How is MK with no Legacy FP?

[SmallWorld71]

Hard to tell, right now, I think...because while it seemed "busier" last week...it wasn't BUSY. Not like summer/spring break/christmas busy.

For us, for the rides mentioned, there was little bottleneck anywhere but at the check points. The line, itself, moved through the "que" areas pretty much continuously. Wait time, including the line outside, the move through the que, the wait at the checkpoint, and then (for BTMRR specifically) the time to get loaded was maybe 15 min, tops.

But, compared to previous trips, that was longer than we remembered having previously waited in FP lines.

Again, I want to be clear: I'm not laying that at the feet of FP+. I don't know if that was the entirety of the cause or not. There could very well have been other factors at play. So take my anecdotal report as just one...and wait to see if we have enough similar reports, as time goes on, to see if it's an accurate reflection of what's going on, day to day.

Thanks.
I'll be watching very closely for reports of how things go during President's Week which should be the next truly busy time. I have more experience with busy weeks then "slow" times so I think it'll help me wrap my head around it more and form a more solid opinion.

 

[travelingmom4]

And telling each child, one at a time, to hold up their arm, no try again, a little higher, to the left, let me help you...next child...

We used wristband scanners at the Mall of the America and it took me a few rides before I was holding my wrist correctly and my five-year-old needed help throughout the day. Fortunately, the lines were short all day. On a summer weekend.

I just took my younger kids bands off (5 & 7) and scanned them myself. it saved a few seconds of trying to put the mickey to the mickey. I think the thing that takes longer though is waiting for the Mickey to turn green, sometimes it would take what felt like forever. We are a party of 7 and fanning out 7 fastpasses and handing them over was way faster.

 

[travelingmom4]

I see...so similar to how it worked picking in advance. They give options and then you pick one. only I hated their options so then spent a few hours tweaking. wasn't sure if that tweaking would be available for offsite. I assume it would be just standing in a line and having them switched again.

yes that is correct, if you wanted to change and were off site then you would have to go back to a line to change, and major advantage to have that mobile app, to change as you go.

 

[Mommy2Corinne]

I think you'd be surprised.....

If you put mickey a little to high, or a little too low, or left, or right...it doesn't scan. The sweet spot isn't nearly as big as it probably should be.

I don't know about "over and over" with the same people, but we saw it consistently. Maybe it was a LOT of "first timers" in line after line, hour after hour, at all different times of day. It's certainly possible....we'll have to see if the inefficiency evaporates as people get more familiar with the system.

It's certainly possible.

I totally agree with your original opinion and don't think it's likely to change all that much even as people do become familiar with the system.

My DD was 3 when we were there in Sept. We spent 9 days in the parks. She is no dummy and knew exactly what she had to do. However, she's also a shortie, and the angle of the Mickey Head to the reader had to be exactly right, which is awkward in most cases and extremely awkward for a tiny little person having to reach up (and sometimes over). It most certainly took us longer to get through the FP+ lines than it did the FP- lines (yes we double dipped...and back in Sept they still had separate FP entrances).

 

[KatieCharlotte]

KatieCharlotte, I think they just basically said there is something wrong with your child.

And me, since it took me a little while to get the hang of it. On the first ride, the operator held my wrist up for me. I will admit our paper wristbands didn't have cool Mickeys to line up, but I also wasn't suffering from my occasional random wrist pain which would make it really fun. I also have tiny wrists -- hopefully the child section will be large enough and I can remove the other part. I have to admit DD is looking forward to her lime green band, however.

I am embarrassed to admit I had a FP+ nightmare last night after falling asleep with a scary book. I was at MK, stressing out that I wasn't riding anything while waiting for my "Toy Story" FP+ time and wasting time riding the train and shopping for furry boots for DD.

 

[travelingmom4]

I just got back for a week. I had one day at AK as an offsite guest and the rest of my stay as an "onsite guest".

At AK I went straight to a FP+ kiosk and waited about 10 minutes,(about an hour after opening) but then waited about 15 more minutes until I was walking away for the reason that follows. They were very confused because I was onsite the following day but offsite the day I was there. I don't know if that was the reason but they couldn't book my FP+ through the online system. So after a long wait they eventually just gave me a card that had my 3 FP+ selections loaded on it. It was a card for that day only.

