FP+ Works Against Families

[MrInfinity]

Okay friends. I try not to complain too much, but after experiencing FP+ for the first time, I feel that it is working against one of the main philosophies behind Disney World. Disney wanted families to be able to do things together and for Disney to be fun for everyone in the family. I feel like FP+ is working against that ideal. Here's why:

When planning my FP+ reservations, I frequently had to choose between things that DH and I wanted to do and things that were mainly for DS (2.5). I had to ask myself, is it okay to not get a FP+ to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel for DS even though he loves them so DH and I could ride BTMRR or Splash Mountain? We were lucky enough to get a 4th FP for those princesses, but only one so DH took DS and I waited outside. Same with Ariel. At HS, we had to choose TSMM for our tier 1 FP. We thought maybe we would ride RnR single rider, but it was unfortunately down for a large part of the day so when it came back up, even the single rider line was seriously long. I honestly felt that we constantly had to choose between stuff for us and stuff for him. And sometimes our group had to split up to make things happen. I am always willing to do whatever will make my kiddo's vacation magical, but it is my vacation too. We don't get to go more often than every 3-4 years, so we try to make the most of the time we are there. I can only imagine the agony of families with kids big enough to ride big rides and littler guys (which will likely be us by the next trip). Having to choose between FP+ for the taller people and the smaller is really difficult.

Anyone else have this sentiment? Any tips on balancing it out?

Hi,
We're a pretty varied group and FP+ works great for us. As few as 5, as many as 10 on our trips, and a mix of babies, toddlers, kids and adults. I think FP+ can be flexible -- it just depends how you look at it. Even just what you described... picking one thing for the little kids and another for the adults is just that... flexibility. You get ppl what they want. Whether it's more important for your DS to see Cinderella or for you to ride BTMRR is more of a personal choice than a FP+ thing. If you were going without FP+ and you had to prioritize one of those to do first thing, you'd still face the same dilemma. You probly wouldn't even get to do much in a day unless you got there early enough to pull some FP- tickets in the old days. Think about if FP+ wasn't there and it was all standby. Nowadays it's nice to think we'll get a FP+ to everything and never wait in line... but imagine if you couldn't get a FP to anything and you always had to wait in line. That's what it was like when we were kids, long lines for everything and no line skipping systems. I waited an hour to ride Space Mountain back then, but in recent years I've never waited over 20 min -- without even using a FP+ on it.

Your other frustration, while it certainly hits home (it would totally blow if RnR went down) really doesn't have anything to do FP+. Even if there were no FastPass system at all, that line still would have been long the rest of the day.

Another point you mentioned is that while under FP+ some characters (like A&E) require it... remember back to the days where A&E had a 6-hour wait. That's over half a day just to see them. FP+ made that way better.

So I guess for tips on balancing it out, try to think about what you ARE getting out of it and not focus on what you are not getting. It's never been meant to get you on everything fast, just 3 attractions. Use them however best suits your family.

We're going w the "agony" of the big-kid / little-kid split. Tho it's not an agony. I'm perfectly happy taking some of the kids on Test Track while our little guy goes on Figment, or vice versa. It would be great times with either kids. How do you choose? You just do some of each.

 

[itchin2go]

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".

If I'm not mistaken, that blog post didn't show info for all rides, just a select group.

 

[wisblue]

If I'm not mistaken, that blog post didn't show info for all rides, just a select group.

It covered all of the rides that TP studies for purposes of developing its crowd calendars. And, yes, that is not every ride in every park.

Both of the studies were done before 7DMT opened, so the impact that has had on other attractions would not be reflected.

 

[itchin2go]

It covered all of the rides that TP studies for purposes of developing its crowd calendars. And, yes, that is not every ride in every park.

Both of the studies were done before 7DMT opened, so the impact that has had on other attractions would not be reflected.

Just going strictly on memory, I thought easywdw posted something showing that most rides had increased wait times, while some headliners had decreased wait times. Granted, these were incremental increases and decreases - nothing spectacular, but I had the impression that there were definitely more rides with increased wait times. I don't want to debate "average visitor" or try to factor in the savings in time for the (up to) 3 rides that you FP. I don't begin to know how to do that. Truth be told, I don't want to debate any of it. Why am I here?

Regardless, my point was - if more rides have increases than decreases, it stands to reason it's a net negative. My brain can't factor in what each individual family will or won't do, but I can process that one simple fact.

 

[Jaya]

Maybe we should go way, way back to the "good ol' days" BEFORE there were fast passes in any form. Your only strategy for short waits was to be there at rope drop, hang out until 11:00 p.m. when most people had departed or go in the off-season (back when there was an off-season). Otherwise, everyone (except for those who were claiming disabilities, and that's another brouhaha, as we know) waited in the same line. I waited for FOUR HOURS in line to ride Space Mountain on its second day of operation.....believe me, that was an experience I never want to have again, but I had a young'un with me who would DIE, ABSOLUTELY DIE if she didn't get to ride.

