Fastpass return or replacement?

I would just like to see an announcement from Disney regarding fastpass. I obviously would prefer a free version, but regardless, I would just like to know how to plan. This not knowing about the new system, or even when to expect it is very frustrating.
 
So in the Merch post from The Dis looks like there is a new mug that says "I need a fastpass to Friday". I find it unlikely they would release such an item if it was not returning at all. Maybe I am reading too much into this but I at least find it an encouraging sign :-)

By that logic they should stop selling mugs with happiest place on earth. 🤣🤣
 


Not to me though. When you say you maximize the potential of the fuel performance of your car, that affects only you. There is a critical piece that is missing from that, which is that for FP+, although you are maximizing it for yourself, it is often to the detriment of the average Disney visitor. You may not see it that way, but its a critical component to why they are changing it.
Maximizing the fuel efficiency of one's car doesn't just affect that person, though. Maximizing fuel efficiency means affecting fuel tax income and therefore the conditions of roads, as well as the climate. Every thing - even FP+ - has unintended consequences for other people (good and bad). A paid system will; a hybrid system will. Everything does.
 
By that logic they should stop selling mugs with happiest place on earth. 🤣🤣
You are correct but the reality mug would read : Went to WDW and got long lines, no parades, no FP's, masks, limited entertainment, no trams, and limited food.... doesn't have the same shine as happiest place on earth. And how big would that mug have to be to fit all that on it. Lol
 
We're not going until next spring. I just want something. If we have to pay for it, then we'll budget. If it's free, great.

But there needs to be some system in place.
Triip planned for GF in April. Without a FP system of some kind, whether free or paid, then we will be canceling and heading to Universal instead. Will not be spending so much $$$ just to spend all day standing in line. Just my opinion of course.
 


You are correct but the reality mug would read : Went to WDW and got long lines, no parades, no FP's, masks, limited entertainment, no trams, and limited food.... doesn't have the same shine as happiest place on earth. And how big would that mug have to be to fit all that on it. Lol
Well, WDW wouldn't have that since that's not it's tagline. That's DL.
 
I would just like to see an announcement from Disney regarding fastpass. I obviously would prefer a free version, but regardless, I would just like to know how to plan. This not knowing about the new system, or even when to expect it is very frustrating.

Totally agree. I'm planning a trip during Thanksgiving week with a large friends and family group. Mix of first timers and frequent visitors. I'm eager to know what's happening so that we can plan.
 
You are correct but the reality mug would read : Went to WDW and got long lines, no parades, no FP's, masks, limited entertainment, no trams, and limited food.... doesn't have the same shine as happiest place on earth. And how big would that mug have to be to fit all that on it. Lol
Where there's a will, there's a way. And an Etsy shop. Soon to be opened by yours truly. 😜
 
hence the question that i'm wondering about.
if a bucket of people won't be clogging up the queue because they have a return time at 4 PM, that whole bucket of people will be elsewhere in the park, not bombarding the attraction when it opens...specifically how FP+ worked and how Disney used to be able to monitor things.

so my point in the question was, when FP+ was a thing, people would argue that waits were sooooooo much worse because of the FP queue. and now people are saying that without FP+ the wait times typically feel a lot shorter because there is no other queue getting priority

i was curious if 'rides have longer lines when FP is open' is a common opinion/thought

Well, there are no 2 ways around it, and it's not really an opinion type of thing. It's quite simple math.

You have a resource a.k.a. "the ride" which can consume a certain number of consumables. Lets say it can take 100 an hour (that's very low, but we will use it for demonstration). How you provide the consumables makes no difference to the number that can be consumed. You have 2 tracks which feed the resource (track A and track B - a.k.a. "Standby and FP+"). If there are 100 consumables in track A and 0 in track B, the amount of time before the resource can consume all of the consumables in track A is one hour. If you have 100 in Track A and add consumables in track B at a pace of 50/hour, then the amount of time before the resource can consume all the available consumables in track A is 1.5 hours.

That is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. The only way you can alter that equation is to increase the resource.

There is a definite difference for a consumable in Track B as it has not spent as much time waiting in the Track. There is also a definite difference for the consumable in Track A which has waited 1.5 times longer.

