Fastpass+ is cramping my style

[socrateze]

That's starting to make sense. Must be quite the challenge for WDW. Like squeezing Jello in your hand. Where's it going to come out?

trying to herd cats or people is never a good idea!

 

[Kalliope]

What I found myself doing, and maybe others too was going in later doing my three rides and then waiting for the night time shows. A lot of down time.

People were piled in DHS waiting for Fantasmic and Frozen fireworks. Nearly all the rides were closed at 8:30. At MK the hub was jammed. At DAK I was only in for a short time both visits. The park was empty except for the mysteriously long standby line at Dinosaur.

Dinosaur was weird. I sat there for about an hour watching the lines at around 3:00 on July 7. Hardly anybody went in the standby. It never reached outside of the circular room with the dinosaur. I wandered in and out a few times to see. Yet, the standby time stayed at an hour. The FP line was always longer. It took about 15 minutes to ride via FP+ line. I did notice that streams of people would arrive through FP+ at their appointment time. The large tour groups came in at regular intervals.

So I'm thinking at DAK which is underutilized as for as FP goes, Dinosaur must be the one thrill ride that everyone can go on. Everest may be too exciting and Kali is too wet.

On my trip Dinosaur seemed like an appointment ride experience. Nearly everyone using it was through FP and very few entered on standby.

So that's what I did with my spare time. Watch lines. It is an improvement on watching paint dry. Sometimes I wandered over to see the Siamangs. I didn't spend anymore money though...

Hmmm. Now that you mention it, every time we walked through the Hub at MK, it was packed and it wasn't close to any parade times. Now I wonder if people were just sitting around killing time until their next FP.

 

[yukihime]

I had the same problem. Signed in to book Fast Pass+ last night at 11:01pm Central time, 60 days out, and turns out Mine Train, Anna and Elsa, and the Parades were already booked for the day. I went with Buzz, Cindy meet and greet and Peter Pan for now. I'll be checking back to see if SDMT or Anna and Elsa become available. Brutal!

ETA it's a non MNSS day

 

[jenrose66]

I can't speak for everyone, but personally, my issue is lines on attractions that formerly rarely had them. The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Spaceship Earth are great examples. They are large-capacity rides that eat lines, making Fastpasses for these unnecessary. However, since the advent of FP+, long lines for all of these are now a more common occurrence. This may be a non-issue for some people, but it's frustrating for many of us. Disney "fixed" something that wasn't broken, which has resulted in less-than-optimum results.

I would prefer Disney to just offer FP+ at lines that had legacy FP and don't mess with the other lines. Yes, this would lower the availability of overall passes but those who don't get them can wait on standby as was done in the past and it should restore overall lower waits at secondary attractions.

Or just do away with FP and have everyone wait on one line.

Or figure out a way to have express pass like universal, which after experiencing first hand, is a service I'd gladly pay for.

 

[mom2rtk]

That's starting to make sense. Must be quite the challenge for WDW. Like squeezing Jello in your hand. Where's it going to come out?

Just like a big ole game of whack-a-mole.

 

[larryz]

Just like a big ole game of whack-a-mole.

I can just imagine someone in IT, saying to his fellow workers, "Hey, watch this!" and suddenly releasing a couple hundred FP+s to SDMT...

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Just like a big ole game of whack-a-mole.

Difference is people actually win at whack-a-mole.

 

[mom2rtk]

Difference is people actually win at whack-a-mole.

For the WIN!

 

[Planogirl]

Be careful or wack a mole will be the next attraction.

Actually this could work... Wack a Frozen character? (Sorry )

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Be careful or wack a mole will be the next attraction.

Actually this could work... Wack a Frozen character? (Sorry )

They can just retheme the one in Animal Kingdom. It will be a Tier 1 FP+ then.

 

[TowMater92]

I'm planning a trip in late September and this is my first experience with Fastpass+ after many WDW trips with the old Fastpass system.

Here's what I've experienced:

1. Even though I I logged into the MyDisney at 12:01, Mine Train was already unavailable for all the days we will be in the park. I often pick less busy vacations, so I can avoid the crowds, lines and enjoy the parks at my pace.
2. "Grouping" of attractions in some of the parks means that I can't, for example, get a fastpass for ToT and RnR for the same day.
3. I now have fastpasses for attractions I never would have used in the past and probably won't use now. This means that someone else might not get one that they wanted.
4. I usually like to arrange my days in the parks in certain ways. The order of attractions, meals, etc. is important to my family's experience. Getting fastpasses the old way made planning the day easier. Part of my strategy was always to minimize wait time, even if it meant more walking. As I look at my current day plans, I've got some attractions with 30 minute or more waits. I could not get a fastpass for the time slot I was hoping for. That would be acceptable if something was a spur of the moment decision because it would be my choice, not because I lost in a lottery. It does seem a little unfair that fastpasses are gone as the result dates for other peoples vacations overlapped with mine.
5. I've had to change restaurant ressies, made earlier, because of availability issues with fastpasses. That translates into extra work for me and I've found that Restaurant ressie availability is now a sometimes a problem.

