Fastpass + seems to be ruining many posters trips to WDW.

FP+ and MB have not ruined WDW for us. But they have set up a system that is destined to GREATLY DIMINISH our vacation experience based on what OUR FAMILY likes to do. The old way of pulling 6-8 FP a day and riding headliners repeatedly just won't work any longer. Those days are gone.

Sorry, I won't pay several thousand dollars for that. It's just not for us. We'll go to Disneyland or Universal Orlando (staying onsite) and get an experience that is better suited to our family. It only makes sense.

There is no need to spend a small fortune to "give it a try." I don't gamble with that kind of cash. Anyone with a lick of sense can read about the changes and assuming they see the changes are an ill fit for their family, make an informed decision to go elsewhere.

I can talk for hours with my family at home for free. I can soak up atmosphere in Paris for probably less money. FP+ will be great for some and bad for others. I know which camp we fall into.
 
I'm not going to let it ruin my vacation, but I also have very low expectations. We know Universal will be awesome as it always is. WDW will be more of a "Goodbye" trip, as it will probably be our last one. I don't have to experience the new system to tell it won't work for my family. For some, it may. For us, it's not how we like to experience WDW. So, we'll go this year since it's already booked and paid for (renting DVC points, otherwise I'd cancel), enjoy our last trip (until Disney pulls it's head out of it's corporate butt), do things outside the parks, and that will be all.
 
FP+ and MB have not ruined WDW for us. But they have set up a system that is destined to GREATLY DIMINISH our vacation experience based on what OUR FAMILY likes to do. The old way of pulling 6-8 FP a day and riding headliners repeatedly just won't work any longer. Those days are gone.

Sorry, I won't pay several thousand dollars for that. It's just not for us. We'll go to Disneyland or Universal Orlando (staying onsite) and get an experience that is better suited to our family. It only makes sense.

There is no need to spend a small fortune to "give it a try." I don't gamble with that kind of cash. Anyone with a lick of sense can read about the changes and assuming they see the changes are an ill fit for their family, make an informed decision to go elsewhere.

I can talk for hours with my family at home for free. I can soak up atmosphere in Paris for probably less money. FP+ will be great for some and bad for others. I know which camp we fall into.

Exactly, which is why we just cancelled the Disney portion of our Dec. trip and extended our time at Universal. I am not spending that kind of money to go during peak season at a crowded time, limited to a tiered FP+ selection with no idea if the FP- will even be available. I certainly am not going to spend thousands of dollars to sleep in all day, sit or stand with the masses waiting for hours. That is not enjoyable and it is not very fair to someone who is use to planning around that if they chose to do so.

We are just not interested in going and "finding out" because we already know what works for us and this isn't it.

I can see how that some people went when both FP+ and FP- were in play for them and they liked it. It would be awesome if it stayed that way, I was excited when I first heard about it. But it seems to me we can't count on it working for us simply because we don't even know what they will choose to do by the end of Dec. The rules change every week and I'm not a gambler.

We will continue to see what Disney implements and if it improves we will consider going back. Or we will have to adj. our plans and go during slower seasons if we do want to go back. Otherwise, the world isn't falling for us. We go to Disney simply because it is a theme park and things like FP made it great for us. But simply put... even as special as Disney has been for us... there are tons of places to go on vacation that are even more wonderful and way more beautiful than any theme park. pixiedust:
 
In general, people don't like change. Add that to an internet board where exaggeration is always rampant, and you have people claiming their trip will be ruined.

That said, I hate the idea of FP+, particularly the tiering, the 1 park per day, and 1 per ride per day. Choosing between TT and Soarin' for my newly 40" tall DS stinks, especially since we do not know when we will be coming back. I don't care how strong the rose colored glasses are that you make me put on, I think the changes are for the worse.

But, we will go on our trip, and DS and DD won't know the difference in how it was versus how it is, so our trip will still be magical.
 

Exactly, which is why we just cancelled the Disney portion of our Dec. trip and extended our time at Universal. I am not spending that kind of money to go during peak season at a crowded time, limited to a tiered FP+ selection with no idea if the FP- will even be available. I certainly am not going to spend thousands of dollars to sleep in all day, sit or stand with the masses waiting for hours. That is not enjoyable and it is not very fair to someone who is use to planning around that if they chose to do so.

We are just not interested in going and "finding out" because we already know what works for us and this isn't it.

I can see how that some people went when both FP+ and FP- were in play for them and they liked it. It would be awesome if it stayed that way, I was excited when I first heard about it. But it seems to me we can't count on it working for us simply because we don't even know what they will choose to do by the end of Dec. The rules change every week and I'm not a gambler.

