How is MK with no Legacy FP?

[bcrook]

I'm also wondering about FP slots going unused earlier in the day, as everyone enjoys the benefit of scheduling for later. It's not like once those later times run out people can go back and take the ones from earlier that went unused. It really seems terribly inefficient to me.

During summer, and after more people are indoctrinated, I am not expecting there to be any slots available at park opening.

But if Disney holds back some for off site guests, there would be wasted slots for the first hour or so.

Regardless, it is inefficient...

...on many levels.

 

[wisblue]

I'm also wondering about FP slots going unused earlier in the day, as everyone enjoys the benefit of scheduling for later. It's not like once those later times run out people can go back and take the ones from earlier that went unused. It really seems terribly inefficient to me.

I think that the system being used today is just temporary and is a step toward offsite guests being able to prebook.

And if early FP slots go unused, that just means that the standby lines will move that much more quickly in the first few hours after park opening.

I know that if I were an offsite guest visiting MK today I would be getting there at opening and riding as many of my favorite rides as possible before the lines get too long. After that I could think about whether I wanted to look into getting FPs to use later.

 

[xie]

Here now and the only problem we've had with FP+ are guests with absolutely no clue how to use it. They get in line, get a blue Mickey and it takes the cm a couple of minutes to explain how it works. Meanwhile the line behind them keeps building because you can't get through. Saw it at all 3 of our FP+'s yesterday.

We saw this problem two weeks ago, as well. Even though the paper machines were still present everywhere but AK, lots of people tried to go through FP+ lines without FP+.

*When* the CM caught them (and sometimes they didn't), they would stop the whole line while they had "the conversation".

Disney needs at least two CMs at every FP entrance now and for quite some time to come. One to check that people are scanning their bands, and one off to the side so they can yank people out of line to do The Talk without fully stopping the line.

 

[bcrook]

Just wrapping up a trip - flying back today . Did MK three times - once before the cutover and twice after. Stayed offsite at bonnet creek as always.

With FP- it was great. Stunk with FP+. Three is just not enough and scheduling them was a pain. I don't know if my daughter will be asleep or when we will eat. We do rope drop everyday so the kiosks were empty in the morning. the algorithm they have for picking times is bad and going off their suggestions takes too much time.

When I wanted to change them there was a half hour wait. No thanks. And you can take a picture or get an email only. How about text me a link so I can change them from my phone?

Three rides is just not enough at magic kingdom. And I feel now more than ever that eventually this will end up as a "pay for more fast passes" type of deal (with VIPs getting unlimited)

Animal kingdom was ok but that was only because they don't have many big ticket rides.

We did have to wait ten minutes to scan our tix for fast pass + at the safari. Overall the system stinks and we will be looking at other parks for next year (while doing less at Disney)

My DVC points are gone, and I am saving for a big 2016 trip for the 4th of July.

So I stay at Bonnet Creek with my Wyndham points in off years. This is the kind of report I need to decide between, bonnet creek, Wyndham at Disneyland, or flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. Thanks for sharing.

 

[wisblue]

I guess I have been fortunate but I have never waited in line to GET a fastpass more than a couple minutes. That includes TSMM. We typically stopped to meet characters for the first half hour the park was open specifically so we could avoid that mess.

If you avoided rides and FP lines for a half hour you wouldn't have seen or waited in those lines. At a busy time, after a half hour your FP return time for TSMM would have been well into the afternoon and your next FP opportunity wouldn't be until almost noon.

This does highlight how and why different approaches result in different opinions about and uses of FPs.

We would rather use that first half hour doing a couple of major attractions, and that eliminates the need to get FPs for them because we are satisfied doing them once. And once you do the most popular attractions first, you can move on to the next tier while a lot of other guests are still heading for the big things we have already done. At DHS in a half hour we can ride TSMM and TOT and be on our way to the single rider line at RNRC.