I understand that Disney is trying to make this all more equitable for everyone. Not everyone gets to the parks early and wants to do the extra walking that was a part of getting fastpasses under the old system. However, it doesn't fit my way of planning and enjoying the parks. And it has made my park planning way more complicated.


As always, constructive comments are welcome.

I agree with you 100% it changed our whole trip last December, it made it feel like a go go go vacation. We have always done whatever park we feel like and decide the night before or in the morning after we get up where we're going that day. We couldn't get fast passes for TT/Soarin and RnR/TSM on the same day so we had FP's for rides we would never use a FP on just to try to get that 4th FP for a different good ride and that didn't work out we on;y got TT one time as a 4th FP. It seemed like we did more with the old system and we weren't as rushed. We also use to change parks in the middle of the day after a break but now if we did that we couldn't get FP's for any of the headliners at the new park so it would be long waits. We like to go at our pace and do what we want and not have every day of our trip planned out before we go. If there was bad weather or someone wasn't feeling good those became our down days, now you lose your FP's if you change down days. The FP+ system is good for the person that wants to plan every second of every day but not everyone likes that and Disney can't understand that.

 

[Dentam]

This will be our first trip using FP+ and it'll be interesting to see how it changes our experience. I grew up going to Disneyland and remember waiting about 2 hours to go on Splash Mountain back when it was new. We also waited in long lines at other rides - Indiana Jones was another long one but also one of the first to have interactive elements throughout the line. Anyway, we're used to lines at Disney but are hoping that by going in early September it might be a bit better. Not sure about this talk of cutting back on CM's to make the parks feel more like a 7 though... that makes me a bit nervous but we'll see how it goes!

 

[bcrook]

This will be our first trip using FP+ and it'll be interesting to see how it changes our experience. I grew up going to Disneyland and remember waiting about 2 hours to go on Splash Mountain back when it was new. We also waited in long lines at other rides - Indiana Jones was another long one but also one of the first to have interactive elements throughout the line. Anyway, we're used to lines at Disney but are hoping that by going in early September it might be a bit better. Not sure about this talk of cutting back on CM's to make the parks feel more like a 7 though... that makes me a bit nervous but we'll see how it goes!

I would like to see how it is during the slower season too.

 

[bcrook]

Hmmm. Now that you mention it, every time we walked through the Hub at MK, it was packed and it wasn't close to any parade times. Now I wonder if people were just sitting around killing time until their next FP.

I think it is much worse in DHS. We strolled in around 2:30 went on Star Tours, then TSMM, then Tower of Terror. Then we were done. I spent an hour or so sitting in the HBD lounge overpaying for food. Then we walked around the streets of America, then we sat at Dockside for a while. Then I got a PB Shake, then we sat some more and waited for Frozen Fireworks with about 20,000 other people.

We did explore the "new" lounge formerly known as the Pirates of the Caribbean walk through experience. There were a few pictures in there to look at. We had the place to ourselves.

 

[bcrook]

I can just imagine someone in IT, saying to his fellow workers, "Hey, watch this!" and suddenly releasing a couple hundred FP+s to SDMT...

that's funny.

 

[bcrook]

Actually people are comparing crowds year over year with the impact of FP+ ... WDW is NOT "far more crowded" than it used to be.

Another thing my son and i noticed was the difference at the Great Movie Ride. Since they changed the format, and Robert Osborne is doing all the work with his recording, the CMs for that ride don't have to be as engaging or do as much acting. Just another way to make the employees more flexible and easier to move around. The "show" quality was diminished considerably with the change in format.

The CMs were pretty bored with their new roles. They don't even look like they are driving the vehicles anymore.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Another thing my son and i noticed was the difference at the Great Movie Ride. Since they changed the format, and Robert Osborne is doing all the work with his recording, the CMs for that ride don't have to be as engaging or do as much acting. Just another way to make the employees more flexible and easier to move around. The "show" quality was diminished considerably with the change in format.

The CMs were pretty bored with their new roles. They don't even look like they are driving the vehicles anymore.

This is the same thing as the change to Living With the Land and why I expect that someday soon even the Jungle Cruise will lose the live driver and be replaced with the exact same recorded loop for every boat.

 

[bcrook]

This is the same thing as the change to Living With the Land and why I expect that someday soon even the Jungle Cruise will lose the live driver and be replaced with the exact same recorded loop for every boat.

Replacing the actors with attendants.

 

[Robo]

The FP+ system is good for the person that wants to plan every second of every day...

I can't say I agree with your "plan every second of every day" statement.
I DO agree that it's good for the person who wants to plan... to ride 3 attractions in a day.
It's far too limited to allow planning for an ENTIRE day.

If there were only about 5-6 attractions in each park, I'd think of FP+ in a better light.
Of course, if there were only about 5-6 attractions in each park, I wouldn't go.

 

[momof2n2]

I would prefer Disney to just offer FP+ at lines that had legacy FP and don't mess with the other lines. Yes, this would lower the availability of overall passes but those who don't get them can wait on standby as was done in the past and it should restore overall lower waits at secondary attractions.

Or just do away with FP and have everyone wait on one line.

Or figure out a way to have express pass like universal, which after experiencing first hand, is a service I'd gladly pay for.

Or go back to a Legacy FP model using their fancy bands...