FP+ Works Against Families

[mocame]

I guess it depends when you go, we had no problem getting 4th, 5th even 6th and 7th FP+ some days in MK
We were very very lucky last year I guess. But we always booked FP+ for the kids first. Not once did we consider what the parents wanted to do. LOL That happens after 3 I guess.
Time will tell when we go again this year.

May I ask what time of year did you go that you were able to get 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th FP+? We are planning our first trip since FP+ and we've been hearing that it's hard to even get a 4th FP+.

 

[wisblue]

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.

I was just asking which study he is using.

But, since you are bringing it up, I think it's impossible to measure the impact of FP+ on the average guest based just on average standby lines. If an average guest didn't take advantage of FP+ at all, or maybe got one FP, but is now using FP+ to avoid lines at 3 attractions with long lines, that guest is going to be net ahead even if he has to wait a little longer for a couple of things.

I don't think a lot of the most vocal opponents of FP+ come anywhere close to being "average" guests. They are more typically ones who used their experience to take maximum advantage of paper FPs and were able to do a lot more than the average guest. Not surprisingly, they are not happy being brought closer to the average.

 

[wisblue]

Yeah but if you skip everything that 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.

I understand that this is just more of your sarcasm, but if you have an efficient plan that avoids the longer lines by visiting those attractions when lines are shorter, and use your FPs to avoid lines at some major attractions, it is also a major win.

 

[socrateze]

doesn't pirates have 2 loading docks?

That really didn't make any difference when we were there. Boats were not filled and SB line was stuck waiting.

 

[Angel Ariel]

That really didn't make any difference when we were there. Boats were not filled and SB line was stuck waiting.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I thought it was part of the problem at one point, where the fp+ line fed one loading area and the sb fed the other, so they couldn't just fill in fp+ boats with sb people because they were at a different loading area entirely?

 

[socrateze]

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.

I didn't think you could do that unless you were willing to cancel all of your FP's for the day and start over. Does anyone know?

 

[socrateze]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I thought it was part of the problem at one point, where the fp+ line fed one loading area and the sb fed the other, so they couldn't just fill in fp+ boats with sb people because they were at a different loading area entirely?

Not my experience, but that could've been the case at another time.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I understand that this is just more of your sarcasm, but if you have an efficient plan that avoids the longer lines by visiting those attractions when lines are shorter, and use your FPs to avoid lines at some major attractions, it is also a major win.

Serious question for you. You say that FP+ is a win for the average guest who now uses 3 FP+ and then gets a break even or even slightly ahead waiting on other items but then you have to have a good touring plan to avoid the items with the biggest increase do you think the average guest does this? I just really don't believe the average guest has any clue what a touring plan is.

 

[JimmyV]

I think that the biggest difference is the proliferation of FPs now for characters. They exist,so people feel the need to grab them. And for every one they grab, that is one less "adult" attraction that one can FP. In the past, everyone waited in hour long lines in Toontown looking at Mickey-shaped cacti and snaking through a tent watching black and white cartoons of Donald trying to bake a cake. Followed by "touring" Mickey's house convincing yourself that you were not "in line". It was just something that you did. And you could still get your FPs for Space Mountain or Splash Mountain. Now, people feel the urgent need to get out of those meet and greet lines and FP their way to seeing characters, and it comes at a cost. But I don't really see that FP+ is the culprit so much as it was Disney's decision to make meet and greets a FP event. OP...if you wait in hour long lines to see characters like I had to do when my DD was 2.5, you won't have this dilemma. At least now you have a choice to get out of those god-awful lines. I'm not sure that that is something to complain about. It's a "pick your poison" kind of thing. But trust me. The old ways were no great shakes. Waiting in a tent for a hour with a young child was brutal.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I didn't think you could do that unless you were willing to cancel all of your FP's for the day and start over. Does anyone know?

If it is one of your prebooked fps, you can change it to another ride in the same park.

 

[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.

You must be looking at different studies than I am, because I haven't seen any that concluded with a statement that lines are a wash at major attractions and significantly longer at secondary attractions. And the TP study I saw showed that the number of attractions with shorter waits was greater than ones with longer waits.

Could you please provide links to the studies you are referring to?

 

[Angel Ariel]

But I don't really see that FP+ is the culprit so much as it was Disney's decision to make meet and greets a FP even

I disagree. I think the pressure of the choice comes from the limit of 3 moreso than from what the attraction options are. If fp+ had come into being as just an electronic version of legacy (rules wise) but had also added the same fp+ attractions that we have now, I don't think many people would feel the same pressure that the op in this thread and others (myself included) are talking about. I know I wouldn't. Knowing there is a limit changes things. And, for us, we did not find much 4th fp+ (much less more) availability at all. Certainly not enough to rely on it for any preplanning purposes.

 

[socrateze]

If it is one of your prebooked fps, you can change it to another ride in the same park.

thanks, I never tried it so I didn't know you could do this.

 

[Angel Ariel]

thanks, I never tried it so I didn't know you could do this.

We tried, but on the few occasions we did, there wasn't a ton of availability.

 

[JimmyV]

I disagree. I think the pressure of the choice comes from the limit of 3 moreso than from what the attraction options are.