 

[pilferk]

Also looking for feedback on this.

Who's been to MK in the past 4 days? Especially anyone staying offsite?

(There was a second-hand report that someone offsite was able to get FP+ at the kiosks at two different parks in the same day. Any first-hand reports here from anyone who has tried this?)

We were there Friday. Seemed pretty busy. In the mid afternoon, we saw some standby times at about 75 to 90 minutes, especially for the meet and greets. Buzz and btmr were around 60 minutes, too.

But a lot of that might have to do with the diminished ride capacity of losing Splash, too.

The thing I found most net resting was the fp+ kiosk lines???they seemed to be packed most of the day. Not sure the duration of waits...but the ques were full.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Why would offsite guests even bother to buy a hopper. The lack of ability to schedule fastpasses at the second park is a huge drawback.

Or can you book animal kingdom FP+ from a magic kingdom kiosk?

I don't think that they don't want people hopping. They want you to spend your six-eight hours a day at one park, use your 3FPs, shop, eat, maybe watch a show or parade. And then spend the rest of your time at your resort and eating at their overpriced, mediocre restaurants. Or go down to Splitsville or Disneyquest or the rest of that stuff they try to give vouchers for in the Mickey Mail.

 

[louloubelle84]

I went yesterday with my fiance. We're annual passholders, so we just went in for the day. We got into the park around 3, took the train to Fantasyland, and went straight to the Kiosk near Pete's. The line did appear long, but it moved quickly, and in less than 5 minutes we were with a cast member. While in line, we used the app to see which attractions had the longest wait times, and used that information to choose what to get fast passes for. The cast member asked if we had any restrictions in time availability. We said no, and were given fast passes for Thunder Mountain at 5, Peter Pan at 7, and Space Mountain at 9.

We ended up being too cold after dark to stay really late, so we left before going on Space Mountain, but overall, we had a good experience. The wait times for the other attractions we went on were all reasonable (Dumbo 25 mins, Tea Cups 10 mins, Alladin 20 mins). We used the time between fast passes to grab a snack at Gaston's, and we saw a few shows (Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, and Philharmagic).

 

[wisblue]

I went yesterday with my fiance. We're annual passholders, so we just went in for the day. We got into the park around 3, took the train to Fantasyland, and went straight to the Kiosk near Pete's. The line did appear long, but it moved quickly, and in less than 5 minutes we were with a cast member. While in line, we used the app to see which attractions had the longest wait times, and used that information to choose what to get fast passes for. The cast member asked if we had any restrictions in time availability. We said no, and were given fast passes for Thunder Mountain at 5, Peter Pan at 7, and Space Mountain at 9.

We ended up being too cold after dark to stay really late, so we left before going on Space Mountain, but overall, we had a good experience. The wait times for the other attractions we went on were all reasonable (Dumbo 25 mins, Tea Cups 10 mins, Alladin 20 mins). We used the time between fast passes to grab a snack at Gaston's, and we saw a few shows (Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, and Philharmagic).

Thank you for a report from someone who actually tried to get same day FPs and went through a line.

 

[Laketravis]

I went yesterday with my fiance. We're annual passholders, so we just went in for the day. We got into the park around 3, took the train to Fantasyland, and went straight to the Kiosk near Pete's. The line did appear long, but it moved quickly, and in less than 5 minutes we were with a cast member. While in line, we used the app to see which attractions had the longest wait times, and used that information to choose what to get fast passes for. The cast member asked if we had any restrictions in time availability. We said no, and were given fast passes for Thunder Mountain at 5, Peter Pan at 7, and Space Mountain at 9.

We ended up being too cold after dark to stay really late, so we left before going on Space Mountain, but overall, we had a good experience. The wait times for the other attractions we went on were all reasonable (Dumbo 25 mins, Tea Cups 10 mins, Alladin 20 mins). We used the time between fast passes to grab a snack at Gaston's, and we saw a few shows (Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, and Philharmagic).

