For those who think only DISers hate FP+, check their Facebook page

[Momtomouselover]

I just thought of a FP+ positive. I met a nice gentleman over near the babycare area (near the Crystal Palace) in December. We were both standing around waiting for our phones to charge up and struck up a conversation. I even watched his phone for him so he could go to the bathroom. Ha! I wonder how they could work the phone charging friendships into the ads. LOL

 

[larryz]

Ha good point! Maybe they are trying to tell us that three-eyed fish are best.

Fixed it for you...

 

[FireDancer]

I don't understand why FP+ is making you stare at your phone all day long???? You set a time for 3 fastpasses and that is it, I don't get why that would make you miss everything around you. If you had to check the times or make changes you can to them in that SB lines you are waiting in for the rest of the rides.
Maybe I am missing something, can someone explain?

You don't, it is more melodrama on the Dis. You set your times and if you need one set a reminder that pops up on your phone's calendar or task scheduler. If you need to change something you log in and change it then put the phone back away. You can also screen grab the FastPass page of your phone so you don't have to log in to remember if you'd prefer. Just open your gallery and voila, there it is. No relying on the app or even a signal.

I don't check work email or anything like that when on vacation. I rarely check the news. I didn't find out about the Gabby Giffords shooting until days later because I was down at WDW for marathon weekend and disconnected from the news and I had a smartphone on me the whole time. You can have your smartphone on you to check things quickly or make a change without being tethered to it. This is true of any destination, Disney or not. If someone can't just check what they need to and put the phone back in their pocket they are the problem, not Disney or FP+.

Besides, no one needs to do any of this. No need to make any Fastpass reservations at all. No need to make ADRs. It is still entirely possible to show up with no plan and just roll with it. It is no harder now then it was while they had legacy FP or before they had any FP what so ever. None of this has made me to a millisecond more planning for my upcoming trip.

 

[Laketravis]

Positive customer service experiences are never about objectivity; they are all about emotion.

The great companies in the world are those who know how to spark emotions that manifest a good experience.

The greatest companies in the world are those who also recognize what triggers emotions, no matter how trivial they may seem to an observer, that manifest a bad experience.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I think some of you aren't accounting for how long the app takes to do anything as well.

I wish it was a quick pick up your phone and check. Even when I'm right next to our router at home the app takes quite a while to move from screen to screen. Even checking your ADR or FP+ times can be time consuming. Much different than pulling out a paper for sure.

Oh man, is this ever true. I don't necessarily mind having to check the app, but man that thing is SO slow. It's faster at home than at WDW...at WDW it moves like molasses in January whether I'm on wifi or 4G. And because it eats up so much battery, even when I close it after I'm done, carrying an external battery charger is pretty much a necessity. I kept my phone in our backpack (and thus not using it) for most of the day, except to check the occasional SB lines, and I still needed the recharger every day (even with my phone lasting all day at home, with more use).

They really need to streamline/improve the app

ETA: Just to clarify, I'm not saying the app sucking is any part of the reason that FP+ sucks. The fact that the app sucks is totally separate and doesn't influence my opinion on FP+ one way or the other

 

[bvpascoe]

We were there over Thanksgiving & the tiered system went into place while we were there - 1st Epcot day we had both TT & Soarin' in our FP+ And I think it was late October when I scheduled those. Extended our stay a day & discovered the tier system. I don't have a problem with the FP system per se but did suggest many improvements. Like adding a calendar alert feature for FP reminders. Being able to have FP at more than one park per day and increasing the number of FPs per day. I also suggested they add more info - we did wishes & it wasn't clear (to me) that we'd be in the garden on the grass. Since I'm very allergic to grass I was most upset. Only thing that saved that FP was having rain ponchos to sit on & Alavert on hand.

The tier system was quite frustrating after not having it's limitations for the first few days we were there. However it'd be easier to "accept" if there weren't also all the other restrictions. Hopefully Disney is listening to all the feedback. Overall I like the My Disney Experience - everything in one place. I am a planner but don't believe in over scheduling the day.

I do agree that trip was the most time I'd spent on my phone in the park (& it was crazy the # of people w tablets) all bc I couldn't remember what time our FPs were. I don't like looking at my phone frequently while at the parks. Takes away some of the magic for me.

