How to deal with new FastPass rules

[mom2rtk]

Disney really needs to get real time FP return times onto their app to support this change.

 

[Robo]

I'm still confused why this thread has to be evenings only? I had decided to start a thread that was just like this one. Practical ideas. But then I saw this one & thought perfect no need for yet another thread. But if this is for evening strategies only, do I still need to start yet another FP enforcement thread for general strategies?

You or anyone can start another thread if you like (no control over if it will get "blended" into an older one by a moderator, however.)

No individual poster has "control" over what kind of answers they get posting a thread on a public forum.
If you want to discuss other day-parts of FP on this or any other thread
(and can do so without breaking the DISboard rules ) then have at it.

 

[Pixie Princess]

Disney really needs to get real time FP return times onto their app to support this change.

Are you talking about the info on the Disney mobile site? I've used Mobile Magic in the past, and found it to be accurate with return times. I have an iPhone now, and Mobile Magic is not available for it. I was going to give the mobile site a try this time around (in conjunction with Lines), but if doesn't report real time info the way Mobile Magic did, not sure how much help it will be.

 

[nkereina]

Could you point out the iPhone apps that show the fastpass times? None of mine do that.

Lines by Touring Plans. The app is free but you need a Touring Plans subscription to access the info. I believe it's about $11 for a year. The wait times and fast pass times are as reported by users - not the posted times. So they can be off but they are still usable to give you general ideas.

 

[edolee]

I'm still confused why this thread has to be evenings only? I had decided to start a thread that was just like this one. Practical ideas. But then I saw this one & thought perfect no need for yet another thread. But if this is for evening strategies only, do I still need to start yet another FP enforcement thread for general strategies?

Hi... I did that to try to keep if focused on solving the problem rather than debating the merits of the new system ( as you can see it probably did not help much.) As someone else mentioned, you can post whatever you like, and at this point I see no reason to complain. If you post a problem you would like people to consider I will do my best to answer with a constructive suggestion.

Ed

 

[LaurenT]

I'm still confused why this thread has to be evenings only? I had decided to start a thread that was just like this one. Practical ideas. But then I saw this one & thought perfect no need for yet another thread. But if this is for evening strategies only, do I still need to start yet another FP enforcement thread for general strategies?

I would say that evenings is the period that will be most impacted by the new policy. Mornings will be easier to ride standby and to get FP's with an easier return time to work with.

 

[edolee]

I would say that evenings is the period that will be most impacted by the new policy. Mornings will be easier to ride standby and to get FP's with an easier return time to work with.

Exactly... I thought this was the biggest issue so I wanted to focus on that... but I can imagine morning issues and solutions also.

In fact, with Disney aligning policy with the times printed on the FP's, there might be substantial advantages to staying in one part of a park longer than normal.

In the MK, we usually circled the park, collected FP while we circled, and by getting to the park at Ropedrop had ridden most of our favorite rides at least once... Start in Tomorrow, go to Fantasy, head to Frontier, then perhaps a few attractions in Adventure before a late lunch... at this point the park was getting crowded, and in the summer sometimes stifling hot. We would then return to the house (we stay offsite in a villa generally) with a fistful of FP, and return at 6 or 7, ride our favs again, then watch the parade and fireworks... worked AWESOME... NO planning, NO commando, NO long waits...
(and for me NO GUILT )

Now, the first FP gathered will only be useful in the morning, so I could imagine it makes sense to (for example) start in Tomorrow, collect some FP, Go to Fantasy, ride, Collect some FP, then head back to Tomorrow and repeat... Then on another day do the other side of the park. (To reduce backtracking). So I think morning strategies are useful to discuss also for sure...

Ed

 

[eliza61]

Hello everyone,

There is a huge thread where people are sticking their tongues out at each other over the "morality/impact/wisdom" of the current system and their relative like/dislike of the upcoming changes to Fastpass policy...

FACT (at least as I see it): Disney's current printed fastpass return times and established policies for Cast Members conflict with each other. Disney's new policy (March 7 apparently) will bring the allowable return time for a fastpass MUCH closer to what is printed on its face...

I hope we can keep the debate on the new/old fastpass policy in the other thread. I am far more interested in ideas on how to ride the premium attractions in the evenings without having to stand in long lines.
arriving early in the morning and then taking a mid-day break.

Seems like this will now be difficult to impossible... fortunately, our kids are older now, so they might be happier settling for some dinner, shows/parades, and riding the fast loading, if perhaps less desirable attractions.

