Just Back... FP+ Pros & Cons

[Mkrop]

As for the MK on the 30th, I'd say luck had very little to do with it. I got the FP+ for the rides I wanted and then moved the times around knowing we would not hit the park until around 5:00, and that there would be long lines for most attractions when we got there. Had no trouble lining up the times when I made the FP+ reservations. Even with the long lines we got Small World and Philharmagic with doable/no SB lines around the 9:00 to 10:00 time frame. Between the early fireworks, using our FP+, doing a couple of standby attractions, DJ dance parties and eating we didn't have any down time. FYI - we rope dropped DHS that morning, knocked out TSMM, RnR, ToT and Star Tours in and hour and fifteen minutes!

The devil is in the planning details, which somewhat depend on what your party is able to accommodate. I realize everyone might not be able to tour exactly like we do, but that doesn't mean the opportunity isn't there. Knowing the forecast and coming from a break at the hotel we were also able to prepare for the weather, and being rested we didn't have any trouble staying past the midnight fireworks. After the midnight fireworks the park was wide open, no waits on most rides. I realize you couldn't stick it out, but for anyone who can close down a park with the best of them....it was great. There's something special about the MK in the wee hours of the morning. Nothing better than Laugh Floor when you are a little punchy!

A perfect example of people being in the same park at the same time and, depending upon how they planned their day, having very different experiences. You were there from 5-9, somewhat tired from a long day in the park, no FP+, long SB lines for a lot of rides, with the weather exacerbating whatever level of frustration you might have been feeling. We were there from 5-9, rested and prepared for the weather, FP+ in hand, able to jump on a couple SB attractions, excited to enjoy the park and a couple great fireworks shows even though we knew it would be crowded. We looked forward to easy touring after the fireworks, which we found. I wanted to stay until 3am but the kids were tired and my wife wanted to head back at 1:30. Being the only night we had the 1br Villa who was I to argue. We had already gotten a lot done that night and we had a long night ahead on NYE so we passed on another hour and a half in the park when we could probably have done another 10 attractions, maybe even a coveted few Lake would "want to do"! Hey, it still sounds like you had a good day and got a fair amount done, more even than your 3 FP+ rides and long lines for everything else. Sorry you met with some frustration. Were you able to see the fireworks from somewhere outside the park? They were really cool.

I feel for you on the 28th. Like I said, we did a fly by in between AK and Epcot (Illuminations). We didn't have time for anything but our FP+ and the Osborne Lights, so we didn't even look at SB lines. The opportunity for a drink came when we had 15 minutes between FP+, but we'd have found time for a drink either way. As for ToT, we had two groups ride with FP+. Kids went first, adults went later. They had been having issues with the elevators all night. Even the FP+ line was 25 minutes as half the elevators were down. SB waits were like 300 minutes! When our adult group got off around 9:00 they had just shut the ride down and cleared out the lines.

The reason it was such a long day was I read here and many other places was that we needed to get to MK, even on the 30th early, and stay put. If I knew that we could stroll in later, maybe we would have taken a break but we were staying offsite at that point.(moved to VWL on 1/1). We were very surprised how well we did that day but everything for us came to a grinding halt at 9ish when we went to the kiosks at Philharmagic and saw they were covered and were told all FPs were gone for the day. We looked at the app and wait times were way too long.

Other days at other parks, the 4th FP was difficult to obtain.

 

[RebeccaRabbit]

I wonder, though, if you completely understand how it works? It's not guaranteed front of the line access.

Yes, I did understand how it worked going in, and did not expect literal "front of the line" access with EP. The idea of unlimited rides with EP, and no need to schedule in advance, of course sounds great! I was expecting it to be pretty awesome, even if it was not literally a "front of the line" thing.

The reason we personally preferred how FP works to EP, was the fact that comparing our particular experiences, we spent many more total minutes in line throughout the day with EP. That was simply what happened to us, and I realize our individual experiences are fragmentary and not necessarily representative. But the combo of 1) long SB lines for the non-EP Potter rides in the mornings, which then 2) pushed the non-HP areas of the park to mid-day and evening for us, when SB lines are longer, resulted in overall significantly more wait time than we've ever experienced at Disney.

Interesting to me by the way that so many on here are reporting conflicting experiences... Some say they always wait 15+ minutes with FP+. Personally we waited 10-15 consistently with FP+ on Soarin', never more than 5 on anything else (and it was rare to wait even that).

Conversely, some are reporting that they never/rarely waited at all with EP, while our experience (from last week) involved consistent waits of 10-30 minutes on most rides. The only times we had no wait with EP were when the regular line was also empty (which happened occasionally on kiddie rides like Cat in the Hat, for example, but not on anything major).

I'm just curious what could account for this kind of variation of people's experiences. Crowd levels is an obvious potential answer... I personally am comparing Disney and Universal at exactly the same week (1st full week in January - typically rated one of the "lower" crowd weeks), which is the only time we have visited either place. Are people who report the opposite experience to mine comparing a dead week at Uni with Christmas week at Disney or something...? Or are they not interested in Potter, and so going on non-Potter rides at RD when there's no line? I'm just curious why the reported facts are so different here.

 

[Suvadoo]

Yes, I did understand how it worked going in, and did not expect literal "front of the line" access with EP. The idea of unlimited rides with EP, and no need to schedule in advance, of course sounds great! I was expecting it to be pretty awesome, even if it was not literally a "front of the line" thing.

