Is anyone else hugely entertained by the FP+ tier system test?

[ArwenMarie]

What the heck can you do in 6 hours at all 4 parks? LOL

I don't understand your question. You can do a lot if you have a VIP tour guide getting you to the front of everything. If you're talking about the "four parks" part, I guess that's up to each person how many parks they want to visit, probably not all four. They also pick you up at your hotel and drive you around the parks from door-to-door.

 

[MrInfinity]

So, a legit FP+ question here...

Let's say this is in a time when KTTW cards are completely phased out.

You book your 3. You use your 3. After that I heard you can still swipe your band at a kiosk and add new times to your FP? How does that work or was that just a rumor? Do you have to consume your pre-booked 3 before you can do this?

Does this mean that booking your 3 for early means you can get more later than if you booked your 3 for the afternoon?

Thank you!!

 

[mom2rtk]

hopefully these attractions will be built a little more speedily than the Snow White train.

I keep hearing reports about work not happening on the mine train many days of the week.

Am I the only one wondering if they are slow walking it since crowds are so high already for the rest of the year?

Or because they really need to work the kinks out of FP+ first?

I personally don't care since we won't be back until late 2014 at the earliest, but I just think it's interesting.

 

[Planogirl]

If they're testing it at one it will happen at more. :-/

It's not that I "expect ppl to be enthralled". I really don't care what other ppl think... but I'm anxious for my trip in May and excited to come out here and talk about the new system and what benefits it might afford us and all I see is doom and gloom -- and this from the most die-hard of fans.

I agree it's taken way too long for the train to be completed. You can watch a ride go in at SF over the winter closure... but then again Disney does everything so different. They don't just put in a ride, they completely sculpt the land and build a world around it. That land moving and sculpting and theming is time consuming.

I guess that we agree that it's good to talk about this and of course all of the viewpoints are interesting. I would think that die-hard fans would to be the most opinionated of all in fact. You can also luckily find plenty of people here still happy to discuss the "pixie dust" aspect of what Disney does if that is more pleasing.

I will also state that other themeparks are doing some very fine theming too. This is by far no longer exclusive to Disney.

 

[mom2rtk]

So, a legit FP+ question here...

Let's say this is in a time when KTTW cards are completely phased out.

You book your 3. You use your 3. After that I heard you can still swipe your band at a kiosk and add new times to your FP? How does that work or was that just a rumor? Do you have to consume your pre-booked 3 before you can do this?

Does this mean that booking your 3 for early means you can get more later than if you booked your 3 for the afternoon?

Thank you!!

Nobody knows the answer to that. But it might turn FP+ strategy on its ear once this is announced.

It could be one more nail in the "I'm on vacation and I deserve to sleep late" coffin.

 

[robpa]

I think they would do pay for play if they had the capacity, but I don't think they do right now.

Side note...as far as only getting one headliner (and yeah, I think DHS is next to try to relieve some of the pressure off TSMM), this ticks me off more than anything else they have tried to do with this so far.

Even with staying onsite at a "deluxe" (whatever that means), they are telling me I can hoof it all the way over to Epcot and only ride TT or Soarin. And if I want to ride the other, I have to get to RD or go over there another day. This is where I don't care about ride capacity and blah blah blah, I only care about me and my trip and this annoys me greatly. My other option is to get to RD, but then everyone was telling me that the great part about this whole thing was not running to RD. If I have to run to RD, then I'll take the paper fast passes back.

You can always stand in the long standby line that some think won't be there since Disney doesn't want you to stand in long lines

 

[Planogirl]

So, a legit FP+ question here...

Let's say this is in a time when KTTW cards are completely phased out.

You book your 3. You use your 3. After that I heard you can still swipe your band at a kiosk and add new times to your FP? How does that work or was that just a rumor? Do you have to consume your pre-booked 3 before you can do this?

Does this mean that booking your 3 for early means you can get more later than if you booked your 3 for the afternoon?

Thank you!!

From my understanding, you can only get three per day in one park at the present time. Some people were reporting being offered a fourth at MK but that seems to have been just a temporary thing. Of course, all of this can change at any time.

 

[Planogirl]

You can always stand in the long standby line that some think won't be there since Disney doesn't want you to stand in long lines

No, Disney only wants offsite visitors to stand in line since only onsite visitors will be flocking to the shops and restaurants. At least that's how I understand it.

 

[MrInfinity]

I guess that we agree that it's good to talk about this and of course all of the viewpoints are interesting. I would think that die-hard fans would to be the most opinionated of all in fact. You can also luckily find plenty of people here still happy to discuss the "pixie dust" aspect of what Disney does if that is more pleasing.

Fair enough... and of course hashing out the negatives is the way to figure out how to best deal w them. That's what I'm most interested in -- given I'm going and I'm not changing my trip, what are the optimal ways to work w/in the new FP+ system...

 

[robpa]

No, Disney only wants offsite visitors to stand in line since only onsite visitors will be flocking to the shops and restaurants. At least that's how I understand it.

Only if she doesn't want to ride that 2nd headliner. Of course the offsiters will be enjoying all the wonderful interactive que technology

 

[clsteve]

Fair enough... and of course hashing out the negatives is the way to figure out how to best deal w them. That's what I'm most interested in -- given I'm going and I'm not changing my trip, what are the optimal ways to work w/in the new FP+ system...

Right now?

