How is MK with no Legacy FP?

[pilferk]

On the bright side, I haven't read any horror stories about FP+ at Animal Kingdom since it went paperless in December.

Also, I figure that forewarned is forearmed. You will be well prepared for your trip, and I wouldn't be surprised if your reaction turns out to be "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!

Ak was a breeze with fp+ and rd, with a dash of emh. Largely, I think, because there is no tiering, and it is, really, a half day park for most people (especially with no fotlk and chilly weather making kali at least a second thought). So as the early risers leave, the late risers/after lunch crowd moves in....

 

[curemyreed]

These reports have me getting more and more nervous for our upcoming Spring Break trip. I wish I could change it to a less busy time - and further from this FP+ switchover fiasco, - but we're locked in now. As proud FP- abusers, we had already tried to accept the fact that we probably won't ride as much, and definitely won't get to re-ride favorites like we used to. But, these first-hand experiences are worse than I would have expected. Josh doesn't have a post up yet, but he did post on his forum about his experience in MK on Saturday the 18th. Interestingly, he said that crowds weren't Thanksgiving-level but they were close. I'm holding onto at least a little hope that maybe Disney was unprepared for the crowd level and some of the long waits can be attributed to under-staffing and such.

http://www.easywdw.com/forums/showthread.php?16802-Pretty-Easy-Touring-Today-at-Magic-Kingdom



For another tiny glimmer of hope, Josh also posted that he was able to do 10 attractions (mostly in Fantasyland plus Pirates) before lunch. It's so ironic that this FP+ system that so many lauded because it would allow people to sleep in has, in fact, made early-morning touring more important than ever.

I'm bothered by Josh's report that so many rides had what he called "under exaggerated" wait times----meaning the standby line wait times were actually much longer than posted. I could see a single ride being off, but several? Would this be intentional on Disney's part and, if so, why do that? Not trying to be a conspiracy nut-job, so please don't flame me. Maybe several rides showing under exaggerated wait times simultaneously is not unusual? Although I did note that Josh found it strange.

 

[magicbob]

Wait a second, this thread is changing everything I thought I knew. Aren't the only people who don't like the system people who haven't tried it? Aren't they the same group of people complaining over and over? Aren't FP+ super flexible and never run out, and if people said they do they're wrong? Aren't really long lines at kiosks deceiving and no matter how bad they look they're 5 minutes long? Wasn't the fact that the AK test went well proof that MK would too? Aren't people who said FP return lines are longer than normal exaggerating?

I am SO confused.

But seriously, all us "negative" people would have loved nothing more to be proven wrong. None of us like seeing the WDW we love making fairly large mistakes at this level. I feel awful for the people like the ones who have posted in here who had such crappy experiences. Hopefully it gets better and fast, this is just not cool Disney, not cool at all.

None of these experiences are relevant. The system is still in testing.

There have also been quite a few positive posts from people who have used this new system and were okay with it. Disney still has a ways to go with this thing, but it is not a complete disaster.

True. The disaster is not complete yet.

I am also suspicious that different people get to see different options. For example deluxe guests may see a Peter Pan time slot that I might not see while staying at a DVC with points? Or does an off site guest not see the ETWB while someone with a contemporary room can see it and schedule it. Are the POP guests seeing the same thing as a concierge Beach Club guest?

It may not be happening, but it would be something that could happen.

Well, given what we DO know...... it's natural to be suspicious about this.

Wow. And they say that the black choppers are coming for me?

Correction. You do NOT like the concept of FP+. You simply aren't letting yourself admit that Disney destroyed your vacations.

On the bright side, I haven't read any horror stories about FP+ at Animal Kingdom since it went paperless in December.

Also, I figure that forewarned is forearmed. You will be well prepared for your trip, and I wouldn't be surprised if your reaction turns out to be "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!

In my book, "that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be" is not exactly the measure of a great vacation.

 

[MermaidMommy]

I'm bothered by Josh's report that so many rides had what he called "under exaggerated" wait times----meaning the standby line wait times were actually much longer than posted. I could see a single ride being off, but several? Would this be intentional on Disney's part and, if so, why do that? Not trying to be a conspiracy nut-job, so please don't flame me. Maybe several rides showing under exaggerated wait times simultaneously is not unusual? Although I did note that Josh found it strange.