That's smart, probably saved you several minutes with the CM.

 

[JenniferinFL]

I'm a local annual passholder, so perspective on this is probably a bit different from others who visit irregularly.

We were there on Saturday, we weren't there for rope drop as we weren't aware of the changes until we arrived and saw the fastpass kiosks at Peter Pan were covered. A cast member I asked told me that only those with magic bands could get fast passes, so it was 3 pm before we tried to get fast passes because I noticed other people without magic bands had them.

At 3 PM all the big rides were pretty much gone despite most people not knowing how it worked. The cast member we worked with made multiple attempts to get us 3 Peter Pan fast passes for the same hour window, but, there was just a 10 minute window where we could all go. We did make it, but it was tough because it was during the parades.

Without magic band you can't use My Disney Experience to make changes to reservations or book reservations. I linked my annual passes, but, no options to add or change fast passes.

From 1 PM to 10 PM we only managed 7 rides. We rode Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, it's a small world, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, People Mover and saw the Laugh Floor. We didn't have time to eat or shop, just stand in lines. We were in line for Pirates for about 20 minutes, but then had to leave as 3 year old needed to use the bathroom. Usually in a 9 hour visit we also would have been on Under the Sea, Barnstormer, Dumbo and Space Ranger Spin.

It will change our strategy for the parks. Now it becomes imperative to make it at rope drop and one member of the party probably needs to immediately get into a fast pass + line while the rest of the party rides. Probably ideal would be to book most rides for around noon- 1 PM when lines start to get long and use as much of the morning just running around to rides. Though, after the fast passes are gone for the day, there's little reason to stay into the afternoon. I guess we'll just be leaving for the day at lunch time now instead of parkhopping or eating lunch at the park.

We are lucky though, other than Peter Pan, none of the headliners is on our ride list as we're going with a 3 year old. If we were trying to make Space Mountain, Big Thunder and Splash, I'm not even sure how we would go about it. As it was, we couldn't get on all the lesser rides we usually ride.

Now, once annual passholders can book ahead and change fastpasses on My Disney Experience, it will be a little bit of a time saver so long as we arrive at rope drop.

There were a lot of angry people there on Saturday who were blindsided by the change. I was surprised by it as well as I thought they would roll out magic bands to all intended categories before removing legacy fastpass. It would've made for much shorter lines at the FP + terminals.

 

[Laketravis]

Just wrapping up a trip - flying back today . Did MK three times - once before the cutover and twice after. Stayed offsite at bonnet creek as always.

With FP- it was great. Stunk with FP+. Three is just not enough and scheduling them was a pain. I don't know if my daughter will be asleep or when we will eat. We do rope drop everyday so the kiosks were empty in the morning. the algorithm they have for picking times is bad and going off their suggestions takes too much time.

When I wanted to change them there was a half hour wait. No thanks. And you can take a picture or get an email only. How about text me a link so I can change them from my phone?

Three rides is just not enough at magic kingdom. And I feel now more than ever that eventually this will end up as a "pay for more fast passes" type of deal (with VIPs getting unlimited)

Animal kingdom was ok but that was only because they don't have many big ticket rides.

We did have to wait ten minutes to scan our tix for fast pass + at the safari. Overall the system stinks and we will be looking at other parks for next year (while doing less at Disney)

Was this a half hour wait at a kiosk?

I don't get this offsite situation. To the best of my knowledge, "Offsite" consists primarily of these groups:

• People who buy their tickets at the gate, which we've been told is not that many
  
• People with AP's who don't have a prior resort stay
  
• People who already have tickets but are not staying on site

Let's assume the last two groups are the majority of people in line at kiosks trying to obtain their FP's for the day.

If it was Disney's intention at some point to give them the ability to pre-book their FP's using the MDE app, why put them thru this day-of-wait-in-line now?

