FP+ doesn't make lines longer.

[IamGroot]

Ok, so let's set about some ground rules. Everything in this thread is assuming that park attendance hasn't increased, or at least that attendance isnt the culprit behind wait times. I think we can all agree if attendence doubles and the number of rides are the same, waits will increase.

So on with it.

Fastpasses, new or old system, are a ZERO SUM GAME. This means that by making your wait shorter on one attraction, you make it longer on every other attraction where you don't have a FP. Fastpasses simply create an artificial redistribution of guests throughout the park.

Is the wait for pirates longer? Yes. But in turn that means that other waits are now shorter because more people are riding pirates every day. We can't pretend that FP is broken because one attraction is a longer wait, when the overall waits for an entire day are the same as before.

So who loses? The only way you "lose" is if you were one of the people that used to get 5+ FP in a day before. You were the minority before, and had a good run. Now the system awards everyone the same opportunity (we don't need another on/off site debate here) for rides now. It's hard to complain that you lost an edge over others.

But after all you said, waits ARE longer. why is this? The only thing that could be causing longer lines is increased attendence (which were ignoring), or people riding more rides. If FP+ is causing people to get on more attractions each day, that would increase the lines. However, getting people on more rides is the entire point of the entire system.

So either lines (overall for an entire day in the park) are the same as before, or people are riding more rides. It's pretty silly to complain that you're getting on more attractions in a day, so let's just let this whole debate/complaint end.

*for the haters: the FP+ Only tests they have done are stupid. I don't agree with them. But those tests are a failure of management, not the FP+ system.

 

[Scootypuffjr]

Ok, so let's set about some ground rules. Everything in this thread is assuming that park attendance hasn't increased, or at least that attendance isnt the culprit behind wait times. I think we can all agree if attendence doubles and the number of rides are the same, waits will increase. So on with it. Fastpasses, new or old system, are a ZERO SUM GAME. This means that by making your wait shorter on one attraction, you make it longer on every other attraction where you don't have a FP. Fastpasses simply create an artificial redistribution of guests throughout the park. Is the wait for pirates longer? Yes. But in turn that means that other waits are now shorter because more people are riding pirates every day. We can't pretend that FP is broken because one attraction is a longer wait, when the overall waits for an entire day are the same as before. So who loses? The only way you "lose" is if you were one of the people that used to get 5+ FP in a day before. You were the minority before, and had a good run. Now the system awards everyone the same opportunity (we don't need another on/off site debate here) for rides now. It's hard to complain that you lost an edge over others. But after all you said, waits ARE longer. why is this? The only thing that could be causing longer lines is increased attendence (which were ignoring), or people riding more rides. If FP+ is causing people to get on more attractions each day, that would increase the lines. However, getting people on more rides is the entire point of the entire system. So either lines (overall for an entire day in the park) are the same as before, or people are riding more rides. It's pretty silly to complain that you're getting on more attractions in a day, so let's just let this whole debate/complaint end. *for the haters: the FP+ Only tests they have done are stupid. I don't agree with them. But those tests are a failure of management, not the FP+ system.

Well said. Unfortunately, this will not put the issue to bed for most. I, however, appreciate the effort!

 

[ArwenMarie]

So who loses? The only way you "lose" is if you were one of the people that used to get 5+ FP in a day before. You were the minority before, and had a good run. Now the system awards everyone the same opportunity (we don't need another on/off site debate here) for rides now. It's hard to complain that you lost an edge over others.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't even care if I get less FPs now, that is not the real issue for me. I was never a super-power-user or whatever. If they had decided to promote the old paper FP which led to higher utilization and less FPs for me, I would have been fine with that.

The real issue for me is that each day is not a clean slate anymore. Before, no matter what happened, you could re-plan each day the night before, come up with a new strategy and go for it. This was great especially if you had a bad night's sleep, kids sick, weather, etc. That is what I miss most of all.

So I guess for me, I hate the feeling of being "locked in." It's what I love about visiting Universal onsite now, even though I don't enjoy their parks as much as the Disney parks...I love the feeling of being able to wake up and go, plan as much as you want or as little as you want. And you used to be able to do that at WDW. Now you can't.

 

[Laketravis]

....by making your wait shorter on one attraction, you make it longer on every other attraction where you don't have a FP.