I had that exact same thought - that the wait times could have been purposefully low-balled by Disney. If I read Josh's post right, he said that Space had a posted 60 minute wait but was easily 100-120 minutes, and there were more rides that were the same. He did seem surprised by the discrepancies.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

so much for the notion that FP+ is going to drive people away

I don't know how many people will be driven away by FP+, but it would take a little longer for word of mouth about bad experiences to affect park attendance. Especially when legacy FP still existed in every park except AK a week ago, and offsiters have just seen this week what booking FP+ at MK will be like for them.

 

[pmreilly]

You can only get three per day, whether prebooked, or booked once you are in the park.

I read during the holidays that you could only have 3 FPs at one time. Not total for the day. People were using their FP and once used were able to book another as long as there was availability. Do we have confirmation that this feature has indeed been removed? It definitely was the case during early testing.

 

[mrsr2ro]

I wrote a separate post about my FP+ experience (as an offsite guest) but wanted to add a few things to this post as well -- more details I'm thinking of.

One thing that I thought was nice was that if you missed one of your three windows, you could still go to a kiosk and reschedule something else.

The other thing you had to do was enter the names associated with each card the very first time you were at the kiosk, but then each trip after, once you scanned the card it remembered who it was. At the place where you scan the card for the ride, it does not show the CM the name and as I mentioned in my post, we could easily use any card for any person. So on one of our days, I booked BTMRR for our whole party; my son and I used "our" cards to ride it once, and then went back around and used two other cards from our party of 8 to ride it a 2nd time. I don't think you can do this with Magic Bands.

While I was at the kiosks I noticed that most of the folks around me were really MK novices; as in they didn't even know what the Haunted Mansion attraction was about.

And.... there were FP+ choices for attractions that it really wasn't necessary; I was checking my different apps and people were getting FP+ selections for rides with < 10min waits.

The only thing that was "sold" out of FP+ when I did my first selections at noon-ish the three days I was there was for Wishes.

I agree with the PP that the crowds this past week (following the park advice of touring plans and easywdw) were the lightest I'd every experienced - until Friday 1/17. I think at this time a year a lot depends on being in the right place at the right time.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I read during the holidays that you could only have 3 FPs at one time. Not total for the day. People were using their FP and once used were able to book another as long as there was availability. Do we have confirmation that this feature has indeed been removed? It definitely was the case during early testing.

It may have been the case at one point in time, but it hasn't been for quite some time.

 

[jimandami]

I read during the holidays that you could only have 3 FPs at one time. Not total for the day. People were using their FP and once used were able to book another as long as there was availability. Do we have confirmation that this feature has indeed been removed? It definitely was the case during early testing.

I don't recall that ever being the case, even in early testing. Over the holidays, on site guests were able to use the 3 FP+ and them get regular Fastpasses but aside from that and the "bonus" FP+ they gave some people in MK in the fall, 3 has been the limit.

 

[wisblue]

I'm bothered by Josh's report that so many rides had what he called "under exaggerated" wait times----meaning the standby line wait times were actually much longer than posted. I could see a single ride being off, but several? Would this be intentional on Disney's part and, if so, why do that? Not trying to be a conspiracy nut-job, so please don't flame me. Maybe several rides showing under exaggerated wait times simultaneously is not unusual? Although I did note that Josh found it strange.

It's interesting that Josh would post a summary titled "Pretty Easy Touring Today at Magic Kingdom" and people would focus on the comment about what he thought might be understated wait times at three attractions (Space Mountain, Pooh and Buzz Lightyear). He also acknowledged in response to a question that the standby lines might not have moved that slowly because there may not have been that many people in the FP lines.

He said:

"Yeah that is one consideration. But considering how long the Buzz line was, in addition to how long the FP+ return line was, made it seem odd that the standby would be posted so short. I've seen lines that long before with much longer posted waits. Actual wait times are hard to pin down because who wants to stand in them. Even our friends at TouringPlans with their hundreds of thousands of users only collect a few actual wait times a day as far as I know."

The thing here is that a backup at the first checkpoint does not necessarily mean that the FP queue inside the building is full.