We will continue to see what Disney implements and if it improves we will consider going back. Or we will have to adj. our plans and go during slower seasons if we do want to go back. Otherwise, the world isn't falling for us. We go to Disney simply because it is a theme park and things like FP made it great for us. But simply put... even as special as Disney has been for us... there are tons of places to go on vacation that are even more wonderful and way more beautiful than any theme park. pixiedust:

Well stated. If they kept regular Fastpass in play, no problem at all. I wouldn't even both with Plus. However, Disney (for some reason I simply can't fathom) seems determined for guests to have to choose which attractions they want to see as opposed to getting to see everything. If they think it's going to make people say "This trip was great, but we didn't get to do Soarin' because we chose to do Test Track, let's book another trip", I think they're in for a rude awakening.
 
Well stated. If they kept regular Fastpass in play, no problem at all. I wouldn't even both with Plus. However, Disney (for some reason I simply can't fathom) seems determined for guests to have to choose which attractions they want to see as opposed to getting to see everything. If they think it's going to make people say "This trip was great, but we didn't get to do Soarin' because we chose to do Test Track, let's book another trip", I think they're in for a rude awakening.

I think they are in for a rude awakening too. The only way this will work for them, in my opinion, is for the first time guests who don't know anything different. It seems like they want to pull the wool over everyone's eyes by making it look like they have more than what they do for headliners and no one should expect to do all of the headliners during one park day. They are doing this rather than adding more headliners.

I would find it hard to believe that the biggest percentage of the guests each year are first time visitors vs. repeat visitors. But maybe I'm wrong.

Most people will see that they could have done more if they had not had to wait in line to do everything. Those that care about the headliners will see that the cost vs. value of the park ticket may not be worth it for them to come back.

I know that for our first time to either Uni or Disney, I researched and found out about express pass and FP- long before I booked and planned from there. That is why we had such good trips, we never waited in line over 20 minutes and most often never over 5 minutes even during very crowded times. And I admit Uni has really spoiled my family in regards to waiting in line even compared to Disney's FP-.

I would even pay a fee (a reasonable fee) for FP tickets at Disney, that is how much they make or break our trip during crowded times.
 
DebbieB said:
I was there last week, didn't ruin my trip at all. In fact, I liked it!

Bravo, 9 days in the parks for us Nov 2-10, we are regular visitors to the World, and we all loved it!

Sent from my rooted Samsung Galaxy SIII using the DISBoards app
 
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I would even pay a fee (a reasonable fee) for FP tickets at Disney, that is how much they make or break our trip during crowded times.

Absolutely. I've always felt this way. And my guess is, this is where they're headed. They didn't want to just turn around and start charging for Fastpass. They changed the system, so it's pretty much as bad as they could make it (without taking it away, which would have been business suicide), then they'll play the hero card when they release Fastpass Unlimited a year from now (at a cost).
 
I have never understood why anyone would micro-manage their vacation to the point that they are choosing where they will eat 90 or 180 days out and I definitely don't see the appeal in scheduling rides.

I've stopped making ADRs on days I plan to be in a park and usually don't decide what I'll be doing on any given day until that morning. If that means I wait in a line or miss an attraction no big deal. I'm still at Disney World and I'm not going to let it ruin my trip or even get me upset. I also think you are nuts to go at busy times. I'd turn down a free trip that took place over Christmas week before I trudged through crowds like that.
 
That said, I hate the idea of FP+, particularly the tiering, the 1 park per day, and 1 per ride per day. Choosing between TT and Soarin' for my newly 40" tall DS stinks, especially since we do not know when we will be coming back. I don't care how strong the rose colored glasses are that you make me put on, I think the changes are for the worse.

I agree with this. The tiering, 1 park per day, 1 per ride per day is a bummer. These rules will change how I tour the parks.

I feel Disney is taking a flexible system that allowed everyone to make personal choices, and turning it into an inflexible system that forces everyone into limited choices per Disney's new rules.

It's nice to not have to traverse the park for fastpasses, or be there at rope-drop. Those are advantages that will benefit many people. But do they outweigh the negative impact of the rules Disney is imposing (re: tiered fp+ selections, 1 park per day, 1 fp+ per ride, pre-planning months out)? That depends heavily on the individual, and on crowd levels.

But no, it will certainly not ruin my vacation! Can't wait to get there in January and to test it out for myself. And I like to read all the info, reviews, personal experiences, and debate about it on the boards.

(Anyway... what I really think Disney needs to do is build more headliner attractions! Spread out the demand for the current headliners!! MORE GREAT RIDES are needed!)

:sunny:
 
We have a trip planned for this coming Sept, our 9th yearly trip to WDW. To be perfectly honest, even though Sept is a relatively slow time, we are considering cancelling. We have reservations for the Contemporary but I can't see spending almost $700 day (tickets and hotel) to have to wait on lines in the heat and humidity. We stayed at the GF 5 years ago with a great special they were running for a lot cheaper then the tickets/hotels are charging now. Just starting to feel that it's not worth the thousands of dollars anymore.
 
