FP+ Works Against Families

[ArwenMarie]

I agree. It's the most different part about it, for us anyway. We *never* pre-planned what order we were going on to rides before, much less contemplated who was going on what rides. We showed up and we toured by land, making these decisions as we went, based on "on the ground" information we had as we were touring (weather, wait times, appetites, tiredness level, etc). Going from that to planning out times for *any* rides (and who will ride them) takes a lot of adjustment.

I know the response will be "it's only 3 rides" - but, TBH, it isn't really (for us). One of the biggest mistakes I made last year was thinking that, and I didn't take into account what order I was planning the FP+ for when I booked them. That caused us to do way more backtracking than we ever have on previous trips. To minimize the backtracking, for us anyway, it requires the accompanying thinking of what order we're touring the park in (land-wise) - are we starting in Tomorrowland and working around the Hub to Adventureland, or vice versa? (as an example) - which is another step in preplanning that we never used to do. We used to make that decision as we walked down Main Street.

I tried to do the touring plan schedule thing once when it was just DH and I, and he nearly mutinied. It wasn't a touring style that worked for us, so we stopped and never had any intention of going back to it. FP+ came along though and Disney has different ideas. We're aware we could choose to go FP-less, however, we also know the consequence of said choice and that's worse (for us). So we deal with it. But it still isn't' a touring style that is comfortable for us.

Yes exactly. Backtracking is a great example of something that strikes you later. For us, not being able to easily move park days around once we are there has been the biggest drag that I couldn't have anticipated. I didn't realize how much we did that before until I tried to do it with FPP.

 

[tlmadden73]

I'm sorry to rehash old arguments, but prior to FP+ you wouldn't have even needed a FP for most of those because lines were generally short. Hence why Fastpasses weren't offered for them. Now attractions with traditionally shorter lines have seen an increase in waits. BECAUSE of FP+

"generally" short ..

But I really doubt I could have just "walked" on some of those in the old days. (The park was pretty crowded for early October in my opinion).
Yes .. the wait may have been only 10-20 minutes and my toddler would have been fine with that wait. But, my wait was 0-5 minutes on all those attractions. Saving time is saving time. I find it a nice perk. Instead of spending those extra 10-15 minutes in line .. we had time for seeing characters .. watching the parade .. to watch a street show .. etc. It was a fun day even though I wasn't "efficiently" skipping lines.
And yes .. I know I spent some time waiting at a Kiosk to get the 4th, 5th and 6th fast passes .. but waits for the kiosk were pretty short and done during bathroom breaks.

I agree with you though .. not all rides need to have Fast Passes and the system isn't perfect. But neither was the old paper system.

The "problem" with the current system is that since EVERYONE is using it .. so it means the more popular rides are in more demand. No different than the old paper days where if you didn't get to the FastPass kiosk before noon .. then you couldn't get a FP for the day.

It's a planning versus flexibility argument. The only way to make both sides happy is to make everyone miserable and do away with ANY sort of line skipping mechanism.

Yep. That worked well for us for many years.

That's presumption on your part. I didn't allude to the reason why we changed park. It wasn't a choice. Sometimes things happen while on vacation.

That worked for YOU .. but I would guess it doesn't work for a lot of families with little kids who can't (or don't want to) be there at rope drop.

True, my apologies on the presumption. But again .. you lost a perk that cost you nothing. That's it. Look at it like not using your Disney Quest or mini-golf vouchers you get in your resort package. They gave you something free and you couldn't utilize it. No different.

 

[2Tiggies]

We're aware we could choose to go FP-less, however, we also know the consequence of said choice and that's worse (for us). So we deal with it. But it still isn't' a touring style that is comfortable for us.

It also doesn't help that it's much harder now to hit up a park for the day without FP than it was under the legacy system. Standby lines for attractions which previously had short to no waits have become considerably longer.

 

[PurpleKomodo]

I am glad some people seem to see where I am coming from. As with anything, it works for some and not others. And really, overall, it worked okay for us this past trip. But, we did leaving feeling like the system was not helping us do things as a family or making all the different people in our group happy. We were there during a very busy time and 4th FP for good attractions or character M&Gs were rare. I lucked into the singles at MK on the last day and I still didn't get to watch DS dance with Cinderella (thank goodness for MM) and DH didn't get to watch him try to convince Ariel to get lights in her fins like his shoes. I think M&G may have been the most frustrating. I have always been into meeting characters and would often wait in the lines before having a kid. I have never seen hour waits to meet Ariel (but they were almost always that long this last trip). My DS was so into the characters, but I just couldn't use up all our initial 3 FP for MK on characters. Trust me, I know having kids means sometimes sacrificing what we want to do, which we did and had a lovely vacation. But, we have traveled with little kids before (nieces and nephews) and not had these issues. Their parents did not have to feel like they were putting themselves over their child when they picked BTMRR and Splash Mountain over meeting princesses.