We didn't use our fastpass+ at Kilimanjaro since the standby was empty, so we thought we would go to a kiosk later in the day to pick another ride based on wait times. When I went back (don't remember time) I asked if we could switch out Kilimanjaro to Dinosaur. They tried, but the system is set up that you have to change the TIME on the ride you have first and then change the attraction, we were out of luck. This is because Kilimanjaro was out of FP+ for the day. So even though there were Dinosaur FP+ we couldn't access them. THAT to me is a major problem that I hope they will change, or maybe we got a CM that didn't know what they were talking about...

ANOTHER HINT: (Hopefully they will continue to do this.) As we were walking from our car and were heading to the monorail to MK this past Saturday, at about 8:45 AM we were approached by a CM with a ipad and she was offering to sign us up for FP+ selections right there. (we were far to the right and only saw it that one time, but maybe scan the area and see if you can avoid the lines inside)

I learned, as others have stated, it is imperative even more than ever with FP+, to get there for RD if you tour commando style like we do. If I had to do MK as an offsite guest I would still go hit the big rides first and then go get in the FP+ kiosk line. I know people have posted some long lines and I'm sure there have been, but there were also many times I say FP+ kiosk lines that hardly no one was in, and some machines even open.

Overall we didn't get to re-ride the rides a ton of times like we use to, but I have prepared my kids before hand that that would be the case. But we still were able to hit RD and hit every ride we wanted for Epcot and AK in one day, Studios in 2 days, and MK in three days. We weren't planning on MK for three days but with only 3 FP+ each day we decided to do it three instead of the two days we usually do. (3 days was to REALLY get our fill and then some )

Hopefully this helps with someones planning purposes, taking into account this is low season.

 

[mom2rtk]

We didn't use our fastpass+ at Kilimanjaro since the standby was empty, so we thought we would go to a kiosk later in the day to pick another ride based on wait times. When I went back (don't remember time) I asked if we could switch out Kilimanjaro to Dinosaur. They tried, but the system is set up that you have to change the TIME on the ride you have first and then change the attraction, we were out of luck. This is because Kilimanjaro was out of FP+ for the day. So even though there were Dinosaur FP+ we couldn't access them. THAT to me is a major problem that I hope they will change, or maybe we got a CM that didn't know what they were talking about...

That is just dorky.

 

[surferdave]

Does anybody know how reliable scanning the the RF cards is as opposed to the bands? After my trip with the band in October I decided next time I might just try putting a card on a lanyard because I didn't like wearing that chunk of rubber at all, but I haven't seen any reports of how well the cards work.

 

[xie]

That is just dorky.

It is dorky, but it's true.

When we were there a few weeks back, we discovered that if you kept playing "roulette" with the app, you would eventually get a FP for almost anything you wanted. (Now that offsite load has been added, might not be true). We did this by changing times, then changing attractions, then times, then attractions again until what we wanted showed up.

For example were at Epcot one day and in the late morning, we decided to change one of our existing fast passes for Soarin to Test Track. After multiple tries over a couple hours' time, it still wasn't coming up as available, so I changed the Soarin fast pass to 9pm, searched again for available attractions to change to, and Test Track still didn't come up. I then changed the fast pass from Soarin to Illuminations as the attraction, then searched for attractions again and finally, Test Track came up as an option.

If you are using the phone app, I think the only DEFINITIVE way to know for sure that all the FP+ are gone for a ride is to go see a CM. And even then, the CM only knows what's true right this minute - people could change their FP selections later and free up space for you. The app hides too much information from you - just because it doesn't come up when you search, doesn't mean it's unavailable.

 

[ultimate_ed]

Am I reading these posts correctly - your magic band won't scan if it's on the the bottom of your wrist because it rolled around? What kind of range do these RFID scanners have that a couple of inches more distance causes them to fail?

The RFID easy tag in my car for the local toll roads is read by radios 15 feet above the car at 70mph!

 

[g-dad66]

If you are using the phone app, I think the only DEFINITIVE way to know for sure that all the FP+ are gone for a ride is to go see a CM. And even then, the CM only knows what's true right this minute - people could change their FP selections later and free up space for you. The app hides too much information from you - just because it doesn't come up when you search, doesn't mean it's unavailable.

Very interesting, thanks!

This is what I was wondering about a few days back when someone posted that FP+ was gone for many rides by 2 pm. I wondered how they knew this to be the case.

Looks like guests may need to keep their head buried into their smartphone even more and more..... Ugh.

 

[practicallyperfect77]

yes that is correct, if you wanted to change and were off site then you would have to go back to a line to change, and major advantage to have that mobile app, to change as you go.