I also think you are nuts to go at busy times. I'd turn down a free trip that took place over Christmas week before I trudged through crowds like that.

I used to say the same thing. But my oldest child has reached a point where I just can't take him out of school for more than a day or two. We've been considering spring break 2014 for a long time. It's not Easter week, so I knew that with rope drop and our excellent planning skills, I could make it work.

Then I read more and more about FP+-- the limits, the lack of flexibility, the uncertainty. I just couldn't invest so much money and vacation time into something that was clearly not going to live up to past trips, especially when my older children will have at least as much fun at IoA and on an inexpensive non-Disney cruise. We are spending one day at MK, with very low expectations so we will have a good time. But I will also be thinking of it as a test, to see whether another big Disney trip is in our future. It's not just FP+, it's also the lack of appealing new attractions. It makes me sad.
 
We have been here for a week now and I was dreading FP+. We are two adults so we like to be a little more flexible and spontaneous. Our strategy in the past was to hit a park at rope drop, ride stand by and collect paper FPs and then break mid day, then come back at night using the paper FPs. This was before time enforcement.

This trip, I had a few days with no park scheduled so we were able to sleep in and decide what we felt like doing when we woke up. Today we decided Epcot around 11am so I reserved us test track for 1pm and it worked well. Now I know availability may become an issue but I can tell you that even though all resorts are using it now, we had no availability issues. Yes we did not ride Soarin since we chose test track, but we can do that another day if we wanted.

There are pros and cons to FP+ just like paper FP but there are situations that I was glad to have Fp+.
 
That's the thing, you can. Just wait in line. The time can be well spent talking with your family.

I am another one who can find plenty of other places besides line to talk to my family. We are there to have fun with each other NOT stand in lines if we can help it.

1.I'm not paying thousands of dollars to stand in line.
2.I don't just talk with my family on vacations.
3.Even if we were to accept standing in line, there are only so many hours in the day. At some point, you're going to run out of time and miss some rides or attractions that you wanted to see.

I think the mantra of "You've done it once, now move on" it just ridiculous. I'm flying thousands of miles and paying thousands of dollars. If I want to ride Space Mountain twice, I should be able to do so without having to miss 5 other rides. If Disneys' goal was as it says it was, which is to enhance guests experience, they have failed miserably with FP+.

:thumbsup2

And for others who say why am I bashing a system I haven't tried, well I have this thing called reading comprehension...I can read what is out there from WDW officially, what others here have experienced that post here on the DIS, and see if that will adapt to my family's strategies in past trips, and as of now I dont think they will. I can read all I want about skydiving and know that I dont want to experience it either.
 
Just sent an email to Disney and told them how upset and disappointed I was about FP+ tiering and no paper FP at the Pop. I tested the MB in Sept and while I prefer the legacy system, I thought I could live with it. Now with this new test, I'm thinking of canceling our trip. I LOVE Disney, I have been every year of my life for almost 40 years. My kids and I look forward to it all year, but with costs being upwards of $10,000 for my family and my parents, we are looking at other options. I can't even believe I'm saying this?????? It is not worth it to ride only one headliner each day and then have 2 other useless FP+'s. I told them I hoped they would get this system worked out soon. I am so dismayed that they would treat their loyal customers this way. I feel bad for all those at the Pop this week, I hope you complained enough to change resorts, I know that I would. I think the management of Disney have lost their minds. I'm hoping for the best, because really I love WDW. They should have just left it the way it was. I'll let you know if I hear from them, but I think I probably will not.
 
My family and I are visiting Disney World Nov. 30- Dec 6. We're doing 5 days at Disney (repeat day at Epcot) and 2 at Universal. The last time I was at Disney World was 1992 and my kids and hubby have never been.

We aren't staying on property so I'm guessing we won't get on the FP+ test...so my question is...will the old Fast Pass system still be in effect the first week of December??

I'm so confused!
 
I see some people stating that many of those against this haven't tried it yet. I'll just point out that some people haven't gotten the chance to try it because Disney isn't offering it to them. That makes it a little hard to try it.

Also, many who praise this have also not tried it yet or they have gone during a quiet time. It could all be much different during busy periods or if new changes are made. I don't consider those who have tried it any more informed than anyone else because of all of the changes and uncertainly. A major part of my annoyance comes from that uncertainly. I don't want to pay for a vacation that is difficult to plan.
 
My family and I are visiting Disney World Nov. 30- Dec 6. We're doing 5 days at Disney (repeat day at Epcot) and 2 at Universal. The last time I was at Disney World was 1992 and my kids and hubby have never been.

We aren't staying on property so I'm guessing we won't get on the FP+ test...so my question is...will the old Fast Pass system still be in effect the first week of December??

I'm so confused!


