Fast Pass Future? Predictions...

[JakeAZ]

The price difference between a value resort and a deluxe resort at Universal isn't exactly earth shattering. So someone paid a few hundred more for their vacation then you did and that makes them wealthy? Huh? I've stayed deluxe at Universal many times and I'm no where close to being wealthy.

Staying at a Universal deluxe can also be a savvy way to save money. It is almost always cheaper to stay deluxe if you have a family of 4/5 and were planning on getting the EP for 2+ days.

 

[cjlong88]

They've tried that though. It seems to me that most of us just used the time we weren't standing in line for an attraction for which we had a FP to wait on line for another attraction instead.

Correct. But I don’t think the system changing will affect this goal. I really think Disney will still try to find the best way to minimize lines AND make a profit. It’s in their interest. People in lines cannot spend money. People wandering around the parks can.

That also doesn’t mean they will succeed with whatever new system they rollout. Whatever they decide, I think the data they have collected over the years will strongly guide their decision making.

 

[shafke]

Our last trip to DW was 6 years ago when FP+ had just been rolled out. Since then we have had no desire to go back. The amount of planning involved just made this the least enjoyable trip. It just felt like we did not accomplish as much as we had been able to on previous trips.
It just seems that spontaneity is slowly being leeched out of the whole experience.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

Disney will never, ever, be crassly in-your-face enough to say to people "hey, want to dodge the 150 minute wait for FoP by paying $75 per person right now"? However, they have and will continue to be perfectly happy to monetize FP access, while being clever and subtle enough that even now people are wondering on the internet whether Disney will ever decide to monetize FP access. Take the AK Ultimate Nights of Adventure tour, which we did a few years ago at a cost of $250 per person and included FP access to both the Pandora rides, along with KS, EE, Dinosaur and Rivers of Light, and also a light meal. Hint: people are not paying $250 for a light meal and the chance to make small-talk with a friendly tour guide. Let's say the meal is worth $10, in which case everyone on this tour is effectively stumping up $40 per Fastpass. Disney just loves the positive PR of benevolently dispensing "free" Fastpasses while cashing in on FP access via tours, EMM, the Frozen dessert party, and so on. In particular now that EMH has been abolished I wouldn't be at all surprised to see paid EMM being ramped up in the future.

Perhaps. I certainly agree with you that Disney has been very good at hiding its monetizing of fastpasses. Even the club level extra fastpass "trial" program was never publicly acknowledged on the website. This would be a change of pace, with the potential for leaving a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

But so long as Disney continues to give away 3 free fastpasses to everyone (and to market that extensively), I think they can couch the impulse purchase option as an extra perk available to everyone on equal terms. (Never mind the fact that only a very few could actually afford to cut the longest lines.)

The option would always be there on the Genie app. They wouldn't need to waive it in your face.

In my imagining, most of these fastpasses wouldn't cost all that much--maybe $10 to skip a 30 minute line at HM or PotC. And there would be times when just about all of us would appreciate having that option.

From Disney's point of view, this is free money. The key is to set the amount just high enough that it won't meaningfully affect the wait in either the fastpass line or the stand-by line. (If too many people take advantage of it, the fastpass line will swell, which, in turn, will slow the standby line as well.)

As I speculated before on another thread:

Imagine a hot afternoon in a very crowded Animal Kingdom. The posted wait for FOP is 140 minutes. The Genie app offers the opportunity to skip the line and jump right into the fastpass line for, say, $75 per person. Obviously, most of us couldn't afford that, and couldn't justify spending $300 for less than 5 minutes of family entertainment even if we could afford it. But that's the point, Disney doesn't want everyone to jump at the offer. That would be a disaster. Disney just wants a handful of people to do it.

I can imagine lots of families that would.

For instance, the very wealthy family who are already dropping well over $10,000 on their club level vacation with signature dining galore. At that point, what's another $300? If you make $2 million a year, it really is just a rounding error.

Or imagine any number of situations involving families that could afford this, though it would be a pretty big hit. Before heading to Disney, most of them would likely scoff at the idea of doing this. But when the moment actually presents itself . . .

Maybe the family has heard about how great this ride is, but they weren't able to get fastpasses. Or maybe they fastpassed it once, and loved it so much that the kids are dying to do it again. It's hot. The kids are melting down. The line is interminable. Mommy realizes how happy it would make the kids to tell them they get to skip this line. Plus, that would then free up two hours to go on other rides. "Hey, we're only here once (or once a year, or whatever), let's just throw caution to the wind. When you think about the other rides that we will get in, that we otherwise wouldn't have because we would have been waiting in the FOP line, it's actually kind of worth it!" Or maybe Daddy has had it up to here with the heat and the crowds and the rides, and the last thing he wants to do is to stand there dealing with whining kids for two plus hours. He knows that, with one click of the thumb, he can be sipping rum in the air conditioning in Nomad Lounge in just a few minutes. Et cetera.