One day of that, and I'm sure most people will be getting down on their knees to give thanks for fast passes, plus or otherwise.

 

[2Tiggies]

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

It doesn't matter. I wasn't trying to start a debate for or against the new system. I simply responded to the thread with a comment based on my family's experiences with the current system vs the previous one. So yes, you could go back and forth on this, but you choose to do so or not to do so. I refer you again to my post which got you so excited, which started out stating clearly that it works for some and not for others. I was happy to post and leave it at that. I have no idea why you feel the need to defend FP+ when I didn't attack it. I don't like it. It doesn't work better for us. There are those who do like it. Clearly you are one of those people. I'm not trying to persuade you to dislike it, especially if it works for you. My posts seem to have upset you. That was not my intent.

 

[socrateze]

Here's a post from Not frosty Josh on wait times:

I know I'm going to regret this.

I run easywdw.com - a site that gets over 850,000 visitors/month. I write the highest rated Walt Disney World guidebook on Amazon of all time (of all time) and have visited the theme parks well over 500 times over the last five years. I can also pull up those wait times charts for any park, any day, all day, for the last couple of years. Tens of thousands of people have used my crowd calendars, cheat sheets, etc. So I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

FP+ has affected wait times in a variety of ways.

The biggest change is in secondary attractions that didn't historically offer FastPass+. FP+ is, in essence, priority boarding for those that have it. So if you have 1,000 people in line at Haunted Mansion and Haunted Mansion moves through 2,000 people/hour, your wait would be 30 minutes if you were the 1,001st person in line. If you have that same 1,000 people in line, but 200 of them have FP+, your wait would still be 30 minutes because you're still behind 1,000 people. The reason the wait is longer is because while you're waiting, 200 more people with FP+ arrive after you. And because they have priority boarding, they will be seated and ride before you. So instead of being behind 1,000 people, you're now behind 1,200 people and your wait is longer because of it.

FastPass+ has its biggest impact on days with higher attendance because more FP+ are distributed to more people. If there are 10,000 people all selecting 3 FP+, you have a total of 30,000 FP+. If there are 30,000 people all selecting FP+, you have 90,000 FP+. And because there are a limited number of high priority FP+ at the major attractions, the people that choose later will have fewer options and will be selecting lower priority FP+ choices because that's what's remaining in inventory. But they will still have FP+ for those low priority attractions, arrive after you, and board before you. And because of that, you will wait longer. The 4th FP+ thing has also "helped" increase waits. Just yesterday I got a 4th FP+ for Living with the Land around 1:15pm for 1:25pm-2:25pm. The posted wait was 30 minutes and there were hundreds of people in line. I boarded in under five minutes, bypassing all of those people that arrived before me. And they will wait longer because of it.

But FP+ is affecting wait times more and more on "less crowded" days because more people are privy to FP+ because Disney is making such a big deal out of it. And with 4th and subsequent FP+ opportunities via kiosk, you see more and more cases of maximum FP+ distribution, even for the lowest priority attractions. And because there is some disconnect between wait times and what FP+ are available, people are more likely to make blind decisions on which FP+ they select. Back in the days of legacy FASTPASS, you might arrive at DINOSAUR, see a 10-minute wait, and just get in line instead of pulling those FASTPASSes. Now, you have to select that DINOSAUR FP+ from a kiosk no closer than Disney Outfitters in front of the Tree of Life. And because you don't know the wait time, you might select DINOSAUR even if it has a 10-minute wait because you don't know it has a 10-minute wait. And when you arrive and see the 10-minute wait, most people are still going to use their FP+. And people in standby wait longer because all those people that arrived after them have priority boarding.

So while it might not make a lot of sense to get FP+ for Journey into Imagination, somebody will still select FP+ for that attraction because it might be the only thing left and it makes a lot more sense to get something than to get nothing. So when you show up at 1pm for Journey into Imagination and there are 100 people in front of you in standby, another 100 people might arrive with FP+ and they will all board before you. So in essence, you are waiting behind 200 people instead of 100. With legacy FASTPASS, Journey into Imagination would not have allowed priority boarding like that. And the 100 people that arrived after you would board after you, resulting in a shorter wait.

This seems like it should be easy to understand.

The other major effect FP+ has had is how quickly lines develop, particularly at secondary attractions that didn't offer FP+, but also at the priority attractions. Legacy FASTPASS return times generally started at 9:40am, then once 9:05am hit, they were distributed for 9:45am-10:45am, and after that, 9:50am-10:50am etc. So those that arrived first thing in the morning could pull legacy FASTPASS for the earliest return windows, and also had 40+ minutes to tour the legacy FASTPASS attractions before FASTPASS users began to arrive with their paper tickets around 10am. And because relatively few people were around to pull those 9:40am-10:40am FASTPASSes, you had relatively low distribution numbers and fewer people returning between 10am-11am with FASTPASSes in hand than say, 3pm-4pm.