If you are there on an extremely slow day, you will be OK. But even if the old fastpass system is still in effect, and it appears it will be...be aware that there are not very many actual paper fastpass times left at the headliner rides...and ALL of the rides and shows now have fastpass (even the ones that never had fastpass before.) BUT many rides have fastpass+ but no fastpass paper ticket machines, so you're just out of luck there...like Pirates of the Caribbean had 30 minute standby on a slow day because they're now running a fastpass line there too. But there is no fastpasspaper ticket machine for it so if you don't have fastpass+ you have no chance to get Pirates fastpass and there are now built in waits because of the fastpass+ line. The crowds that day I would have guessed walk-on for Pirates, but not now because the fastpass+ is redistributing the crowds much more effectively (for Disney anyway.)

And we were at Epcot in mid-October on a medium-slow day (it was rated a "4" on the crowd calendar) but guesstimating the actual crowd early in the day, it was more like a 3. Maybe getting to be a 4 by the time we left around 1:00 PM that day. We arrived at Epcot 45 minutes before the park opened, we were 4th in line at the ticket turnstyle. They opened the park about 10 minutes before 9:00. I was on a scooter, and went directly to the Soarin' Fastpass machines...arriving there at 8:55 AM. There were only 3 people in the room ahead of me. Pulled 5 fastpasses with our park tickets--the return times were 12, 2:00, 2:10, 2:10 and 2:15. While waiting for my family to get to Soarin for a stand-by ride, the fastpass return time jumped to 5:30 PM at 9:00 AM. When my family joined me to get in the stand-by line, at 9:05 AM...the fastpass return time was 8:00 PM. When we left the land building about 9:30 AM and went by the electronic times sign both Soarin' and Test Track said fastpasses were gone for the day. This was in the early morning, before the crowds arrived!

As for the tiered fastpass+ system...that makes for interesting touring issues. That same day at Epcot...at 9:30 in the morning on a slow morning, Journey into Imagination had a stand-by wait time of 40 minutes! Because there was a whole bunch of people who actually booked fastpasses for Figment. Later in the morning Figment was back to normal walk-on...but that first hour it was very busy. Crazy.
 
Planogirl said:
I see some people stating that many of those against this haven't tried it yet. I'll just point out that some people haven't gotten the chance to try it because Disney isn't offering it to them. That makes it a little hard to try it.

Also, many who praise this have also not tried it yet or they have gone during a quiet time. It could all be much different during busy periods or if new changes are made. I don't consider those who have tried it any more informed than anyone else because of all of the changes and uncertainly. A major part of my annoyance comes from that uncertainly. I don't want to pay for a vacation that is difficult to plan.

Agreed. :)
 
If you are there on an extremely slow day, you will be OK. But even if the old fastpass system is still in effect, and it appears it will be...be aware that there are not very many actual paper fastpass times left at the headliner rides...and ALL of the rides and shows now have fastpass (even the ones that never had fastpass before.) BUT many rides have fastpass+ but no fastpass paper ticket machines, so you're just out of luck there...like Pirates of the Caribbean had 30 minute standby on a slow day because they're now running a fastpass line there too. But there is no fastpasspaper ticket machine for it so if you don't have fastpass+ you have no chance to get Pirates fastpass and there are now built in waits because of the fastpass+ line. The crowds that day I would have guessed walk-on for Pirates, but not now because the fastpass+ is redistributing the crowds much more effectively (for Disney anyway.)

And we were at Epcot in mid-October on a medium-slow day (it was rated a "4" on the crowd calendar) but guesstimating the actual crowd early in the day, it was more like a 3. Maybe getting to be a 4 by the time we left around 1:00 PM that day. We arrived at Epcot 45 minutes before the park opened, we were 4th in line at the ticket turnstyle. They opened the park about 10 minutes before 9:00. I was on a scooter, and went directly to the Soarin' Fastpass machines...arriving there at 8:55 AM. There were only 3 people in the room ahead of me. Pulled 5 fastpasses with our park tickets--the return times were 12, 2:00, 2:10, 2:10 and 2:15. While waiting for my family to get to Soarin for a stand-by ride, the fastpass return time jumped to 5:30 PM at 9:00 AM. When my family joined me to get in the stand-by line, at 9:05 AM...the fastpass return time was 8:00 PM. When we left the land building about 9:30 AM and went by the electronic times sign both Soarin' and Test Track said fastpasses were gone for the day. This was in the early morning, before the crowds arrived!

As for the tiered fastpass+ system...that makes for interesting touring issues. That same day at Epcot...at 9:30 in the morning on a slow morning, Journey into Imagination had a stand-by wait time of 40 minutes! Because there was a whole bunch of people who actually booked fastpasses for Figment. Later in the morning Figment was back to normal walk-on...but that first hour it was very busy. Crazy.

It's this kind of report we need more of, and I look forward to reading more like this. The soarin example is amazing.

Thanks for sharing.
 













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