Fastpass return or replacement?

[DefnotDLav]

It does seem that there are some kinks they are working out still.

Otherwise I have no idea what could be holding back any sort of announcement.

 

[DefnotDLav]

Maybe this is just ME, but outside of these boards, how many times has someone's upcoming Disney World vacation come up in a casual conversation and you ask about what ADRs they have planned or FP booking and the person looks at you like "Huh?" And when you try to explain it, their eyes sort of glaze over? Or they say something like "I don't know about that really, I think my travel agent might be taking care of that, not sure..." I mean, I have frequently come across people who say "Disney World...is that the one in Florida or California?" I live in a major metropolitan area in the NE, where lots of families have traveled to Europe and frequent the Caribbean & Cruises, so this is not people who are inexperienced planning trips. They just aren't likely to accept a theme park trip with their little ones to be over complicated.

Or how many times have you been in the parks when people walk up to one of the hardest to get table service restaurants and seem surprised there are 0 openings for the day? Or, they walk up to BBB with their little one in tow hoping to walk in without a reservation for a make-over? Or, when there was FP+, how many times did you hear someone mumble something like "must be nice to be rich enough to be able to walk to the front of the line."

I guess my point is, the multi-tiered system that is rumored seems way to complicated for the vast majority of people I have come across IRL to be able to deal with.

I forget how complicated a WDW trip can actually be until I talk with someone who doesn't go often.

For example my neighbor who hasn't been in 20 years was asking me about it recently as they were contemplating going and wanted my advice on where to start and how to get the most out of it. As soon as I got to how FP+ worked and how to maximize it, he already looked to be over the idea, lol.

Whatever they go with would have to remain simple enough for everyone to utilize, as they are going to have to convince a lot of people to actually utilize it.

 

[ellbell]

This is just not realistic. Small world is frequently at one hour during the middle of the day even when there still was fast pass. We went in November and it was the slowest I’d seen Disney in years and small world still had a wait of up to an hour during high times. Disney either needs to limit people or increase capacity by adding another gate or more to do. I have owned dvc for 10 years and the crowds just get worse every year. If it was 10 years ago what it is now I wouldn’t have bought dvc.

It is very realistic for me. I visit 2 or 3 times a year and have never seen It's a small world at an hour EVER. I've visited in August, September, October, December and March and never seen more than 40 minutes and often it was less than 30.

 

[snowwhite84]

So maybe $350-400/day per person? Yea, that'll go over well.

I don’t think Disney can offer the equivalent of Universal’s pass, the parks are too big. My hope is just that it works as ways Universal’s system.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

this isn’t the first time I’ve read this about park hopping. It makes me wonder if whatever new system they release will deter people from hopping. If genie grants you FP times will they spread them out through the day at one park? Say 9 am, noon and 4 pm. Add in park reservations and no hopping after 2 pm. But you’d think they like that “free” money of adding hopping to tickets.

But then who is going to be paying for hoppers? Seems like a waste of money at that point.

We ALWAYS buy hoppers and we stay deluxe at crescent lake or magic kingdom area resorts, so that we can easily hop in and out of epcot and mk. Pool day at Beach Club? Cool, I'll just pop over to Epcot for a snack. Can't do that anymore though, so not only would we not be spending the extra on hoppers but I'm also not sure I'd see the point in staying at those deluxe resorts. And since I don't see the point in staying moderate/value when I could stay offsite for less and uber to the parks (which is arguably more efficient than Disney buses), I may not even stay on site at all. It's a snowball effect for my family - I don't know how much we would enjoy staying offsite because the whole point for us is staying in the bubble. If they went in that direction it might leave us in a position where we don't particularly like *any* of the options we have in regards to a Disney vacation - and I'm not shelling out thousands for a vacation that doesn't explicitly meet my expectations. I'd wind up rerouting and just going somewhere else entirely.

 

[Cabius]

Or, when there was FP+, how many times did you hear someone mumble something like "must be nice to be rich enough to be able to walk to the front of the line."

I definitely didn't know about FP+ for my first several trips to WDW. It wasn't a thing in DL in the mid-1990s, and when I saw all the machines and separate queues at WDW I just assumed you had to pay extra for them.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Maybe this is just ME, but outside of these boards, how many times has someone's upcoming Disney World vacation come up in a casual conversation and you ask about what ADRs they have planned or FP booking and the person looks at you like "Huh?" And when you try to explain it, their eyes sort of glaze over? Or they say something like "I don't know about that really, I think my travel agent might be taking care of that, not sure..." I mean, I have frequently come across people who say "Disney World...is that the one in Florida or California?" I live in a major metropolitan area in the NE, where lots of families have traveled to Europe and frequent the Caribbean & Cruises, so this is not people who are inexperienced planning trips. They just aren't likely to accept a theme park trip with their little ones to be over complicated.

