How I Hate FastPass+

[Jennytoon]

That's interesting. It would imply there are two or more different pools of FP's at any one time and the kiosks are not presenting all options.

I wonder why they would limit the selection available at the kiosk if there was "wildly different" actual availability.

At a guess -- at least one reason is because they want to keep the kiosk line moving by limiting the potential for people to stand there clicking on every single possible available option to see which one suits them best.

 

[Alfalfa]

Pure speculation, and no way to know if it's true ... but knowing that it has happened, it certainly makes sense to roll the dice and TRY booking an unwanted FP at the kiosk, then try to turn it into a WANTED fastpass on your phone.

Being able to immediately change 75% of 30-35 FP's is beyond speculation and closer to frequent. That's a hit rate to look forward to and would mean that the kiosks are definitely not showing everything.

 

[Alfalfa]

At a guess -- at least one reason is because they want to keep the kiosk line moving by limiting the potential for people to stand there clicking on every single possible available option to see which one suits them best.

That could be.

 

[smitch425]

At a guess -- at least one reason is because they want to keep the kiosk line moving by limiting the potential for people to stand there clicking on every single possible available option to see which one suits them best.

Definitely a possibility. We were on and off the kiosk in less than a minute every time. Another possibility is that they only show rides with a certain percentage of FPs left for the day. So if HM (which we switched to frequently) was 90% claimed, they opt to leave it off your list of available rides, and instead offer you WtP which is 55% claimed. WtP always showed up for us. Lol!

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

That's interesting. It would imply there are two or more different pools of FP's at any one time and the kiosks are not presenting all options.

I wonder why they would limit the selection available at the kiosk if there was "wildly different" actual availability.

Most people wouldn't think to change their extra FP. I would guess that this is Disney's way of guiding people to secondary attractions.

I was not a big fan of FP+ when we used it last year. I'm hoping to get more out of it this year. Last year we only pulled two extra FP and had to wait in a long kiosk line to do it.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Most people wouldn't think to change their extra FP. I would guess that this is Disney's way of guiding people to secondary attractions.

I was not a big fan of FP+ when we used it last year. I'm hoping to get more out of it this year. Last year we only pulled two extra FP and had to wait in a long kiosk line to do it.

I think this is the reason. There is also a lot of "guiding" going on at the kiosks, to the point that the CMs are annoying. In my experience anyway.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

I think this is the reason. There is also a lot of "guiding" going on at the kiosks, to the point that the CMs are annoying. In my experience anyway.

I actually feel sorry for the CMs working the kiosks. They have explain the same system over and over and have to deal with a lot of frustrated and even angry guests. I know I found our first time using the kiosk frustrating. The touchscreen was not very responsive. Then it told me I could chose BTMRR, but then told me that no times were available so I had to start all over.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I actually feel sorry for the CMs working the kiosks. They have explain the same system over and over and have to deal with a lot of frustrated and even angry guests. I know I found our first time using the kiosk frustrating. The touchscreen was not very responsive. Then it told me I could chose BTMRR, but then told me that no times were available so I had to start all over.

I agree, I didn't mean to sound dismissive of the CMs' jobs there. I think that would be a very hard job. But I did feel like they were rushing me through and not letting me see all of the choices. I should have said that I found the kiosk experience very annoying.

 

[smitch425]

I actually feel sorry for the CMs working the kiosks. They have explain the same system over and over and have to deal with a lot of frustrated and even angry guests. I know I found our first time using the kiosk frustrating. The touchscreen was not very responsive. Then it told me I could chose BTMRR, but then told me that no times were available so I had to start all over.

The CMs working our kiosks seemed relieved when we said we didn't need any help. Lol

 

[Bete]

I had to post again. Vacation should not be this hard or complicated. Fastpass plus has made vacation more difficult at Disney World and less desirable.

My experience with FP+ has been been half of what I could do with the old system. Now for the joy of half the experience I can dish out even more money and get less value. No thanks!

 

[itchin2go]

I had to post again. Vacation should not be this hard or complicated. Fastpass plus has made vacation more difficult at Disney World and less desirable.

My experience with FP+ has been been half of what I could do with the old system. Now for the joy of half the experience I can dish out even more money and get less value. No thanks!

WDW vacations have always been complicated. I bought multiple guidebooks before going for the first time. You can't tell me that the old FP system wasn't complicated too. It was! It's just that we knew how to use it ... in our sleep! So now we have to learn a new system. It's ok if people don't want to .... if this was the straw that brok the camels back.

But the system being complicated is nothing new.

 

[mom2rtk]

WDW vacations have always been complicated. I bought multiple guidebooks before going for the first time. You can't tell me that the old FP system wasn't complicated too. It was! It's just that we knew how to use it ... in our sleep! So now we have to learn a new system. It's ok if people don't want to .... if this was the straw that brok the camels back.

But the system being complicated is nothing new.

There's complicated. Then there's this.

It's a matter of degree.

I actually enjoyed planning when it didn't require guessing what part of the park I would be in at what time 60 days from now.

 

[Mad Hattered]

I've been going since 1972. It was never as complicated as it has been the last 5 years.

