Just back, could definitely do without fast pass plus!

[eliza61]

K, so I won't say that we hated it, instead I will just say that it took out every bit of spontaneity out of our trip.
Now before you say we "used" it wrong, and it's all our fault for not "researching" enough, let me just say these are only the opinions of 1 family and that we have been to wdw almost annually, we are not uninformed
Cons:

Maybe my smartphone ain't that smart but it took ridiculously long for my mydisney app to open. This was the first trip where I felt connected to my cellphone. It might be that I'm older but when I on vacation I don't text, call, email, post my extended family or friends. They can do without me for 7 days.

We park hop, so if your fp's are for the second park, your screwed. Unless you cancel the entire second park and start all over.

Long fp+ kiosk lines. Epcot was the worst. Even with the cm's there it was taking folks a while. Of course my luck had it that I got stuck behind the non English speaker.

So long story short, it did take a lot of the pleasure out of our trip. No it wasn't ruined but we did come back feeling that it was one of the least enjoyable on our list of top 10 Disney vacations.

Also it maybe that we picked our fp plus selections so early, we are not the type of disneyphiles that "stick' to a spreadsheet. many times we plan on starting our vacation at say MK only to end up at Epcot. It's one of the reasons why we don't make many adr's. with fast pass plus if you don't stick to your script, your screwed.

Lastly, let me say that a bit of it may also be that it's "new". once you been touring for 10-15 years a certain way, it may take a trip or two to see the benefits. so I'm hoping our next visit, we'll have more success.

 

[johnsonet]

I'm sorry to hear this. I know you've been posting on the Dis forever, so I really value your opinion. I hope next time you go, they will have worked out more kinks, but it sure does sound frustrating.

We got to use FP+ in Feb. for the first time but were only in the parks 2 days - and didn't go to Epcot that trip.

I had the same problem with the app (s-l-o-w) but no other problems.

Thanks for the review

 

[Bete]

I hear you and we feel the same way.

I'll not be going to Disney World as often; because, fastpass plus is not for me. I went annually and then some. I think once in 5 years is plenty, now.

 

[Csaks]

Going to give it a try this fall but as the OP said it sucks all spontaneity out of a trip. I also do not want to be attached to my phone while on vacation, isn't that the idea of it??
Trying to approach it with an open mind but scheduling Fastpasses months in advance does not a relaxing vacation make. I'm on a schedule at work and don't need one on my days off. We always only planned what the best parks on a given day were and the rest was see how things go once you were there. Fastpasses included.

 

[xipotec]

Man that stinks.

We were on the FP plus testing phase but we loved it. It was during November thou. And we exclusively used out cell phone.

Just curious, did you use the kiosk because the cell phone you were using was slow??

I only used the kiosk once, because of a glitch on the app......

It did result in losing one FP but since we scheduled all the others well, FP helped use ride almost all the major rides multiple times.

 

[kastoney]

I'm in complete agreement, though I choose to approach it a little differently. We've been twice now with FP+ and I simply refuse to become a slave to it. I make ressies day of and sometimes even hour of based upon where we are headed. Only exception in that's has been TSM (did this one the night before) and the frozen gals for our upcoming trip. Do we always get to ride everything, no. But it allows us to do the park on our more spontaneous terms. The phone issue is where I digress though. My hubby is connected to his iPhone 24/7 (we've even named her Ingrid) so working FP in the park isn't an issue.

 

[hardhead]

I was thinking the same thing as you, i have been to disney 30 plus times and never do adr because I dont like be tied to a schedule. I hate the idea of booking fastpasses. I am going to see how it goes for our trip in august, i may be selling my dvc points and finding different vacations then Disney 2 times a year if it goes as I expect it to.

 

[scottmel]

We park hop, so if your fp's are for the second park, your screwed. Unless you cancel the entire second park and start all over.

.

Can you explain what you mean by this

 

[Ulysses]

I don't mind the system and make the most of it, but the main thing I don't like is that if you do have the app, there are too many things you still cannot do with the app.

For example, when you use all 3 passes and are ready for your 4th, waiting in line at the kiosk is a pain. Not because of the wait time, but because there are usually grown adults fussier than most children throwing tantrums over the kiosks.

Also, if you're park hopping, yeah, that's great in theory but you are out of luck in the first park. You get your 1-2 passes and you HAVE to wait until it's your time to be in the 2nd park.