Therefore, FP+ makes lines longer.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

But you forgot that FP+ kills puppies, brought Ebola to the US, and was spotted with a rifle walking away from the Grassy Knoll.

 

[IamGroot]

Therefore, FP+ makes lines longer.

No, they stay the same. Some are now longer while some are shorter. The net change for an entire day of touring the park is the same.

 

[IamGroot]

But you forgot that FP+ kills puppies, brought Ebola to the US, and was spotted with a rifle walking away from the Grassy Knoll.

Luckily since it's so ineffective, it will dramatically reduce your chance of getting Ebola.

 

[ncdj2013]

There's no doubt in my mind that standby lines on attractions that did not used to have FP are now longer. where you used to have 2 equal lines you now have 1 fast line and 1 longer line.

 

[Flight]

The real issue for me is that each day is not a clean slate anymore. Before, no matter what happened, you could re-plan each day the night before, come up with a new strategy and go for it. This was great especially if you had a bad night's sleep, kids sick, weather, etc. That is what I miss most of all.

There it is. My entire objection to the entire system. On my many, many visits to Disney Disney World, I had an overall plan for the vacation, but it was modified each day to accomadate variables listed above. Back at the hotel room in the evening, plans for the next day were altered, tweeked, and even completely abandoned with new ideas on what to do in the parks.

 

[Laketravis]

No, they stay the same. Some are now longer while some are shorter. The net change for an entire day of touring the park is the same.

In theory and only when dealing with a fixed constant. One variable you are not accounting for is personal choice and not all guests stand in the same lines for the same attractions. "Zero Sum Game" is a nice term to throw around when the shells are moved but the number of shells remains the same; the fact is the aggregate time spent standing in line is equally distributed, which raises the median, which means that all guests now spend more time standing in line for less net yield.

Flattens the curve. Raises all ships. Ad nauseam..........

 

[IamGroot]

There's no doubt in my mind that standby lines on attractions that did not used to have FP are now longer. where you used to have 2 equal lines you now have 1 fast line and 1 longer line.

Sure. But this means waits are lower in other areas. You can't take a single attraction and pretend that that means FP+ is broken. It's like if your state increases property taxes but lowers sales taxes. Some things might cost more, but overall you're paying the same.

 

[ncdj2013]

Sure. But this means waits are lower in other areas. You can't take a single attraction and pretend that that means FP+ is broken. It's like if your state increases property taxes but lowers sales taxes. Some things might cost more, but overall you're paying the same.

I love FP+. the benefits for me far outweigh the drawbacks. Just saying the trade off is longer standby lines on many rides.

 

[IamGroot]

In theory and only when dealing with a fixed constant. One variable you are not accounting for is personal choice and not all guests stand in the same lines for the same attractions. "Zero Sum Game" is a nice term to throw around when the shells are moved but the number of shells remains the same; the fact is the aggregate time spent standing in line is equally distributed, which raises the median, which means that all guests now spend more time standing in line for less net yield.

Flattens the curve. Raises all ships. Ad nauseam..........

Guests do stand in the same lines. Does my initial post address someone that rides pirates 10 times and goes home? No. But those folks are outliers. Most people visit the parks with the intent to ride all the rides, or at least all the big ones.

 

[surferdave]

It is a less than zero sum game because of merging inefficiencies. It affects some attractions more than others.

This is what I posted about the inefficiencies that were being observed in the parks in March (guests were annoyed that they were waiting for unprecedented times to ride PotC and they were watching empty boats go by in the ride):
____________________
Ride capacity can go down, all it takes (even on the omnimovers) is sending ride vehicles through with fewer guests on board. We don't know how common that is but people have reported seeing it; we had a first hand report of couples riding PotC alone in a boat to themselves when it had a long SB line.

If the FP line moves slower than the ride can load but steadily enough that there's not time to slip SB guests in between the FP guests then the ride will load below 100% capacity.

When there is a long, stagnant SB line and a steadily moving FP line you can count the number of people scanning through the first Mickey Orb over time and that is your ride capacity, even if the ride typically moves people through faster.