Or how many times have you been in the parks when people walk up to one of the hardest to get table service restaurants and seem surprised there are 0 openings for the day? Or, they walk up to BBB with their little one in tow hoping to walk in without a reservation for a make-over? Or, when there was FP+, how many times did you hear someone mumble something like "must be nice to be rich enough to be able to walk to the front of the line."

I guess my point is, the multi-tiered system that is rumored seems way to complicated for the vast majority of people I have come across IRL to be able to deal with.

That is everyone IRL for me. Outside of these boards I don’t know anyone who goes to Disney for a week, stays onsite, gets a meal plan, makes ADRs at the 180 or 60 day mark or makes FP+ at 60 days. Let alone doing this every year or multiple times a year. When I bring any of this up they look at me like I’m crazy because ya know, it’s vacation, not work.

I agree. For the majority of guests it’ll be confusing.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

I definitely didn't know about FP+ for my first several trips to WDW. It wasn't a thing in DL in the mid-1990s, and when I saw all the machines and separate queues at WDW I just assumed you had to pay extra for them.

We found out by accident. A cast member happened to overhear me telling my wife I'd never pay extra for fastpass and explained the whole thing to us. I loved it.

 

[Moliphino]

this isn’t the first time I’ve read this about park hopping. It makes me wonder if whatever new system they release will deter people from hopping. If genie grants you FP times will they spread them out through the day at one park? Say 9 am, noon and 4 pm. Add in park reservations and no hopping after 2 pm. But you’d think they like that “free” money of adding hopping to tickets.

I would not be a fan of that. I like my fastpasses one right after the other and then being free to wing it. I also just don't like spending all day in one park. It gets boring.

 

[mshanson3121]

It is very realistic for me. I visit 2 or 3 times a year and have never seen It's a small world at an hour EVER. I've visited in August, September, October, December and March and never seen more than 40 minutes and often it was less than 30.

I can back up the 60 minutes posted wait time. I've seen it that long more than once. I've been in May, June and July (granted didn't see it that long in May).

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

This is just not realistic. Small world is frequently at one hour during the middle of the day even when there still was fast pass. We went in November and it was the slowest I’d seen Disney in years and small world still had a wait of up to an hour during high times. Disney either needs to limit people or increase capacity by adding another gate or more to do. I have owned dvc for 10 years and the crowds just get worse every year. If it was 10 years ago what it is now I wouldn’t have bought dvc.

The long IASW waits you saw in November of ‘20 were a weird side-effect of how they were social-distance loading the boats. All the boat rides had huge lines relative to other stuff in the park. It’s how you ended up with IASW with wait times sometimes exceeding Peter Pan. That has stopped since they ended social distancing.

 

[ellbell]

I can back up the 60 minutes posted wait time. I've seen it that long more than once. I've been in May, June and July (granted didn't see it that long in May).

This has been over multiple years for me. The wait times this year are well over 60 minutes because of lack of fastpass

 

[whiporee]

Early morning phone call this today, because she wants to make sure I've got it right. (just so anyone knows, I'm a freelance writer, and while I don't intend to write anything for publication about this because it's all rumors and unsourced, she wants to make sure I at least know the facts from her understanding if I call around).

1) Disney feels little-to-no urgency about making g this change quickly. They still fear another partial shutdown, so they are looking a a long-term change in the way they handle visiting guests, one that could be scaleable. While the outside world may see the shutdown and the subsequent crowd restrictions as a chance to make changes, most of that time was spent trying to see not how to change, but how to survive. So any kind of changes discussed for the domestic parks still have a long way to go before they are implemented. She seemed to think the feeling is that because people are still pleased/relieved to be able to go at all, and then the carryover into Orlando’s 50th, guest dissatisfaction with lines is not an issue enough yet.

2) While that's true, there is a push to "normalize" things by October. In that case, the most likely thing is a return of the old FPs. And that's an option pushed because it’s a) easiest and b) it works. As far as she knows, there’s been no market research about what a functional price for on-demand FPS would be.

3) other stuff could be going on. She’s just part of one team. There are others.

 

[Cabius]

This has been over multiple years for me. The wait times this year are well over 60 minutes because of lack of fastpass

All else being equal, the lack of fastpass makes standby lines shorter because 100% of the traffic is going through one queue.

Obviously FP+ is faster for those who have them, but they make standby lines much longer, and removing FP+ shortens standby wait times.