 

[ilovemk76]

K, so I won't say that we hated it, instead I will just say that it took out every bit of spontaneity out of our trip.
Now before you say we "used" it wrong, and it's all our fault for not "researching" enough, let me just say these are only the opinions of 1 family and that we have been to wdw almost annually, we are not uninformed
Cons:

Maybe my smartphone ain't that smart but it took ridiculously long for my mydisney app to open. This was the first trip where I felt connected to my cellphone. It might be that I'm older but when I on vacation I don't text, call, email, post my extended family or friends. They can do without me for 7 days.

We park hop, so if your fp's are for the second park, your screwed. Unless you cancel the entire second park and start all over.

Long fp+ kiosk lines. Epcot was the worst. Even with the cm's there it was taking folks a while. Of course my luck had it that I got stuck behind the non English speaker.

So long story short, it did take a lot of the pleasure out of our trip. No it wasn't ruined but we did come back feeling that it was one of the least enjoyable on our list of top 10 Disney vacations.

Also it maybe that we picked our fp plus selections so early, we are not the type of disneyphiles that "stick' to a spreadsheet. many times we plan on starting our vacation at say MK only to end up at Epcot. It's one of the reasons why we don't make many adr's. with fast pass plus if you don't stick to your script, your screwed.

Lastly, let me say that a bit of it may also be that it's "new". once you been touring for 10-15 years a certain way, it may take a trip or two to see the benefits. so I'm hoping our next visit, we'll have more success.

We just got back on Monday and we loved FP+. DH, the runner, said he loved not having to move around and he also said we did more with FP+. Our trip was more relaxed and we had tons of spontaneity too.

I used the website and not the app most of the time. I also find that when the app is due for an update, it runs terrible. After, it runs great. We did have to do the app update while on vacation.

The kiosks were easy to use and the longest we waited was about 5 minutes. Most of the time, we walked right up to the kiosk.




I posted this on another thread:

"We just got back on Monday. We had the same great experience as the OP.

DH commented about how much more and how much we got done a d how much easier the new system was to use. He was the runner. .

When BTMRR went down, within minutes it was converted to a all day FP and we could then start to pull out extras.

At Epcot, I booked a throw away FP for opening, knowing we had a reason we could not make rope drop. Used our SSE and TT FPs and then we were able to book an additional FP for any ride. We could have picked TT again, Soatin' or Maelstrom after only using 2 FP+s.

When inclement weather shut down JC, it was converted to a all day FP and it could be used on HM, Pirates, JC, Carpets and a couple of others. We just kept is and pulled a 4th FP.

Pirates - they can send SB to the other side. Many here have been reporting they cannot. "


As you can see FP+ really helped when a problem arose.

 

[MichiganDVC]

Spontaneity, to me, means, "will I get on TSMM this trip or will I have to wait for next time??"

 

[ArwenMarie]

Thanks for your report. Sorry your trip was a bit disappointing.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

We had a huuuggeee family fight over having picked Rockin Coaster over TSMM.... (We had to wait 80 min on TSMM but RR was just as bad all day.) We have NEVER had a problem like that ever in our family because we would get one for both in FP-. I was not expecting FP to get us in to terrible fights and our photos are so good for the majority of the trip, I'm trying to pretend they didn't happen. Reality is that it did though and it was FP+ fault... While what we did have was convenient, that fight alone stole some of the Magic from our trip for sure. We were also there May3/4/10 (around Disney Magic cruise and a day at SeaWorld.) Crowds were insane...

 

[eliza61]

Can you explain what you mean by this

So if we were doing mk in the morning and Epcot in the evening we made our fp selections for the second park. Since you can't get new fastpasses until you use the old ones, we could not get any thing for mk unless we cancelled all the Epcot ones.

 

[Delirium]

So if we were doing mk in the morning and Epcot in the evening we made our fp selections for the second park. Since you can't get new fastpasses until you use the old ones, we could not get any thing for mk unless we cancelled all the Epcot ones.

Everyone understands that. That's why you get to the first park at rope drop, do the priority rides, take a break, and then hop to the second. The notion that you have to use FP+ to do an attraction is just wrong. You can easily get by on 3 FP+ a day when park-hopping with some advance planning.

We used FP+ last year in October. Granted, it was not fully rolled out, and it was before Anna & Else and SDMT, but we easily did everything we wanted multiple times by using FP+ wisely and well-planned touring otherwise. We hopped almost every day and always used FP+ for the second park. It worked well.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Everyone understands that. That's why you get to the first park at rope drop, do the priority rides, take a break, and then hop to the second. The notion that you have to use FP+ to do an attraction is just wrong. You can easily get by on 3 FP+ a day when park-hopping with some advance planning.