 

[Minnesota!]

I think they also missed the boat thinking people want to "interact more with their electronic devices" while at Disney. They should do a commercial with people walking past beautiful things at Disney with their heads down looking at their phones, bumping into things, etc.

Or maybe Universal should incorporate that into some sort of ad campaign to highlight the differences between the parks........... Man, that could be fun.

Maybe Disney is figuring they can cut their landscaping and grounds crew budgets b/c people will not notice them anymore with their noses buried in their phones.

FWIW, we do not have smart phones. I would still have my flip phone if I could. I hate most technology. Love the concept of the MB's, execution sucked for us.

Anyway, the last thing I want to do is have to rely on a handheld device during my vacation...in any capacity. I want to show up, go on the rides I like when I want to stroll onto them, eat the food I crave when I am hungry, and sleep in a comfy bed. Like I have been doing for 15 years. FP+ completely changed the way I am forced to vacation. Every minute detail has to be scheduled out because Disney has focused more on controlling all aspects of what they currently have vs. building new attractions that would thin the crowds/lines a bit at each attraction. Frustrating.

 

[mom2rtk]

Once people start resorting to minutiae like this to support their position that FP+ sucks, I know that they have lost all sense of objectivity.

So why am I not shocked that you would yet again dismiss another concern of mine?

 

[TDC Nala]

some independent site (not sponsored by Disney) was trying to show that Disney IS building new things, that Universal was not the only park that was building, but most of what they posted was bound for the parks in Europe and China. The only thing they mentioned for WDW was Avatar. And there is no widespread anticipation regarding Avatar, at least not yet - nothing like that surrounding Universal's Harry Potter expansion.

Which is a very clever thing, because it appears that if you want to ride the Hogsmeade Express at all, you will have to have a two-park ticket.

Anyway, a lot of commenters gave them heck because they didn't care what was happening in Europe or China but saw WDW as stagnant.

 

[glamdring269]

This is what I don't get. Is it that much harder to "whip out" a phone than a piece of paper??

Have you actually used the app? It's.. well, I want to use choice words here but instead I'll just write 'not good'.

I'm a tech guy. I'd much rather take notes on my phone or laptop than ever use paper. But if the choice is between using Disney tech or paper then I'll opt for paper every time until they prove they know what is going on in the tech world. It's one of those things I just don't understand. How can such a mega corporation be so horrid when it comes to web and app design?

 

[Shaden]

Because with FP, we just made the rounds of the park. When we got to the headliner we were interested in, we looked at the posted standby wait time and looked at the FP return time and decided which we wanted to do.

Now that my FPs will be booked before entering the park, I will want to see what the standby wait is before committing to walking to that area of the park.

Before I could just look at the paper FPs in my lanyard to remind me of the return time. Now I need to get the phone out to check the times. You know, unless I decide to dig out paper and pencil to write them down.

Once people start resorting to minutiae like this to support their position that FP+ sucks, I know that they have lost all sense of objectivity.

This is actually a pretty solid point, its just one more way that you are not going to be immersed in Disney by this system. You are going to be tied to your electronic device.

On top of that the first part of the point is quite important, something that Lake Travis brought up earlier. Its pretty tough to know what rides you want to FP until you know what the lines are or where you are going to be in the park at a given time, as opposed to trying to follow your schedule that you made weeks or months in advance which may or may not match up to the lines for the rides. And sure, you MIGHT be able to change it on the fly if you walk up to the ride and see there is a short standby line, of course you might not be able to FP anything else you want, and this still gets you back to the first problem, there you are again, stuck on your phone or running over to a kiosk....

 

[Disneychick75]

Honest to goodness I think this is Disney's New Coke.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that it lasts as long as New Coke did.

 

[xie]

Have you actually used the app? It's.. well, I want to use choice words here but instead I'll just write 'not good'.

I'm a tech guy. I'd much rather take notes on my phone or laptop than ever use paper. But if the choice is between using Disney tech or paper then I'll opt for paper every time until they prove they know what is going on in the tech world. It's one of those things I just don't understand. How can such a mega corporation be so horrid when it comes to web and app design?

Amen to this. I share some of that tech background. The user experience side of both the website and the Parks app are really, really terrible. The workflows the user is forced through in the app are terrible.

