FP+ doesn't make lines longer.

[Scootypuffjr]

I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for me. (1) I never said FP were useless, or that onsite guests are rich and lazy and incapable of getting out of bed. In fact, I never saw where anyone said that, and this isn't even the "FP is useless for offsite guests" thread. (2) I don't think FP are useless. I appreciate the ones I have booked and I'm hopeful I'll have a great trip. I am not ignoring the data and opinions and trip reports that are out there, however. And I am a bit worried. Is that crazy? (3) Though you didn't address it, since it's the subject of this thread, let me say, I don't agree with OP - at least in regards to me and my family. I am afraid that our total wait time is going to increase with the advent of FP+. It makes me sad and a little worried, but I'm embracing the challenge and hoping for the best. I am just indulging in a little healthy debate here. I am interested in understanding where people are coming from and evaluating their opinions and theories, even if I don't share them.

Someone a few pages back said that legacy worked great for the people who were not lazy and got off their butts to arrive for RD. A few pages later, someone said something to the effect that you had to be rich to stay onsite at a moderate or above. Repeatedly, the argument has been that onsite guests have an unfair advantage and nothing is left at 30 days out. I didn't make any of this stuff up...this is what I synthesized from the previous posts. I think if they are going to whine about how the system is worthless for onsite guests, then they shouldn't be a part of it.

 

[cakebaker]

I never said FP were useless, or that onsite guests are rich and lazy and incapable of getting out of bed. In fact, I never saw where anyone said that, and this isn't even the "FP is useless for offsite guests" thread.

Just for the record- there was a poster just today that said in order to get a legacy fp all anyone had to do was get off their lazy butts and get to rope drop. I believe this is probably what's being referenced. There was also another post regarding being lucky enough to afford to stay on site- specifically calling anyone rich, I do not recall.

 

[cakebaker]

Someone a few pages back said that legacy worked great for the people who were not lazy and got off their butts to arrive for RD. A few pages later, someone said something to the effect that you had to be rich to stay onsite at a moderate or above. Repeatedly, the argument has been that onsite guests have an unfair advantage and nothing is left at 30 days out. I didn't make any of this stuff up...this is what I synthesized from the previous posts. I think if they are going to whine about how the system is worthless for onsite guests, then they shouldn't be a part of it.

Beat me to it...

 

[famy27]

They are a publicly traded company. They release all of their data.

Darn. I missed all of Disney's press releases with real-time daily attendance figures, total number of FPs issued and redeemed daily (per park) both paper FPs and FP+, daily number of unoccupied rooms in each hotel, wait times for all attractions across all parks by date (to be compared with attendance numbers and FP redemption). If someone could share those links, I'd love to take a look.

ETA: I've read Disney's SEC filings. They don't seem to have the info I need. If you could direct me to Disney's internal sources for the FP data, that would be very helpful.

 

[Scootypuffjr]

Beat me to it...

Seriously, we need to be besties! I heart you!

 

[wisblue]

To get back to the original point of the thread, I'm not disputing that standby lines for some rides may be longer than they used to be before FP+. It does seem logical that the addition of FP to an attraction might cause the standby line at that attraction to increase and that the migration to other attractions of guests who used to use paper FP to ride certain rides multiple times would increase the lines at those replacement attractions.

We all can have theories about whether and why FP+ has increased standby times and our own experiences with standby lines compared with past trips. But, many of those personal experiences may suffer from different crowd levels and other factors, not to mention less than perfect memories. So, I prefer to get my information from people who have the data to make real apples to apples comparisons and no incentive to tilt their conclusions.

In that regard, I find the following blog entry from the Touring Plans website to be very useful:

http://blog.touringplans.com/2014/06/23/fastpass-lowering-waits-disney-world-popular-rides/

I suspect that this article has been referenced on these boards before.

The basic conclusion drawn from this study is that, after taking into account overall crowd increases at WDW over the last two years, average standby wait times are lower at some attractions and higher at others. Maybe even more significantly, the amount by which average waits have increased at the attractions covered are all 10 minutes or less.

I think this last statement is important for those posters who have asked if things have really changed that much. Just reading some posts on this board, someone might think that a ride that typically had a wait time of 5-10 minutes before FP+ now has a normal wait time of 45 minutes or more. This study would say that that is not the case.

Since everyone seems to be rallying around the easywdw report, I am bumping this item that I posted earlier today. This study covers data through the middle of June (four months later than easywdw) and reaches a similar conclusion.

I guess we can all interpret this data however we want. What I see in these numbers is consistent with what I saw in the parks in August. Some standby lines may be longer than they have been in the past at certain times of the day, but the overall impact is nowhere near enough to turn a great experience in the parks into a death march.

 

[Angel Ariel]

http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investors/financial-information/sec-filings

I know that financials are released. Financials aren't full attendance numbers, they aren't wait time charts and comparisons, they aren't figures on how many people are using FP+ vs how many used legacy, or what the ratio of SB riders to FP+ riders is, etc.

There are lots of bits of information within companies that are not publicly disclosed.

 

[famy27]

I know that financials are released. Financials aren't full attendance numbers, they aren't wait time charts and comparisons, they aren't figures on how many people are using FP+ vs how many used legacy, or what the ratio of SB riders to FP+ riders is, etc.

There are lots of bits of information within companies that are not publicly disclosed.

Whoa. That's almost scary. I like how you think

 

[cakebaker]

Seriously, we need to be besties! I heart you!

MMMwah! me too!