We used FP+ last year in October. Granted, it was not fully rolled out, and it was before Anna & Else and SDMT, but we easily did everything we wanted multiple times by using FP+ wisely and well-planned touring otherwise. We hopped almost every day and always used FP+ for the second park. It worked well.

Obviously not everyone or OP would have had no need to field that question.



We're also in an interesting transition phase as some folks who are visiting today made their FP reservations at a time when only 3 were allowed. So, the plan was to do standby in the am & then use FPs later. Now that we can get more, that plan no longer seems to be the right one.

OP's experience is exactly what my concerns have been, even with the additional FPs.

 

[Delirium]

Obviously not everyone or OP would have had no need to field that question.



We're also in an interesting transition phase as some folks who are visiting today made their FP reservations at a time when only 3 were allowed. So, the plan was to do standby in the am & then use FPs later. Now that we can get more, that plan no longer seems to be the right one.

OP's experience is exactly what my concerns have been, even with the additional FPs.

Even with the changes, we will probably still use FP+ at the second park, except for an Anna & Else type phenomena. They aren't really needed before 11:00 A.M and by the time you hop over, nothing good will be left at the second park. We usually hop or take a break around 2:00 or 3:00. Between 11:00 and 3:00 at the first park, you're eating lunch, watching the parade (at MK), and can do some shows or anytime attractions. FP+ for major attractions are much more valuable at 5:00, 6:00, and 7:00 at night.

 

[eliza61]

Everyone understands that. That's why you get to the first park at rope drop, do the priority rides, take a break, and then hop to the second. The notion that you have to use FP+ to do an attraction is just wrong. You can easily get by on 3 FP+ a day when park-hopping with some advance planning.

We used FP+ last year in October. Granted, it was not fully rolled out, and it was before Anna & Else and SDMT, but we easily did everything we wanted multiple times by using FP+ wisely and well-planned touring otherwise. We hopped almost every day and always used FP+ for the second park. It worked well.

Once again I'll state that this was just my family's opinion. First, we don't do ripe drop. Second as I stated we are very laid back tourers. I DON'T want to advance plan, I don't make tons of adrs
So your right if you follow a schedule it works well if that is not your style it can be frustrating
It maybe that we will have to begin changing the way we tour

 

[disnut8]

We got back on Monday from our short trip over Memorial Day weekend. We stayed offsite and are Annual Passholders. Because of a mix-up (my fault), I didn't get to do our FastPasses until Thursday before we left on Friday. I did three things at the Studios for Saturday (Rock N Roller Coaster, Twilight Zone and Star Tours). Then three for Animal Kingdom on Sunday (Safari, Kali Rive Rapids and Expedition Everest). Each evening was at Epcot. We didn't make our time for Rock N Roller Coaster because we decided to park at Epcot and then take the boat to the Studios but no big deal. We had a great time and still was able to relax. Sunday was better as we hit the Animal Kingdom way before our Safari FastPass and did the Flights of Wonder and Rafiki's Planet Watch before the Safari pass. Then did the walk after that, had lunch, got sort of wet on Kali, did the tiger trail, then Everest and a walk around Dinoland and then a standby to It's tough To Be a Bug which took 5 minutes.

My husband and I talked about FastPass now and he wants more options and I agree. Park hopping, for us, is essential because we spend most evenings at Epcot but, other than Soarin' (which isn't a favorite), others are OK with us.

But, we had a couple of days where we didn't care about the world. I know, for a family who saves for years to go to Disney World, that's not enough. But for this couple, it worked.

 

[wdwluv]

After 50+ trips to WDW this is the first time we didn't come home planning our next trip. FP+ cramped our style, we are rd people who tend to do everything we want by 1pm and then use the rest of the time wandering and doing rides that have a short line. This time that was not possible. Not much was a walk-on. I like to decide on a park last minute(sometimes day before) FP+ prohibits you from doing that and still wanting to ride some of the big name rides. We did like the bracelets because it was more convenient than constantly going into wallet for rm key. But we are wishing that Disney would reconsider FP+, maybe if they made it optional with reg fp at the parks available on the day of for use would be better. For instance, I work 12hr days and when Disney announced opening of 7dwarfs by the time I went to check on fp+ for either 28/29(only days we could go because left on 30th) they were all gone. under normal fp we would have gotten one the day of as we were at rd on thursday. Its almost as if Disney wants to control our vacations, I'm sorry but my vacation dollars and I determine where and how I spend them not Disney. Sorry for the rant but I truly understand you and your family's disappointment.