People are wiling to spend crazy amounts of money at Disney, even if they are otherwise frugal in their real lives. Just look at the restaurant and merchandise prices! Especially at the spur of the moment. Especially when the alternative is a long and tedious line.

If a few dozen people are pulling the trigger every hour---multiplied by all of the rides in all of the parks, with price points for each ride dynamically adjusting to entice just the right number of guests, no more, no less---that's hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing into the Disney coffers every day. At no extra cost to Disney. Indeed, it frees up these high rollers to go spend even more money in restaurants, bars, and stores.

Of course, I could very well be wrong. I usually am. But I definitely wouldn't write this off so confidently.

 

[Rockbro]

I really don't see Disney doing anything as complex as a tiered FP system for different levels of guests. That would be far too complicated and it would cause so much confusion. An across the board paid system that anyone can opt into (a la Maxpass) is the way forward.

I CAN forsee them simply including Maxpass into certain hotel packages with tickets as a perk.

It already happened. Club levels got more access than others for a fee.

 

[JakeAZ]

It already happened. Club levels got more access than others for a fee.

I agree.

They have tons of data and know, based on the room you book, how much you're likely to spend on extras and what your breaking point might be. They will push it.

I keep coming back to dessert parties.

The idea of these is absolute nonsense, yet they were extremely successful. Disney created a crowding problem and then got tons of people to pay ridiculous amounts of money to "solve it".

I think my "favorite" part of the dessert parties was alcohol was offered with the adult packages. But Disney forced you to pay the adult price for people 10-20 who couldn't drink alcohol! Same goes for the dining plan. $70+ per day for your "adult" 10 year old.

Things don't have to make sense with Disney...they just have to bring in the cash.

 

[vacationer1954]

But each step towards making me more dependent on a smart phone during the day is a step in the wrong direction for me. Vacation is about getting away from "using electronics" for me - not depending on them more!

I think we can say the same thing about many aspects of how things change over time. I participate a lot in cruise-related discussions, especially as it pertains to Holland America, and there are still a lot of people who decry the laxity of the evening dress code aboard ship. It's a change in how something is that reflects how other people prefer things, and as we get older, if we don't adapt to the changes, the changes will become more and more annoying to us.

 

[JakeAZ]

But each step towards making me more dependent on a smart phone during the day is a step in the wrong direction for me. Vacation is about getting away from "using electronics" for me - not depending on them more!

I'm with you!

Unfortunately, I think this is inevitable. I'm sure it will save Disney a ton of money to integrate a product people already have / they don't have to supply. Then they will raise ticket prices and include "complimentary" phone charging.

 

[shafke]

They'll keep the current fastpass system but institute a secret super double fastpass where you bypass the fastpass line. $50 for 1st use plus $10 for each additional use - per person/ per day

 

[JakeAZ]

They'll keep the current fastpass system but institute a secret super double fastpass where you bypass the fastpass line. $50 for 1st use plus $10 for each additional use - per person/ per day

Is that kinda like double secret probation?

 

[disneycat321]

I personally think it'll look like maxpass at Disneyland, which I actually really enjoy. When it first came, I thought the idea of paying extra for maxpass was ridiculous, but it turned out it's worth the money and works great. And I think it'd be nice at WDW to be able to get FP as they come up in a day without having to plan months ahead of time. It takes some of the pressure off.

100% agree. We had the exact same thought process about MP when it first came out. We were immediate converts. It was so worth the cost.

Personally, we are really hoping for something like MP to come to WDW. We'd rather pay more for a better product. (Which is kind of what going to Disney is in the first place, in general...) We love the spontaneity that comes because you can't reserve any FPs until you're in a park. We love the ability to add on more FPs all day.

I think a discounted or better option for on site guests would be fantastic, as well. It makes far more sense at WDW than at DLR because there are only 3 onsite resorts at DLR.

I agree with those who have mentioned that Disney is probably using this as a "reset" for a new FP program. They're doing that with switching from APs to some kind of membership program at DLR, so there's a precedent. It's easy for them to reinvent some things right now, especially things that will increase revenue.

 

[shafke]

Is that kinda like double secret probation?

Yes, that is what was going for.

