FP+... who hates it

[JimmyV]

Well I will be the guest where this approach backfires...I am not a shopper by nature.

You and me both. I am Disney's worst nightmare. Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Now? I only book Deluxe if I get a 30% room only discount. Never get a meal plan. Almost always stay at Swan/Dolphin on "Family Member Starhot Rate" ($79 per night). And I don't fill my newly found time out of lines by darting into shops. The only real source of revenue that they get from me is Signature meals and good bottles of wine. When I go on vacation, I eat well and I drink well, as a rule. But that hasn't changed, so my spending patterns have not increased. Food and beverage is constant and everything else is "down". Disney would love to see me replaced by a first time guest.

 

[Hummingbird]

I don't hate FP+... I actually like it, but I have older kids and we prefer evenings and dont need to meet A&E. However, I took my 6 year old nephew over the weekend and I had my reservations of how things would work. I booked our trip on Thursday night. Made FP+ on Friday morning. And to my surprise I snagged SDMT for Saturday for 8:30-9:30 AM, Followed by BTMR & SpaceM right afterwards. We walked into the park at 8:15 (i checked my watch) and by 11AM we had ridden SDMT, Peter Pan, HM twice, BTMR 3 times, Splash, Space, & Stitch, and were headed back to WL to swim.
On Friday when I booked FP for DHS on Sunday I was able to get TSM for 2:50pm. (Which was fine because we planned on swimming early and getting to the park at 12. We got there at 12:30 and rode ToT, RNRC, GMR, TSM, ST, & watched Indy. We were leaving the park at 4:30.

So I say all that to say, I still love FP+. I rarely ever utilized FP- after we figured out how to tour to fit OUR needs. You just have to figure out how to make the system work for you. Will you need to change the way you tour, maybe. But hate is such a strong word IMO. And maybe because we were a Uni/BG family first (who often did not stay onsite) we are use to the long lines so it would bother us to wait an hour if we had to. And quite frankly, your admission affords you the access to rides/attractions, but what it does not do is guarantee you a <20 min wait.

For those of you who hate FP+ I really hope you can figure out how to make it work for you or maybe it gets tweaked in some way that helps, because I've fallen in love with Disney and I wouldn't want my experiences to be less than stellar either.

 

[jade1]

You and me both. I am Disney's worst nightmare. Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Now? I only book Deluxe if I get a 30% room only discount. Never get a meal plan. Almost always stay at Swan/Dolphin on "Family Member Starhot Rate" ($79 per night). And I don't fill my newly found time out of lines by darting into shops. The only real source of revenue that they get from me is Signature meals and good bottles of wine. When I go on vacation, I eat well and I drink well, as a rule. But that hasn't changed, so my spending patterns have not increased. Food and beverage is constant and everything else is "down". Disney would love to see me replaced by a first time guest.

I can guarantee you they would rather keep you (even as you posted-and it sounds like they have) "AND" acquire a first time guest, instead of loosing you and obtaining a first time guest.

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

Granted, we've only experienced about half of FP+ so far (we've made our reservations, but our trip isn't until the latter half of May), but so far it's been a breeze.

I was so nervous about getting the FP+ we wanted (especially since DD really wants to see A+E, and we've never been on the 7DMT). But the whole FP+ scheduling process took less than 10 minutes total (and I was scheduling for 7 people over 8 park days). We got everything we want, on the days and at the times we want. We didn't have to split up the group at all (no trying to find overlapping FP+ times).

I was really skeptical of the whole process because of the 'horror stories' I'd read, and because in the past we've always gotten park hoppers and often decided which park to go to based on whatever bus shows up first. But under FP-, we did miss out on TSMM several times (by the time we got to the machines, all the passes had been distributed for the day), and we did have to send out a FP- 'runner'. So far, I think the biggest downside to FP+ I've encountered is not being able to book our initial 3 in different parks/tiering; we know we probably won't need a FP+ for Spaceship Earth, but we had to book a lesser-desired attraction anyway.

Hopefully actually using the FP+ proves as easy as booking them did.

 

[Planogirl]

FP+ is one of many crowd control techniques that WDW uses to maximize income.
I have had two close friends in Management positions at WDW.
They both told me that Disney's goal is for guests to spend less time doing rides and more time eating and buying merchandise.
Food and merchandise produce exorbitant income, whereas rides are a drain on the bottom line because they require substantial space, personnel, and maintenance to operate.
I'm a dyed in the wool Capitalist, but it's a shame that some large corporations use "Robber Baron" tactics on their customers.

