How is fp+ affecting stand by lines?

[JayLeeJay]

I just got back from a weekend in WDW. My experience was that the listed wait times were not accurate at all. In Epcot, Figment's listed wait time was 10 minutes. I waited nearly 20. Nemo had a wait time of 15 minutes. I walked right on. Maelstrom had a listed time of 10 minutes. I waited 20.

At Animal Kingdom, Dinosaur had a listed wait time of 30 minutes. I had a fastpass+ but there was actually no one is the standby line and people who entered the standby line at the same time I entered the fastpass+ line beat me to the ride because they didn't have to take the time to scan their magic bands. This was around 3pm.

At Magic Kingdom, Ariel had a listed wait time of 20 minutes. I waited 5 (and only because the ride was stopped when I got to the loading area). Thunder Mountain had a listed time of 15 minutes. I walked right on. Haunted Mansion said 20 minutes. I waited a little less than 10.

I really don't feel like the listed wait times can be trusted. That being said, I don't remember the last time I have ever had to wait for Figment or Living with the Land. For some of the other rides, like the Maelstrom and Haunted Mansion, I have only seen wait times exceeding 20ish minutes in the middle of summer. This weekend there were times that Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and some other rides that typically have fairly short standby times were 45 minutes or more. However, 15-20 minutes later the lines were down to 10-20 minute waits. An hour later, they were back up again. I think the standby time really depends on how many fastpass+ people return at the same time and your own luck with timing.

 

[redrosesix]

The great controversial question!

Well actually, we have no plans to spend more time in standby lines so they won't find us there. We spent the weekend re-jigging our plans to try get our FP+ back to back so we can leave the park, and now have a bunch of offsite activities. We have friends going at the same time as us who we had planned to meet and do some park days with but she called last night to say she can't deal with all this planning as it's a vacation after all so they have canceled and bought US tickets instead and are looking for a villa offsite. So we will now be heading offsite to spend our time with them there. I'm not trying to stick it to Disney - it's just being practical. I never planned a vacation to stand in line. FP+ promised I'd do less of it. I am looking at the reports and various other information and thinking "I'm not buying that!"

We did this! We had a great vacation. We even went to Cape Canaveral for the first time, and my DH was like a kid in a candy shop. It was nice having those days where you could just do what you wanted to that day, based on the weather and how energetic you wanted to be.

I just got back from a weekend in WDW. My experience was that the listed wait times were not accurate at all. In Epcot, Figment's listed wait time was 10 minutes. I waited nearly 20. Nemo had a wait time of 15 minutes. I walked right on. Maelstrom had a listed time of 10 minutes. I waited 20.

At Animal Kingdom, Dinosaur had a listed wait time of 30 minutes. I had a fastpass+ but there was actually no one is the standby line and people who entered the standby line at the same time I entered the fastpass+ line beat me to the ride because they didn't have to take the time to scan their magic bands. This was around 3pm.

At Magic Kingdom, Ariel had a listed wait time of 20 minutes. I waited 5 (and only because the ride was stopped when I got to the loading area). Thunder Mountain had a listed time of 15 minutes. I walked right on. Haunted Mansion said 20 minutes. I waited a little less than 10.

I really don't feel like the listed wait times can be trusted. That being said, I don't remember the last time I have ever had to wait for Figment or Living with the Land. For some of the other rides, like the Maelstrom and Haunted Mansion, I have only seen wait times exceeding 20ish minutes in the middle of summer. This weekend there were times that Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and some other rides that typically have fairly short standby times were 45 minutes or more. However, 15-20 minutes later the lines were down to 10-20 minute waits. An hour later, they were back up again. I think the standby time really depends on how many fastpass+ people return at the same time and your own luck with timing.

Yup -- it's a total crap shoot. You get in a line and you have no idea how long you'll be in it. We ended up budgeting one hour for each SB ride, half an hour for FP rides.

 

[antmaril]

I was at WDW two weeks ago and I stood in line for rides that haven't had a line in years. All of the parks felt more crowded to me. My travel companion was a newbie, so she didn't know any better. But, I have been to Disney World about 20 times (almost always off-peak) and I didn't love this development. We had a good time, of course, but it just felt different somehow.

 

[cmurray234]

I was at WDW two weeks ago and I stood in line for rides that haven't had a line in years. All of the parks felt more crowded to me. My travel companion was a newbie, so she didn't know any better. But, I have been to Disney World about 20 times (almost always off-peak) and I didn't love this development. We had a good time, of course, but it just felt different somehow.

I agree. We were there around the same time. I encountered lines at unexpected attractions. Of course I also practically walked onto BTMRR and the posted wait time was 30 minutes.

Whoever said it's a crapshoot was right. FP+ has lead to quite a shake-up.

Speaking of which, how accurate is the new UG in predicting crowds based on not really having data to back it up?

 

[catne]

Thanks Josh for doing the hard research...this is exactly what I've been saying for our last 5 trips. We're in Florida so we visit often when we have out of town guests who want a "pro" tour of WDW (not a real pro, but we have been there a few times)

We have seen ridiculous wait times at some really secondary rides during what are supposed to be very slow crowd days (and what we saw was not bogus exaggerated times...these rides had the actual long lines to back up the posted stand-by times) When we asked the castmember about the long lines : asking if the rides had been down...the answer was "no", but the priority was given to people with fastpass+ so depending on how many people booked fastpass, there were times when stand-by was going to be a longer wait.)