This can be managed if they can figure out how often to stop the flow from the slower FP line long enough to quickly file in some of the SB guests to fill the gaps but I suspect they aren't sure how to do it yet. There certainly doesn't seem to be a protocol yet since the guest experiences vary so much.
____________________
A WDW cast member who periodically posts here as The Hub posted his experience with the challenges of merging the lines:
____________________
In my opinion, the Cast Member at Merge isn't doing that great of a job. We do have ratios that we have to follow (Phase 1 at 1:4, Phase 2 at 1:4+10, Phase 3 at 1:4 add a zero.) However, that doesn't mean we can't use our judgement. My current attraction is one that is now always a Phase 3. It has gotten so bad that we now, almost always (depends on if we are understaffed or not) have two Cast Members at Merge and 2-3 over at FP Return. Merge 1 does the ratios, Merge 2 tells everyone "Mickey to Mickey." I always ask the next party in standby how many are in their party. When a group of guests takes a while figuring out how to scan their MagicBands, I squeeze the standby party in without starting over from the ratios. Lately, I've just been taking 100 FastPass and 35 standby and ignoring the ratios. I've told my coordinators that I don't care, I want the lines to move and everyone to be happy. At Merge, we have had plenty of guests screaming at our Cast, even throwing food items at some. Sometimes there is chanting and profanity is flying from both the guests and coordinators. At an attraction where I am crosstrained and keep my proficiencies, one of our College Program Cast Members was punched in the stomach.

I'm not sure how Adventureland has their staffing in the morning. I have never headed to that side of the park early in the morning. I know that at one of my older complexes, staffing would pick up half an hour to an hour after the park opens. Back on topic, any Cast Member who wants to be as efficient as they could would merge into both sides. Sending a whole side of empty boats is ridiculous and if they are staffed properly, I'm surprised Adventureland's leadership team hasn't looked into it.

As for the wait times, they can change whenever rotation goes through Merge. We don't monitor wait times with MagicBands, yet. That will be coming very soon. We are still using the red FLIK cards. If you see a posted wait time of 30 minutes, it means that 30 minutes ago it took someone 30 minutes to go through. We are supposed to send six FLIK cards through each hour. Unfortunately, more than half of the time, the FLIK card doesn't beep twice when we scan it prior to loading. When I'm at Greeter, I always send through one every two minutes or so. This way, it usually should be accurate. If we send 25 through while there, a leader gets alerted and we can get a point on our record card. While we do use MagicBands to monitor the FP wait times, we still have to send FLIKs through so the machine stops beeping up front. When the time comes, we will be using the battery in the MagicBand to allow for us to read RF-media from the MagicBand at a distance. It is funny because it can barely read it when you tap the Mickey to Mickey without pressing hard. It will ping the next MagicBand that enters the standby queue and the MagicBand will send a response prior to boarding a ride vehicle.

For what its worth, while I won't be able to bring these issues to the attention of someone who can do something without revealing who I am, I think you should ask for a leader if you experience this at Pirates. It shouldn't be happening if staffing is sufficient and said CM should be "merging" the lines, hence FP Merge. It happens occasionally at my attraction and it is annoying when they're not sending standby guests and we send empty cars.

I hope this helps.

The Hub
____________________
Things have probably gotten better since March, depending on the experience level of the CMs managing the lines. But I'm reposting these things here to demonstrate that the inefficiencies do exist, and they have been observed in the parks.

 

[over50visits]

Ok, so let's set about some ground rules. Everything in this thread is assuming that park attendance hasn't increased, or at least that attendance isnt the culprit behind wait times. I think we can all agree if attendence doubles and the number of rides are the same, waits will increase.

So on with it.

Fastpasses, new or old system, are a ZERO SUM GAME……...

Careful now. This system is no zero sum, and putting it in capital letters doesn't make it so. Coin flipping is, parimutual betting is, but lines at Disney are not. Balking, dynamic costs (the cost to a customer of a ride increases with line wait time), mixed queue strategies…these all contribute to the analysis far beyond a static zero sum game.

First, common sense. After FP+ many attractions now usually have long waits they rarely did before. If you assume attendance hasn't increased, etc etc, the only difference is FP+. OK?

Second, crowd behavior at Disney can be well modeled with fluid dynamics, and FP+ is clearly one of the forces that affects that. It has changed, and that's why.