How much does Disney think we can eat? I eat until I'm stuffed as it is when I'm there. As for the merchandise...I might buy a stuffed animal because those are still cute. Otherwise, it's trinkets for friends and then I'm done. Plus I can see most of it in one shop. Maybe they think we'll buy more out of boredom?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet LT doesn't post a TR.

That disappoints me. I really hoped to learn how his plan worked.

 

[Rebekkap]

Not me! I love it.

Here right now - currently sitting taking a break in MK - and loving it every bit as much as I did just under a year ago. Today was my arrival day and I wasn't here until around 3pm so had fastpasses booked from 3.30pm for Space, BTMRR and Seven Dwarves - waited in a Fp+ kiosk queue for all of two mins to get a 4th FP for Pirates with an immediate return time, and then a 5th to ride Seven Dwarves a second time. After that I'm done - I'm exhausted and I need to go back to the hotel! But it didn't look like there'd be any trouble continuing to get more - the guy at the kiosk told me there's good availability for everything but Anna and Elsa and Seven Dwarves.
The wi-fi on the other hand is driving me NUTS. It's so unreliable - stays connected for all of 60 seconds then drops out again. I had to type this in my notes so I wouldn't lose it!

 

[philschrek]

Love it here too! Seriously our trip last year was our first with FP+ and the most relaxed of all of our Disney trips, even with it being our first with four small children. Takes a little bit to plan ahead of time but so nice to have the big must-do rides all set.

 

[goofyernmost]

I don't know where the idea that Disney instituted this stuff to force someone to spend more time planning. It is only logical that if they didn't need to put this stuff in place they wouldn't. It cost them a lot of money to operate this system and they wouldn't do it if they didn't have too. The thing that people don't seem to understand is that just MK alone has a daily population of some of the larger cities in many states. There was a time, in a land far away, that we could just go and do our thing, eat when we felt like it and ride whatever rides we had the patience to wait for. WDW is way to big for that now, too many people all trying to do the same thing at the same time.

Fastpass was a major factor in changing all theme parks from a casual, non-rushed experience to a mini-marathon. Instead of going and just enjoying the atmosphere and whatever you could fit in your schedule, it became a "how many things can we get done in a day to make our experience better then anyone else's. You can still go and not do all that stuff, at least to the extent that many are doing it now, you just have to get the mindset that you are just going for a good time and not expect things that today's crowds prevent from happening.

 

[Alfalfa]

Humongous crowds = more paying customers. I would think that more paying customers would lead to more revenue which would lead to more profits which would lead to more investment in more attractions built on empty land that is already owned in order to provide those humongous crowds with more things to do. In other words, scale with the traffic. But that doesn't seem to be what they did, instead investing in technology that attempts to squeeze more out of what is already there. Which may prove to have been a smarter move during the next business cycle when the crowds contract and there aren't twice as many attractions to maintain. Because software is infinitely scaleable.

 

[MrInfinity]

Humongous crowds = more paying customers. I would think that more paying customers would lead to more revenue which would lead to more profits which would lead to more investment in more attractions built on empty land that is already owned in order to provide those humongous crowds with more things to do. In other words, scale with the traffic. But that doesn't seem to be what they did, instead investing in technology that attempts to squeeze more out of what is already there.

There's nothing new to see here. Only a complete wipe and rebuild of 1/4 of the MK, AK, HS, and oh yeah DCA and DTD too. Always amazes me when ppl say there are no new attractions going in -- in a time when major renovations are happening left and right. As if MM+ was put in place, in lieu of attractions. When really, it was put in place alongside some of the most significant changes in WDW history. Even Epcot... the park w/o a major overhaul in this 5-yr period... is getting its 3 primary rides redone.

I happen to love the new attractions going in at all the parks.

 

[Mad Hattered]

There's nothing new to see here. Only a complete wipe and rebuild of 1/4 of the MK, AK, HS, and oh yeah DCA and DTD too. Always amazes me when ppl say there are no new attractions going in -- in a time when major renovations are happening left and right. As if MM+ was put in place, in lieu of attractions. When really, it was put in place alongside some of the most significant changes in WDW history. Even Epcot... the park w/o a major overhaul in this 5-yr period... is getting its 3 primary rides redone.

I happen to love the new attractions going in at all the parks.

What exactly would those be?