Regardless, I can't think of any reason why Disney would intentionally understate wait times. Our experience has always been that posted wait times are overstated (and sometimes dramatically) much more often than they are understated. And this only makes sense because someone who waits longer than they are told to expect is going to be unhappy. Like a lot of businessmen say "under promise and over deliver".

I will be looking forward to Josh's more complete report because he is always pretty open and objective. He definitely isn't a Disney shill.

 

[mrsr2ro]

We definitely experienced wrong posted wait times last week. When we walked up to meet Tink in early afternoon, the posted wait time was 30min but we only waited about 10 if that. Buzz was all over the place. Once it was posted 15 but we only waited 5 (standby).

 

[BuckeyeBama]

We definitely experienced wrong posted wait times last week. When we walked up to meet Tink in early afternoon, the posted wait time was 30min but we only waited about 10 if that. Buzz was all over the place. Once it was posted 15 but we only waited 5 (standby).

Same experience our last few trips, including last week. Wait times have been greatly exagerated the last few years in our experience. The only exceptions have been around ride closures - when the ride re-opens, the low posted wait time pulls in a lot of guests. Only those who get there soon after the ride reopens get the low posted wait time. IMO, WDW should react more quickly to this as it happens every time with Tier 1 rides.

Example - Space Mt down for an hour - reopens with a posted wait time of 15 minutes. 15 minutes later the standby line is out the door, but the sign still says 15 minutes.

I always feel bad for riders who just don't know better in that situation.

 

[ferd]

On the bright side, I haven't read any horror stories about FP+ at Animal Kingdom since it went paperless in December.

My only experience with fastpass+ and AK was Saturday before last (before MK made the FP+ switch) we park hopped over to AK around 2:45 or so. We decided to grab our 3 choices at a kiosk (no wait) and made our selections (MK that we hopped from was still legacy so we had the ability to pull the 2 at AK.) Since we have a 2 year old, we didn't have to worry about tier choices, since we can't do Everest and such with her. But we got FP for the Safari (pretty much for right then-- and we only had a short, probably less than 5 minute wait) and then one for Adventurers Outpost (to meet Minnie and Mickey) and the time was for like 3 hours away (the park was open until 8 that night). We asked if we could get one sooner and they said there wasn't anything available. However, when we walked by the Outpost we saw it was literally a walk-on and so we didn't even need our FP+. Our third choice was for Nemo but we didn't opt to stay that long and so it wasn't used. However, it was a slow day, so I'm sure that made a difference. Just found the situation with the Outpost times versus real time wait a bit funny.

 

[MermaidMommy]

I'm bothered by Josh's report that so many rides had what he called "under exaggerated" wait times----meaning the standby line wait times were actually much longer than posted. I could see a single ride being off, but several? Would this be intentional on Disney's part and, if so, why do that? Not trying to be a conspiracy nut-job, so please don't flame me. Maybe several rides showing under exaggerated wait times simultaneously is not unusual? Although I did note that Josh found it strange.

I had that exact same thought - that the wait times could have been purposefully low-balled by Disney. If I read Josh's post right, he said that Space had a posted 60 minute wait but was easily 100-120 minutes, and there were more rides that were the same. He did seem surprised by the discrepancies.

 

[Laketravis]

Will be interested in Josh's full report. He always has pictures. Lots of good pictures.

 

[MermaidMommy]

Sorry for the duplicate post above - the app timed out and resent my post when I opened it back up. There's not a way to delete a post is there?

 

[ferd]

I was lost for words after reading your experience, especially the part about how your toddler burst into tears. I am so sorry you and your family had a miserable day which in my opinion should never have been. I was more shocked when you reported how Town Hall could not/or to me, WOULD NOT make things right for your family.

I think the op is right. You should send an email or letter to Disney explaining exactly what happened. They need to hear this directly from those who have been affected.

