Fast past system in Disney World

[helenm29]

O.K....so, my opinion is that the system pretty much stinks! there are good things and bad things just like everything.
first of all, you have to literally jump through hoops just to make your original fast pass choices and you are lucky if you get what you want. Then when you get to the park and use those passes,you have to find somewhere to chose more fast passes....they are very difficult to find in ANY of the parks! when you finally find a kiosk you are only allowed to make one choice at a time! even though you had 3 to start with. A lot of the time there are no fast passes to be had within your time frame so you just have to pick whatever.
there has to be a better way.

 

[larryz]

O.K....so, my opinion is that the system pretty much stinks! there are good things and bad things just like everything.
first of all, you have to literally jump through hoops just to make your original fast pass choices and you are lucky if you get what you want. Then when you get to the park and use those passes,you have to find somewhere to chose more fast passes....they are very difficult to find in ANY of the parks! when you finally find a kiosk you are only allowed to make one choice at a time! even though you had 3 to start with. A lot of the time there are no fast passes to be had within your time frame so you just have to pick whatever.
there has to be a better way.

There was.

But it is what it is. Learn it. Use it. Abuse it. Some do, but nobody has to love it.

p.s. love your avatar!

 

[Robo]

They had a better way... for about a decade.

It's still in use at Disneyland.

 

[loves to dive]

As PP said, it is what it is so just go with it. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, I pick my three and rearrange them to how I want them. Truthfully, I rarely even use more than 1 or 2 then cancel the rest. We rarely used the old FP system either, even now we don't book more than a week in advance and most of the time it's the night before. If a line is too long, we skip it but for us it has to be over 50 min. to be too long. If we miss a ride, it's not the end of the world, we just move on.

 

[minnie mum]

I don't like it either. It's changed our trips, and not for the better. We get to do significantly fewer attractions in a day than we did before FP+. BUT. If you want to be at WDW, you have no choice.

We went to DLR this summer, and despite the huge crowds were delighted to have the old FP system again.

 

[bluezy]

O.K....so, my opinion is that the system pretty much stinks! there are good things and bad things just like everything.
first of all, you have to literally jump through hoops just to make your original fast pass choices and you are lucky if you get what you want. Then when you get to the park and use those passes,you have to find somewhere to chose more fast passes....they are very difficult to find in ANY of the parks! when you finally find a kiosk you are only allowed to make one choice at a time! even though you had 3 to start with. A lot of the time there are no fast passes to be had within your time frame so you just have to pick whatever.
there has to be a better way.

Sorry you didn't have a good experience with FP+. Our family loved the old system and used it very efficiently during our trips over the years. I was sure I was going to hate FP+...stressed about it for months before our trip this past June. I read up on FP+ in the weeks leading up to our 60-day window and made sure I knew what I was doing. I had resigned to the fact that the old system was gone and it was time for me to learn how to maximize the new system. Thanks to all of my reading ahead of time, I had no trouble getting the FP's we wanted each of the 7 days of our trip. And I was also able to move them to the times we wanted (and we were there on crowd level 9 days). Prior to arriving at a park, I made sure to look at the maps and make a mental note of where all of the FP kiosks were in that park. I had no trouble finding them in the parks (though I would say that while they're clearly marked on the park maps, the signage at the actual kiosks isn't exactly screaming "here I am!!!" You really need to know where they are before you get there.) We had decent success with 4th and more FP's...especially at MK where we used 10 in one day (and that was with a 6 hour resort break in the afternoon). After the success we had this past June, I'm ok with the new system. But I do think it requires more prep work and research before the first trip than the old system did.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

it does require more work but as a park hopper it is great to arrive at our 2nd park of the day with 3 FP in hand so we can ride our favorites (with a short wait) even arriving later in the day. As a PP mentioned once you know where the kiosks are it's not really difficult to get to them and get more FP - especially in MK.

 

[DisneyOma]

We found the kiosks very easy to find - they were marked on the park maps.

We are park hoppers, stay 5-8 days annually, and have no problem getting all the FP+ we need and then some. Not sure if it still works, but we got same day FP+ using an old set of bands not linked to our newer ones. That's handy at MK, but not so much at the other parks.

Never had a problem with MDE on my home computer, iPhone 5S at the parks, or my ancient macbook at the resort.

We traveled this time on my daughter's MDE account, and each morning she sent me a screenshot of the day's FP+ to use as my wallpaper. Saved a ton of battery life that way. When we got SDFP+ on my MDE account, with the old bands, I'd just save that as my wallpaper.

