Do you like the Fastpass+ system?

[runwad]

We are going back for the first time since FP+ and today was my day that my window opened. I'd been stressing about it beforehand but now that I'm done, whew, I'm glad. We also aren't planning to go to the parks everyday of our trip but I went ahead and made FP reservations for everyday(will cancel what I don't need later) in case there's a bad weather day and we want to switch things around. So ya now that I'm done, I like it better cause my days are all planned out and we will ride everything we want.

 

[Hopefully]

We are very much fans of the FP+ system
Works great for us

 

[IrishNYC]

I love it! I love that we don't have to race around the park and hope we get to ride the headliners. I love that we're guaranteed rides on at least 3 things we really want to ride. I want to go to DLR, but I refuse until they make the switch.

 

[Branflakes]

I wasn't a fan at first. But it grows on you. It does make you have to plan a lot more, if you want to. We just grab the ones for the rides we know we want to get on with little hassle and leave the rest to a "fly by the seat of our pants" kind of vacation
The BIGGEST issue with the paper fp ticket system, are things like tour group leaders standing at machines with a stack of cards four inches high, sucking the machines dry within 10 minutes of the park opening. We witnessed this kind of behavior several times. Disney HAD to step in and change things. For that reason ALONE I appreciate it. Also, a huge reason why we don't travel to WDW when large tour groups are known to be there. Among other things.

 

[linzbear]

I love it, it works so well for our touring style. I book 3 FP+ in a row in roughly the same area of the park, and then after lunch we're free to wing it with the fourth FP, and have a sense of accomplishment even if something dampens the evening (anywhere from cranky kids to downpours!). Over the week we have FPs for our must-dos, so it is much more relaxing. Usually by the end of our trip we can be lazy (though this year we have Pandora and Happily Ever After on our last day, so crazier than usual).

 

[ArwenMarie]

The tiered parks are impossible and you still have to get there at rope drop to ride everything so there goes that advantage. I just made FPs for Epcot and DHS and I seriously sit there and go "What am I supposed to pick now? Watch Pixar shorts in an old theatre?" I dunno.

MK and DAK aren't too bad. I do wonder if DAK will get tiered too when Pandora opens. I can't see them having enough for everyone to pick both Pandora rides.

 

[IrishNYC]

The tiered parks are impossible and you still have to get there at rope drop to ride everything so there goes that advantage. I just made FPs for Epcot and DHS and I seriously sit there and go "What am I supposed to pick now? Watch Pixar shorts in an old theatre?" I dunno.

MK and DAK aren't too bad. I do wonder if DAK will get tiered too when Pandora opens. I can't see them having enough for everyone to pick both Pandora rides.

AK has moved to tiers. Both Pandora rides are tier 1, everything else is tier 2.

 

[BrianL]

I like it a lot, but it does have some flaws. The biggest issue is that they made nearly everything FP enabled when certain attractions don't really need to be. This causes some confusion and slows down rides that used to load fast. I know they had to increase bandwidth with the increased profile, but some attractions just aren't set up for it.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I'm not a fan. It's too much planning and at least for the headliners, generally causes you to have to commit to a certain schedule way in advance. It worked great when the kids were younger and having a schedule was a blessing. Now that they're a bit older (and only 7 and 10, so not "grown up" in any way) it just sucks the fun and spontaneity out of the day. I would prefer a legacy-type system that is all electronic...but I know a big purpose to the system is locking people into vacations.

 

[ArwenMarie]

AK has moved to tiers. Both Pandora rides are tier 1, everything else is tier 2.

Thanks! I haven't been keeping up apparently!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I love it!
It makes planning much easier in my opinion.
No running around to get your fastpasses.
I have much less stress knowing I definitely have a fastpass for certain rides that I enjoy going on.
I enjoy the challenge of making FP+ times jive with my other plans.
When you've gone enough you know what attractions you want to do and when throughout the day you like to do them so you just coordinate your FP+ according to your usual routine.

As a couple of examples for my trip coming up in a couple weeks...

-At HS we ALWAYS RD RNRC and TOT. It's just what we do. So those that have a FP+ first its from 9:35am-10:35am. Then we tend to watch the BATB show that most of the time starts at 11am when we go. So we know it lasts 25 minutes and we are right near TOT again so we book a FP+ for 11am-12pm.

-At MK we ALWAYS RD Fantasyland so I booked FP+ for 7DMT from 8:45am-9:45am. Prior to that FP+ we will at least go on PP and IASW.

 

[Klayfish]

The tiered parks are impossible and you still have to get there at rope drop to ride everything so there goes that advantage.

That's one thing I don't agree with. We don't rope drop and still get to ride what we want...with the help of FP+.

 

[CAS239]

FP+ does not have to be a full on planning, stressful event. It's only as stressful as you want to make it. I look at park hours, we stay offsite so avoid EMH, then decide based on that what park we're going to on each day. Pick the park, click the rides we want to ride and just grab times. When we go for usually 3 days at a time it takes about 5-10 min before I'm done figuring out what parks we're doing and getting the FP's. I don't find the need to have a spreadsheet and everything calculated hourly.