 

[MrInfinity]

We did shorter days in the parks not because we wanted to, but because we felt like we had no other choice. If you don't want to wait in lines, what's the point in hanging around the parks, being constantly reminded of all the stuff you used to be able to do without a wait under the old system?

Example: on our last trip with legacy FP, we spent thirteen hours (without a break) at DHS. We did TSM 4 times that day, Star Tours 6 times, BatB, Fantasmic, the Muppets, JTA, the Disney Junior show, One Man's Dream, Characterpalooza, a bunch of other character M&Gs, and two TS meals. TOT and RNR were skipped by choice. No meltdowns from anyone...that probably goes down as one of our greatest, most fun Disney days. It was one of those days where the weather was beautiful and everything came together just right.

I believe it's possible to do most of that now, under FP+.

You did... TSM 4 times that day, Star Tours 6 times, BatB, Fantasmic, the Muppets, JTA, the Disney Junior show, One Man's Dream, Characterpalooza, a bunch of other character M&Gs, and two TS meals. TOT and RNR were skipped by choice.

We did... TSM only 2 times, but RnR 2 times, which is about the same. Plus we did TOT, GMR and saw the opening and closing Star Wars shows, and a bunch of the minor things you did.

It took you 13 hours, us also about 13 hours. Same approx. number and type of rides in the same time under FP- and FP+. I think a lot of ppl think that when you use up your FP+'s you're done, but we found if you use them well, they save you more time in the traditionally worst times of the day, which lead to us getting a lot done.

 

[flicx]

What exactly would those be?

I would like to know too! Refurbs of existing attractions aren't new attractions. That's maintenance. Disney has gone through very stagnant growth(attraction wise) over a long period lately.

 

[flicx]

As if MM+ was put in place, in lieu of attractions. When really, it was put in place alongside some of the most significant changes in WDW history.

Most significant changes in Disney history? WOW!!!! Really!!!! Did something happen that I missed? In my opinion probably the exact opposite!

 

[MrInfinity]

I would like to know too! Refurbs of existing attractions aren't new attractions. That's maintenance. Disney has gone through very stagnant growth(attraction wise) over a long period lately.

If you made this post a few years ago, I might agree w you. But if you look at the 5-year period from 2013-2018 you see just about every park getting a major overhaul of an entire area. Plus DCA and DTD. I have found since we started going to the World again in 2010 that we have consistently been re-impressed w the new every trip. I think they're just things that might not appeal to you as an adult. Picture my family (see sig) which has consistently had very young kids during this time.

 

[Mad Hattered]

If you made this post a few years ago, I might agree w you. But if you look at the 5-year period from 2013-2018 you see just about every park getting a major overhaul of an entire area. Plus DCA and DTD. I have found since we started going to the World again in 2010 that we have consistently been re-impressed w the new every trip. I think they're just things that might not appeal to you as an adult. Picture my family (see sig) which has consistently had very young kids during this time.

What they did at DCA with Radiator Springs blows anything WDW has done out of the water. Not even close.

The TT refurb - useless
Double Dumbo - m'kay
Ariel - incoherent unimaginative ride they cloned from DCA
SDMT - 1:45 seconds of my life I will never get back

 

[flicx]

If you made this post a few years ago, I might agree w you. But if you look at the 5-year period from 2013-2018 you see just about every park getting a major overhaul of an entire area. Plus DCA and DTD. I have found since we started going to the World again in 2010 that we have consistently been re-impressed w the new every trip. I think they're just things that might not appeal to you as an adult. Picture my family (see sig) which has consistently had very young kids during this time.

Attractions in parks, not refurbs, not dvc, not shopping or dining. I am talking the things that bring the customers to Disney, the attractions in the parks. Disney has sat on their wallet in this area. They built whole parks in other decades, they built blockbuster attractions too. Lately not too much in my opinion. Add to this all the closed attractions and other closures. Not well done!

 

[Cormoran]

What exactly would those be?

Well gee, there's a new themed cupcake at the bakery, I think it's Olaf themed. Doesn't that qualify as a fab new attraction?

 

[Mad Hattered]

Well gee, there's a new themed cupcake at the bakery, I think it's Olaf themed. Doesn't that qualify as a fab new attraction?

And I read where people are getting their money back because they taste like toothpaste! LOL

 

[flicx]

Well gee, there's a new themed cupcake at the bakery, I think it's Olaf themed. Doesn't that qualify as a fab new attraction?

While that sounds interesting I just can't see that being the thing that makes me spring for a several thousand dollar vacation!