So here is the test for all us DIZ wizards... If we are there for ropedrop in the morning, and want to leave between 1pm and 2pm for a few hours, how do we get on Peter Pan without waiting in line for 90-120 minutes (which we would not do in any case...) Also, our kids are in school so going at off-peak times is really hard...

Any thoughts? Or are we just doomed to ride the great attractions in the morning?

Ed

Nope,
come back to the parks, get a fast pass for what ever ride you want, ride the attraction at the return time.
Not sure about peter Pan ride as my kids are older but the only ride that I've seen run out of fp is TSM.
I've gotten Soarin fp's in July when we returned to theparks around 5 pm.

We've always manage to get evening Fast passes without any issues. the only exception has been TSM.

 

[diskids2]

Thank you for this thread and your summary. We didn't usually stockpile FP's for evening, but I did like not having to think about the exact return window while I was touring. Having said that, it is the new enforced policy and I am too looking for strategies. So again, thanks!

 

[brerrabbit]

Only within the last couple of trips have we used the strategy of grabbing FP's early and coming back later in the day. I think we will probably revert to our prior strategy with the enforcement of the return times. That strategy was pretty simple. Be there early (at rope drop) go straight to an area. We usually head to Space Mountain and Buzz. Get a FP for one and ride the other standby. Go and ride the one we got FP's for. Move as quickly as possible to Fantasy land and ride one while we get a FP for the other. Ususally Pooh and Peter Pan. Move to SM and BTMRR and do the same. By about 12:00 we have hit the headliners without much wait at all. We then eat lunch and always try to do MK on a day we don't have an ADR. Into the afternoon what we generally find is that rides like POTC, Snow White, IASW, Stitch, HM and a lot of the other attractions are not that crowded in the stand by lines. Some of them have FP's available but we have not used a FP for Stitch or IASW or POTC ever. By later in the day they are short SB lines. We go in the summer and by the afternoon it's hot and a lot of people are tired and many return to their resorts. We just plug along. The weather is the same in Orland as it is in Houston so we don't mind that much. We use the same strategy at most of the parks and it works well. At Epcot you have to FP Soarin, and TT but for Mission Space we always go SB.

What I think the new enforcement is really going to do is make it harder to get multiple rides on the same attraction in a single day. The exception is early morning at DS. If you opt to not do TSM you can go round and around on RNRC and TOT. We have FP those back to back like 3 times in a row and done that by 11:30 am. An to be honest we have done SB on TSM at 2:00 in the afternoon and that was not a terrible thing because the que was really neat and we took pictures, and it was air conditioned so 1 to 1 1/2 hours there was not a terrible thing. I mean a lot of folks will give up several hours in the park to decompress at their resort while we just choose to hang out in the parks and find a cool place to do it.

Of course as I offer this strategy you have to understand it's me and DW. The kids are grown and we have no one to take care of but ourselves. So as a result this plan and touring style works for us and lets us see and ride everything we want to. You will certainly have to adapte what you do to your group.

 

[Mister Skellington]

Exactly... I thought this was the biggest issue so I wanted to focus on that... but I can imagine morning issues and solutions also.

In fact, with Disney aligning policy with the times printed on the FP's, there might be substantial advantages to staying in one part of a park longer than normal.

In the MK, we usually circled the park, collected FP while we circled, and by getting to the park at Ropedrop had ridden most of our favorite rides at least once... Start in Tomorrow, go to Fantasy, head to Frontier, then perhaps a few attractions in Adventure before a late lunch... at this point the park was getting crowded, and in the summer sometimes stifling hot. We would then return to the house (we stay offsite in a villa generally) with a fistful of FP, and return at 6 or 7, ride our favs again, then watch the parade and fireworks... worked AWESOME... NO planning, NO commando, NO long waits...
(and for me NO GUILT )

Now, the first FP gathered will only be useful in the morning, so I could imagine it makes sense to (for example) start in Tomorrow, collect some FP, Go to Fantasy, ride, Collect some FP, then head back to Tomorrow and repeat... Then on another day do the other side of the park. (To reduce backtracking). So I think morning strategies are useful to discuss also for sure...

Ed

The first FP return window will be so short it MAY make sense to actually just skip FP all together until after 10 Am or so. We may try doing Splash, BTMRR, Pirates. FP runner goes to Peter Pan and meets everyone back at Haunted Mansion. Ride HM and then head to Fantasy Land. Hit a few that dont have FP until Peter Pan Fp is up. Ride Peter Pan then head to Space. Collect FP and then have lunch if it is that late OR ride ride Buzz and continue on.