In addition, if the consumable in track A includes sensors for motion and has thought (like a human), the person in Track A will perceive that they have a better experience if Track B is closed because not only have they not waited as long, but they are in constant motion rather than start / stop, start / stop, start / stop.

Think about it like driving your car. Would you rather be driving at 5 miles an hour or would you rather stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet,, then stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet? MOST people would rather be going at a steady 5 miles an hour. It's less frustrating and feels like you are constantly making progress even if the time in wait is the same.

Having a track B is good for the consumables (people) in Track B (FP+). However, it will ALWAYS have a negative effect on Track A consumables.
 
Anyone else regularly seeing news stories about paid Disney FP, thinking “wow, it’s actually happening” only to realize after a couple of minutes that the story is about Disneyland Paris?

It's annoying the heck out of me. I keep thinking "why did I not hear about this on the boards! I need to go post it! Then I read further and I'm like.... "oh".
 
Well, there are no 2 ways around it, and it's not really an opinion type of thing. It's quite simple math.

You have a resource a.k.a. "the ride" which can consume a certain number of consumables. Lets say it can take 100 an hour (that's very low, but we will use it for demonstration). How you provide the consumables makes no difference to the number that can be consumed. You have 2 tracks which feed the resource (track A and track B - a.k.a. "Standby and FP+"). If there are 100 consumables in track A and 0 in track B, the amount of time before the resource can consume all of the consumables in track A is one hour. If you have 100 in Track A and add consumables in track B at a pace of 50/hour, then the amount of time before the resource can consume all the available consumables in track A is 1.5 hours.

That is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. The only way you can alter that equation is to increase the resource.

There is a definite difference for a consumable in Track B as it has not spent as much time waiting in the Track. There is also a definite difference for the consumable in Track A which has waited 1.5 times longer.

In addition, if the consumable in track A includes sensors for motion and has thought (like a human), the person in Track A will perceive that they have a better experience if Track B is closed because not only have they not waited as long, but they are in constant motion rather than start / stop, start / stop, start / stop.

Think about it like driving your car. Would you rather be driving at 5 miles an hour or would you rather stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet,, then stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet? MOST people would rather be going at a steady 5 miles an hour. It's less frustrating and feels like you are constantly making progress even if the time in wait is the same.

Having a track B is good for the consumables (people) in Track B (FP+). However, it will ALWAYS have a negative effect on Track A consumables.

The biggest problem -- and the reason that FP+ WILL return -- is that track A was only built to hold 50 consumables, so when 100 or 150 pack in there, it spills out into the park and creates major crowd control headaches. Kilimanjaro Safaris is an absolute wreck right now, because they're putting 3,000 people (a 1-hour queue) in a physical space designed for 1,500 people, and wrapping all the way back to Festival of the Lion King and through ugly backstage areas.

It's a physical problem as much as a guest experience challenge.
 
Its an interesting question. My gut says they implemented Fastpass+ as a satisfier to give a wider range of users access to popular rides. They probably wanted to ensure more users reported a better experience when they returned from the trip. They want more users to feel comfortable to browse shops knowing that a fast pass is coming soon. I doubt they built FP+ so power users could get 12 short rides a day.

While I don't think they will aggressively go after that group, I would not be shocked if they decide "unlimited" short wait rides should include a price tag. If you get 2-3 Fastpass free and then it is 9.99 for every FP pass after that, it would likely curtail most power users from getting an endless stream of Fastpasses. Some maybe happy of forking over an extra $100 per day for fast passes, but most will not. The Fastpasses that become available by a decrease of demand would now become available to be purchased by those who are not so diligently pounding the phone but are willing to commit financial resources to get them.

In short, I would not be shocked if the power user is one of the "losers" of any paid/hybrid system.

100% this. What a lot of people in these boards forget is that the demographic for WDW is VERY different from the demographic in DLP or DLC. For WDW, the demographic is APPROXIMATELY 70%-ish (no one really knows other than Disney) are on their first trip to Disney. The majority of those visitors will never come back (they are one trip'ers). A percentage of them will make a second trip in their lifetimes. Usually this is a generational thing - the average person will visit (hopefully) once as a kid, once as a parent (bringing their kids) and once as a grandparent (bringing their grandkids). This is really what Disney is built on. Their model is based on these people going home and telling their friends they had a great time so their friends do the same thing and that the kids will want to come back as adults. WDW is not built around a model of everyone making annual (or more) trips.

