Guest Test of Magic Bands (Official Notice)

[POB14]

Just adding my thanks for all of the great info, whatsarahsaid!

 

[squirrel4569]

Ok, so with some of the information that we have so far, how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day?

Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you?

Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day?

I guess I didn't see if you can get other FP+ after you use the initial 3 that you've selected.

The inability to select attractions at different parks in the same day could just be a part of the testing, which I would suspect would change because PH and AP holders would be kind of screwed otherwise.

Personally, to be able to pick three main attractions in a day would be great for me. You hit up those three at the busier times, like mid-afternoon, and do RD and/or late night for lower standby times at the rest of the attractions. I'm curious to see how this plays out come August when we go.

 

[mesaboy2]

Ok, so with some of the information that we have so far,

1. how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day?

2. Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you?

3. Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day?

I guess I didn't see if you can get other FP+ after you use the initial 3 that you've selected.

4. The inability to select attractions at different parks in the same day could just be a part of the testing, which I would suspect would change because PH and AP holders would be kind of screwed otherwise.

Personally, to be able to pick three main attractions in a day would be great for me. You hit up those three at the busier times, like mid-afternoon, and do RD and/or late night for lower standby times at the rest of the attractions. I'm curious to see how this plays out come August when we go.

1. Better than before, but that's not saying much.

2. Dunno. I'm a very long way from liking the idea of reserving rides weeks or months in advance.

3. Dunno. Probably depends on the specific trip and what we would want to accomplish.

4. That this limitation is specified in the (current) T&C suggests otherwise.

 

[ampc3]

I am still not sold.... the only thing that will make this great, is if there is still away to access on demand FP once in the park (like now) but that is just me..

Thank you to whatsarahsaid for all your valuable info! can't wait to see how this all plays out.. thankfully we still have a year until our trip.. fingers crossed all the kinks will be done by then.

 

[amg35]

Ok, so with some of the information that we have so far, how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day?

Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you?

Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day?

I guess I didn't see if you can get other FP+ after you use the initial 3 that you've selected.

The inability to select attractions at different parks in the same day could just be a part of the testing, which I would suspect would change because PH and AP holders would be kind of screwed otherwise.

Personally, to be able to pick three main attractions in a day would be great for me. You hit up those three at the busier times, like mid-afternoon, and do RD and/or late night for lower standby times at the rest of the attractions. I'm curious to see how this plays out come August when we go.

I just can't wrap my mind around reserving a time for a ride weeks before I even get there!! I can barely handle making ADR's for dinner. I mean, even when I plan what park we are going to ahead of time, we hardly ever stick to it! Park hoppers make not sticking to a plan pretty easy!

Honestly, I will probably just still make dinner ADR's for a couple nights and just play the be there by rope-drop, hope they still offer fastpass that you can get that day and see what happens game! And take advantage of single-rider lines.

 

[rastuso]

Getting 3 E-tickets would be nice, but still not what I am used to getting. And I would assume there are tons of folks that schedule their trips much before I do, so there could be a very real possibility that I would get no Es. We're still planning on hitting DL and D23 this year, but haven't made anything in concrete yet. Probably this weekend. I'd assume if FP+ was installed, we'd be getting 3 FP+ for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln every day.

And there is still the huge question of if other FPs are available. This will definitley be answered to some degree during the test. Since it will be a small group with FP+, they could theoretically still be able to get FPs in the wild, through the app, for a great vacation that they go home and tell their friends about how amazing FP+ is, even though it will be a one time only FP+ experience. However, if Disney puts limits on this small group, it will show at least a cap of what normal FPs can be obtained if any.

And there is still the very real issue of weather. What if you plan on a day at Epcot 3 months in advance, but when you get there, its going to rain all day, so you stay at your resort, and do some shopping later. You will NEVER get the FP+s that you had moved to the next day, when you originally planned for shopping and swimming. Or if you spend a FP+ on fireworks or Fantasmic and it rains. Tough luck, you just lost 33% of your fastpasses. Thanks for coming, drive home safely.

I think all of these questions, that apparently Disney's finest weren't bright enough to think of when they were asking for a billion dollars, is why this rollout seems to be in slow motion. They have to roll out something. The money is spent. But let's be honest, that billion on a Star Wars park would have been an infinitely better investment.


-R

 

[JeRmS]

how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day?

For me ... this is perfect ... 3 guaranteed headliners

Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you?

Would definitely make it more relaxing, we are local AP holders and I could now select my times/rides and not have to worry about getting to ride what we want.

Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day?

All together for me ... that way we can sleep in, hit our mid-afternoon FP+ and then relax the rest of the day.

The inability to select attractions at different parks in the same day could just be a part of the testing, which I would suspect would change because PH and AP holders would be kind of screwed otherwise.

This is what I'm wondering for us local AP holders, there are day's where we go to DHS and ONLY ride TSM then go over to Epcot and ride Soarin and TT and then hang the rest of the day. How is this going to work if I'm not allowed to pre-book those in advance.

against the many on this site, I am actually excited for this change as I think it will curtail a lot of the issues we see today with the FP system. If you are not at the park by the crack of dawn to run the marathon to TSM then you probably will not be riding it that day unless you get a FP for 955pm or stand in line for 863 minutes.