I don't see any compelling reason why they couldn't link their tickets to FP+ using MDE ahead of time rather than wait until they got to the park and have them stand in line at a kiosk, with beefed up manpower and costs to assist.

If the thought is these groups need to be educated well enough to be able to use the system that they need to be educated in person on the day of their visit, why wouldn't that be true of people staying onsite as well?

If this is a "test" prior to giving them that capability, what data could they possibly be collecting that they could not collect by letting them use the app before they were actually in the park?

 

[ArwenMarie]

Was this a half hour wait at a kiosk?

I don't get this offsite situation. To the best of my knowledge, "Offsite" consists primarily of these groups:

• People who buy their tickets at the gate, which we've been told is not that many
  
• People with AP's who don't have a prior resort stay
  
• People who already have tickets but are not staying on site

Let's assume the last two groups are the majority of people in line at kiosks trying to obtain their FP's for the day.

If it was Disney's intention at some point to give them the ability to pre-book their FP's using the MDE app, why put them thru this day-of-wait-in-line now?

I don't see any compelling reason why they couldn't link their tickets to FP+ using MDE ahead of time rather than wait until they got to the park and have them stand in line at a kiosk, with beefed up manpower and costs to assist.

If the thought is these groups need to be educated well enough to be able to use the system that they need to be educated in person on the day of their visit, why wouldn't that be true of people staying onsite as well?

If this is a "test" prior to giving them that capability, what data could they possibly be collecting that they could not collect by letting them use the app before they were actually in the park?

I think Disney wants offsite to be physically in the park to be able to book FPs. Even if it means that they have to expend more labor costs to accommodate them. It probably has to do with availability. I don't think non-AP offsite is ever going to get prebooking abilities through the app.

The one part I don't get is how they are treating APs. They are sort of giving APs access if they have had a resort stay, which indicates that the functionality is in there. But for some reason they aren't rolling that out yet to all APs. This makes no sense to me. If they did that, it would reduce the lines at the kiosks as well. It makes me think that that they either don't know the rules for APs yet or there was a rush to get the paper FPs out of the parks and rolling out prebooking to all APs got bumped.

 

[g-dad66]

Now it becomes imperative to make it at rope drop and one member of the party probably needs to immediately get into a fast pass + line while the rest of the party rides.

Ah, the old Jedi-Training-signup-other-parent-go-to-TSM-for-FP strategy gone wild.

Yep, this is an excellent suggestion, especially for groups with at least two adults and especially if one of them doesn't care about riding with young children on some of the Fantasyland rides right at Rope Drop.

Thanks again to all who have given us first-hand reports (so far, I count 10 of you on this thread).

 

[JenniferinFL]

I waited 25 minutes to actually get to a cast member at a FP+ kiosk and that was only because I knew better than to get in one of the longer lines, opting instead to walk back to the one in Storybook Circus where the FP+ kiosk line was much shorter.

The guest relations person who was standing there answering questions knew less about FP+ than I do and didn't understand my questions. Though, the guy at the kiosk who actually scheduled my FP'es for me showed me some tricks to it because initially it showed Peter Pan wasn't available at all. But, booking another ride and then cancelling it made Peter Pan show up. So, he was pretty good at working with the system.

Overall it took around 35 minutes to actually obtain fastpasses and I feel comfortable saying that it was at the shortest FP+ line in the park.


Hopefully the test includes allowing more fastpasses for the rides less in demand. Just looking over his shoulder, it was apparent that there were pretty much immediate fast passes for Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Barnstormer, Dumbo and so on that were just going unused.

 

[Brian Noble]

If it was Disney's intention at some point to give them the ability to pre-book their FP's using the MDE app, why put them thru this day-of-wait-in-line now?

Good question.

Here's what I *think* will happen, though it is entirely a guess. The company has said that Passholders will eventually be given Bands. I suspect at that point they will also access to pre-book FP+, because Passholders who have Bands from a prior resort stay can do that now.