We will try to save things like Carousel of Progress and Philharmagic for later in the day as it gets busy (and hot since we are going in June!)

Either way phone apps for wait times and FLEXIBILITY to stray from your plan.

Hit parades and less rides in the afternoon. Though an evening ride on splash and repeat of Pirates is a must for us....so we will have to figure out how to make sure that happens.

I really dont think the new enforcement will change much other than maybe eliminate a TON of FP running for ME.

 

[mickey916]

As for the comments regarding programs like Ridemax, it's going to be interesting to see how this affects them. Their whole strategy is heavily dependent on using FPs outside the window (I believe.) so it will be interesting to see how they retain their value.

It's been a couple years since used Ridemax, but I'm pretty sure there was an option to generate a plan using FP within the window or allowing the use of late FP. Since my kids didn't want to risk being turned away, I set it for using FP within the window. We prefer to have a plan laid out so we know we can ride everything we want to ride and don't have to waste park time, saying, "so, what ride should we hit next?" Even though Ridemax gave us a minute by minute plan we didn't feel tied to it or stressed out. We basically followed the order of everything. Sometimes we were ahead of schedule sometimes not, sometimes we took a break sometimes we didn't. Believe it or not, a plan actually helped us to relax and enjoy the vacation. We only have the benefit of going every few years so for us it's more important to make sure we do all we want to do.

 

[estherhead]

We've never had any real problems with riding things in the evening, even without FP's. Obviously the exceptions are: TSM and Soarin'. And during SUPER high Test Track, Space, EE.

Unless you only go to the parks from 7pm to 10 pm, there are usually FP's available for all the MK mountains, etc. This year on spring break when it was very crowded my sister popped over to MK for just 2 hours with a few of our kids at 6:30 pm and got FP's for BTMRR that were under 2 hours out and then rode Pirates and other misc. rides and then back to BTMRR and then done. And many, many times I've gotten to Epcot for a 5:30 ADR and swung into Soarin' and grabbed FP's for 8:00-9:00 or even later. Or we've gotten in line for Mission:Space or Test Track right before Illuminations is going to start.

Twice we've done the Sum of All Thrills right at 6:00 pm as there is never a line right at dinner.

And I canNOT tell you how many TSM FP's I've thrown/given away. Our strategy has always been to ride that ride and then get FP's after riding. So they are always for much later in the evening when we think we'll be back after dinner but before Fantasmic. But it seems by Fantasmic the little ones just want to run around and play and the big ones are ready to single rider line Rockin' Roller Coaster.

TSM at Disneyland has no FP and you have to just get there 1st thing in the am. I don't see until there is a "choose your FP time" ap this need for an early morning if you want to do TSM changing. Plus, whenever (or if) you are allowed to choose the TSM FP return time, the 4 hours right before Fantasmic are sure to be gone within the first few seconds of availability. So you can pretty much guarauntee I'll still be up at the crack of dawn doing the TSM standby line.

 

[brettcw23]

While I don't have an answer, we have alwasy returned, whenever, and were able to ride. I suspect that WDW enforcing their policy isn't as bad as we all think. I mean, they don't want to outrage their customers, right? And they come up with their return windows based on ebb and flow regarding cpacity, FP tickets issued and throuput. So maybe the enforcment times will make the lines more predictable and actually enable folks to ride the attractions more efficiently in the venings.

 

[diskids2]

Is there a phone app out there that tells you an accurate FP return time? I can see where this will be very helpful now.

 

[LaurenT]

Nope,
come back to the parks, get a fast pass for what ever ride you want, ride the attraction at the return time.
Not sure about peter Pan ride as my kids are older but the only ride that I've seen run out of fp is TSM.
I've gotten Soarin fp's in July when we returned to theparks around 5 pm.

We've always manage to get evening Fast passes without any issues. the only exception has been TSM.

I've only been in July once, but have been in Feb, April, May, August, Oct and November and have seen Soarin FP gone by 2 pm many times.

 

[Mister Skellington]

Is there a phone app out there that tells you an accurate FP return time? I can see where this will be very helpful now.

touringplans.com app is the only one I know of. It is spotty on accuracy sometimes from what I have read. hopefully Disney decided to start posting them now.