With FP+, there will be people arriving right at 9am with FP+ because that's their first window. And while we could argue that it doesn't make any sense to use FP+ at Big Thunder Mountain at 9:15am, there will still be people doing just that because that's what was available and they "don't know any better." So if you get to Big Thunder at 9:45am and there are 100 people in front of you, you'd wait behind those 100 people under legacy FASTPASS. Maybe a handful of FASTPASS returners would get back there that soon, but it would be a negligible number. Under FP+, you have as many as a thousand people visiting Big Thunder between 9am-10am with FP+ in hand. And a lot of those FP+ returners will arrive after you and ride before you. And because of that, you will wait longer.

Those two things alone have rocked theme park touring strategy. The mornings are more of a rush and you will wait longer. And secondary attractions that historically didn't develop sizable waits until much later in the day now develop longer waits, earlier, due to FastPass+ returners.

I wrote a post around this time last year comparing posted waits before and after FP+ implementation: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...cting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/. While it's no secret that posted waits aren't always indicative of actual waits, the day-to-day trends are much more telling. And when you have millions of numbers to work with, you can make some relatively definitive conclusions based on that data, in addition to the hundreds of visits that I suppose are "anecdotal" by some definitions. Not perfect conclusions, but ones based on more data and experience than you'll find anywhere else.

That's my experience based on a few hundred visits and millions of wait times, anyway.


Here's the source: http://www.disboards.com/threads/av...s-and-wait-times.3412906/page-7#post-53729617

 

[Planogirl]

If FP+ gets people out of lines wouldn't they head for other lines? I can't see how FP+ changes anything really.

 

[wisblue]

If you want to resurrect the thread that Josh joined, I would encourage everyone to look at the whole thing, not just that one post. Josh had more to say later, including recognizing that FP+ isn't the only factor that affects standby lines.

ETA: with that I'll leave this discussion. It has already strayed far away from the original point of the thread. The issue of how standby lines have changed in recent years (whether because of FP+ or other factors) has been covered in depth before. Whatever the answer to that is, it affects everyone, not just families or groups with young children. And, as I said in my first post on the thread, it has always been true, and always will be true, that larger groups and groups with small children will face some different challenges satisfying everyone in the group.

 

[itchin2go]

If you want to resurrect the thread that Josh joined, I would encourage everyone to look at the whole thing, not just that one post. Josh had more to say later, including recognizing that FP+ isn't the only factor that affects standby lines.

I thought he was pretty clear that FP+ was the leading factor, but maybe I missed the part where he credited something else.

 

[wisblue]

I thought he was pretty clear that FP+ was the leading factor, but maybe I missed the part where he credited something else.

Just look at the rest of the thread, especially Josh's posts, including #205.

I think it is a bad idea to just declare that some standby lines are longer and then jump to the conclusion that that means the average guest is spending more time standing in lines.

 

[socrateze]

I thought he was pretty clear that FP+ was the leading factor, but maybe I missed the part where he credited something else.

Yup, that was my take on the situation too.

 

[bcrook]

Just look at the rest of the thread, especially Josh's posts, including #205.

I think it is a bad idea to just declare that some standby lines are longer and then jump to the conclusion that that means the average guest is spending more time standing in lines.

I couldn't really tell on my last trip because major rides weren't working or shutdown.
At DHS (a park already short on attractions) had RNRC down for the entire evening 2-12:00 that forced craziness on the rest of the park.
At MK - Pirates and Space Mountain were out of commission that made Haunted Mansion insane.
At Epcot - Figment and Maelstrom were not operating.

But at DAK - I noticed on two visits - and watched for quite a while both times: Dinosaur was practically appointment riding all the way up to 4:00 pm. I think because nearly everyone in the park uses a FP for ride while some will skip Everest and Kali. The Safari is always long so nothing changed there.

I didn't even ride any rides at Epcot except for Soarin. I rode that with a FP+. And that blew my mind. My FP+ return wait time was easily 30 minutes. I did notice that Peter Pan had a ridiculous FP+ return wait along with Dinosaur. AND TSMM was 30 minutes too with the FP+ return line stretching down the street towards the Chinese Theater. Tower of Terror was a 25 minute FP+ return wait (but those last two had the RNRC shutdown against them).

I can definitely tell that dynamics have shifted. I didn't really find any wait times less than my last trip. The closest thing I could see was that The Little Mermaid Ride was a walk on most of the time - but I think that just has to do with it not being a very good ride.