 

[IamGroot]

I know that financials are released. Financials aren't full attendance numbers, they aren't wait time charts and comparisons, they aren't figures on how many people are using FP+ vs how many used legacy, or what the ratio of SB riders to FP+ riders is, etc.

There are lots of bits of information within companies that are not publicly disclosed.

Correct. But the argument was comparing my year-over-year attendance growth number (which is in their SEC filings), to some rough estimate wait time data points.

Hmm, I wonder which is more accurate...

 

[flicx]

Darn. I missed all of Disney's press releases with real-time daily attendance figures, total number of FPs issued and redeemed daily (per park) both paper FPs and FP+, daily number of unoccupied rooms in each hotel, wait times for all attractions across all parks by date (to be compared with attendance numbers and FP redemption). If someone could share those links, I'd love to take a look.

ETA: I've read Disney's SEC filings. They don't seem to have the info I need. If you could direct me to Disney's internal sources for the FP data, that would be very helpful.

I'd be interested too. Most people get their numbers from TEA. They estimate attendance I believe!

 

[cakebaker]

I know that financials are released. Financials aren't full attendance numbers, they aren't wait time charts and comparisons, they aren't figures on how many people are using FP+ vs how many used legacy, or what the ratio of SB riders to FP+ riders is, etc.

There are lots of bits of information within companies that are not publicly disclosed.

So I just ran a google search asking " did attendance rise at WDW in 2013" and got this as the top response:

http://www.aecom.com/deployedfiles/...ents/2012 Theme Index Combined_1-1_online.pdf

Now granted, this is 2012, I haven't read it all- but it looks like there might be some attendance numbers in there- have no clue if it's good or bad.

But point is, with a little more search it's probably discoverable.

 

[Angel Ariel]

They gather data via a SQL query run on a database which collects wait time info. The same info that plugs into numerous iphone apps every day. This source data is what isnt accurate.

I am not questioning EasyWDW's use of the data, but the data itself isnt theirs and is not something I would make a business decision on. How many times has a Disney queue said 20min and it ends up being 40? or the reverse?

IIRC, the information Josh uses for waits pulls the waits from the same data MDE uses for waits. So if the source data isn't accurate, then you're saying Disney shouldn't be using their own data to make business decisions on.

 

[Laketravis]

Since everyone seems to be rallying around the easywdw report, I am bumping this item that I posted earlier today.

"Everyone"? Maybe if you said "at least some people" but it certainly isn't true for everyone. If I made an absolute statement like that I can think of at least 2 or 3 of your fellow club members who would jump all over it.

(Sound familiar? LOL!)

 

[famy27]

I will say that I have figured out a few ways to get around the longer SB lines for attractions that didn't have FP in the past. If you ride those prior to the mid-afternoon, I find that the waits are generally still more reasonable. My theory is that not too many people will book one of their three advance FPs for something like IaSW. People will book it as a 4th FP for later in the day. So, if you ride it prior to 1:00 or so, there shouldn't be more than a handful of people in the SB line.

HM is popular enough that some people will prebook it, but things like Aladdin's carpets, tea cups, the speedway, etc generally don't see to start accumulating longer FP lines until later in the day. Obviously, some people do prebook these, but I think these tend to be more popular as extra FP choices.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Correct. But the argument was comparing my year-over-year attendance growth number (which is in their SEC filings), to some rough estimate wait time data points.

Hmm, I wonder which is more accurate...

And my point was that Disney doesn't release the wait time numbers, and that sites like Josh's EasyWDW site and TouringPlans are as accurate as anyone who isn't a Disney exec is going to find on that subject.

 

[jahber]

Someone a few pages back said that legacy worked great for the people who were not lazy and got off their butts to arrive for RD. A few pages later, someone said something to the effect that you had to be rich to stay onsite at a moderate or above. Repeatedly, the argument has been that onsite guests have an unfair advantage and nothing is left at 30 days out. I didn't make any of this stuff up...this is what I synthesized from the previous posts. I think if they are going to whine about how the system is worthless for onsite guests, then they shouldn't be a part of it.

WHAT is my problem? All I need to do is book a hotel stay in the next town over from the one where I live and then I can finally stop whining. It's so simple! Why didn't I think of that before?

Or, I can express my displeasure at a system that used to work well and now doesn't. Except then I'm a whiner. What to do?

 

[Luvchefmic]

IIRC, the information Josh uses for waits pulls the waits from the same data MDE uses for waits. So if the source data isn't accurate, then you're saying Disney shouldn't be using their own data to make business decisions on.

and even more to the point Josh is in the parks a heck of a lot more than any of us

 

[flicx]

Since everyone seems to be rallying around the easywdw report, I am bumping this item that I posted earlier today. This study covers data through the middle of June (four months later than easywdw) and reaches a similar conclusion.

I guess we can all interpret this data however we want. What I see in these numbers is consistent with what I saw in the parks in August. Some standby lines may be longer than they have been in the past at certain times of the day, but the overall impact is nowhere near enough to turn a great experience in the parks into a death march.

No one is stating it is a death March. We do for the most part disagree with the title of this post, which by what we have read makes it untrue, in fact the opposite. I think Josh has no horse in this race and has concluded, longer wait times. Enough said.

 

[cakebaker]

Here's a more readable article:

http://www.doctordisney.com/2014/06...ndance-2013-released-magic-kingdom-tops-list/

It does bolster the claim about rising attendance and it would appear as though Disney is still King and firmly entrenched as such.