Set alarm clock to 11:55pm day minus 61 of trip

Make coffee

Log onto MDE

Pray The Mine Train is still there

 

[AmyB2006]

I don't understand your question. You can do a lot if you have a VIP tour guide getting you to the front of everything. If you're talking about the "four parks" part, I guess that's up to each person how many parks they want to visit, probably not all four. They also pick you up at your hotel and drive you around the parks from door-to-door.

Yeah but you still have to walk everywhere within the park no? Or do they golf cart you behind the scenes to the rides? Still trying to cram in all the headliners in all 4 parks even with a VIP tour guide sounds like it would be very rushed. At least for me.

 

[AmyB2006]

Right now?

Set alarm clock to 11:55pm day minus 61 of trip

Make coffee

Log onto MDE

Pray The Mine Train is still there

I don't think this is going to be like ADRs where you have to do this. I could be wrong. Only time will tell. If their intent is to have FP available the day of, then there is no way rides will be "booked up" 60 days in advance.

 

[MrInfinity]

Right now?

Set alarm clock to 11:55pm day minus 61 of trip

Make coffee

Log onto MDE

Pray The Mine Train is still there

Then is it like ADRs where you book 180 day arrival plus the length of your stay, or each FP+ on its own 60-day advance? so do you have to stay up till midnight one day for each day of your stay?

 

[nugov2]

You mean buying fast access to rides like at Universal and Six Flags? Disney won't do that because they get better value from selling stays at their $500/nt resorts - thereby corralling you to eat at their restaurants instead of the KFC down the street. Universal or SF sells a ride pass... makes $100. WDW sells the same feature via a room stay and makes $300/nt plus $100/nt in food and $50/nt in merchandise plus.. plus..

The real question is why Universal doesn't do the same, and it's because Universal doesn't have the land available to build that many hotels to sell nights in, nor a line of ppl who would pay $500/nt to stay at Universal.

Also Universal and Six Flags market their rides as their main draws and they tend to draw a more rider-based crowd. WDW has evolved to where they can market "simply being there" and ppl are willing to pay to do so.

Universal has made great inroads in recent years w the Wizarding World at IOA... glad to see their new Diagon Alley coming to USF.

Should WDW offer FP+'s to outsiders for a price? No way they will never do this. If they offered a FP+ "buy 3 for $100" option... they would be helping the outside hotels. Their goal is not to help them it's to use this exclusivity to further drive up the value of staying on property while making people hate staying offsite because you can't get on the rides then.

I disagree, but I am curious to see how it plays out. I think WDW would be making a big mistake to not give any incentive to locals, AP holders and off site guests that do not want to stay on site(I do think it is a good idea to give incentive to those guests, but to exclude the others is just dumb). That still has to be a large chunk of the population that visits WDW and not worth losing. I think and this could just be limited to my IRL friends, but MK is great, but the other parks are not regarded well. Just planning our last vacation we were told by pretty much everyone to skip AK, Epcot or HS or they are only worth a half day at best. So much so that we actually revamped our plans b/c I hadn't been in a while. We heard such great things about Universal/IOA we added time there. If WDW blows this group off(me) I will be only hitting MK and will be taking my money to all the other fun parks in the area. I know it won't bankrupt the WDW theme parks, but it may make them see they are not the end all be all of theme parks.

 

[AmyB2006]

I keep hearing reports about work not happening on the mine train many days of the week.

Am I the only one wondering if they are slow walking it since crowds are so high already for the rest of the year?

Or because they really need to work the kinks out of FP+ first?

I personally don't care since we won't be back until late 2014 at the earliest, but I just think it's interesting.

We were there last week, and they didn't work on it at all during the day we were there. There were EMH that night till 1:00 am and when we walked by about 12:30 am, they were working on it. So maybe they're doing most of it at night.

 

[AmyB2006]

Then is it like ADRs where you book 180 day arrival plus the length of your stay, or each FP+ on its own 60-day advance? so do you have to stay up till midnight one day for each day of your stay?

As of now no. This could all change though at any time. I am still able to change my FPs around for my December trip and there is plenty of availability.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Yeah but you still have to walk everywhere within the park no? Or do they golf cart you behind the scenes to the rides? Still trying to cram in all the headliners in all 4 parks even with a VIP tour guide sounds like it would be very rushed. At least for me.

Who said anything about 4 parks? You can go to any or all parks.

My original point was way back in the thread when someone mentioned a pass and how much it would cost and I said they already have it.

You are the one who is stuck on this "four parks" stuff, not me.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Then is it like ADRs where you book 180 day arrival plus the length of your stay, or each FP+ on its own 60-day advance? so do you have to stay up till midnight one day for each day of your stay?

Right now they are letting people book for length-of-stay, so I suspect it will stay that way once the official rollout happens. Some sort of +10 like ADRS.

 

[AmyB2006]

Who said anything about 4 parks? You can go to any or all parks.

My original point was way back in the thread when someone mentioned a pass and how much it would cost and I said they already have it.

You are the one who is stuck on this "four parks" stuff, not me.

You quoted my statement of "all 4 parks" and then said It does exist it's the VIP tour. !!!! LOL

I simply threw that out there as an alternative discussion point. That's all. You were the one who quoted me and made a counter statement. LOL

ETA... I didn't say anything about whatever point you made way back. I was posing another option similar to what Universal does but said "WHAT IF" they made it available to use in all 4 parks in one day? Strictly what if scenarios.