...Except that in the "old days", most people didn't use more than 3 FPs per day. Indeed, most used fewer than 2. So it's not as if the new system is building in more restricted choices than before. The difference is, people are now forced to stop and think about these things more than they did before. In 2004, while waiting in the barn or the tent, I never once said to myself: "This is impacting my FP usage". Now, if I book a FP for a meet and greet, I am forced to think about the lost opportunity to book Space Mountain. But this self-realization has nothing really to do with overall time management. Now, it is: breeze through the meet and greet and wait for Buzz. Before it was breeze through Buzz and wait for the meet and greet. Different approach. Same time results.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

You must be looking at different studies than I am, because I haven't seen any that concluded with a statement that lines are a wash at major attractions and significantly longer at secondary attractions. And the TP study I saw showed that the number of attractions with shorter waits was greater than ones with longer waits.

Could you please provide links to the studies you are referring to?

It's the same ones you're referencing and you can't simply say that 10 rides went down and only 3 went up so it proves it's working. If the 10 only lose 3 minutes but the 3 gain 15 you're still at a net loss.

Regardless even if you can say it works great at MK (where I do agree you can have the best luck) with a one and done approach it doesn't change the impact at HS and EPCOT.

 

[Angel Ariel]

...Except that in the "old days", most people didn't use more than 3 FPs per day. Indeed, most used fewer than 2. So it's not as if the new system is building in more restricted choices than before.

I wasn't saying that the new system actually IS restricting choices (though for families that did get more than 2 or 3, it does, that wasn't my point).

My point was that the moment there is a limit on something, how it is viewed psychologically is different. So while in the past there may have been days I only used 2 FPs, I didn't feel restricted, because I knew I could use however many I wanted, and it was my *choice* to only use 2. That's now different. Now there's a predetermined limit to contend with, and that changes how it is viewed.

The difference is, people are now forced to stop and think about these things more than they did before. In 2004, while waiting in the barn or the tent, I never once said to myself: "This is impacting my FP usage". Now, if I book a FP for a meet and greet, I am forced to think about the lost opportunity to book Space Mountain. But this self-realization has nothing really to do with overall time management. Now, it is: breeze through the meet and greet and wait for Buzz. Before it was breeze through Buzz and wait for the meet and greet. Different approach. Same time results.

This sounds pretty similar to the point I was trying to make, which I clarified above. My disagreement was with the idea that adding M&Gs is the cause for people now feeling this pressure. I don't think it's the M&G additions causing the pressure, as it is the psychological change.

 

[wisblue]

It's the same ones you're referencing and you can't simply say that 10 rides went down and only 3 went up so it proves it's working. If the 10 only lose 3 minutes but the 3 gain 15 you're still at a net loss.

Regardless even if you can say it works great at MK (where I do agree you can have the best luck) with a one and done approach it doesn't change the impact at HS and EPCOT.

I don't know what you're getting at when you talk about proving that FP+ is "working", because that isn't what I'm trying to do. This exchange started with the issue of how FP+ has affected standby lines. I haven't seen any that said the effect has been a "wash" for major attractions and "significantly" longer lines at secondary attractions. The headline on the TP study I saw says something like "FP+ is Lowering your Wait at Popular Disney Attractions".

But, if the aim of FP+ was to get more guests to use FPs and to distribute guests more evenly among all of the attractions in a park, it very well may be working as intended. If one result of that is that the most experienced users of paper FPs are getting fewer FPs, and maybe waiting in a few lines, that may have been an expected result too.

I do know from my personal experience (and I put myself in the category of an experienced guest) that it isn't hard to avoid the lines at attractions like POC, HM, IASW, Spaceship Earth, Figment, etc. that seem to come up a lot in threads like this.

 

[juliekzp]

I didn't think you could do that unless you were willing to cancel all of your FP's for the day and start over. Does anyone know?

You can definitely change a FP to a different attraction at any time, even if you missed your original FP window, and you can do it for some or all of your party. We do it all the time!

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I don't know what you're getting at when you talk about proving that FP+ is "working", because that isn't what I'm trying to do. This exchange started with the issue of how FP+ has affected standby lines. I haven't seen any that said the effect has been a "wash" for major attractions and "significantly" longer lines at secondary attractions. The headline on the TP study I saw says something like "FP+ is Lowering your Wait at Popular Disney Attractions".

But, if the aim of FP+ was to get more guests to use FPs and to distribute guests more evenly among all of the attractions in a park, it very well may be working as intended. If one result of that is that the most experienced users of paper FPs are getting fewer FPs, and maybe waiting in a few lines, that may have been an expected result too.

I do know from my personal experience (and I put myself in the category of an experienced guest) that it isn't hard to avoid the lines at attractions like POC, HM, IASW, Spaceship Earth, Figment, etc. that seem to come up a lot in threads like this.

It may well be that the sole intent of the who system was to push people away from certain attractions and onto others and if so then it is working as intended. I would question though the logic in investing 2 billion dollars into trying to push people onto a ride that isn't maximizing capacity when it would most likely be cheaper to just build some things to spread the people out.

If the plan was to help survey results from people who feel they are spending too much time waiting in line then a program that results in lines at attractions that never had a line before while ensuring at certain parks people are going to wait for something then you aren't really getting a solid ROI.

Your right that there are ways to avoid lines at some of these attractions (although you're not going to be able to avoid everything) you're still dodging something that didn't previously exist.