FP+ is better because you don't have to run to that popular ride to get a FP, you can book it in advance and know when you'll be riding it. FP+ benefits us because we park hop and schedule our fast passes usually at the second park we go to. If we had to get to the second park and go get paper FP's at around 4-5PM then all the headliners are either all long gone, or we'd be riding one headliner ride near park closing.

I did enjoy getting the paper FP's, still have a couple at home lol..But FP+ is better.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

VASTLY preferred the paper fastpass system. We are rope droppers and were able to pull and use at least 6-8 fastpasses a day under the old system. The new system has vastly decreased the number of rides we get in and increased our wait times for rides that used to be walk on. No Bueno.

 

[abinormal]

I've only done one trip on each system, so take that for what it's worth, but I much preferred FP+. I have a serious aversion to backtracking in all things. So I like not having to go somewhere just to get a ticket to come back later. It let me plan out my day the way I wanted to.

I agree that it can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be as complicated as it seems here. I was a first timer planner, making my first trip as an adult, and it worked out fine. Plus after doing it, it wasn't nearly as complex as I'd feared.

 

[Dakota731]

I am so old school that I don't even know what the plus is? And what are tiers? Now I am getting stressed. I just want to be enjoy my vacation!

 

[RetroCOTfan]

We're long-time FP experts under the legacy system at both WDW and DLR, and our WDW trip this month was our first experience with FP+. For the most part, I much prefer FP+ over the legacy system. As the designated "FP runner" for my family, I'm thankful that I can sit at my computer 60 days out and pick up 6-7 days' worth for FP reservations at once. And I even get to choose the time, so there's no walking across the park to get the FP, then having to walk back over 3-4 hours later.

Our party has mobility issues, so the less walking the better for us, and FP+ really has helped us make our touring plans much more efficient (and predictable, since I don't have to guess as to what our FP return time may be). We were also pretty successful at pulling a 4th (or 5th) FP - especially at MK since it has so many attractions.

Now, I do NOT like the tiering - that makes it harder. But for me, the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

 

[JohnneeO]

I like the current version of the FP+ system. Based on what I read here, I think the transition from paper FP to FP+, and the first versions of FP+ were poorly implemented. Previous versions of FP+ suffered from a lack of features that we take for granted now.

It has only been since April of 2016 that:

Guests can choose individual FastPass+ experiences and times. You can now select available experiences one by one for the times that best meet your needs for a more customized selection.

Guests are able to make one, two or three advance FastPass+ selections. You will continue to be able to make up to three FastPass+ selections in advance. However, if you’d like to be able to select just one or two, you are now able to do that, too.

Guests can make an additional FastPass+ selection via MyDisneyExperience after redeeming the first three.

 

[glassslippergirl]

I've come around to the new FP system. The first time I used it, I was seriously stressed. I knew better but felt pressure-- like if I didn't get a FP for something, I wouldn't be able to ride it. Now, after about four times using it, I know from experience that it all works out. If I don't get a FP when my 30-day window opens (we stay offsite), it's easy to keep trying. Something usually opens up. I've not had much luck with SDFPs, but we usually go at peak times. I really don't like tiering. The new tiers in AK seem reasonable because you can RD one and FP the other. But the tiers in Epcot are very limiting. At least, Living with the Land isn't top tier anymore-- that was ridiculous. I imagine I wouldn't like the DHS tiers too much either, but without hoppers, we are avoiding that park these days. Hopefully, the options will get better there as new SW and Toy Story Land attractions start to open.

 

[Klayfish]

I am so old school that I don't even know what the plus is? And what are tiers? Now I am getting stressed. I just want to be enjoy my vacation!

Don't worry, don't stress. It's not that big of a deal. With the old FP paper system, you had to walk, run, stampede to a kiosk that was physically at the ride itself. You put your ticket in and it spit out a paper ticket that had your FP on it and told you when to come back. First come, first serve. For popular rides, like TSMM, if the park opened at 9:00am, by 9:30am the first FP available would be for 8pm. So you had to come back 10 hours later to get on the ride.

The current FP+ system does everything electronically. Either 30 or 60 days out (off site or on site, respectively), you can log onto MDE and pick your FP+, as well as a time slot. Again, it's still first come, first serve. The system opens at 7am (unless it changed recently). So if you're on site, at 60 days from your first day in the parks, you can log on and pick a ride and a time. If all the spaces for that given time are gone, you'll have to pick another time. But unlike the old paper system, which just went chronologically, you can pick your time. You can pick 10:10am, you can pick 2:40pm, etc...assuming that slot is still available. You can pick up to 3 rides to FP+ per day. They must be in the same park, so you can't do one in MK, one in Epcot, etc...

The tier system is in use in most parks now. It puts the rides into groups. Typically the most popular rides are put together in one grouping. Call that tier 1. Then the others are in tier 2. You are only allowed to pick one ride from tier 1. The other two FP+ must then be from tier 2. After you've used all 3 FP+ that day, you can log onto MDE and try to grab another FP+...it can be tier 1 or 2. Of course, you're subject to whatever is still left for that day...but honestly you'll still find a fairly decent selection. Maybe not THE top rides, but typically something fun is still available.

It's not as complicated as it sounds. Once you use it once or twice, you'll quickly get the hang of it.