Dutifully reporting our experiences with the new Fastpass return policy. We were there this past week, one day each at MK, HS, and EP. Crowd levels were at high 4's/low 5/s for the first two parks, then down to 1.9 (lucky us!) at EP.
We are commando-park-people, veterans of the old fast pass system. We used fast passes on all three days. We never attempted to return outside of the time window. Once, I returned 5 minutes early for my window (in World Showcase in EP at the Norway ride), and they let us right in without a word.
We found that the fast passes still helped a lot; the FP line was *always* much much shorter than the regular line, just like it's always been. Because we had to use the FP during the given time window, it just created much more backtracking and criss-crossing in the parks. So, we had to adjust our strategy (I was one adult with two youngish kids, so we didn't have a fast pass "runner", unfortunately).
For example, at MK we got an FP to Peter Pan right at opening, return time starting at 9:25. We did all of our other fantasyland stuff plus Splash Mtn, then we had to stop and think.... ordinarily, we wouldn't backtrack to Fantasyland that early in the day, plus we also had to get our next FP starting at 9:25. We ended up going on Pirates and Aladdin, getting an FP at jungle cruise (return at 10:20), then dashing to catch the end of our window with Peter Pan. Then we went to Haunted Mansion, and by the time we got there the wait was 20 minutes (and we do NOT do 20 minute lines, usually).... so that was our one mistake of the day, not doing that earlier.
Then we had to schlepp back to Adventureland to use the FP on Jungle. Next, I had to figure out how to get the next FP for Buzz (FAR away across the park!) without exhausting my kids with too much trekking back and forth.... but in the ned, we trekked (did a few other things - like Swiss Family - on the way.) We went to Buzz and then had to schlepp all the way back to Liberty Tree for lunch!
It was much more exhausting for us, but in the end we still waited in virtually no lines all day.
Everything worked much better at HS for us, because we don't do TT or RnR.... so, we got an FP to TSM, rode it, went on Star Wars, went back and used the FP at TSM and got another one for the same ride. My kids love giving away an unused FP at the end of the day, so we thrilled a family of 3 by giving them our third TSM fast passes on the way out!
Epcot was a dream.... it was so empty, we road Soarin twice (once with FP, once at opening) with no wait, then only used FP for the Norway ride (maelstrom? can't spell that!) Gave away an FP to Soarin', felt great about that.
Hope this is helpful!! Good luck to everyone - my advice is to carefully think through what time the FP is likely to give you as a return, and then be a bit better strategically than we were about planning the order of your FPs.
Honestly, though - if you have a runner who doesn't mind the dash, the new return time enforcement system would work much better!
We are commando-park-people, veterans of the old fast pass system. We used fast passes on all three days. We never attempted to return outside of the time window. Once, I returned 5 minutes early for my window (in World Showcase in EP at the Norway ride), and they let us right in without a word.
We found that the fast passes still helped a lot; the FP line was *always* much much shorter than the regular line, just like it's always been. Because we had to use the FP during the given time window, it just created much more backtracking and criss-crossing in the parks. So, we had to adjust our strategy (I was one adult with two youngish kids, so we didn't have a fast pass "runner", unfortunately).
For example, at MK we got an FP to Peter Pan right at opening, return time starting at 9:25. We did all of our other fantasyland stuff plus Splash Mtn, then we had to stop and think.... ordinarily, we wouldn't backtrack to Fantasyland that early in the day, plus we also had to get our next FP starting at 9:25. We ended up going on Pirates and Aladdin, getting an FP at jungle cruise (return at 10:20), then dashing to catch the end of our window with Peter Pan. Then we went to Haunted Mansion, and by the time we got there the wait was 20 minutes (and we do NOT do 20 minute lines, usually).... so that was our one mistake of the day, not doing that earlier.
Then we had to schlepp back to Adventureland to use the FP on Jungle. Next, I had to figure out how to get the next FP for Buzz (FAR away across the park!) without exhausting my kids with too much trekking back and forth.... but in the ned, we trekked (did a few other things - like Swiss Family - on the way.) We went to Buzz and then had to schlepp all the way back to Liberty Tree for lunch!
It was much more exhausting for us, but in the end we still waited in virtually no lines all day.
Everything worked much better at HS for us, because we don't do TT or RnR.... so, we got an FP to TSM, rode it, went on Star Wars, went back and used the FP at TSM and got another one for the same ride. My kids love giving away an unused FP at the end of the day, so we thrilled a family of 3 by giving them our third TSM fast passes on the way out!
Epcot was a dream.... it was so empty, we road Soarin twice (once with FP, once at opening) with no wait, then only used FP for the Norway ride (maelstrom? can't spell that!) Gave away an FP to Soarin', felt great about that.
Hope this is helpful!! Good luck to everyone - my advice is to carefully think through what time the FP is likely to give you as a return, and then be a bit better strategically than we were about planning the order of your FPs.
Honestly, though - if you have a runner who doesn't mind the dash, the new return time enforcement system would work much better!
poof 
I did mean "people watch" - they liked to people watch! 