That said, posted wait times are much longer because the standby queues are not physically built to accommodate the entire ride capacity -- they assume 50%-70% of riders come through the FP+ queue -- so they lie about wait times to discourage guests and keep queues from spilling out into the entire park.

If the "it's a small world" queue extends 20 feet out of the standby entrance, that's about 35 minutes. The posted wait may say 75 minutes. It's a lie.

 

[allknowingeye]

While I agree this is all rumors and innuendos I do fully believe that Trial Balloons are being floated here and it is important to make our feelings known in all clear way so that the company gets the message about what we want which is the return of Free Fast Passes and Not Paid Fast Passes.

Sing the Petition to make your opinion known: http://chng.it/d7LB8G8t7T

 

[Venelope21]

I’ve never posted on a message board before but I have been obsessively checking for any rumors on FastPass before our October trip. We booked earlier in the year to take our three year old on her first trip when capacity was still limited to 35% and foolishly figured that if they increased capacity they would bring back Fastpass as well. Sadly, I think we will be canceling if we don’t have an answer soon. I would love to go but I don’t want my daughters first experience (or ours as parents for that matter) to be waiting 90 minutes for the Frozen ride and hour + on other attractions. It’s just not a realistic expectation at this age. With Fastpass this would be more than manageable. I did write to Disney and someone called me from their Executive Client Service Team (whatever that is) to get my feedback and said she was bubbling/elevating. Her phrasing was something to the effect of “I hope Fastpass returns before your trip so you don’t cancel.” She probably doesn’t have any material information but it did spark some hope that Fastpass isn’t completely done.

 

[mrd7896]

I’ve never posted on a message board before but I have been obsessively checking for any rumors on FastPass before our October trip. We booked earlier in the year to take our three year old on her first trip when capacity was still limited to 35% and foolishly figured that if they increased capacity they would bring back Fastpass as well. Sadly, I think we will be canceling if we don’t have an answer soon. I would love to go but I don’t want my daughters first experience (or ours as parents for that matter) to be waiting 90 minutes for the Frozen ride and hour + on other attractions. It’s just not a realistic expectation at this age. With Fastpass this would be more than manageable. I did write to Disney and someone called me from their Executive Client Service Team (whatever that is) to get my feedback and said she was bubbling/elevating. Her phrasing was something to the effect of “I hope Fastpass returns before your trip so you don’t cancel.” She probably doesn’t have any material information but it did spark some hope that Fastpass isn’t completely done.

I completely get where you are coming from--personally i would probably wait to cancel until you are a month out. give them as much time as you can to announce something!

 

[cakebaker]

2) While that's true, there is a push to "normalize" things by October. In that case, the most likely thing is a return of the old FPs. And that's an option pushed because it’s a) easiest and b) it works. As far as she knows, there’s been no market research about what a functional price for on-demand FPS would be.

They opt to bring back traditional FP+ and the numbers go down with Covid, I’ll book another trip minute I can, IF they bring back the shows and other entertainment. Just riding rides got old fast for us.

My family and I were talking about this very thing last night- While a lot of us just worry about lines and fp systems, we think Disney sees what’s happening in Florida and nation wide for that matter and their focus is on staying open. I’d bet most people think the idea that they might have to shut down or scale back is far fetched. I don’t and I don’t think they do either.

What bothers me is just how long Disney can run on the “ just happy to be here” theory. At some point people will get tired of the higher prices, long lines, limited food options, virtually no housekeeping and bare bones experiences. It only took us one trip of 7 days before we said enough is enough. Right now, it hasn’t happened, but it will eventually.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

I did write to Disney and someone called me from their Executive Client Service Team (whatever that is) to get my feedback and said she was bubbling/elevating.

I wrote what I thought was a careful and thoughtful email a month ago expressing my concerns about the lack of fastpasses. I never got a phone call --- just a little-more-than-generic form email in response. It was was pretty disheartening.

 

[Venelope21]

I wrote what I thought was a careful and thoughtful email a month ago expressing my concerns about the lack of fastpasses. I never got a phone call --- just a little-more-than-generic form email in response. It was was pretty disheartening.

I’m sorry that’s so frustrating. Customer service is a crapshoot, I felt pretty lucky it ended up in anyone’s hands! But rest assured, I voiced my concerns on many issues including but not limited to the crazy rat race of scoring a dining reservation , only 30 extra minutes in the morning, and the deluxe hours not being a substitute for FastPass for those with small kids. I can appreciate on some level the initial pop in demand and the “we’re so lucky to be out of the house mentality” but as capacity increases those other perks should be brought back too.