resulted in my family getting aggravated with me (they didn't understand how much I planned the trip!!)

Finally I checked back around 30 minutes later and they were back. But the morning was ruined and my family was aggravated with each other.

Anyway, the glitches are normal. It's a new beta and it's bound to happen.... But I'll give you an example. I used to work in search media buying for an agency. My client was a Fortune 100 wireless phone company. A certain popular search engine was launching a new Beta and sold us on it. There was a glitch which led to my client losing a lot of data (marketing results, not consumer data, etc.) Anyway, the Search Engine was quick to fix it and refund my clients... but the glitch was not forgotten.

If you're that Search Engine or Disney and you're THAT big, and you know that clients (or consumers) are investing and buying into your product, you better make sure it's perfect - beta or finished product.

This is an important point!!

My biggest worry is (of course) Anna and Elsa. This is trip #5 and kind of a bonus trip as we were planning on an entirely different vacation that fell through. Every other ride/experience is a bonus, but A & E were a big part of our trip planning. And when we were on the fence about going, finding out they were moving to MK and getting a FP+ for them just sealed the Bonus Trip deal. Now instead of a relaxed, fun, bonus trip - I am checking daily to be sure those FP+ are still there!

Thanks everyone for your feedback so far! Looking forward to more!

 

[mom2faith]

I was at WDW the first week of April. I also had trouble accessing/changing fast passes while in the parks. That always required a stop at a Fastpass kiosk. Many times the fastpasses only showed they were for one person, but when we actually got to the first Mickey, the light turned green for all four of us.

I did bring a paper copy of our fast passes with us since I couldn't always access the app in the park. And when I visited a kiosk it was always suggested to me to take a cell phone photo of our passes and times.

I am not surprised that they are no longer accepting the paper copy, however. It would be really easy to select fast passes and print a copy. Then go ahead and change to a new set of fast passes. While at the park, when your band spins blue (legitimately) at one of your original set of rides, you then show your paper copy and are let in the line. I suspect people are running this scam and WDW is trying to put a stop to it.

Absolutely! I totally agree, but what about the ones that are legitimate but disappear? It seems there is no recourse. You are just SOL.

 

[SuperRob]

Absolutely! I totally agree, but what about the ones that are legitimate but disappear? It seems there is no recourse. You are just SOL.

Here's what happened to Ricky at Inside the Magic ...

http://www.**************.net/2014/...uts-wait-to-meet-anna-and-elsa-when-it-works/

The TL;DR version ...

The Fastpasses (which he screenshot'ed the night before) switched from A&E to Cinderella the day he was to use them. He didn't find out until he was in line. He showed his screenshot, but cast members accused him of faking the screenshot. (It's all well and good to not accept the, but they should not outright be accusing guests of deceit to their faces).

He went to Guest Services, and they were powerless to help him. However, he received a phone call from Disney IT literally as he was leaving the park ... they discovered that it was their problem, and gave him a Fastpass for the meet and greet he could use at any time.

Glitches happen, but the response from the cast members was unacceptable, in my opinion. I'm glad this was resolved well for Ricky, but it very nearly wasn't.

 

[Claudia1]

On our recent Spring Break trip, I changed times on a FastPass+ for everybody (I know I clicked on "select all") but DGD's FP+ disappeared. After many minutes on the phone, they found a way to add it but it was a gift from IT, not a "found" FP+.

 

[flateacher]

I was at WDW the first week of April. I also had trouble accessing/changing fast passes while in the parks. That always required a stop at a Fastpass kiosk. Many times the fastpasses only showed they were for one person, but when we actually got to the first Mickey, the light turned green for all four of us.

I did bring a paper copy of our fast passes with us since I couldn't always access the app in the park. And when I visited a kiosk it was always suggested to me to take a cell phone photo of our passes and times.

I am not surprised that they are no longer accepting the paper copy, however. It would be really easy to select fast passes and print a copy. Then go ahead and change to a new set of fast passes. While at the park, when your band spins blue (legitimately) at one of your original set of rides, you then show your paper copy and are let in the line. I suspect people are running this scam and WDW is trying to put a stop to it.