So sorry this happened.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read my lengthy story about Sat. I just wanted to update and let you all know that I did contact Disney by phone about our experience. I had to go through 6 people, got put on hold, transferred around and hung up on once, but finally spoke to some sort of manager at MK. While I feel she was nice and listened to me vent, honestly I don't feel very satisfied. Basically her 'solution' was to ask when me and my family might return. I told her we had reservations for breakfast at CP next Saturday for our anniversary, but wasn't sure we would go at this point. She said she would leave me and my husband each 3 paper fast pass certificates for us to use that day at MK. She was adament in expressing though that the passes could not be used for Enchanted Tales with Belle (or any other character interaction like Fairytale Hall.) And honestly, after our experience with wait times with FP and the frustration with the whole ETWB thing, the paper passes hardly have much value to me. I'm still sort of at a complete loss as to how a manager cannot write something that says 'hey, let these people with a 2 year old into the FP line for Belle.' I mean, seriously!

The kicker to, IMHO, is that despite asking for my information, she is leaving the passes at Guest Relations for me to pick up (YAY another line to wait in!). No snail mailing the passes to my house 30 mins from the park. Or better yet, GASP, implementing their new fancy system and just pre-booking us next Saturday for Belle. Nope. Nothing. Not an offer of a MB so we could prebook. And again, we're Annual Passholders. So yeah. That's where we are.

I honestly feel the next thing coming is to make certain attractions (my prediction being Enchanted Tales with Belle) a 'Fast Pass+ EXCLUSIVE' attraction. I mean, something is obviously up with it for them to so adamently enforce a rule that restricts their 'no strings attached' paper FP to be used there. I don't think they can accomodate the standby plus the FP+ reservations for it. Just my opinion.

 

[pilferk]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read my lengthy story about Sat. I just wanted to update and let you all know that I did contact Disney by phone about our experience. I had to go through 6 people, got put on hold, transferred around and hung up on once, but finally spoke to some sort of manager at MK. While I feel she was nice and listened to me vent, honestly I don't feel very satisfied. Basically her 'solution' was to ask when me and my family might return. I told her we had reservations for breakfast at CP next Saturday for our anniversary, but wasn't sure we would go at this point. She said she would leave me and my husband each 3 paper fast pass certificates for us to use that day at MK. She was adament in expressing though that the passes could not be used for Enchanted Tales with Belle (or any other character interaction like Fairytale Hall.) And honestly, after our experience with wait times with FP and the frustration with the whole ETWB thing, the paper passes hardly have much value to me. I'm still sort of at a complete loss as to how a manager cannot write something that says 'hey, let these people with a 2 year old into the FP line for Belle.' I mean, seriously!

The kicker to, IMHO, is that despite asking for my information, she is leaving the passes at Guest Relations for me to pick up (YAY another line to wait in!). No snail mailing the passes to my house 30 mins from the park. Or better yet, GASP, implementing their new fancy system and just pre-booking us next Saturday for Belle. Nope. Nothing. Not an offer of a MB so we could prebook. And again, we're Annual Passholders. So yeah. That's where we are.

I honestly feel the next thing coming is to make certain attractions (my prediction being Enchanted Tales with Belle) a 'Fast Pass+ EXCLUSIVE' attraction. I mean, something is obviously up with it for them to so adamently enforce a rule that restricts their 'no strings attached' paper FP to be used there. I don't think they can accomodate the standby plus the FP+ reservations for it. Just my opinion.

Contact them again, this time via email or letter. Don't contact wdw directly. Written correspondence gets to disney corporate much easier/ faster and gets better results, typically. It seems Phone guest services sole goal is the to get you off the phone.

I've had a couple of issues in the past and gotten virtually no where until I sent the issue along via email. Then I've gotten phone calls from disney to resolve the problem.

 

[Cals dad]

I'm a little confused. Everything I've read has AP holders saying that they couldn't make FP+ selections until they were in the park at a kiosk. I've been booking FP+ reservations for day trips days before we go for a couple of months now using mydisneyexperience. Is my account bugged in a good way, or am I the only one to figure this out yet?

 

[morethananyonex]

I'm a little confused. Everything I've read has AP holders saying that they couldn't make FP+ selections until they were in the park at a kiosk. I've been booking FP+ reservations for day trips days before we go for a couple of months now using mydisneyexperience. Is my account bugged in a good way, or am I the only one to figure this out yet?

AP holders who have not stayed onsite with MB or who do not have a future onsite stay cannot prebook.

AP holders who are within 60 days of their first onsite stay with MB or have stayed onsite at least one night with MB in the past can prebook.

If you can prebook without an onsite stay in the past or future, you'd be the first to report it.