So as offsite you were able to change on the MDE app? If so, this is the first I've heard of it. I was onsite in Dec so know how to change stuff in mde but hadn't heard off site had that ability.

 

[practicallyperfect77]

Am I reading these posts correctly - your magic band won't scan if it's on the the bottom of your wrist because it rolled around? What kind of range do these RFID scanners have that a couple of inches more distance causes them to fail?

The RFID easy tag in my car for the local toll roads is read by radios 15 feet above the car at 70mph!

For me, I had to touch my band to the scanner and the mickey heads had to line up perfectly. Could not be "close"...had to be exact.

 

[Mommy2Corinne]

For me, I had to touch my band to the scanner and the mickey heads had to line up perfectly. Could not be "close"...had to be exact.

Yep.

 

[ktlm]

It is dorky, but it's true.

When we were there a few weeks back, we discovered that if you kept playing "roulette" with the app, you would eventually get a FP for almost anything you wanted. (Now that offsite load has been added, might not be true). We did this by changing times, then changing attractions, then times, then attractions again until what we wanted showed up.

For example were at Epcot one day and in the late morning, we decided to change one of our existing fast passes for Soarin to Test Track. After multiple tries over a couple hours' time, it still wasn't coming up as available, so I changed the Soarin fast pass to 9pm, searched again for available attractions to change to, and Test Track still didn't come up. I then changed the fast pass from Soarin to Illuminations as the attraction, then searched for attractions again and finally, Test Track came up as an option.

.

We had that happen on our trip too! We couldn't get MDE to really work at all in the parks, but it did work okay at the resorts. We decided to change our departure day park from MK to EPCOT, so the evening before, I was trying to change our FP+ to Test Track and Soarin (before tiering). Test Track would tell me there were no FP+ available. Then I would try again and it would only give me times at night (which didn't work because we were leaving on Magical Express around 3:00). I noticed in messing with it, that I was getting a different result every time. Finally, I tried it and magically I could get any time in the morning I wanted. So, it went from telling me that no FP+ were available that day, to giving me any time I wanted. I wound up wasting over an hour at the pool messing with the system instead of playing with DD in the pool, but I eventually got what we wanted.

 

[Angel Ariel]

For me, I had to touch my band to the scanner and the mickey heads had to line up perfectly. Could not be "close"...had to be exact.

This reason alone.would have me choose cards over bands. Metro here has RFID cards and it only takes a quick tap to debit my account the appropriate amt of money. Havingvto line up mickey heads perfectly just seems like unnecessary complication

 

[travelingmom4]

So as offsite you were able to change on the MDE app? If so, this is the first I've heard of it. I was onsite in Dec so know how to change stuff in mde but hadn't heard off site had that ability.

sorry. my post wasn't very clear. As offsite we could not change using the mobile app. But we split, and part of the time we were onsite, and we could then use the mobile app. It was super helpful to change things as we went based on our schedule and wait times. It's a big bummer for off site, as we usually are.

 

[Laketravis]

The RFID easy tag in my car for the local toll roads is read by radios 15 feet above the car at 70mph!

Yeah, right? I zoom thru these all week long at 90mph and they've never missed a toll:

Texas Toll Road 85mph Speed Limit

 

[pilferk]

Am I reading these posts correctly - your magic band won't scan if it's on the the bottom of your wrist because it rolled around? What kind of range do these RFID scanners have that a couple of inches more distance causes them to fail?

The RFID easy tag in my car for the local toll roads is read by radios 15 feet above the car at 70mph!

The passive RFID in the bands and tickets seems to require close to, if not exact, direct contact with the scanner. For us, most times it was direct contact. Only a couple of times was it VERY close (centimeters above).

Your easy tag is likely active RFID...so the range is further.

There's active RFID in the bands, too..but it's not being used for payment, admission, or FP purposes.

 

[pilferk]

This reason alone.would have me choose cards over bands. Metro here has RFID cards and it only takes a quick tap to debit my account the appropriate amt of money. Havingvto line up mickey heads perfectly just seems like unnecessary complication

It's not quite as precise as that. The mickey head on the scanner is huge in comparison..but if you tap one of the "ears"...it doesn't read. You basically need to tap "your" mickey somewhere in the general vacinity of the "middle" of mickey's face (keep in mind, the scanner is sort of dome shaped)...and actually I had best results just below center.

You'd have to tap the center of your card in the same general area to get them to read.

The only difference is you don't need to contort your arm or wrist to make the contact...