Of course it wasn't as great as when we could get FP with our room key and another set with our park ticket. We couldn't keep up with all our FP then!

 

[disnut8]

This is another Fast Pass isn't good thread but I have to take "offense" at this from the OP's post "you have to literally jump through hoops". I don't think anyone has had to actually jump through a hoop to get a FastPass reservation. Sorry - just my QA side coming through

The FastPass pros and cons have been debated through many threads over the past year. Why start another one?

 

[Robo]

The FastPass pros and cons have been debated through many threads over the past year. Why start another one?

For the same reason that we answer the "top 25 questions" over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

Different posters come to the boards with the same pertinent issues every day.

My post count would be around 293 if topics only came up once.

 

[danny1649]

I'm sorry you don't like new FP system but they have invested so much money in it. I think the ship has sailed on changing it. I will concede this FP system has created many threads on subject.It does not matter as a board member you may post any question or thoughts that does not break Dis guidelines.
'

 

[rjmaple]

Here is what confuses me as I prepare for our first new FP+ visit. I keep seeing references to people making their selections 60 days before and then revising them to get the times they want. What is that about? If the times they want are open then why can't they be chosen the first time through? Can anyone explain that? Thanks.

 

[DebbieB]

Here is what confuses me as I prepare for our first new FP+ visit. I keep seeing references to people making their selections 60 days before and then revising them to get the times they want. What is that about? If the times they want are open then why can't they be chosen the first time through? Can anyone explain that? Thanks.

After you choose the attractions you want, it gives you 4 sets of times options for those attractions to pick from. Typically a morning grouping, an afternoon and an evening. They may not be the exact times you want, you may want to change the order. So you choose the option closest to what you want. Then you can go back in and change the time under each of the specific attractions. For example on my last morning, I want to ride Soarin at opening, maybe hit Spaceship Earth and then go back to BWV to catch DME around 12:15. It gave me a Soarin time around 11:00. That's too late. So I went under Soarin and checked the available times and it gave me a 9:00. You can't have 2 attractions in the same hour time slot, so if you want to change the order, you can move one of them later and then move up another one to get what you want.

I personally love FP+. For example on my arrival day, my plane lands around 1:30. I plan to go to Epcot that night, so I choose times in the evening. I wouldn't have been able to get that under the old system. I also like to take afternoon breaks and then go to a different park. With the times under the old system, on more popular rides you may not be able to get a time until much later. For example, at noon Space Mountain might be a return time of 6:00. Under FP+, I usually book 10:00, 11:00, 1:00 (planning a lunch break), then take my resort break. Hit the short lines at opening and then do my fast passes. See if another FP+ is available at kiosk, sometimes you can get one only a few minutes away for lesser attractions.

 

[minnie mum]

Here is what confuses me as I prepare for our first new FP+ visit. I keep seeing references to people making their selections 60 days before and then revising them to get the times they want. What is that about? If the times they want are open then why can't they be chosen the first time through? Can anyone explain that? Thanks.

You might want to spend some time reading Mesaboys FP thread. Getting your desired FP times is not as straightforward as one might hope. Hence one of the " hoops" the OP referenced. Medaboys thread is here: http://www.disboards.com/threads/fa...ed-priorities-and-strategies-part-ii.3326057/

 

[rjmaple]

After you choose the attractions you want, it gives you 4 sets of times options for those attractions to pick from. Typically a morning grouping, an afternoon and an evening. They may not be the exact times you want, you may want to change the order. So you choose the option closest to what you want. Then you can go back in and change the time under each of the specific attractions. For example on my last morning, I want to ride Soarin at opening, maybe hit Spaceship Earth and then go back to BWV to catch DME around 12:15. It gave me a Soarin time around 11:00. That's too late. So I went under Soarin and checked the available times and it gave me a 9:00. You can't have 2 attractions in the same hour time slot, so if you want to change the order, you can move one of them later and then move up another one to get what you want.

I personally love FP+. For example on my arrival day, my plane lands around 1:30. I plan to go to Epcot that night, so I choose times in the evening. I wouldn't have been able to get that under the old system. I also like to take afternoon breaks and then go to a different park. With the times under the old system, on more popular rides you may not be able to get a time until much later. For example, at noon Space Mountain might be a return time of 6:00. Under FP+, I usually book 10:00, 11:00, 1:00 (planning a lunch break), then take my resort break. Hit the short lines at opening and then do my fast passes. See if another FP+ is available at kiosk, sometimes you can get one only a few minutes away for lesser attractions.

Thank you. That helps a lot even though it is still hard to imagine why 11 is an option the first time and 9 isn't. The thing is you have to be able to actually see the screens which you can't until 60 days. I would love to be able to practice so I don't mess it up. Maybe I will see if Youtube can help.