I will also say that I mis-understood how rider switch worked with FP+ prior to our trip. I finally clued into on accident on the last day. I was under the impression that everyone in the party would have to have a FP or the first group would have to go through SB. Now that I know differently, you can bet I will factor that into the plan next time. However, it still stinks to have to ride alone on a family vacation. Especially when we have a non-rider in our larger group that will hang out with the kiddo. I am a super planner, but I felt like I was kind of defeated no matter what with this system.

 

[2Tiggies]

That worked for YOU .. but I would guess it doesn't work for a lot of families with little kids who can't (or don't want to) be there at rope drop.

Correct. I never said it worked for everyone and I'm aware that it did not. If you go back to the first post of mine which you quoted, you will see that I started by saying that it works better for some and not as well for others. At no time did I make a blanket statement saying that it was bad for all. I simply pointed out that we fall within the group for which the older system worked better than the new one.

 

[GaryDis]

Sorry, didn't mean to seem obtuse. Essentially, it boils down to loading efficient rides less efficiently. Obviously, this isn't the case across the board, but for a lot of high-capacity rides (like the majority of the ones I previously quoted) it is.

What makes them less efficient? In the particular case of the HM, they're filling up the stretch rooms, which is pretty straightforward. Does it take longer to fill them up because they're flipping between two lines? If so, it ought to be observable by the gap between the stretch room crowds. I've been there (pre FP+) when, being among the first out of the stretch room, I could see people still loading from the previous stretch room. So if loading is now less efficient, it ought to be less common to see that.

Could have been somewhere else or maybe just opting not to ride them at all. Now with FP+ there are all these options for skipping lines at amazing things like fireworks, parades and Figment so someone is going to take a FP+ for something they might not have ever done before because they have to take something and it's their.

If there are three options including SM, PP and getting hit with a stick with limited availability eventually someone's going to have to pick getting hit with a stick.

So before they would just be wandering aimlessly? Or is it possible that they would have been waiting on the E-ticket rides instead?

In other words, if you said that the Space Mountain SB line went from 2 hours to 90 minutes, and in exchange, HM went from 0 to 30 minutes, it makes simple sense - 30 minutes worth of people got moved from one ride to another. Saying that they were at other events ties it to specific times - it's saying that it used to be easy to get on some rides during parades, but it's harder now because some of the parade watchers are going on rides instead. That makes sense, and granted reducing the number of parade watchers doesn't create significant improvement for those that choose to watch the parade. But if people are saying that FP+ makes it harder to take advantage of shorter lines during parades and such, it's a weaker complaint than saying it makes it worse on everything, all the time.

 

[tlmadden73]

It also doesn't help that it's much harder now to hit up a park for the day without FP than it was under the legacy system. Standby lines for attractions which previously had short to no waits have become considerably longer.

I go back and forth on this.
Is the longer lines due to FP+ or simply because the parks are busier? Where are the extra people coming from that are making the lines longer?

I'd love to see data on average wait times when MK attendance was X (in old days) and see what average wait times are with the SAME attendance during FP+.
I'd just argue that our memories of wait times are just because we went to the parks during times where attendance was a lot less than it is today.
I'd also love to see the stats on the rides. How many Fast Passes do they give away for a certain ride each hour? How many people can that ride (on average) get through?
(i.e. what is the percentage of FP riders versus Standby riders).

If that info is out there .. it would be interesting to consume

 

[3DisneyFanz]

What makes them less efficient? In the particular case of the HM, they're filling up the stretch rooms, which is pretty straightforward. Does it take longer to fill them up because they're flipping between two lines? If so, it ought to be observable by the gap between the stretch room crowds. I've been there (pre FP+) when, being among the first out of the stretch room, I could see people still loading from the previous stretch room. So if loading is now less efficient, it ought to be less common to see that.


So before they would just be wandering aimlessly? Or is it possible that they would have been waiting on the E-ticket rides instead?

In other words, if you said that the Space Mountain SB line went from 2 hours to 90 minutes, and in exchange, HM went from 0 to 30 minutes, it makes simple sense - 30 minutes worth of people got moved from one ride to another. Saying that they were at other events ties it to specific times - it's saying that it used to be easy to get on some rides during parades, but it's harder now because some of the parade watchers are going on rides instead. That makes sense, and granted reducing the number of parade watchers doesn't create significant improvement for those that choose to watch the parade. But if people are saying that FP+ makes it harder to take advantage of shorter lines during parades and such, it's a weaker complaint than saying it makes it worse on everything, all the time.

I really haven't seen any analysis that shows the main rides have shorter waits now. Everything I've seen has pretty much shown a wash on the big rides and significant increases on the secondary rides.

 

[socrateze]

What makes them less efficient? In the particular case of the HM, they're filling up the stretch rooms, which is pretty straightforward. Does it take longer to fill them up because they're flipping between two lines? If so, it ought to be observable by the gap between the stretch room crowds. I've been there (pre FP+) when, being among the first out of the stretch room, I could see people still loading from the previous stretch room. So if loading is now less efficient, it ought to be less common to see that.


So before they would just be wandering aimlessly? Or is it possible that they would have been waiting on the E-ticket rides instead?

