FP+ Kiosks and additional FP's

[Nancyg56]

Maybe Disney is also drawing a line on how much of an advantage they are willing to give people who have smartphones over people who don't. There are still some of those people left.

I wondered about that. It is an inconvenience to go stand in those kiosk lines. I just skipped them

 

[Disneylover99]

I understood your point. And I'm just saying I think the most compelling reason they don't offer an easy way to obtain additional FP's (like with the app) is because the supply would be exhausted very quickly each day. Not like it isn't running out fast now by requiring that the request be provisioned by kiosk or concierge, it would just happen faster if it were easier to do.

I think this could be the reason too. Then you would have a lot of ticked off people arriving later in the afternoon, when crowds are low/moderate to find nothing left of FP.

 

[Suvadoo]

Running out of FP's would be the best reason for the limited number of Kiosks in each park and for preventing people from booking the 4th on their iphones. There is not enough ride capacity.
The exception would be AK, but that's because it gets fewer guests than the other parks. When people talk about how easy it was getting a 4th FP, AK is frequently cited.
I think Disney added the 4th FP capability because of guest complaints, not because they have enough ride capacity in their parks to accommodate the
4th FP in a lot of circumstances.

 

[wisblue]

If people are not satisfied with what is available as 4th FPs, would they be happier if the ability to get more than 3 FPs were eliminated completely?

Because the total ride capacity for an attraction is the same regardless of how many FPs are issued for it, eliminating the ability to get 4th passes would presumably shorten the standby waits for attractions for which extra FPs are now regularly available.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Running out of FP's would be the best reason for the limited number of Kiosks in each park and for preventing people from booking the 4th on their iphones. There is not enough ride capacity.
The exception would be AK, but that's because it gets fewer guests than the other parks. When people talk about how easy it was getting a 4th FP, AK is frequently cited.
I think Disney added the 4th FP capability because of guest complaints, not because they have enough ride capacity in their parks to accommodate the
4th FP in a lot of circumstances.

I think the original plan was to sell them or to use them as incentives for deluxe. But then I think there wasn't enough to even do that in a reliable way that would be worth building into the system.

So it's the equivalent of, "Sure, if you want to pick through what's left, go right ahead!" I do think that guest complaints factored in as well, so it was a win-win for them from a marketing perspective.

I remember when it happened, all of the "I can only get 3!!!!" talk even on here just vanished.

 

[Laketravis]

clsteve's points are still valid. There are 14 FP+ kiosk locations in all of the WDW parks comprised of approximately 42 individual stations. Add concierge/front desk at 26 resorts and we've got 68. Double that to account for iPad-armed CM's and guest services and we've got approximately 136. Double that again just in case my math is wrong and we've still got less than 300 individual points of request that need to be managed throughout the day.

That is not an attempt to provide or preserve some sort of advantage for folks without smartphones. Rather, managing and fulfilling 300 company owned and/or controlled requests for a limited number of resources with the proven inability to accommodate demand is much more feasible than attempting to manage and fulfill not only the possible requests for fulfillment from tens of thousands of guests each day via an app, but the additional burden on customer service any potential dissatisfaction with the performance of or lack of results obtained from the use of that app.

 

[Laketravis]

So it's the equivalent of, "Sure, if you want to pick through what's left, go right ahead!" I do think that guest complaints factored in as well, so it was a win-win for them from a marketing perspective.

I remember when it happened, all of the "I can only get 3!!!!" talk even on here just vanished.

Right - I don't think anyone can dispute that a lot of people aren't "happy with 3" and Disney has the best idea just how large that group is. So they did what they felt they had to do - provide the ability to obtain additional FP's after you've used your 3 - even when they knew there wouldn't be much remaining each day. And in order to maximize the effect of those limited resources eek out as much perceived availability throughout each day by limiting the points of distribution while still being able to claim (most of the time) the ability is still available.

 

[Suvadoo]

If people are not satisfied with what is available as 4th FPs, would they be happier if the ability to get more than 3 FPs were eliminated completely?

Because the total ride capacity for an attraction is the same regardless of how many FPs are issued for it, eliminating the ability to get 4th passes would presumably shorten the standby waits for attractions for which extra FPs are now regularly available.

I don't think the 4th FP was added for any other reason than to quell some of the complaints about FP+. So eliminating the ability for a 4th FP would create the same uproar.
As it is now, guests who enter the parks with no FP+ reservations are able to book something because pre booked FPers have to use up their 3 before booking additional FP's. So it still rations rides.
It's a win/ win for Disney since there are still some FP's available in the afternoons: MK would have Teacups, or Philharmagic; Epcot would have EO or Figment; DHS would have Indiana Jones. I'm thinking this would be true for all but extremely light crowd s or extremely heavy crowds. Regardless, guests can't complain that there was nothing available.
Guests trying to obtain additional FP+ are stuck waiting in potentially long lines at a few kiosks, or booking deluxe and having the hotel concierge take care of it for them. I don't think Concierge booking a 4th FP would be an incentive to pay for this accommadtion, but it is a nice perk.

 

[clsteve]

What you're seeing is the natural progression towards segmenting and segregating the data into manageable silos. Capacity and it's FP's are finite for that day. No reason to have the tens of thousands of in Park guests banging on the same data set as the potentially 100's of thousands who are making future ressies.

Get that data localized and those users localized with that finite data set that is of no value and discarded end of day (except usage stats). You can already see the segregation with the kiosks and in Park CMs and now maturity to concierge access.

The reason they dont have more kiosks or are deploying more is why invest more into that infra when Eventually they will figure out how to get in Park access that doesn't crush perf, confuse guests with different hierarchies of MDE and access protocols, etc.

Remember the whole 4th FP thing was not something planned for immediate rollout (if at all). Easy to see that with the scramble and inelegance with/of the current solution.

And this is where the "oversell" of this solution to the Exec Level comes into play. While some are looking to locational services as a workaround that's not systematically practical for many reasons. Remember, they have a locational "solution" as part of this with a significant investment: the whole short and long range RFID infra.

It's now just up to the smart folks as to how to use and exploit it. And I'm sure they're hearing that daily while wishing they could get hold of the team that over sold and underestimated what and when it could do what the Execs paid for......

 

[Laketravis]

......And I'm sure they're hearing that daily while wishing they could get hold of the team that over sold and underestimated what and when it could do what the Execs paid for......

They shouldn't be too hard to find - those types usually end up working for firms like Accenture, where their "experience" is then sold to other companies.

 

[clsteve]

They shouldn't be too hard to find - those types usually end up working for firms like Accenture, where their "experience" is then sold to other companies.

Too true...

But that forty percent raise for jumping ship (after the 6 month no-hire clause expired of course!) looked so much better before that year long petrochem data warehousing project in Kuala Lumpur....