Hot to survive when FP+ goes down

[DisneyRegulars]

Hi, here now and yesterday 5/2 we had the misfortune of being caught in the Magic Kingdom when the entire FP+ system went down. I will share my experience, and then give some advice for how to survive. Firstly, we switched plans, we were going to go to HS that day, but at the last minute decided to go to the MK. I tried to switch our FP in the room, but the system was being weird. In fact it said that we had no tickets!!!! I shrugged it off. Tried again on the monorail, and again, we could not do anything with FP because the system said we had no tickets. We arrived at the MK about 11am, and despite My Disney Experience saying we had no tickets, we had no problem entering the park. The first thing we did was find a FP+ kiosk. We found the one by Mickey's Philharmagic. I think the system must have just gone down because the CMs made an announcement that the system was down. At this point, they didn't even try to scan our Magic Bands, they just asked how many people in our party and handed us one of these:

It was a FP good for 5 people to use on just about anything with the exception of character meet and greets and Story Time with Belle. Well here is where I made a mistake. If this happens to you, you should AUTOMATICALLY BECOME A PARTY OF 6 OR MORE. That way you would get 2 of these magic FP cards, and wouldn't have to wait in the annoying FP+ kiosk line as many times. I was quick thinking enough, so we used our one magic FP card for Space Mountain, and then had to stand in another FP+ kiosk line later to get another one. On the second go around, they did scan our Magic Bands, so they knew we were a party of 2, and again the system didn't work. Lesson # 2. If the system doesn't seem to be working (believe me you will know), have everyone in your party stand in line to collect a magic FP. Pretend you don't know each other. My husband and I had trouble doing this because we were wearing matching goofy hats and were very obviously together.

While the system was down, it appeared that people with existing FP+ reservations could use the system, I saw people scanning magic bands, but then other attractions they just let people walk right through the FP line without checking. This happened to us on Splash and we got to keep our paper fast pass for another ride. Overall a pretty frustrating day, but we are here often, so we just went with the flow.

System cam back online towards the evening, and around 8pm I was able to FP+ arrangements on my phone again and the system once again knew I had park tickets.

 

[Kristina4109]

Thank you SO MUCH for this information. I noticed the MDE was out yesterday when I was checking to see if I could switch some night time FP+ at the MK to Wishes and/or MSEP.

I kept thinking, "Okay, what about those poor people in the parks today?" Good to know that they had some sort of emergency system, even though it sounds like it wasn't perfect.

Gives me hope that we can still have a good time even if there is an epic fail of the tech.

 

[CNYDisneyFan]

Thanks for the info.

 

[heymoonkid]

I kept thinking, "Okay, what about those poor people in the parks today?" Good to know that they had some sort of emergency system, even though it sounds like it wasn't perfect.

Definitely not perfect as we were just turned away at the kiosk, told the system was down.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Very helpful post. Thank you!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Definitely not perfect as we were just turned away at the kiosk, told the system was down.

Oh no! We never even had to ask for a pass, they just gave them out at 2 different kiosks. At least this will let people know they exist, so maybe they will know to ask if not offered one.

 

[wisblue]

Asking for some kind of accommodation when you have been inconvenienced is always a good idea.

But, I definitely don't condone lying about your party size to get more.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Asking for some kind of accommodation when you have been inconvenienced is always a good idea.

But, I definitely don't condone lying about your party size to get more.

I can agree with that, I don't like lying either, and is probably why I didn't do this myself, but I do think you are due your three fp+, and shouldn't have to wait in line 20+ minutes to obtain each one. That's why I came up with option B, send multiple members of your party through the line, or different lines if you prefer, and each member can say their correct party size. No lying required.