 

[Planogirl]

I never found legacy complicated but I know that it depends on how you like to tour and how much prep you do. We knew which rides were important and headed to those early. We could ride immediately or get fastpasses. For example, the two mountains in Frontierland were handled like this. We would ride whichever one had the shortest line just after grabbing a fastpass for the other. We tried to work the rides in pairs in this manner to avoid a lot of criss crossing. The biggest headache ride was always Space Mountain because Buzz didn't need early attention.

Anyway, we found this method to be simple. I hope that someone figures out a way to make FP+ simple eventually.

 

[Colleen27]

Is the problem that you used to collect fastpasses during the day to use at night? I can see that being a rude awakening with the new system.

That wasn't us at all. I didn't mind the enforcement much because it was only a very minor inconvenience based on how we tour. We didn't use FP- much at all - just for the headliners, usually only once because my youngest still doesn't ride them (except Soarin') and I didn't expect her to wait around through the rest of us baby-swapping . We did most of our touring standby, using 2-3 FP per day for the things with the most ridiculous standby lines and enjoying the lack of lines at less popular/non-headliner attractions. But FP+ has created lines at those that never used to be there so the days of being content to ride Soarin' once and spending the rest of the day repeat-riding Figment, SSE, El Rio, etc. are a thing of the past.

The fundamental principle underlying FP+ - redistributing crowds to less interesting attractions rather than expanding headliner attraction capacity as attendance grows - diminishes the WDW experience all the way around.

 

[mom2rtk]

That wasn't us at all. I didn't mind the enforcement much because it was only a very minor inconvenience based on how we tour. We didn't use FP- much at all - just for the headliners, usually only once because my youngest still doesn't ride them (except Soarin') and I didn't expect her to wait around through the rest of us baby-swapping . We did most of our touring standby, using 2-3 FP per day for the things with the most ridiculous standby lines and enjoying the lack of lines at less popular/non-headliner attractions. But FP+ has created lines at those that never used to be there so the days of being content to ride Soarin' once and spending the rest of the day repeat-riding Figment, SSE, El Rio, etc. are a thing of the past.

The fundamental principle underlying FP+ - redistributing crowds to less interesting attractions rather than expanding headliner attraction capacity as attendance grows - diminishes the WDW experience all the way around.

If people didn't choose those secondary attractions willingly, I'm not sure why they are supposed to be excited about being nudged in that direction.

 

[itchin2go]

But FP+ has created lines at those that never used to be there so the days of being content to ride Soarin' once and spending the rest of the day repeat-riding Figment, SSE, El Rio, etc. are a thing of the past.

This may be true (incrementally so, if I believe the "studies" that have been done), but how many people really want to ride those repeatedly throughout the day?

I didn't do a "study" but for my Thanksgiving week trip, we did not notice longer lines than normal at, say, Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean. I am sure that the "studies" are right, and that the lines have incrementally increased, but in practice, it wasn't so much that we noticed it. It was (if there) unappreciable.

Granted, I didn't try to ride Figment at 3:00 pm. I am in World Showcase by then. However, if I did try, and found a 45 minute line, I would say that's pretty alarming. As I've said before, I have not only never seen a line at Figment, I rarely have anyone else on the ride with me.

I did notice a longer than normal line at Living with the Land, but I did not know whether to chalk that up to Thanksgiving week (which we have never attended before) or FP+. Typically, too, we're not in the Land pavilion past 10:00, and this time, we were since we had a FP+ for Soarin and did not ride it at rope drop like normal.

 

[larryz]

I didn't do a "study" but for my Thanksgiving week trip, we did not notice longer lines than normal at, say, Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean. I am sure that the "studies" are right, and that the lines have incrementally increased, but in practice, it wasn't so much that we noticed it. It was (if there) unappreciable.

If the reports are to be believed, a 30 minute wait at the rides that used to have zero wait times is the new "normal."

I would find any wait longer than 10 minutes at the rides you mentioned "appreciable." But then, I haven't been back in MK since 2010 -- prior to "the great experiment."

 

[edk35]

We got back a week ago today from a 9 night stay. This is our 2nd trip with the new FP+. We are not fans but what we did was sacrifice SLEEP to get on the rides more. We arrived at rope drop so we could do standby lines then scheduled our FP's later in the day. We also noticed that when we stayed at MK late we were able to get on rides with very little wait. We had a GREAT TRIP. If they allowed us to book 5 FP's at MK ahead of time that would HELP. MK needs more FP's per day. I still don't like the tiering at HS and EC but we still managed to get on RR when we arrived early then used our FP for TSM. We thought the crowds were okay really considering it was the week of Easter.

 

[itchin2go]

If the reports are to be believed, a 30 minute wait at the rides that used to have zero wait times is the new "normal."

I would find any wait longer than 10 minutes at the rides you mentioned "appreciable." But then, I haven't been back in MK since 2010 -- prior to "the great experiment."

I mainly saw the easywdw reports, and it's been awhile, but I thought waits on "lesser" rides only increased by 5-10 minutes, while waits on "headliners" decreased a little less than that.

I could have mis-read, or be remembering wrong, or not looking at the best, lastest data. Not sure. Regardless, waiting 30 minutes at Figment is CRAZY, but then again, the wait didn't make itself. There are obviously (a bunch of) people willing to wait ....