In other words, if you said that the Space Mountain SB line went from 2 hours to 90 minutes, and in exchange, HM went from 0 to 30 minutes, it makes simple sense - 30 minutes worth of people got moved from one ride to another. Saying that they were at other events ties it to specific times - it's saying that it used to be easy to get on some rides during parades, but it's harder now because some of the parade watchers are going on rides instead. That makes sense, and granted reducing the number of parade watchers doesn't create significant improvement for those that choose to watch the parade. But if people are saying that FP+ makes it harder to take advantage of shorter lines during parades and such, it's a weaker complaint than saying it makes it worse on everything, all the time.

When I was there, we rode POC SB. The problem was that in an effort to make sure FP+ riders weren't waiting, The SB line was stopped and straggling FP+ riders were admitted. A lot of the boats had empty rows ( besides the back row).

 

[socrateze]

If your kid chickens out for SM, just go on your phone or to a kiosk and change the FP to something else (like Buzz, which is always available same day, often less than 30 minutes later). Easier than old FP, where you'd have to wait for your SM time frame to be done (or three hours) before pulling new ones and also physically walk to the new ride.

Unless of course you have FP's for the fireworks. In that case, you can't get another FP+ from the kiosks.

 

[GaryDis]

When I was there, we rode POC SB. The problem was that in an effort to make sure FP+ riders weren't waiting, The SB line was stopped and straggling FP+ riders were admitted. A lot of the boats had empty rows ( besides the back row).

Thank you, that's the most on-point reply with direct experience that actually illustrates the problem.

What pops into my mind is that as much as possible, they should have designed the FP ride to merge into the SB line at about 10-20 people before the loading area. That's not feasible for all rides, but where it is feasible, it could reduce or eliminate the inefficiency of having two lines.

 

[wisblue]

I really haven't seen any analysis that shows the main rides have shorter waits now. Everything I've seen has pretty much shown a wash on the big rides and significant increases on the secondary rides.

Maybe you should share some of those things that you have seen that have reached that conclusion. We all would be interested.

The only comprehensive studies I am aware of (one by Touring Plans and one by easyWDW) were done over a year ago and concluded that average wait times were a little longer at some things and a little shorter at others.

 

[trainingupmy4princes]

OP I agree it is harder for families now. We tried planning a WDW vacation but ended up switching to DL. We have a preschooler who isn't tall enough/ and wasn't sure on certain rides and teens who like thrill rides. Add on top of that 2 kids on the spectrum, they couldn't tell you what kind of day they're going to have sensory wise 60 days in advance and it was too stressful. The reality is under the old system, we could and did get more than 3 FP so everyone could pick a ride that day based on what they want to do and how they were feeling. Now, we have to decide between which kids get to pick a ride and hope that they still feel that way when we get there and tell the other kids sorry your rides are SB which of course will be long lines.

Worse yet the inflexibility makes it harder for kids that are different as one day my DS might be wanting thrill rides and another day calmer rides based on his sensory needs. How in the world could anyone predict those days 60 days in advance. As for advice, DL was great and has the old paper FP system.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Thank you, that's the most on-point reply with direct experience that actually illustrates the problem.

What pops into my mind is that as much as possible, they should have designed the FP ride to merge into the SB line at about 10-20 people before the loading area. That's not feasible for all rides, but where it is feasible, it could reduce or eliminate the inefficiency of having two lines.

doesn't pirates have 2 loading docks?

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Maybe you should share some of those things that you have seen that have reached that conclusion. We all would be interested.

The only comprehensive studies I am aware of (one by Touring Plans and one by easyWDW) were done over a year ago and concluded that average wait times were a little longer at some things and a little shorter at others.

That's not what they concluded. The closing statement in the analysis was what I posted. The only way to come to your conclusion is to say 4 went down and 8 went up so some went up and some went down. While that is technically true it doesn't really represent the true impact as it ignores the overall time impact.

 

[juliekzp]

Unless of course you have FP's for the fireworks. In that case, you can't get another FP+ from the kiosks.

If you have a SM FP and decide to do something else, then you can change it to something else, no matter if you have a FP for fireworks.

 

[wisblue]

That's not what they concluded. The closing statement in the analysis was what I posted. The only way to come to your conclusion is to say 4 went down and 8 went up so some went up and some went down. While that is technically true it doesn't really represent the true impact as it ignores the overall time impact.

Which of the studies are you referring to?

 

[itchin2go]

Which of the studies are you referring to?

I think he's talking about the net effect. If a few ride waits went down, while most went up, the net effect is negative to the average guest.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Which of the studies are you referring to?

Pick either one. Touring plans calls it a wash while acknowledging certain "secondary" rides saw significant increases and most headlines saw slight decreases while easywdw had the result I referenced. Regardless of which one you want to look at you can't really put a positive spin on the impact it's had in EPCOT and HS. Any system that generates a wait time for Figment isn't working as designed unless the design was to ensure people waited longer.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I think he's talking about the net effect. If a few ride waits went down, while most went up, the net effect is negative to the average guest.

Yeah but if you skip everything that has seen an increase and only do the FP+ items and the ones that haven't seen much of an impact it's a major win.