FP+, the wait times are in the design. I think.

[monkistan]

The more I think about it the more it seems to me that the problem is not just the technology being slow, and the problem is not just too few FP+ being allotted per person. The real problem, and the one that FP+ seems to be designed to create and not ameliorate, is of spreading people among the park more evenly.

If all that FP+ did was to smooth out the clumps of people, so that the park is more evenly distributed throughout the day, then lines for most tier 2 rides would get longer for more of the day, and it would become a harder system to exploit overall. You can’t “go to where they ain’t” if they’re everywhere. All the time.

We had strategies in the past that would maximize our fun while others would wait for attractions. In essence, our strategies were based on data that would predict where most people would be, and when. Where and when there would be lulls so we could ride shorter lines, and then use FP for rides that would rarely be short waits (PP, BTMRR, SM).

By spreading people out in the park, and it seems that this is one major effect of FP+, we can no longer accurately predict where people will be, and when.

Our past data are garbage, and our new data won’t be promising.

If we lump this together with longer FP+ lines because the readers are slow, we create a problem that can never be solved by adding more FP+.

More uniform crowds in the park seems to be a design attribute that Disney wants. This alone can create more uniformly long lines for attractions that used to be walk-ons.

Sadly, I think the era of riding PoTC 8 times in a row may be over. Just a thought.

As a note, I have tried the new system. I was there 2/22-3/1. I was unpleasantly surprised with how much longer the SB lines were. It wasn't the end of the world, but I rode fewer rides than I’d expected from past trips.

 

[cigar95]

As we hear more about this, I've been trying to understand what's going on. If we figure that there is at most a modest increase in the total number of guests in the park, then if there are more guests in one area - second-level attractions, it seems - then there must be fewer somewhere else.

So where might that be? Are there fewer guests on the headliners? Fewer guests in the walkways? More guests standing in line at kiosks?

Somehow, the math all has to work. (Unless attendance has simply spiked, the timing of which seems unlikely.)

 

[WillAustin]

I think that pushing people toward the secondary attractions isn't necessarily drawing people from the headliners. There is not a 1 to 1 ratio for that. Each person drawn to a secondary ride doesn't not mean one more open spot on a headliner.

On a crowded day, if the wait time for a headliner is below a certain point, there are more guests in the park that would be willing to get in the line and make it long again no matter where FP+ tries to direct people.

 

[2Tiggies]

Inaccurate posted wait times in standby lines could be coaxing more people into these lines on the assumption that the posted 10 minutes is going to be 10 minutes, only to discover 20 minutes later and 10 more minutes from boarding that it's way off because 100 people joined the FP line within a minute after they got into standby. Anything is possible but one thing is for sure: the problem emerged with the new system. Period.

 

[cigar95]

Inaccurate posted wait times in standby lines could be coaxing more people into these lines on the assumption that the posted 10 minutes is going to be 10 minutes, only to discover 20 minutes later and 10 more minutes from boarding that it's way off because 100 people joined the FP line within a minute after they got into standby. Anything is possible but one thing is for sure: the problem emerged with the new system. Period.

Be careful to avoid the logical fallacy whose Latin name I can't recall at the moment:

If A happens at the same time as B, then A is caused by B.

But what is certain is that every "extra" person who is in line for the second-level attraction is not in line anywhere else.

 

[WillAustin]

But what is certain is that every "extra" person who is in line for the second-level attraction is not in line anywhere else.

That won't necessarily mean one less person in line at a headliner either.

 

[cigar95]

That won't necessarily mean one less person in line at a headliner either.

It means that there's *somewhere* else that they aren't that they would have been a year ago. Unless the change is entirely due to more overall guests in the park.

 

[2Tiggies]

It means that there's *somewhere* else that they aren't that they would have been a year ago. Unless the change is entirely due to more overall guests in the park.

Yes, but does that mean it's better? Or more efficient? Jury is still out on that one

 

[clsteve]

The more I think about it the more it seems to me that the problem is not just the technology being slow, and the problem is not just too few FP+ being allotted per person. The real problem, and the one that FP+ seems to be designed to create and not ameliorate, is of spreading people among the park more evenly.

We had strategies in the past that would maximize our fun while others would wait for attractions. In essence, our strategies were based on data that would predict where most people would be, and when.

Not bad points, at all.

And we're not the only ones- the data aren't there for Disney to predict yet, either.

On a positive note, very few companies in the world could get their customer base to pay to help gather that data......

 

[MrInfinity]

As we hear more about this, I've been trying to understand what's going on. If we figure that there is at most a modest increase in the total number of guests in the park, then if there are more guests in one area - second-level attractions, it seems - then there must be fewer somewhere else.

So where might that be? Are there fewer guests on the headliners? Fewer guests in the walkways? More guests standing in line at kiosks?

Somehow, the math all has to work. (Unless attendance has simply spiked, the timing of which seems unlikely.)

You're exactly right. A physicist might refer to it as the "conservation of wait times". I think I'll coin that. Where the people aren't, now, that they used to be before, is in the 2nd tier rides standby lines. So altho the standby line is taking longer, it is because more ppl are passing it in the FP lane. It ends up taking longer to get thru a shorter standby lane because more ppl are FastPassing things like POTC. It sounds like it's pretty significant the # of ppl that are choosing to FP this one in particular.

 

[shafke]

Here is the way I look at it.
The headliners are running at capacity anyway. (FP- or FP+)
What I expect to be happening is the wait time for SB on the rides that did not have FP- to be longer especially in DHS and Epcot where tiering is in place.

In Epcot there are only two rides that absolutely needed a FP so as not to waste 2+ hours of your day on line. Now you can only pick one of these plus two other attractions that never needed fast pass espesically if you rode later in the day (I am looking at you Spaceship Earth and Mission:Space).