 

[rjmaple]

You might want to spend some time reading Mesaboys FP thread. Getting your desired FP times is not as straightforward as one might hope. Hence one of the " hoops" the OP referenced. Medaboys thread is here: http://www.disboards.com/threads/fa...ed-priorities-and-strategies-part-ii.3326057/

Yes, I have gone over it a few times but there is a lot more meat there than I can remember! Like anything there is no substitute for experience.

 

[DebbieB]

Thank you. That helps a lot even though it is still hard to imagine why 11 is an option the first time and 9 isn't. The thing is you have to be able to actually see the screens which you can't until 60 days. I would love to be able to practice so I don't mess it up. Maybe I will see if Youtube can help.

You don't pick times for individual rides the first time, you just pick the attractions you want. Say for example at Epcot you pick Soarin, Spaceship Earth & Mission Space. It could give you these options:

Option 1 - Soarin 10:00, Spaceship Earth 11:30, Mission Space 1:00
Option 2 - Mission Space 2:00, Spaceship Earth 3:30, Soarin 5:00
Option 3 - Spaceship Earth 6:00, Soarin 7:00, Mission Space 8:00

None of those are what you really want. You want your fastpasses for the morning, so you choose option 1. So you go in and see what else is available for morning. Say you want to start with Spaceship Earth. So you click on it and select change time. It will show you other times for Spaceship Earth. Say there is a 9:00 and you change it. Now you have Spaceship Earth 9:00, Soarin 10:00, Mission Space 1:00. Maybe you want Mission Space before lunch, so you go into that and do change time. You can't overlap so the earliest you could do Mission Space is 11:00. You see an 11:30 option, so you pick that. I think it's very flexible. The old system seemed too rigid to work with your other plans, especially when they took away the return anytime after unwritten rule. If you wanted a certain time, you had to be there at the fastpass machines when that time came up.

 

[My3Princez]

For the same reason that we answer the "top 25 questions" over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

Different posters come to the boards with the same pertinent issues every day.

My post count would be around 293 if topics only came up once.

I think that last line needs to be a tag for you. Is there a tag fairy anymore? lol

 

[Angel Ariel]

O.K....so, my opinion is that the system pretty much stinks! there are good things and bad things just like everything.
first of all, you have to literally jump through hoops just to make your original fast pass choices and you are lucky if you get what you want. Then when you get to the park and use those passes,you have to find somewhere to chose more fast passes....they are very difficult to find in ANY of the parks! when you finally find a kiosk you are only allowed to make one choice at a time! even though you had 3 to start with. A lot of the time there are no fast passes to be had within your time frame so you just have to pick whatever.
there has to be a better way.

I'm sorry you experienced frustration using the new system. We had a similar experience to yours - especially with difficulty finding the kiosks (they were not on the park map during our trip). It was definitely frustrating. Overall, though., we still had a great trip with many wonderful memories. I hope you did as well! The awesome memories help make up for the less than awesome system experience

 

[g-dad66]

You don't pick times for individual rides the first time, you just pick the attractions you want. Say for example at Epcot you pick Soarin, Spaceship Earth & Mission Space. It could give you these options:

Option 1 - Soarin 10:00, Spaceship Earth 11:30, Mission Space 1:00
Option 2 - Mission Space 2:00, Spaceship Earth 3:30, Soarin 5:00
Option 3 - Spaceship Earth 6:00, Soarin 7:00, Mission Space 8:00

None of those are what you really want. You want your fastpasses for the morning, so you choose option 1. So you go in and see what else is available for morning. Say you want to start with Spaceship Earth. So you click on it and select change time. It will show you other times for Spaceship Earth. Say there is a 9:00 and you change it. Now you have Spaceship Earth 9:00, Soarin 10:00, Mission Space 1:00. Maybe you want Mission Space before lunch, so you go into that and do change time. You can't overlap so the earliest you could do Mission Space is 11:00. You see an 11:30 option, so you pick that. I think it's very flexible. The old system seemed too rigid to work with your other plans, especially when they took away the return anytime after unwritten rule. If you wanted a certain time, you had to be there at the fastpass machines when that time came up.

Tip: Actually if you want fastpasses for the morning, you are better off choosing option 2 or option 3 initially. Then when you seek the exact morning times which you want for each attraction, all available morning times will be listed.

(If you picked Option 1, when you check to see what morning times are available, any times that overlap with the three times that you selected in option 1 won't even show up. This makes it much harder to get the times that you want.)