What about those of us that don't have a smart phone?!? I do not mean to de-rail the thread but all I have is my print out when we visit. If my FP+ disappears I will have NO IDEA until I get in line and try to get on the ride! For Disney to say I MUST have a cell phone picture to insure against glitches in their system is ridiculous.

 

[ladeedeb]

We were there last week. Many of the rides would show only some of the 4 of us, but we all had the FP, they just weren't showing on the app. If I went in to change them, they would then show up, but when I would go to see the FP or plans, they wouldn't show up there. My DH freaked and didn't believe they would still be there, when I told him it was a glitch. He was happy when I was able to prove they were still valid. The app didn't work great some of the time, like others have said, but when we were able to get it to work it was great to be able to change on the fly. Couldn't do this at MK, but worked fine at EP, on our particular Spring Break days. The MBs worked great most of the time, though. There were a few glitches with them a couple of times at the park gates, that was it.

 

[3happydancers]

Here's what happened to Ricky at Inside the Magic ...

http://www.**************.net/2014/...uts-wait-to-meet-anna-and-elsa-when-it-works/

The TL;DR version ...

The Fastpasses (which he screenshot'ed the night before) switched from A&E to Cinderella the day he was to use them. He didn't find out until he was in line. He showed his screenshot, but cast members accused him of faking the screenshot. (It's all well and good to not accept the, but they should not outright be accusing guests of deceit to their faces).

He went to Guest Services, and they were powerless to help him. However, he received a phone call from Disney IT literally as he was leaving the park ... they discovered that it was their problem, and gave him a Fastpass for the meet and greet he could use at any time.

Glitches happen, but the response from the cast members was unacceptable, in my opinion. I'm glad this was resolved well for Ricky, but it very nearly wasn't.

I don't have an actual report to share, but after reading this was appalled that Disney would handle the fast pass situations as described even if there is a chance that some may be scamming the system. The problem is that this new system has been consistently problematic. If Disney insists on continuing to use it, then they need to also have a grace period giving guests the benefit of the doubt. How can Disney justify treating guests this way? I'm sorry, this is simply not acceptable and I don't think it is ok not to accept a screen shot or paper proof. It's all a paying guest has! Guests are spending countless hours planning and preparing and doing their best to "go with the flow" with all these new changes. Shame on Disney.

Sorry if I got off topic here but this really got my Irish up and could not help myself.

 

[mom2faith]

Here's what happened to Ricky at Inside the Magic ... http://www.**************.net/2014/04/frozen-characters-find-new-home-at-walt-disney-world-as-fastpass-cuts-wait-to-meet-anna-and-elsa-when-it-works/ The TL;DR version ... The Fastpasses (which he screenshot'ed the night before) switched from A&E to Cinderella the day he was to use them. He didn't find out until he was in line. He showed his screenshot, but cast members accused him of faking the screenshot. (It's all well and good to not accept the, but they should not outright be accusing guests of deceit to their faces). He went to Guest Services, and they were powerless to help him. However, he received a phone call from Disney IT literally as he was leaving the park ... they discovered that it was their problem, and gave him a Fastpass for the meet and greet he could use at any time. Glitches happen, but the response from the cast members was unacceptable, in my opinion. I'm glad this was resolved well for Ricky, but it very nearly wasn't.

Yes this was in my original post.

 

[mom2faith]

I don't have an actual report to share, but after reading this was appalled that Disney would handle the fast pass situations as described even if there is a chance that some may be scamming the system. The problem is that this new system has been consistently problematic. If Disney insists on continuing to use it, then they need to also have a grace period giving guests the benefit of the doubt. How can Disney justify treating guests this way? I'm sorry, this is simply not acceptable and I don't think it is ok not to accept a screen shot or paper proof. It's all a paying guest has! Guests are spending countless hours planning and preparing and doing their best to "go with the flow" with all these new changes. Shame on Disney. Sorry if I got off topic here but this really got my Irish up and could not help myself.