I think Disney does need to figure out how a new way to do the estimates on stand-by...we saw 30 minutes on Little Mermaid when people were basically walking straight through to get on (our guests did the walk-through to see the decor on the stand-by side and they actually had to go a little faster than they wanted because the line just moved right through)...and then 10 minutes later as they were coming off the ride, the stand by then says 10 minutes and yet now the stand-by line obviously is much longer than that because it is backed up to the outside queue line.

 

[doctornick]

So basically FP+ is a great perk for... who?

For the people that are now able to ride more than they did under the paper FP system?

Let's be clear: ride capacity is fixed, so if wait times are going up for standby for rides, it is because there are people now getting on quicker than before in the FP+ line. The idea that wait times are going up for everyone doesn't make any sense -- that only happens because people are using FP that didn't use it before and getting onto rides quicker than previously at a cost of a higher standby line wait time.

Sadly for those of us who are more experienced/knowledgeable/efficient, the probably is having one of its main effects in "spreading the wealth" of decreased wait times via FP+ to a larger number of guests.

 

[naturalinsp]

For the people that are now able to ride more than they did under the paper FP system?

Let's be clear: ride capacity is fixed, so if wait times are going up for standby for rides, it is because there are people now getting on quicker than before in the FP+ line. The idea that wait times are going up for everyone doesn't make any sense -- that only happens because people are using FP that didn't use it before and getting onto rides quicker than previously at a cost of a higher standby line wait time.

Sadly for those of us who are more experienced/knowledgeable/efficient, the probably is having one of its main effects in "spreading the wealth" of decreased wait times via FP+ to a larger number of guests.

I think you can argue that the standby lines are messed up. Newbies will not realize the distances and not be influenced by the decor of the ride. Therefore, no one can predict how the rides will be ridden. Not even Disney!

As experienced/knowledgeable/efficient tourers, we will walk to the back of the park to ride a ride then traverse the park for another. When a newbie toured pre-FP+, they wandered through the park looking for something fun to do. If Disney had not done a great job of "advertizing" the ride by making it look fun, it will would not be ridden. With FP+ they just look at the name and pick. I think this is just more of Disney not having the talent and imagination that put them on the top to begin with.

 

[naturalinsp]

The great controversial question!

Well actually, we have no plans to spend more time in standby lines so they won't find us there. We spent the weekend re-jigging our plans to try get our FP+ back to back so we can leave the park, and now have a bunch of offsite activities. We have friends going at the same time as us who we had planned to meet and do some park days with but she called last night to say she can't deal with all this planning as it's a vacation after all so they have canceled and bought US tickets instead and are looking for a villa offsite. So we will now be heading offsite to spend our time with them there. I'm not trying to stick it to Disney - it's just being practical. I never planned a vacation to stand in line. FP+ promised I'd do less of it. I am looking at the reports and various other information and thinking "I'm not buying that!"

I don't think Disney cares if we leave the park early. It just gives them more capacity.

I think Disney has been bringing in more foreign guests; just from my observations mind you. The off peak times now seem to be filled with people from other countries that I had not seen there in the past. I did read that a lot of South American countries have increased there standard of living and are vacationing here.

Walt cared about his guests having fun. I feel more like I'm in the HMO plan at WDW now. Put me in the rat maze and make me do some tricks.

 

[epcotty]

I feel I should chime in here. So I was just at MK with family on a busy Saturday in February, and that was the first time we tried the new system. On Little Mermaid we had gotten a FP+ but were told the standby time was 5-10 minutes so we didn't use it, however it ended up being close to 20 minutes because of FP+ people who were using it returning. So we changed that one for another ride where the FP+ wait time ended up being close to what the standby wait time was. Still saved a lot of time on BTMRR and Jungle Cruise. One thing I did notice is that a lot of rides seemed to have slightly higher wait times than I'm used to, even at peak times. But we still did as many rides as we used to under the old FP system

 

[Junebugwv]

It did seem that Stand By lines were longer so we skipped more rides than ever. I really don't understand why the first Monday in March at Epcot was so busy at places that I have never had to wait. We rode Soarin' first, then Living With the Land. Both were almost walk-ons. By 10:45 AM the line to Soarin' was a typical 90 min but the Living with the Land ride was 30- winding around and blocking people from getting on the escalator. We were having a snack at Sunshine and could not believe what we were seeing at the little boat ride.

 

[2Tiggies]

I think the standby time really depends on how many fastpass+ people return at the same time and your own luck with timing.

ITA.
Also, I keep hearing that my expectations may be unreasonable but I don't think it's expecting too much to want something a little more reliable than luck for my $xxxxxx vacation.

We did this! We had a great vacation. We even went to Cape Canaveral for the first time, and my DH was like a kid in a candy shop. It was nice having those days where you could just do what you wanted to that day, based on the weather and how energetic you wanted to be.

On the positive side, I'm looking forward to exploring a little further outside of Disney. Frankly, for the collective number of days we have actually spent there, it's quite shocking that we haven't ventured out any further than a shopping mall I had fun last night sitting with DD and looking at new things we could try out together.

 

[mom2rtk]

On the positive side, I'm looking forward to exploring a little further outside of Disney. Frankly, for the collective number of days we have actually spent there, it's quite shocking that we haven't ventured out any further than a shopping mall I had fun last night sitting with DD and looking at new things we could try out together.

Somehow I don't think you're the only one finding yourself in this position.

And I'm also thinking this is *probably* not what Disney was hoping for with this new program.

 

[magicbob]

...people who entered the standby line at the same time I entered the fastpass+ line beat me to the ride because they didn't have to take the time to scan their magic bands.

Gotta love those scanners!