Aside from the user experience side of it, the infrastructure of the system must be really badly designed... it takes forEVER for queries. I mean forever. How is it that I can go to Amazon (or any self-respecting site, really), type in a search term, and get thousands of results in a millisecond? And then I go to WDW's app to simply see a list of ride times (at most ~40 results, if you're in MK and less than that in the other parks) and it takes 2 or 3 minutes, if it finishes at all? Bad database, bad indexing, bad network, bad something going on back there. That's the kind of query that's so simple it should only require milliseconds.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

No one has used the final form yet, since it's not in it's final form. So not sure what you're trying to say there.

Maybe it's how you interpret things, but from what I'm seeing, people are saying that the "super-users" or whatever term you want to apply here, are the ones that are upset. Not necessarily only super-users on the DIS. But to each their own interpretation I guess.

ETA... Myself, I think it's more than just super users. I myself am not happy about the limit of 3 and the tiers. But overall, I like the concept.

ITA. Most (not all, of course) of the negative comments on that FB post appear to be from people who know a lot -- who are very keyed into what's going on day-to-day at WDW: "They just covered up machines here and they're going to cover them up there on X date". This is not the "average" park goer out there, obviously.

Clearly, this is just getting to the point of full rollout -- jury is still out in my book. And they have a system that they can adjust -- number FP+ allowed per day, etc. I still have my fingers crossed.

We tested when paper FP was still available -- great, of course. I made my FP+ reservations for my trip next month, and I don't like the things that I expected not to like:

- Max 3 FP+/day
- Only 1 park/day
- Tiered selections

I can only hope they change at least some of these things if their REPRESENTATIVE FEEDBACK DATA (e.g. not posts by those following WDW on FB) tells them they should. That would only be good business, and I can't imagine why they wouldn't listen.

Fingers still crossed...

 

[AmyB2006]

Have you actually used the app? It's.. well, I want to use choice words here but instead I'll just write 'not good'. I'm a tech guy. I'd much rather take notes on my phone or laptop than ever use paper. But if the choice is between using Disney tech or paper then I'll opt for paper every time until they prove they know what is going on in the tech world. It's one of those things I just don't understand. How can such a mega corporation be so horrid when it comes to web and app design?

Of course I've used it. I've admitted in several posts now that the app is slow, at best. I've equated Disney IT to monkeys with rubber bands. Which, yet AGAIN, is why I've said, to solve the problem of having to use the app every time, take a screenshot of your FPs then you don't have to rely on Disney tech. I'm just trying to help out. LOL

Now if you have battery issues, well just add that to a long list of issues that some people seem to have. As to your last question... That will probably always remain a mystery. I don't get it either.

 

[wisblue]

So why am I not shocked that you would yet again dismiss another concern of mine?

So, you think that the difference between pulling paper tickets out of a lanyard, looking at your phone, or writing your times on a piece of paper is a big deal?

To me, that's extremely trivial.

 

[mom2rtk]

So, you think that the difference between pulling paper tickets out of a lanyard, looking at your phone, or writing your times on a piece of paper is a big deal?

To me, that's extremely trivial.

It's not just a matter of looking at your phone. It's about working your way through a glitchy app in a park with spotty Wi-Fi.

 

[larryz]

It's about working your way through a glitchy app in a park with spotty Wi-Fi.

I hope WiFi's a trained service dog...

sorry, it's almost time for my next dose of Nyquil...

 

[wisblue]

It's not just a matter of looking at your phone. It's about working your way through a glitchy app in a park with spotty Wi-Fi.

Again, that's only because you are choosing to do things that way. Not because FP+ is forcing you to do it.

If we make FP+ reservations for the afternoon or evening, we don't have to worry about our return times in the morning. We just work our way around the park, riding things standby as we go. No phone or glitchy app needed.

And when we make FP+ reservations in the late afternoon or evening on a busy day, the least of our worries is that the attraction we have chosen will have such a short standby line that we will have wasted a FP. If the line for Soarin or TSMM at 6 PM is 20 minutes or less, I will know that I can do whatever I want in the park for the rest of the day.

 

[mom2rtk]

I hope WiFi's a trained service dog...

sorry, it's almost time for my next dose of Nyquil...