FP+, according to public Disney statements, was designed as part of MDE to make customers stay at Disney World and not go to other Orlando attractions. FP+, according to their patent application, is part of a crowd management system. Its logical end game is reservations only rides.

You may believe the mean wait time is the same, but the median is a better measure of a customer's cost to ride, and I believe that has significantly increased, with similar SB at headliners and higher SB at rides previously with little SB.

FP+ is difficult to understand, significantly reduces spontaneity, and creates lines where none were before. But, it clearly enables Disney to move toward eliminating the SB line, thus addressing the number one complaint (standing in lines too much). The cost, though, is guest confusion, something that must be addressed.

Disney has shown their reluctance to invest in new and more awesome rides (of the Harry Potter class), so they need to move toward somehow entertaining customers who only get a handful of rides, and have a lot of free time on their hands. Maybe more stores where they can spend more money?

Lines are certainly longer for me.

 

[cakebaker]

Sure. But this means waits are lower in other areas. You can't take a single attraction and pretend that that means FP+ is broken. It's like if your state increases property taxes but lowers sales taxes. Some things might cost more, but overall you're paying the same.

Exactly- and there are things you can do to mitigate the wait at those rides- ride early or ride late- and since lines are shorter for fp+ rides, you're standing in line less. For example- Dinosaur for years has been a walk on anytime for us. It still is- we ride it early- walk on and re-ride it several times if we want. So while that ride has had a significant increase in wait time- not for us and it doesn't have to be for anyone else.

Honestly, I don't see the huge issue- a 10 minute wait has turned into a 20 or there's a 5 minute increase on a wait that was 5 to start with- sure it doubled the wait time- but it's still only 10 minutes. Honestly, don't see the big deal here. There are few rides that have seen a huge increase in wait times and as I said, you can adjust to avoid it.

 

[Pete S]

Unfortunately, OP, the conditions you lay out in your first paragraph don't hold. From looking at numbers attendance at all the parks is higher now than even 2 years ago. And obviously you cannot stuff more people in the parks on the days the parks have shut down early because they are at capacity, so the increases will be coming on "quieter" days. So increased attendance has come at the same time as the full rollout of FP+, and lines have become longer. FP+ is going to take the blame since that is the change which is visible to us.

I also understand the frustration from people who feel they are losing their ability to just come to WDW with minimal planning and just make up their minds about what to do as they go. It is a vacation after all. But with increased attendance those days would be gone anyway. With more people wanting to take in the same number of attractions, there needs to be a way to get them organized. It is better that the conflict between people who really want to do an attraction can be settled at their computers before they come, rather than in a crowded park on a hot day with kids watching. FP+ may not be perfectly designed, and it may not be perfectly functional. But it is no more arbitrary than saying that the fastest runners at rope drop get the best times.

 

[KrisSoFla]

There it is. My entire objection to the entire system. On my many, many visits to Disney Disney World, I had an overall plan for the vacation, but it was modified each day to accomadate variables listed above. Back at the hotel room in the evening, plans for the next day were altered, tweeked, and even completely abandoned with new ideas on what to do in the parks.

this. yes. absolutely.

 

[DisneyDaddy-O]

We are here now and I have to say FP has become a complete non issue for us, lines have not been terrible, 15-20 for most rides except of course the mine train which is crazy all day.

For our touring style we just don't let it bother us, we go on what is short and work in the rest later. We rode the mine train at the end of the Halloween party on tues and it was about 25 min wait.

We rode Soarin last night during EMH and it was a 10 min wait.

We also rode Everest back to back and my DS requested front row and we were done in less then 45 min .
My point to all of this is it can still be done without FP, just don't stress it and enjoy.

I realize some will not agree and that's ok.

 

[Suvadoo]

Disney has shown their reluctance to invest in new and more awesome rides (of the Harry Potter class), so they need to move toward somehow entertaining customers who only get a handful of rides, and have a lot of free time on their hands. Maybe more stores where they can spend more money?

Lines are certainly longer for me.

Disney would have to develop better merchandise if they want to increase retail stores. The homogynous stuff you can find everywhere gets a little old. They spend so much time making their stores beautiful, I just wish their merchandise was unique. Last trip our family bought no souveniers and it wasn't for lack of trying.

Also, I agree that lines are longer. I just can't believe Disney made continuous loading rides FP+. Dumb move.