Things are much different than before. Nothing a 3.5 Billion expansion won't fix. Come on D23 - Only a few days to go to see the plans.

 

[itchin2go]

Just look at the rest of the thread, especially Josh's posts, including #205.

I think it is a bad idea to just declare that some standby lines are longer and then jump to the conclusion that that means the average guest is spending more time standing in lines.

I didn't do that - any of it. I am not prone to declaring things or jumping to conclusions.

I rely on the things that I read, and the people who write them, who I believe to be authorities on some of these issues.

IF I read that wait times for most things have increased post FP+, while a few have decreased, what is the most obvious conclusion you could reach given that information? Why do you discard the conclusion out of hand? Why won't you even give it a small bit of credence and examine it?

If FP+ has improved things across the board, that's great news. It doesn't scare me or threaten me in the slightest way. If the opposite is true, I'm open that information. What I really want is the truth. Spin drives me bananas.

 

[LOL!]

Yup, that was my take on the situation too.

Interesting that thread was actually started to debunk the belief that wait times have increased due to FP+ and when Josh himself weighed in to support that belief with his own comprehensive findings the thread died a rather swift death.

 

[mom2rtk]

Another point you mentioned is that while under FP+ some characters (like A&E) require it... remember back to the days where A&E had a 6-hour wait. That's over half a day just to see them. FP+ made that way better.

.

FP+ helped. But so has the passage of time. And the (at least) doubling of their capacity at the MK (compared to Epcot).

 

[3DisneyFanz]

Interesting that thread was actually started to debunk the belief that wait times have increased due to FP+ and when Josh himself weighed in to support that belief with his own comprehensive findings the thread died a rather swift death.

Sure if you ignore the few more pages of people trying to argue the data and prove that something they witnessed at a very specific moment was more telling than a comprehensive collection of data from an extended period. My favorite argument against the data has to be that the SB times are just exaggerated lies told by Disney.

 

[bcrook]

Sure if you ignore the few more pages of people trying to argue the data and prove that something they witnessed at a very specific moment was more telling than a comprehensive collection of data from an extended period. My favorite argument against the data has to be that the SB times are just exaggerated lies told by Disney.

That Jungle Cruise gets me every time. The SB time will be listed at 45 minutes, but the line looks short - I know they are lying. So I jump in all excited. Then I start wandering back, back, back into the warehouses and it takes every bit of 45 minutes. DL is worse. The line goes upstairs and they hide it well. It looks like a walk on. Well you do walk on...and on and on and on. lol

 

[mom2rtk]

That Jungle Cruise gets me every time. The SB time will be listed at 45 minutes, but the line looks short - I know they are lying. So I jump in all excited. Then I start wandering back, back, back into the warehouses and it takes every bit of 45 minutes. DL is worse. The line goes upstairs and they hide it well. It looks like a walk on. Well you do walk on...and on and on and on. lol

Then you wouldn't have enjoyed the fastpass return line we encountered for Jungle Cruise in June. It didn't even LOOK short. And it wasn't.

IMG_8030 by mom2rtk, on Flickr

 

[MainMom]

Family of 11, EMH MK youngest age 9, FP+ choices: HM 10am, 7DMT 11am, PP 1:30pm. Lunch was at noon.

We rode: Space, Speedway, Buzz (during EMH), Splash, BTMRR. Had 20 minutes before HM FP so bathroom breaks & coffee. HM FP+, IASW, Tea Party, Dumbo, 7DMT FP+, lunch BOG, PP FP+, left for break.

As you can see we had a mix of thrill rides and rides for all ages. No lines longer than 20 minutes, most 15 or less.

We had a second, equally successful second MK day where the 6 girls focused on Princess M&G & Fantasyland rides we didn't do.

Park opened at 8am. We were let in a bit early.

Stopped for pictures in front of castle, carousel, little mermaid ride, met Ariel, Pooh ride, Dumbo, Barnstormer twice, bathroom break. At 8:55 we were heading to the Merida M&G at 9:15. Merida, Alice & White Rabbit (longest wait all morning), 10:05 FP+ Cindy& rupunzel, met Peter Pan, met Tiana, bathroom/snack break, 11:00am FP+ Anna & Elsa, heading to 11:35 CP ADR by 11:20.

Longest wait was Alice. They took a break, line was longish, 20-25 minutes? All rides were walk on. Both Ariel things said 10 minutes. That was literally our walk through the que. our 3rd FP was for wishes.

The guys chose to do adventure land, frontier land and tomorrow land again.FP + for JC & BTMRR space was 10 minute wait when they rode it.

All family's have to choose, regardless of age. It can be done. I'm sure others are successful with different plans. Mine is just an example for the middle of July with a large group.

ETA- this post was for the OP. I did not read all of the pages so this is not meant as an argument for standby line time increase or not.