Flights of Passage and Disney Officially Suck

[cdnjason]

Poor bus drivers. Always getting blamed for spreading bad rumors.

 

[JDUCKY]

This is Long, but you might want to read it. We just got back from a last minute quick trip to the World. Pandoraland and Flights of Passage were tops on our list, so this past Friday morning, we headed to AK and entered the park around 7:15 am. The Park wasn't scheduled to open until 8, though like everyone else, we headed straight towards Pandorland. It wasn't long after we got to the Tree and made the left turn that we ran into the masses of people that arrived before us. After waiting for 30 minutes or so, the line began to move. It stopped a few time, but we finally got into the Flights of Passage ride queue, and the wait time at that point said 120 minutes.

I thought that sounded long, but what the heck, this ride was the only reason we went to AK to begin with. We progressed through the queue relatively quickly until we got to the Lab room where the line completely stopped and we waited at least an hour. My daughter checked her phone and the the wait time had been changed to 4 hours and minutes. We spent another hour in the last room, and we had just arrived at the point where the FP and Stand-by lines merge. We were the next group to go into the final portion of the line when the Fire Alarms went off and the lights came on. We were told to leave immediately. A cast member escorted us through a back stage area and back to the park. Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME. We waited over 2-1/2 hours, got no sorry for the inconvenience, no fast pass, no nothing.

I was told by a cast member in the park that the attraction has 3 theaters like Soarin. One of the theaters from the very beginning hasn't worked properly, because it over heats and keeps setting off alarms. I was told that it is a multiple million dollar problem that they're going to close the entire attraction down for several months to fix. They're having problems with a 2nd theater, but it still continues to work most of the time. The 3rd Theater is working fine. The attraction stayed down until 8PM, as we were leaving the park and heading to dinner. On Saturday we went to the MK which was our final day. I'm completely discussed with Pandora, AK and Disney.

What that CM told you was completely inaccurate

And there are many reports of people being given any attraction FPs

A friend of a friend was there that day and they didn't let that ruin their day.

 

[fbb]

I was told that it is a multiple million dollar problem that they're going to close the entire attraction down for several months to fix.

Thirty seconds to take the battery out of the fire alarm, and six months and $25MM to think of a backstory about it.

 

[SimonSez]

Highly unlikely.

The person might have heard a cm say it. But it's no better info than some of the info the bus drivers have

That's what we thought when someone overheard a CM say Splash was going down for six months starting in August...still you're probably right. Haha getting paranoid about threads like this one at only 53 days out

 

[SimonSez]

I was at AK on Friday too and FoP came back up around 3:00 pm, not 8:00 pm. We had an FP+ for 12:00-1:00 and went back later in the evening to use it.

I will say though that I was not impressed with how the cast members handled FoP being out of commission. This attraction builds to 2+ hours first thing in the morning, people had been waiting for hours before it went down, and some had formed a line outside of the stand-by entrance in anticipation of it going live again. While a plethora of managers were milling about, one cast member, in particular, did nothing but scream at the people who had formed their own queue, "This is not a line! You need to move! Now!" I was pretty shocked because she was screaming it at those people. That left a sour taste in my mouth.

Good grief that CM sounds like she could've been a member of my family with that loud voice

 

[Lost Yeti]

is this true?

The attraction did have issues with overheating early on but those issues were addressed during previews. Not sure what caused the alarms. I can tell you that if such a large problem existed then a significant portion of the WDI team would still be on site (not the case).

 

[MouseOfCards]

I'd be pretty upset, too, if I experienced what the OP went through. Agree that OP deserved some compensation.

I'm completely discussed with Pandora, AK and Disney.

Discussed with whom? CMs? Guest Services? Did they respond?

I read it as a typo: "I'm completely disgusted with Pandora, AK and Disney."

 

[Davey Jones II]

Poor bus drivers. Always getting blamed for spreading bad rumors.

CMs too.

 

[smallworldnh]

Discussed with whom? CMs? Guest Services? Did they respond?



Precious time? If your time is precious, don't choose to wait in the standby queue for the most attraction at WDW right now. I'm wondering why the OP didn't have a FP for it to begin with?


.

I'm sorry, but when you have to plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney and you sometimes can't get a fast pass after trying at the 60 day mark and you choose to wait in a standby so you can experience an awesome new attraction, and you're not fortunate enough to be one of these people that can go anytime and have to plan and save a year or more in advance, yes the time is precious!

 

[Disneylover99]

Precious time? If your time is precious, don't choose to wait in the standby queue for the most attraction at WDW right now. I'm wondering why the OP didn't have a FP for it to begin with?

The OP stated it was a last minute quick trip. Obviously no fp's were available.

 

[DisneyOma]

I'm sorry, but when you have to plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney and you sometimes can't get a fast pass after trying at the 60 day mark and you choose to wait in a standby so you can experience an awesome new attraction, and you're not fortunate enough to be one of these people that can go anytime and have to plan and save a year or more in advance, yes the time is precious!

The OP stated it was a last minute quick trip. Obviously no fp's were available.

Well, it can't be both ways - we got FP for our trip in the middle of the summer, no problem! And for a last minute trip, well, yeah, you are going to have to deal with the standby queues and the wasted 'precious time' and ride closure issues, which is why I'd never plan a last minute quick trip with the expectation of riding anything. When we do go for a quick trip, it's to EPCOT to walk around the countries and eat/drink/shop and hit the attractions with short wait times.

