How is fp+ affecting stand by lines?

[mkymouse4ever]

Just wondering how standby lines are doing? Since the # of fp+ are only 3
have the standby lines improved?

 

[TeamSy]

During our January trip we found the standby lines in general to be MUCH LONGER than we are used to, especially for being such a "down time." The FP+ lines basically had no wait and we pretty much walked on when we did use FP+, but standby was terrible.

 

[bwang123]

How FastPass+ is Affecting Wait Times at Disney World Attractions: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/how-fastpass-is-affecting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/#more-13129

 

[cmurray234]

How FastPass+ is Affecting Wait Times at Disney World Attractions: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/how-fastpass-is-affecting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/#more-13129

That is VERY interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[morethananyonex]

How FastPass+ is Affecting Wait Times at Disney World Attractions: http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/how-fastpass-is-affecting-wait-times-at-disney-world-attractions/#more-13129

I was just signing on to post this, you should make it a separate thread . I agree, very interesting. Many of us guessed that's what would happen to the secondary rides.

 

[cmurray234]

I was just signing on to post this, you should make it a separate thread . I agree, very interesting. Many of us guessed that's what would happen to the secondary rides.

Without any corroborating evidence except my own observations, I figured the following would happen:

First, because there is only one FP per day allowed per attraction, fewer people would ride the headliners multiple times, thereby diverting traffic to secondary rides.

Second, because first-time guests aren't always in the know, they might procure FPs for attractions like Dinosaur that have historically not needed them (even though FP was available). As I've pointed out before, with the legacy system, you could stroll up to Dinosaur, see that the wait was only 10 minutes and stand in line. With FP+, people are more apt to use their 1:20 FP for Dinosaur even if they could easily just wait in the stand-by line.

Third, attractions like Spaceship Earth, which have not offered FP before, will see disruptions in the stand-by line because of guests using FP (even though most often, it's not necessary).

 

[morethananyonex]

Without any corroborating evidence except my own observations, I figured the following would happen:

First, because there is only one FP per day allowed per attraction, fewer people would ride the headliners multiple times, thereby diverting traffic to secondary rides.

Second, because first-time guests aren't always in the know, they might procure FPs for attractions like Dinosaur that have historically not needed them (even though FP was available). As I've pointed out before, with the legacy system, you could stroll up to Dinosaur, see that the wait was only 10 minutes and stand in line. With FP+, people are more apt to use their 1:20 FP for Dinosaur even if they could easily just wait in the stand-by line.

Third, attractions like Spaceship Earth, which have not offered FP before, will see disruptions in the stand-by line because of guests using FP (even though most often, it's not necessary).

Yup. Very similar to what Josh found and reported in the blog post.

 

[cmurray234]

Yup. Very similar to what Josh found and reported in the blog post.

I didn't read all of the copy...just looked at the charts. Nice to know I'm not a complete moron.

Having skimmed it now though, one thing I did not expect (but should have) was that the wait times for some of the headliners would actually go down. Makes sense though. If secondary ride wait times are going up because of increased FP usage, it stands to reason that the headliner lines might drop a bit because of decreased FP usage.

I guess I over-estimated guests' willingness to stand in a stand-by line to ride an attraction for the second time in a day.

 

[morethananyonex]

I didn't read all of the copy...just looked at the charts. Nice to know I'm not a complete moron.

Having skimmed it now though, one thing I did not expect (but should have) was that the wait times for some of the headliners would actually go down. Makes sense though. If secondary ride wait times are going up because of increased FP usage, it stands to reason that the headliner lines might drop a bit because of decreased FP usage.

I guess I over-estimated guests' willingness to stand in a stand-by line to ride an attraction for the second time in a day.

It really does look like FP+ has succeeded (even just slightly so far) in dispersing the crowds to the less popular attractions, evening out wait times ever so slightly.

Sucks a bit for guests, especially in MK, as we now have 3 choices to use our FP+ on, and more rides need one than ever before. The ride everything at RD strategy looks more and more appealing.

 

[WillAustin]

So basically, according to the documented wait times, the lines for top attractions are generally still long and the lines at secondary attractions are longer than they were before. I only saw 2 "headliner" rides where the median wait dropped, and only by 5 minutes.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

We'll be there April 29-May 5 and will definitely do RD now. May even consider a morning EMH (which we usually don't do because it is a bit early for us) and then hop parks later in the day.

 

[morethananyonex]

So basically, according to the documented wait times, the lines for top attractions are generally still long and the lines at secondary attractions are longer than they were before.

Except for a few more popular attractions that have gone down a bit, yep. Woo FP+

 

[cmurray234]

So basically, according to the documented wait times, the lines for top attractions are generally still long and the lines at secondary attractions are longer than they were before. I only saw 2 "headliner" rides where the median wait dropped, and only by 5 minutes.

Looks that way. Sigh.

 

[JanaDee]

So basically, according to the documented wait times, the lines for top attractions are generally still long and the lines at secondary attractions are longer than they were before. I only saw 2 "headliner" rides where the median wait dropped, and only by 5 minutes.

Yup.

 

[redrosesix]

So basically, according to the documented wait times, the lines for top attractions are generally still long and the lines at secondary attractions are longer than they were before. I only saw 2 "headliner" rides where the median wait dropped, and only by 5 minutes.

yup -- I think people are just riding the headliners less now. That's what we did -- we would only do SB once, if at all, for rides that we had a FP for. And for anything we didn't have a FP for we only rode once.

But where he said that 100 FP holders would get to ride before the 30th SB person -- in our experience, 100 FP holders got to ride before the 1st SB person sometimes. Wait times in SB are a gamble with FP having priority, in that you never know when you'll get out of that line. It makes it tricky if you plan to be somewhere else after that ride eg. another ride, an ADR (or any meal really), fireworks.

 

[n2mm]

We were there in late January for 10 days and noticed this pattern ourselves. We found that many of our walk on type rides had longer waits. We found waits for poc and hm were very long by 11am on some days. We kept saying that if there were waits like this during slower times and we were concerned about how the busy times were going to be. It was our first trip without FP- but not our first time using the new system which we used last oct. We felt the impact of the new system and it really changed how we tour the parks now. We hope they make some changes in the restrictions of using all your choices in one park. That part is a huge issue for us park hoppers

 

[2Tiggies]

But where he said that 100 FP holders would get to ride before the 30th SB person -- in our experience, 100 FP holders got to ride before the 1st SB person sometimes. Wait times in SB are a gamble with FP having priority, in that you never know when you'll get out of that line. It makes it tricky if you plan to be somewhere else after that ride eg. another ride, an ADR (or any meal really), fireworks.

Standby is now a more appropriate term than ever for the regular line. And let's face it, known to us all as 'standby' it was the really the 'regular' line, whereas the FP line was a fast track. Now SB is more like being on standby for a flight where you get on if someone else doesn't

 

[Davey Jones II]

Except for a few more popular attractions that have gone down a bit, yep. Woo FP+

I second that enthusiasm

 

[glamdring269]

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

If this is part of a program that is intended to make Disney more money then how is that supposed to happen if people are waiting in standby even longer than before?

 

[2Tiggies]

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

If this is part of a program that is intended to make Disney more money then how is that supposed to happen if people are waiting in standby even longer than before?

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!"