 

[squirrel4569]

I just can't wrap my mind around reserving a time for a ride weeks before I even get there!! I can barely handle making ADR's for dinner. I mean, even when I plan what park we are going to ahead of time, we hardly ever stick to it! Park hoppers make not sticking to a plan pretty easy!

Honestly, I will probably just still make dinner ADR's for a couple nights and just play the be there by rope-drop, hope they still offer fastpass that you can get that day and see what happens game! And take advantage of single-rider lines.

At first it seems that 60 days out is a bit much, but when you think about it, many of us here (very small group in the big picture) already have some tentative plans in place as it is. We know at least one park we'll go to in a day based on ADRs and with that we know of a few things we would like to do at that park.

While I'm not in favor of killing all spontaneity in a trip, planning to some degree make the trips more enjoyable I think. I think this presents a great opportunity to have some "must dos" and some "go with the flow/take what the day and park give you" touring styles.

Again, I still find it hard to believe that we'll be completely restricted to just 3 in a day. Not that the regular Joe will notice it much, but quite a few guests certainly will.

 

[GaBelle]

I am still not sold.... the only thing that will make this great, is if there is still away to access on demand FP once in the park (like now) but that is just me..

Thank you to whatsarahsaid for all your valuable info! can't wait to see how this all plays out.. thankfully we still have a year until our trip.. fingers crossed all the kinks will be done by then.

I agree. I would even be okay with a limited number of on demand FP, say 2, bringing my total allotment of FP for one day to 5.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Ok, so with some of the information that we have so far, how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day? I guess, okay but I mainly used fastpasses at the end of the day when the parks are the most busy. We are RD people so, we would arrive ride anything we could with no Fastpass but collect fastpasses as we are riding. But we haven't been back since they started enforcing the return time. I'd say by the evening at MK we'd have 5 to 7 fast passes to use. The other parks not so much as there were less rides to fastpass but still used them to help with evening planning. So, we rode Space Mountain at least 2 to 3 times.

Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you? I love planning out far in advance and I don't have a problem making ADRs in advance because they are easy to change. I think it would depend on if there is flexibility to change your ride reservation. I might pick to be at Epcot on a particular day and then, 3 months later decide I want DHS and the day of decide AK would be better. Usually, I can find a dining reservation and cancel the ones I don't want. Will it be same for rides?

Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day? I think I'd probably want them during the busy time either late afternoon to early evening

 

[Martini35]

Ok, so with some of the information that we have so far, how would you feel if you can get three headliner FP+ in one day?

Would that still ruin your experience or make it more relaxing for you?

Would your preference be to have them all together, say mid-afternoon when it's normally busy, or spread throughout the day?

I guess I didn't see if you can get other FP+ after you use the initial 3 that you've selected.

The inability to select attractions at different parks in the same day could just be a part of the testing, which I would suspect would change because PH and AP holders would be kind of screwed otherwise.

Personally, to be able to pick three main attractions in a day would be great for me. You hit up those three at the busier times, like mid-afternoon, and do RD and/or late night for lower standby times at the rest of the attractions. I'm curious to see how this plays out come August when we go.

Being relatively new, I have been trying to wrap my brain around this whole idea. Maybe I don't understand the whole fastpass system, but I thought it worked pretty well and enjoyed using it. Why fix something that is not broken?

I don't think the new system would work that well for us as I agree with the other post about having flexibility to change parks if the weather is bad. For our trip in Aug we have a general idea as to what park we will do on what day. They have asked to spend the last day just riding their favourite rides over and over using the fastpass system so hopefully we wills till be able to do that in Aug.

Also if I had already booked my vacation and than found out we couldn't get FP for the main attractions because we booked a few months out not a year out...I would be wondering if I really wanted to go.

If it were a perk for just those staying on-site, I would stay off-site and use the old system (based on the knowledge I have at this point).

 

[cheesemouse]

I am in the minority I know, but I like the new FP+ idea. We generally do RD each and every day. Having the new FP+ system will allow us to ride good things in the afternoon and evening instead of only in the morning. Plus I LOVE the idea of being able to use a FP+ for a parade or show etc. Not having to stake out a spot 60-90 minutes in advance is HUGE for me (3 little kids) and is definitely worth using one of the allotted 3 FP+ selections. I'd probably use one of the FP+ around lunch time and the other 2 after our afternoon break. If I can get additional FP the day of, great. If not, oh well. We arrive early enough to be able to accomplish a lot in just a few hours. It's always the late afternoons and evenings that we find frustrating. Oh, and not having to worry about the TSMM sprint is AWESOME!

Thanks to the OP for providing such great information and sharing your experience. Many of us have been eagerly waiting for such details! I hope you have a great trip!!!

 

[rastuso]

For me ... this is perfect ... 3 guaranteed headliners


Would definitely make it more relaxing, we are local AP holders and I could now select my times/rides and not have to worry about getting to ride what we want.