 

[Klayfish]

I'm sorry, but when you have to plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney and you sometimes can't get a fast pass after trying at the 60 day mark and you choose to wait in a standby so you can experience an awesome new attraction, and you're not fortunate enough to be one of these people that can go anytime and have to plan and save a year or more in advance, yes the time is precious!

Let's be clear. You don't "have to" plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney. You may chose to, and that's your decision. But there is no requirement that you must. This situation for OP stinks, sure, but they chose to wait that long in line. Things happen. If your plan is so incredibly tight that it doesn't allow for random and unpredictable things to happen...because they can...then you have to be prepared to deal with it when things don't go according to plan.

 

[smallworldnh]

Let's be clear. You don't "have to" plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney. You may chose to, and that's your decision. But there is no requirement that you must. This situation for OP stinks, sure, but they chose to wait that long in line. Things happen. If your plan is so incredibly tight that it doesn't allow for random and unpredictable things to happen...because they can...then you have to be prepared to deal with it when things don't go according to plan.

No, there's no requirement, of course - but if you don't then you're taking your chances on missing out on a lot of things and I have read this so many times on these forums. In fact, because of the things I've read is why I tend to over plan. I appreciate and respect all opinions and I have my own as well... I do understand things happen, but the whole point is that yes, the people in that particular line should have been offered some kind of compensation for the wait and subsequently not being able to ride. They do it all time so why not that one time as the OP mentioned?

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Just think, in a couple of years, it won't be Avatarland that people are complaining about. Can you imagine the nightmare that's going to exist when all the Star Wars people go through this in DHS? Thankfully real lightsabers don't exist, lol.

Star Wars land will be fine.

 

[Polybound]

I'm sorry, but when you have to plan almost every minute of a trip to Disney and you sometimes can't get a fast pass after trying at the 60 day mark and you choose to wait in a standby so you can experience an awesome new attraction, and you're not fortunate enough to be one of these people that can go anytime and have to plan and save a year or more in advance, yes the time is precious!

Disgusted

 

[Klayfish]

No, there's no requirement, of course - but if you don't then you're taking your chances on missing out on a lot of things and I have read this so many times on these forums.

But that's where I would completely disagree. I can't speak for dining, because we don't do that, but as far as rides go, you absolutely won't miss out on a lot of things if you don't plan to the hilt. There are lots of people on this board...myself included...who are "wing it" type people. We don't miss out on a lot of things...in fact we miss out on very little, if anything. Again, not saying planning is wrong, it's not. But I feel bad when I hear people think they MUST plan, get stressed over it, etc... It's just not necessary.

Yes, OPs situation stinks. I wasn't there, so I can't say exactly what happens, but I would think they should have given at least some people compensation FP+. Probably would be hard to give them all FoP FP+, but I would have thought they would do something.

 

[mirak]

I'll add a gripe about FoP.

Last night during EMH, the line stretched behind the normal entrance to the cue. So the CM directed us "go around and turn right at the bend" where we were supposed to meet a CM marking the end of the line. The directions were a little confusing (it was dark!) so I asked for clarification and the CM got annoyed and gave me the same direction with a hand wave.

So off we went "around then bend" me and a whole group of other people, and we were nearly back to the bridge out of Pandora before we realized something had to be wrong. We never found a CM marking the end of the line.

So we come back to the cue and tell the CM the problem and she acted like we were stupid! Rather than just letting us into the normal cue, she told us to go around the bend again!

I said NO and repeatedly explained that her directions were bad, none of us saw a CM, and it was time for us to enter the regular cue. Had to escalate the issue to a manager and the manager finally just said "whatever, let them in." No apology, nothing. That was incredibly rude.

 

[BigredNole]

I am willing to bet if they arrived at 6AM, near the front of the turnstile lines, then near the front of the pack into Pandora they would have been fine. Instead, they chose to get there later in the morning, after the lemmings, and got stuck in an extremely long line. Its unfortunate but it is a choice they made and part of the risk going Standby. Giving them 30 day any time FPs is simply not a plausible answer.

I do not have the numbers, but lets put it out there. Lets say it was a 3 hour wait. The ride can process 1,200 people per hour. That means there are 3,600 people to get anytime FPs. Lets also say they have 4,000 FPs per day. Of those 3,600 people that get any time FPs, assume they will use them within the next 3-6 days (lets use 3 days spread evenly). That means the FP line just went from 4,000 to 5,200 per day. Now, the FP line gets even more backed up and the standby line gets backed up even farther. Another breakdown occurs and now they have to give out another 3,600 anytime FPs. Following the same accord, the number now goes from 5,200 FPs to 6,400 FPs. It will never end.

I am sorry for the Standby riders. I truly am. However, they made a choice to wait it out. The people with FPs should be the ones to get an anytime FP. The Standby riders should be offered a place to wait out the shutdown. Once the shutdown is over, they are permitted to enter in the standby line. If they choose not to wait that out, they can be given a FP for Triceratops Spin, Nemo, or Bug's Life.

 

[AllieBoo]

Discussed with whom? CMs? Guest Services? Did they respond?

Pretty snarky response, this was obviously a typo. You have one in your response below as well....

Precious time? If your time is precious, don't choose to wait in the standby queue for the most attraction at WDW right now. I'm wondering why the OP didn't have a FP for it to begin with?

The OP specifically stated that they "just got back from a last minute quick trip to the World". FP's likely were not available.

 

[Annadesu]

This is why I never visit new attractions when they first open... wait a few months until they work out the bugs. lol