 

[clsteve]

You're exactly right. A physicist might refer to it as the "conservation of wait times". I think I'll coin that. Where the people aren't, now, that they used to be before, is in the 2nd tier rides standby lines. So altho the standby line is taking longer, it is because more ppl are passing it in the FP lane. It ends up taking longer to get thru a shorter standby lane because more ppl are FastPassing things like POTC. It sounds like it's pretty significant the # of ppl that are choosing to FP this one in particular.

A Physicist studies matter and it's motion due to external influences.

Yes, we are matter. But I doubt Lavoisier had Disney SB and FP wait times in mind during his calculations......

Fuzzy, that's way, way out there

 

[JeremyGNJ]

As we hear more about this, I've been trying to understand what's going on. If we figure that there is at most a modest increase in the total number of guests in the park, then if there are more guests in one area - second-level attractions, it seems - then there must be fewer somewhere else.

So where might that be? Are there fewer guests on the headliners? Fewer guests in the walkways? More guests standing in line at kiosks?

Somehow, the math all has to work. (Unless attendance has simply spiked, the timing of which seems unlikely.)

People are confusing who these mystical people standing in line at secondary attractions are.

Here's a hint...its you!

Casual visitors don't mind using FP's for secondary rides. They'd rather wait an hour in line to do one headliner and then breeze through 3 other attractions without any wait.

Think about it, it makes sense.

 

[AppleSister1]

I'm no scientist, and haven't been to WDW since the changeover, but from the outside, I'm agreeing with PPs. Seems like they are just redistributing the crowds, right? So Tier 1 ride waits in SB may go down slightly, while SB lines for secondary rides (and those that previously didn't have FP) will go up. And of course, all the newbies who didn't use FP before are now being instructed up front to use it. And they may use it in ways that us vets would never use it - e.g., for early am times, for rides it didn't use to be necessary for, etc.

So basically, all our knowledge and experience as to how to make the system work is now useless. We'll all have to figure it out all over again.

We are going in June…and we think making RD is still our best bet. But I'm curious as to what we'll learn over the next year, and what new strategies we'll discover. My fear is that RD will even stop being an advantage.

Yeah, we are sad that the days of riding EE four times in one day seem to be over. Unless some crowd pattern emerges that changes our minds.

 

[redrosesix]

I think it's assumed that Disney is giving out the same number of FPs for each ride, and for each hour on that ride. But we don't know that. With this new system they could hypothetically decide to offer more FPs for rides that cost less to run. Or distribute FPs to keep the number of riders more or less the same throughout the day. Or not -- they might want to distribute riders in a way that would cut down on labour costs, like if they had a pool of part time workers that was only there for 6 hours a day (not that they do that now, but they could).

I can see a lot of reasons why they would want more uniformity -- less people at busier times and more at slower times. It's why there are different room rates in resorts for different times of the year, because they want more people to book onsite at those times of the year. The same goes for days of the week or hours in the day -- there are lots of reasons to want to send out the same number of full cars at all times. And the system is just much more efficient and costs them less when all of the cars are going out full. Rather than increasing capacity for just some parts of the day.

 

[Laketravis]

Be careful to avoid the logical fallacy whose Latin name I can't recall at the moment.

Modus ponens.

And yes, I think some of us may be guilty of over thinking this at times (most certainly me) because it really is nothing more than basic queue management.

Okay well it's actually yield management but I've said that before and have been accused of repeating it too many times.

 

[AppleSister1]

I think it's assumed that Disney is giving out the same number of FPs for each ride, and for each hour on that ride. But we don't know that. With this new system they could hypothetically decide to offer more FPs for rides that cost less to run. Or distribute FPs to keep the number of riders more or less the same throughout the day. Or not -- they might want to distribute riders in a way that would cut down on labour costs, like if they had a pool of part time workers that was only there for 6 hours a day (not that they do that now, but they could).

I can see a lot of reasons why they would want more uniformity -- less people at busier times and more at slower times. It's why there are different room rates in resorts for different times of the year, because they want more people to book onsite at those times of the year. The same goes for days of the week or hours in the day -- there are lots of reasons to want to send out the same number of full cars at all times. And the system is just much more efficient and costs them less when all of the cars are going out full. Rather than increasing capacity for just some parts of the day.

Yep, I would suspect they are definitely playing with FP numbers and ride loads. Except for the headliners, for most the of the year, they were probably already doing max rider numbers so they can't add much more to the pool.

I'm thinking of this as a switch to to a bell curve. More guests will have a passable experience, getting to do one or two headliners in a day, and a group of secondary rides. This, of course, means those at the top of the curve (vet visitors, who knew how to get there early and use Fps) will be dragged down from their former experience to a a more "average" experience. So the people who complained that their first trip was crazy crowded and they didn't get to do anything will feel like they got a better experience, but those of use who had an excellent experience (and we are a small percentage) will get dragged down to "average."

But for Disney, that's a higher percentage of satisfied, "passable grade' group of people. It's an uptick of satisfaction for them. We vets just need to figure out how to navigate the new normal. Because eventually, patterns will emerge that we can counteract. Just might take a while.

 

[monkistan]

I do not want to be closer to the middle of a bell curve!

 

[AppleSister1]

I do not want to be closer to the middle of a bell curve!

Me either!!! But I'm hoping (maybe I'm too optimistic) that at some point we here will all figure out the new pattern and the new way to manage to get ourselves to the top of that darn curve.

 

[cigar95]

Modus ponens.

With time to look it up, the one I was thinking of was "post hoc ergo propter hoc"

Modus ponens, by comparison, is actually *valid* reasoning - provided it is not misused, of course.