The "offsite test" that is reportedly happening now will include "...most of the MyMagic+ elements, including My Disney Experience, FastPass+ at all four parks and the use of MagicBands." I used to think that these guests would eventually be able to book FP+ in advance as well, but now I am not so sure.

 

[Laketravis]

I waited 25 minutes to actually get to a cast member at a FP+ kiosk and that was only because I knew better than to get in one of the longer lines, opting instead to walk back to the one in Storybook Circus where the FP+ kiosk line was much shorter. The guest relations person who was standing there answering questions knew less about FP+ than I do and didn't understand my questions. Though, the guy at the kiosk who actually scheduled my FP'es for me showed me some tricks to it because initially it showed Peter Pan wasn't available at all. But, booking another ride and then cancelling it made Peter Pan show up. So, he was pretty good at working with the system. Overall it took around 35 minutes to actually obtain fastpasses and I feel comfortable saying that it was at the shortest FP+ line in the park. Hopefully the test includes allowing more fastpasses for the rides less in demand. Just looking over his shoulder, it was apparent that there were pretty much immediate fast passes for Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Barnstormer, Dumbo and so on that were just going unused.

Wow. Thanks for another report from someone who was actually in the line.

I hope they get this figured out soon.

 

[cheesemouse]

Disney needs at least two CMs at every FP entrance now and for quite some time to come. One to check that people are scanning their bands, and one off to the side so they can yank people out of line to do The Talk without fully stopping the line.

Exactly. If so many guests are not aware of how the system works, they need additional staff on hand to deal with that problem instead of backing up the FP+ line.

 

[Bete]

I waited 25 minutes to actually get to a cast member at a FP+ kiosk and that was only because I knew better than to get in one of the longer lines, opting instead to walk back to the one in Storybook Circus where the FP+ kiosk line was much shorter.

The guest relations person who was standing there answering questions knew less about FP+ than I do and didn't understand my questions. Though, the guy at the kiosk who actually scheduled my FP'es for me showed me some tricks to it because initially it showed Peter Pan wasn't available at all. But, booking another ride and then cancelling it made Peter Pan show up. So, he was pretty good at working with the system.

Overall it took around 35 minutes to actually obtain fastpasses and I feel comfortable saying that it was at the shortest FP+ line in the park.


Hopefully the test includes allowing more fastpasses for the rides less in demand. Just looking over his shoulder, it was apparent that there were pretty much immediate fast passes for Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Barnstormer, Dumbo and so on that were just going unused.

I just can't phantom having to trick the system into giving you a Peter Pan fastpass plus. How is the average guest suppose to know how to do this?

I'm thinking eventually they are not going to have as many CMs available to do this for you, either. And how many CMs will be this savvy? Or how many CMs will cut you a break and do this for you? I really don't want to depend on them to trick the system. Besides, that is not fair to other guests who may not get a savvy CM or one who chooses not to go the extra mile to trick the system.

How sad this has become. Disney took legacy fastpass which worked and broke it with fastpass plus.

I'm especially irritated at only getting 3 fastpass plus, now. We have averaged 6 to 8 fastpasses most of the time on our past trips with legacy fastpass. Yes, we went at rope drop and yes we rushed to the most popular ride, but it seemed so worth it when you got your legacy fastpass and you were able to get a good time for the ride.

Disney has lost me on this one. I'm not sure I will return and I'm positive I will not go annually anymore. I will be patient and see how the final product rolls out on fastpass plus, but I'm not real hopeful, right now.

I do like how Universal works with their express line access whether you are onsite or off. You would think Disney would have learned from them how to do it better, not worse.

 

[PrincessDana]

As a sometimes off-site guest, I actually don't have a problem with not prebooking FP, but I am disappointed in the fact that off-site guests can only use a kiosk to book. Hopefully they will figure out something that would allow off-site guests to use the app once through the turnstiles.