 

[TinkerBrie]

My interpretation of FP was so that guests could get a FP and return at a later scheduled time so as to not wait as long in a line, for the most popular rides or rides chosen by Disney. I has no idea that guests were getting a stack throughout the day and returning at night to use them. I'm not sure they were saving any time by doing it this way. Too much planning and thinking for me.

I didn't know either.. I always went back during my allotted time, or gave them away if I wasn't available at that time. Are the new "rules" posted anywhere. I hadn't seen them.

 

[kerri0616]

Another fastpass "abuser" here who also can only visit during peak times...We often had FPs for 4 different rides stocked up in our bag to use once we returned to our park in the evening.

I suppose your suggestion to save the fast loading rides/shows/attractions for the evening is a wise one. We'll have to enjoy the headliners during our mornings/early afternoons.

I'm glad I won't be there during the "transition" time. I predict some ugly scenes between those poor CMs and guests (like me!) who have been "abusing" the system for years. I'll miss the days of zipping by a 150 minute standby line at Space Mountain as we cruise up the FP line at about 7pm.

Kerri

 

[vacationclub]

It is crude in that it is completely non discriminatory to the needs of the "customer".

Compared to what? Compared to not ever having the fast pass option to begin with? You don't actually mean the "needs" of the customer....you mean the wishes or desires of the customer. I"m sure the customer would love to walk on every ride, any day of the year, at the exact time they want. That's not a need, that's a desire. Theextra magic hours are somewhat non-discriminatory too, but they are simply a "bonus", and you take advantage any way you can. Fastpass wasn't designed to be a user specific reservation system, it's simply a way to come back later with less lines.

As this tread shows once you actually follow the rules it does not work "fine" since if you get to the machines and find that the current return times are at times when you already have other things planned like dining or breaks, as this thread demonstrates, it does not "work".

This thread isn't showing that at all, in fact it's showing the opposite as many report not having problems and not expecting fastpass to be something it isn't. I've never used it in the way that others report, in which they exploit Disney's lax enforcement to their benefit, and I've never had any problem. It's simple: come back later, or get to the park early. If you know you have a dinner ressie planned in the next few hours (or you'd like to take a nap) then perhaps you don't want to take a fast pass.

Maybe Disney should ask every single customer how late the park should open or close every day too. Because those pre-posted schedules they publish must not work either if someone wants to stay later than the park is open on a particular day...at least according to the logic you're applying here.

Yes is would take a customer input pad and display screen, certainly technology that has been around for decades.

No one said anything about how long keyboards and screens have been around. This is about...
A: completely tearing out their kiosks and replacing all of them
B: creating a system where each person takes much more time so they can pick their return, perhaps taking as much time as they want when they can't decide or don't see a time they want....as opposed to the 2 seconds it takes now.

As far as the database, it is a very simple matter to scan for available return slots.

Simple compared to what? Leaving it the way it is now? I don't think so.

if you want to talk about the lines at the FP machines, with a key pad, you could group tickets the first time you put t hem through the machine (one by one) and then just put one in the next time you get fast passes and select the number of fast passes you want.

Great, but you still have the major problem of dealing with each person taking up to 20-25 seconds for their transaction, be it for one or multiple tickets.....compared to TWO SECONDS it takes now. No matter how much grouping you do (which takes more time the first time you do it....assuming they figure it out quickly) you still take way longer to get a fast pass, creating long lines. The whole point of fast-pass is to avoid more lines.,

As we all know to is the multiple ticket scanning that is at the heart of the long lines (and the scanning errors that require repeated tries and CM help) so reducing the quantity of scans would be the biggest help.

Sure, it would help for the issue you describe, assuming people know how to do it, but not for the basic issue of actually creating a much more complicated interaction to begin with. You're talking about semi-solving a problem that applies to the old system and ignoring the larger problem created by a new system.

Just because the system is not that old does not say that is was not behind the times technologically when it was put in and it now by any standard antiquated

How could it be "behind the times" at the moment it was put in when before it nothing like it existed? It was the first of it's kind. It's still does today what it did then....in exactly the same way. Nothing changed.

By any standard antiquated? What about the standard of "I'd like to come back in an hour or two and get in an express line"? Doesn't it meet that standard?

For the origonal poster the 3rd party technologies are probably you best bet until WDW catches up and we have virtual scannable fast passes on our mobile devices.
Bookwormde

Catch up....to what? Please cite an example of another park doing it in a way that Disney has to "catch up" to.