This is my concern, this is why I started this thread. (A link to Ricky's story is in the first post).

It makes me ill to know this could happen again (since I have already experienced it once).

What is the point of having this great system that does not work and there is no recourse at all.

 

[3happydancers]

This is my concern, this is why I started this thread. (A link to Ricky's story is in the first post).

It makes me ill to know this could happen again (since I have already experienced it once).

What is the point of having this great system that does not work and there is no recourse at all.

I think this is a good post as it will contain only real experiences and one will be able to determine if they are all different experiences or is it the same one(s) being mentioned over and over again.

Thanks for not flaming me for getting side tracked with my "feelings"!

 

[Dasha Hermosilla]

My least favorite thing about FP+. Two personal stories:

October: We had our FP+ all set for Epcot (about on the 4th day). I went into the App to tweak the Test Track time a bit and the change was confirmed on the site as I did it. Once I went back to the main screen that FP was now gone and I had two only. I waited to see if it would come back (Never ever do that!) and naturally it didn't. As a result I spent my Saturday night chatting with the Disney IT people during Wishes from our special treat Theme Park View room at BLT. I was in hold forever and it took time to solve the problem. In the end, she was able to get us TT again, but it was close to 5 hours after our original time. It worked out, but I was annoyed at having to spend valuable vacation time with Disney IT and it just barely worked as we had dinner reservations we were planning to go back for.

January: same thing. Went to change a time of a FP+ for a future day and it disappeared after confirming the switch. I immediately sought help, only to be told by the front desk people at VGF to wait a bit and it would probably come back.... Ummm no thank you! Learned my lesson on that one. I had the WL front desk people sort it out and got close to the same times, but not exactly. Again... Spent valuable vacation time waiting and talking with WL CM on something that was entirely a Disney IT issue.

We are going again between Xmas and New Years with extended family and it's disappointing to hear this is still happening.

 

[ancestry]

I've had stuff (fast passes and tickets) disappear from my account but never permanently. I always just attributed it to a temporary computer glitch and when I would check in later everything was always back the way it was supposed to be. I never had to call.

The cell phone app can be very very very quirky from time to time and often shows things inaccurately for me but when I log into a desktop computer everything always shows just fine.

 

[Dasha Hermosilla]

My least favorite thing about FP+. Two personal stories:

October: We had our FP+ all set for Epcot (about on the 4th day). I went into the App to tweak the Test Track time a bit and the change was confirmed on the site as I did it. Once I went back to the main screen that FP was now gone and I had two only. I waited to see if it would come back (Never ever do that!) and naturally it didn't. As a result I spent my Saturday night chatting with the Disney IT people during Wishes from our special treat Theme Park View room at BLT. I was in hold forever and it took time to solve the problem. In the end, she was able to get us TT again, but it was close to 5 hours after our original time. It worked out, but I was annoyed at having to spend valuable vacation time with Disney IT and it just barely worked as we had dinner reservations we were planning to go back for.

January: same thing. Went to change a time of a FP+ for a future day and it disappeared after confirming the switch. I immediately sought help, only to be told by the front desk people at VGF to wait a bit and it would probably come back.... Ummm no thank you! Learned my lesson on that one. I had the WL front desk people sort it out and got close to the same times, but not exactly. Again... Spent valuable vacation time waiting and talking with WL CM on something that was entirely a Disney IT issue.

We are going again between Xmas and New Years with extended family and it's disappointing to hear this is still happening.

I'd like to add that both times this happened to me the IT/CM did confirm I only had two FP+s for that day, so at least in my case my third really did seen to be gone. In order to fix they had to delete what I had and re-add the three together (since we all know the silly system is not flexible to add just one).

 

[Mom2Stitch]

The one and only time I checked our stuff on the app, it was messed up-almost none of the FPs showed all 5 of us. It has never showed up wrong on my computer. I printed out all of our reservations just so I could keep up with the times.