 

[SarahC97]

Random thought: Disney doesn’t want us standing in lines. I think their goal will be to figure out how to create a system that can capitalize on FP’s but minimizes excessively long lines. People cannot spend money when standing in line.

I think this is true to some extent, but Disney has also shown pre-COVID that they feel like there's an acceptable threshold for waiting in line and they staff their parks and open ride capacity to meet that. True they don't want people waiting all day in line because they want them to buy stuff in the park, but they also obviously are OK with regular 2-hour waits (or longer) for big headliners. Before the pandemic, it was getting to the point where no matter what time of the year you went, whether it was "slow" or not, the ride wait times were about the same (obvs longer for holidays). Now they'll have even more data about how many people will be in a park on a given day through park reservations that they'll be even better at fine-tuning their staffing to meet that and we'll see lines about the same no matter when we go.

IMO, I don't see how Disney brings back Fastpass without it being a paid add-on. They've not instilled a whole lot of confidence with the moves they've made over the last couple of years that they are still focused on guest experience above all in the parks. This will probably act as a reset button for the program and we'll see a charge to it in some form - that form involving money.

 

[marisa in lake mohegan]

I'm going in November (4th-15th) and I'm seriously concerned that we won't be able to get on a lot of rides and we'll be fighting intense crowds most of the time. I do know how much planning helps (I'm totally into Disney planning!), that Disney is a business that wants to make money, and that it's important to manage expectations and enjoy things other than rides. And I totally realize that others besides myself want to be at Disney too, and waiting is part of the deal. But it seems insane to me that I might need to deal with not getting to enjoy the rides too, without waiting an hour for each, more for the headliners/popular ones. I hope they're working on this issue, because it just sucks! FastPass helps!

 

[jeffmw]

I'm going in November (4th-15th) and I'm seriously concerned that we won't be able to get on a lot of rides and we'll be fighting intense crowds most of the time. I do know how much planning helps (I'm totally into Disney planning!), that Disney is a business that wants to make money, and that it's important to manage expectations and enjoy things other than rides. And I totally realize that others besides myself want to be at Disney too, and waiting is part of the deal. But it seems insane to me that I might need to deal with not getting to enjoy the rides too, without waiting an hour for each, more for the headliners/popular ones. I hope they're working on this issue, because it just sucks! FastPass helps!

The more I ruminate on this the less I think I'm going to keep our planned trip for October unless some semblance of free FP+ is back.

Sorry Disney. You provided something for free for a long time. Everything is way more expensive than it used to be. On top of the exorbitant price of the trip in and of itself I'm not also then going to pay for something I used to get for free. Particularly when there's a good chance there'll be other COVID-related drawbacks to the trip that can't be controlled. And I don't want to hear about how you can avoid lines with intense Touring Plans itineraries. FastPasses have wide windows and I've never found them to be that restricting to going about my day. I don't want the alternative to be running from one end of the park to another so I can wait for 90 minutes for FoP rather than 2.5 hours.

WDW has been a special place for my family, but we've learned there are plenty of other great vacations out there.

 

[marisa in lake mohegan]

The more I ruminate on this the less I think I'm going to keep our planned trip for October unless some semblance of free FP+ is back.

Sorry Disney. You provided something for free for a long time. Everything is way more expensive than it used to be. On top of the exorbitant price of the trip in and of itself I'm not also then going to pay for something I used to get for free. Particularly when there's a good chance there'll be other COVID-related drawbacks to the trip that can't be controlled. And I don't want to hear about how you can avoid lines with intense Touring Plans itineraries. FastPasses have wide windows and I've never found them to be that restricting to going about my day. I don't want the alternative to be running from one end of the park to another so I can wait for 90 minutes for FoP rather than 2.5 hours.

WDW has been a special place for my family, but we've learned there are plenty of other great vacations out there.

So true. I know they haven't done it yet, but the idea that they'll charge for fastpass (and we know they've experimented with that already, selling additional ones to people who stay club-level) is just so sad. i also feel like i missed the golden days of Disney perks and legendary customer service, since I stayed off-property until recently, and it was just a different experience. They really just need to cap capacity at much lower levels than they do now. And add attractions to spread that crowd out more. They have a lot of smart people working there. They can figure this out and still make an intense profit. I do appreciate that the top executives took way smaller salaries this past year, but 20 million a year is still an insane amount of money, in my opinion.

 

[JakeAZ]

100% agree. We had the exact same thought process about MP when it first came out. We were immediate converts. It was so worth the cost.