They (Disney) are acutely aware of this demographic and fiercely protective of it. For WDW they will certainly make changes to provide a better experience for those 70% at the expense of locals and annual visitors. That's not to say (as you have noted) that they are targeting those people. If they can make it better for all, they certainly will. But if they have to make a choice, there is no doubt which choice they would make.
 
The biggest problem -- and the reason that FP+ WILL return -- is that track A was only built to hold 50 consumables, so when 100 or 150 pack in there, it spills out into the park and creates major crowd control headaches. Kilimanjaro Safaris is an absolute wreck right now, because they're putting 3,000 people (a 1-hour queue) in a physical space designed for 1,500 people, and wrapping all the way back to Festival of the Lion King and through ugly backstage areas.

It's a physical problem as much as a guest experience challenge.

That's true... and I have simplified it incredibly. When you start adding human perception onto it, there are a lot of factors. The length of the queue and the PERCEIVED length of the queue and whether the queue is covered, inside, etc or spilling out into the park makes a considerable difference in whether a given person will enter a queue (thus adding to the wait). Queues with interactive elements can also handle a slower move. I.e. parents are more patient for a queue that is stopped when there is an activity for their little ones to do (think Haunted Mansion or Big Thunder). Sometimes when there are no FP+ I feel those queues move TOO fast. I used to love being able to see the stuff in space mountain. Ariel's is actually frustrating to me these days since I never get a chance to watch the crabs sorting the human stuff or being able to play the games.

All of those are ancillary to the question of does FP+ make the standby line move faster. The answer is absolutely not. It may discourage people from getting into standby, but the amount of time someone waits will be longer given all other factors being equal.

Regarding FP+'s return though - I still hold that it will NOT return in it's previous incarnation. It will be different. HOW is still up for debate, but it will almost certainly be different.
 
Well, there are no 2 ways around it, and it's not really an opinion type of thing. It's quite simple math.

You have a resource a.k.a. "the ride" which can consume a certain number of consumables. Lets say it can take 100 an hour (that's very low, but we will use it for demonstration). How you provide the consumables makes no difference to the number that can be consumed. You have 2 tracks which feed the resource (track A and track B - a.k.a. "Standby and FP+"). If there are 100 consumables in track A and 0 in track B, the amount of time before the resource can consume all of the consumables in track A is one hour. If you have 100 in Track A and add consumables in track B at a pace of 50/hour, then the amount of time before the resource can consume all the available consumables in track A is 1.5 hours.

That is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. The only way you can alter that equation is to increase the resource.

There is a definite difference for a consumable in Track B as it has not spent as much time waiting in the Track. There is also a definite difference for the consumable in Track A which has waited 1.5 times longer.

In addition, if the consumable in track A includes sensors for motion and has thought (like a human), the person in Track A will perceive that they have a better experience if Track B is closed because not only have they not waited as long, but they are in constant motion rather than start / stop, start / stop, start / stop.

Think about it like driving your car. Would you rather be driving at 5 miles an hour or would you rather stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet,, then stop, then drive 10 miles an hour for a few feet? MOST people would rather be going at a steady 5 miles an hour. It's less frustrating and feels like you are constantly making progress even if the time in wait is the same.

Having a track B is good for the consumables (people) in Track B (FP+). However, it will ALWAYS have a negative effect on Track A consumables.
Your explanation has 2 flaws.

The first flaw is that you begin by postulating that 50% of ride capacity is being consumed by FP+ users when in actuality it hovers around 20%-25%. That false assumption increases the line A wait time significantly in your example.

The second flaw is assuming that none of the FP+ guests would enter line A if FP+ were not available. Assuming that all of them were to join line A, that still extends wait times in line A by 20%-25%, thereby making the overall wait time for guest #101 the same as if they joined line A with FP+ in effect.
 

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