For everyone who's says to try FP+ before you bash it...

[ms.yt]

Were any of you staying offsite? I'm not trying to be snarky. I'd really be interested in hearing if anybody who's done FP+ offsite had a good experience. We will be there in two weeks, and I'm very apprehensive about the offsite experience.

 

[smitch425]

Were any of you staying offsite? I'm not trying to be snarky. I'd really be interested in hearing if anybody who's done FP+ offsite had a good experience. We will be there in two weeks, and I'm very apprehensive about the offsite experience.

It might be beneficial to change the title of your thread to something like "Stayed offsite and used FP+? How did it go?"

 

[rteetz]

Were any of you staying offsite? I'm not trying to be snarky. I'd really be interested in hearing if anybody who's done FP+ offsite had a good experience. We will be there in two weeks, and I'm very apprehensive about the offsite experience.

I have heard of people offsite or just in the parks for a day have had good experiences. Kathy W from the disunplugged has been in multiple parks and said she had no problems. Granted she's only there for the day and not a week but still she has tested the kiosk waits and stuff. I have also heard they may look long but they go quickly usually about a 10 minute wait.

 

[Donnainnj]

I am not willing to risk it for our offsite trip over the week before Easter so I made a reservation for our first day onsite. This will hopefully allow us to get the non-AP member among us his FP+'s. As AP holders the rest of us can already prearrange our FP+'s when the 60 day window opens. If we didn't have the AP's already we may have changed our plans.
Donna

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

I have heard of people offsite or just in the parks for a day have had good experiences. Kathy W from the disunplugged has been in multiple parks and said she had no problems. Granted she's only there for the day and not a week but still she has tested the kiosk waits and stuff. I have also heard they may look long but they go quickly usually about a 10 minute wait.

I'm not trying to discount her experience, but I would imagine that the size of your traveling party would affect your experience. I would think it would be fairly easy for one person to pick up a fast pass plus reservation for their desired time, but it might be more difficult for a group of ten.

 

[PeterPanic]

I'm hitting the road tomorrow morning for a few days at the parks. Totally spontaneous. Staying offsite and just made reservations two days ago. Partially I needed a road trip, but I also wanted to see first hand how the offsite people are treated. I'll let you know when I get back next weekend.

 

[shalom]

Josh at EasyWDW recommends getting there for rope drop, taking a couple of quick rides, then heading to one of the FP+ kiosks that are off the beaten path. This post has a list of them, "Least Busy to Busiest" for the MK; hopefully he'll do more posts soon listing the FP+ kiosks at the other parks, but basically you want to head back into the park rather than lining up at the first one you see.

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...t-day-1and-fastpass-kiosks-part-1/#more-12769

He also has some tips on the benefits of FP+, in that post and the next one -- use FP+ to schedule EtwB, for example, rather than running to it straight off and using up a goodly chunk of early morning time there. FP+ doesn't offer the same benefits as FP-, but it does offer a different set of benefits that you might as well make use of.

Hopefully, Disney won't suddenly split the MK FP+ into tiers between now and when you go, making Josh's work much less useful!

Best of luck!

 

[btk2333]

Were any of you staying offsite? I'm not trying to be snarky. I'd really be interested in hearing if anybody who's done FP+ offsite had a good experience. We will be there in two weeks, and I'm very apprehensive about the offsite experience.

I'm a big FP+ supporter, I would never stay offsite with the new system; however, I would never have stayed offsite before the new system so it's really a wash...

 

[ms.yt]

I'm not trying to discount her experience, but I would imagine that the size of your traveling party would affect your experience. I would think it would be fairly easy for one person to pick up a fast pass plus reservation for their desired time, but it might be more difficult for a group of ten.

We'll be a group of 10, so that's what I'm worried about.

 

[rteetz]

I'm not trying to discount her experience, but I would imagine that the size of your traveling party would affect your experience. I would think it would be fairly easy for one person to pick up a fast pass plus reservation for their desired time, but it might be more difficult for a group of ten.

i would agree with you size of group matters a lot.

 

[PeterPanic]

DISCLAIMER: First I was at WDW on January 27th and 28th. Not exactly the busiest time of the year. Crowds were what I would consider moderate. Not a lot, no areas where you saw no one either.

I am old. I may wake up early but my gears do not mesh easily so it takes me a while to get moving. On Monday I didn't arrive at MK until 11:15. I had to switch over my paper ticket for the new "magically charged" one and then headed into the park. My first stop was the FP+ kiosk. They only had a few listed on the paper check off sheet (below) but, I'm sure that they were everywhere.



I chose three (basically at random) They were The Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion and Peter Pan. Keep in mind that it was almost Noon before I got to the FP+ Kiosk. You don't find out if any are available until after you have chosen all three. Turns out all three were available and the times were 12:35 for JC, 2:10 for HM and 3:10 for PP. Just by following around clockwise from JC, I was able to ride other rides between and still arrive about 5 minutes early for my window at each one. My new card worked flawlessly. I do not have a Smart Phone so I just took a picture of the screen with my cell phone and had that for a reference, but, I think, in the future, I will just write down the times. It's easier then always opening up the photo part of the cell phone.

I don't remember the exact order of the rides I did go on but I do know that I only stayed until 6 PM and in that time I rode.

JC
PoTC
Tiki Room
Lunch at Pecos Bill Inn & Cafe
HM
Philharmagic
Peter Pan
Peoplemover X2
CoP
Buzz Lightyear
Stitch Great Escape

My time included many stops due to my arthritic hips. Everything that my new ticket/card was intended to do, it did flawlessly. I saw the system catch people trying to get in before and considerably after their window at the FP line, so that was clicking along well also.

The next day was pretty much the same schedule as Monday but in Epcot. I signed up for SSE for 12:10, Living with the Land for 4:10 and Soarin at 5:10. SSE saved me about 10 minutes (no big deal) Living with the Land was totally unneeded so I didn't use it. No wait at all. Soarin when I entered had a 60 minute Standby. While there I went to SSE, UoE, Mission: Space (btw, the single rider line has been removed from MS), Seas with Nemo, Had Lunch in the Land Pav., Rode Imagination,visited Innoventions, etc. and was out of there by 6 PM as well.

Anyway, I guess time will tell how this will all work with a capacity crowd, but I was very happy to know that offsite people were included in the process. It is easier to go to one place and get multiple passes all at once then run around and get them. I even think that it works better for offsite people because we don't have to work APR's around them although it may be possible that the Magic system, will already know when the APR's are in place and not assign a FP for those times. In short... I, personally, had no complaints or problems with the new system at all.

 

[sethschroeder]

I'm not trying to discount her experience, but I would imagine that the size of your traveling party would affect your experience. I would think it would be fairly easy for one person to pick up a fast pass plus reservation for their desired time, but it might be more difficult for a group of ten.

I don't get the bold at all when people bring this up. Isn't the point if you can get 1 at all? In the past you could not ever choose your FP time.

 

[shalom]

Isn't the point if you can get 1 at all? In the past you could not ever choose your FP time.

It's the same logic people would use with legacy FPs when they'd say, "By 9:00 a.m., the FPs are all gone," meaning that when they got to the park at 10:00, the FP for the ride they were after was later than they wanted.

Which is to say, I don't really get that argument, either.