Personally, we are really hoping for something like MP to come to WDW. We'd rather pay more for a better product. (Which is kind of what going to Disney is in the first place, in general...) We love the spontaneity that comes because you can't reserve any FPs until you're in a park. We love the ability to add on more FPs all day.

I think a discounted or better option for on site guests would be fantastic, as well. It makes far more sense at WDW than at DLR because there are only 3 onsite resorts at DLR.

I agree with those who have mentioned that Disney is probably using this as a "reset" for a new FP program. They're doing that with switching from APs to some kind of membership program at DLR, so there's a precedent. It's easy for them to reinvent some things right now, especially things that will increase revenue.

Maybe I'm naive, but I just don't see them introducing something that asks guests to pay for the system of making FP first come, first served.

That fee will basically hit everyone because it will be seen as a "must do". Say it's $20 a day, like DL. For a family of 4, on a 5 day trip, that's an additional $400. That fee would hit families who prefer value or even off-site values much harder. Admission tickets will instantly go up by whatever fee ($20) they charge.

I think giving something "included" with your tickets (on-site should get more than off-site) will remain. They will add packages or add-ons for additional money. This way it's an opt-in and not an opt-out.

DL is a different environment than WDW.

 

[bffer]

One thing to bear in mind is that Universal EP is a bit of a different product than Disney FP. Several times on busy days we have waited over 45 minutes for Despicable Me and Gringotts in the Express line, and when I asked about this I was told that EP only guarantees 50% of the standby wait time. On Disney FP lines, though, it is very rare to have to wait for more than about 20 minutes.

I can also tell you that Universal EP is not even necessary during slower times of the year. We stayed at Cabana Bay during September and decided not to get EP. The longest line we had to wait in was for Hagrid (which doesn't have an Express line anyway), and we only waited an hour. All the others we never waited more than 30 minutes. I am glad we didn't spend those extra dollars.

We also always go to WDW in September and typically the lines are shorter then. But there are certain rides I am glad to have a FP for (I'm looking at you, Peter Pan.), and we rarely ended up needing more than the three FPs a day at any park. But we still needed them to not have to wait over an hour in some lines. I'm not sure that we would spend extra just to be able to ride those few rides with a shorter wait.

 

[cjlong88]

I think this is true to some extent, but Disney has also shown pre-COVID that they feel like there's an acceptable threshold for waiting in line and they staff their parks and open ride capacity to meet that. True they don't want people waiting all day in line because they want them to buy stuff in the park, but they also obviously are OK with regular 2-hour waits (or longer) for big headliners. Before the pandemic, it was getting to the point where no matter what time of the year you went, whether it was "slow" or not, the ride wait times were about the same (obvs longer for holidays). Now they'll have even more data about how many people will be in a park on a given day through park reservations that they'll be even better at fine-tuning their staffing to meet that and we'll see lines about the same no matter when we go.

IMO, I don't see how Disney brings back Fastpass without it being a paid add-on. They've not instilled a whole lot of confidence with the moves they've made over the last couple of years that they are still focused on guest experience above all in the parks. This will probably act as a reset button for the program and we'll see a charge to it in some form - that form involving money.

Completely agree on everything you said. What makes an excessively long line? People have shown time and time again that they will wait 3 hours for FOP or 2 hours for 7DMT. When the paid system rolls out, will those standby waits get better or worse or remain the same? That's the question! And at what point will be people say, "Nope, that's too long," and skip the ride altogether. And how will that influence guest experience? Will it have an impact on profits? Attendance was only going up before COVID. I think there's a line that Disney doesn't want to cross. Or maybe they have no problem crossing that line so long as profits don't diminish. Or maybe they don't even know where the line is and that's what they are trying to figure out. I think paid FP's is definitely on the horizon, whether or not it's a good system won't be determined until we live it and experience it.

 

[Rusty2rules]

I'm going to wade in here. A year ago I would've been singing a different tune. However, Disney is using the pandemic as an excuse to eliminate things they've been want to get rid of for years. So...

FP+ as we know it is never coming back, IMO. I believe it will come back as some sort of paid option. People say "they can't charge for something they've been giving away for free for years!" Who'd have thought they'd start charging to park at their resorts? Nope, free FP will never be back.

I've seen people suggest a virtual queue. I haven't been to WDW since RotR opened. Everything about it sounds like a nightmare to me. Reservations are gone within seconds. Nope, that doesn't spell "good time" to me. Plus, as a couple of people have mentioned, I don't want to be staring at my phone hoping to get a reservation during the entire trip. Man, I hope they don't go that route. I'd rather pay for a FP (assuming they don't charge some outrageous price) than have to do that all day.