If APers can do this, it would be a HUGE perk, and also hugely unfair to those paying a hundred dollars each for the day. There has to be a pretty hard limit on APers, or it becomes an enormous perk, that would surely result in big AP price increases. It would take APers from being unable to ride E tickets during evening visits now, to APers being able to drop in, hit 3 E tickets, and leave, taking those from day visitors. There is no reason for Disney to offer such a huge perk to someone not staying on site, and unlikely to eat in the park.

Your 3 FP+s will become the vast majority of the value to your ticket. I don't see them giving that away for essentially free to APers. Maybe letting APers in with a smaller window, after day visitors getting first crack, which would let APs do well on off season only.

But again, to the folks thinking you'll get this, the numbers simply don't support it. 30,000 * 3 is 90,000 E ticket rides. the capacity just isn't there on a slow day, let alone when that number is 150,000.

-R

 

[JeRmS]

If APers can do this, it would be a HUGE perk, and also hugely unfair to those paying a hundred dollars each for the day. There has to be a pretty hard limit on APers, or it becomes an enormous perk, that would surely result in big AP price increases. It would take APers from being unable to ride E tickets during evening visits now, to APers being able to drop in, hit 3 E tickets, and leave, taking those from day visitors. There is no reason for Disney to offer such a huge perk to someone not staying on site, and unlikely to eat in the park.

Your 3 FP+s will become the vast majority of the value to your ticket. I don't see them giving that away for essentially free to APers. Maybe letting APers in with a smaller window, after day visitors getting first crack, which would let APs do well on off season only.

But again, to the folks thinking you'll get this, the numbers simply don't support it. 30,000 * 3 is 90,000 E ticket rides. the capacity just isn't there on a slow day, let alone when that number is 150,000.

-R

Not necessarily if those FP+ have to be planned in advance. Even though I'm a semi Local APer I still plan my trips for the most part so I know when and where I will be on what day. If the FP+ system is going to work something like the current ADR system then I'd imagine the Headliner rides will be booked up rather quickly which would eliminate dropping in, riding 3 headliners and leaving on any sporadic evening.

 

[doconeill]

If APers can do this, it would be a HUGE perk, and also hugely unfair to those paying a hundred dollars each for the day. There has to be a pretty hard limit on APers, or it becomes an enormous perk, that would surely result in big AP price increases. It would take APers from being unable to ride E tickets during evening visits now, to APers being able to drop in, hit 3 E tickets, and leave, taking those from day visitors. There is no reason for Disney to offer such a huge perk to someone not staying on site, and unlikely to eat in the park.

Your 3 FP+s will become the vast majority of the value to your ticket. I don't see them giving that away for essentially free to APers. Maybe letting APers in with a smaller window, after day visitors getting first crack, which would let APs do well on off season only.

But again, to the folks thinking you'll get this, the numbers simply don't support it. 30,000 * 3 is 90,000 E ticket rides. the capacity just isn't there on a slow day, let alone when that number is 150,000.

-R

However, Disney has publicly said that FP+ is a feature associated with your ticket, not where you stay. The T&C says that anyone with a MYW ticket will get 60 days. They haven't specified limits for other classes of tickets yet.

 

[whatsarahsaid]

OK here are all the options I got for EPCOT...

• Captain EO
• IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
• Journey Into Imagination With Figment
• Living with the Land
• Maelstrom
• Meet Disney Pals at the Epcot Character Spot
• Mission: SPACE
• Soarin'
• Spaceship Earth
• Test Track
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends

All options were the same for all four days of our trip.

 

[rastuso]

That's why the AP issue is key. If they have fairly unfettered access, Friday evening and Saturday FP+s will be an extra special commodity.

-R

 

[whatsarahsaid]

Options for Hollywood Studios...

• Disney Junior
• Indiana Jones
• Lights, Motors, Action
• Muppet*Vision 3D
• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
• Star Tours
• The American Idol Experience
• The Great Movie Ride
• Tower of Terror
• Toy Story Midway Mania
• Voyage of The Little Mermaid

Options for Animal Kingdom...

• DINOSAUR
• Expedition Everest
• Festival of the Lion King
• Finding Nemo - The Musical
• It's Tough to be a Bug
• Kali River Rapids
• Kilimanjaro Safaris
• Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventurers Outpost
• Primeval Whirl

 

[doconeill]

OK here are all the options I got for EPCOT...

• Captain EO
• IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
• Journey Into Imagination With Figment
• Living with the Land
• Maelstrom
• Meet Disney Pals at the Epcot Character Spot
• Mission: SPACE
• Soarin'
• Spaceship Earth
• Test Track
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends

All options were the same for all four days of our trip.

That's pretty much everything, except Ellen's 45 Minute Naptime -er, I mean Energy Adventure. And the Circle of Life show in The Land and Turtle Talk? Not counting the various little movies/shows around World Showcase...

 

[interstate70s]

Looks like so far, it's not as bad as feared or as good as hoped. I still think booking rides in advance is pretty insane. I wouldn't get too excited about booking viewing areas with fp+ either.Look at World of Color Color in DCA. All a fp means is that you get into the viewing area. You still have to line up early, stake out and hold your spot pretty far in advance. I don't see how fp+ for nighttime shows at wdw could be done any differently.