The reason we personally preferred how FP works to EP, was the fact that comparing our particular experiences, we spent many more total minutes in line throughout the day with EP. That was simply what happened to us, and I realize our individual experiences are fragmentary and not necessarily representative. But the combo of 1) long SB lines for the non-EP Potter rides in the mornings, which then 2) pushed the non-HP areas of the park to mid-day and evening for us, when SB lines are longer, resulted in overall significantly more wait time than we've ever experienced at Disney.

Interesting to me by the way that so many on here are reporting conflicting experiences... Some say they always wait 15+ minutes with FP+. Personally we waited 10-15 consistently with FP+ on Soarin', never more than 5 on anything else (and it was rare to wait even that).

Conversely, some are reporting that they never/rarely waited at all with EP, while our experience (from last week) involved consistent waits of 10-30 minutes on most rides. The only times we had no wait with EP were when the regular line was also empty (which happened occasionally on kiddie rides like Cat in the Hat, for example, but not on anything major).

I'm just curious what could account for this kind of variation of people's experiences. Crowd levels is an obvious potential answer... I personally am comparing Disney and Universal at exactly the same week (1st full week in January - typically rated one of the "lower" crowd weeks), which is the only time we have visited either place. Are people who report the opposite experience to mine comparing a dead week at Uni with Christmas week at Disney or something...? Or are they not interested in Potter, and so going on non-Potter rides at RD when there's no line? I'm just curious why the reported facts are so different here.

I think the varying reports are because people are unpredictable and the crowds in particular areas of the parks ebb and flow. So you experienced long EP lines at Universal and others have reported no lines. Maybe if you had returned to an attraction at a different time the line would've been shorter.
It's kind of like herding cats!

 

[Laketravis]

I'm just curious what could account for this kind of variation of people's experiences. Crowd levels is an obvious potential answer... I personally am comparing Disney and Universal at exactly the same week (1st full week in January - typically rated one of the "lower" crowd weeks), which is the only time we have visited either place. Are people who report the opposite experience to mine comparing a dead week at Uni with Christmas week at Disney or something...? Or are they not interested in Potter, and so going on non-Potter rides at RD when there's no line? I'm just curious why the reported facts are so different here.

We went to USO 12/30-1/5 and stayed onsite, so we had EP for each day in the parks.

We wanted to go to WDW for one or two days during that trip, but we couldn't get any decent (to us) FP's whenever we tried to reserve them in advance of getting there. We knew WDW was going to be very crowded so without them we didn't want to take a chance, especially when we could see the wait times for the things we wanted to do online.

Back at USO, more often than not we found ourselves waiting in an EP line. But we understood that EP didn't mean "walk right on", that it would result in a wait of a fraction of the SB time - which it did. When Despicable Me standby was 100 minutes, EP was about 10-15. While I seldom ever had to wait in an FP+ line for that long, I considered EP to be an advantage because at least I was IN the EP line at a time when I couldn't even get FP's, and I could use EP to beat the standby lines at most of the attractions and wasn't limited to 3.

For attractions like Harry Potter that didn't have an EP line, the SB lines were typically 45-60 minutes long. We would regularly get in line if it was 45 minutes (something we would never do before because we hadn't deemed anything at WDW worth that long of a wait) and found the wait tolerable because (1) the queue is fascinating and (2) the ride itself is worth the wait.

I think the biggest difference between EP and FP is that EP uses a much higher SB to EP ratio in the queues (which is why there would most likely always be a short wait for EP) and that allows them to offer EP on an unlimited basis on most attractions.

I"ve also stated that I think WDW would be able to move closer to that model and achieve the same benefits by simply adjusting their queue ratios so that more SB guests were admitted thru the queue per FP guests.

 

[Luckybee]

Thank you for asking for proof of my claim rather than just accepting it as fact.

Here are 5 quotes from just one thread. When I read these I thought they gave the impression that an EP allows one to walk right on while FP+ required a short wait. I'm sure I could find more but I don't have time to hunt them down.


Suvadoo: You may be right, but I don't think it's fair to compare express pass to FP+. Express pass gives you front of the line, with no reserved ride times, for EVERY ride at Universal, except the Harry Potter. (Emphasis not mine)

Love Tink: Express Pass that gets you to the front of the line at all but two attractions in each park* during Christmastime is not comparable to a FP+ that gets you a "shorter wait" for at least one popular (or Tier 1) attraction per day!

Love Tink: I'll check with my kids and see if they preferred walking to the front of every line, all day every day, and getting into the parks an hour early to ride the two rides for which they couldn't do this (and then re-riding using the single-rider lines they both have)...or whether they preferred using their FP+ for Nemo and Spaceship Earth.

Lucky Bee: Had we done so we would have missed out on amazing parks, with amazing rides and attractions, and with real front of the line "fast" passes for more than just 3 rides

Lucky Bee: We had 0 wait because of our express passes for all rides except Gringotts where we had to wait...wait for it....30 minutes (you know ...about the same time at the waits were for POTC at Disney, and other secondary rides there).

Since you chose to quote me let me add some further clarification for you. While true that Universal does clearly state that their passes are NOT FOL, FOR US they very much were REAL FOL esp when compared to Disney and the numerous outrageous SB lines that WE encountered on so many rides that used to be walk ons FOR US prior to the implementation of fp+. At U. on all rides that used EP that WE rode WE went right to the FOTL (all except Gringotts and FJ and on FJ I did single rider after doing the castle tour with dh). While true that on some of our FP's at Disney WE also went FOL, there were so few of them, with such long lines on the others the impact ON US was significant.
So when I called them real FOL I did so because FOR US that is exactly what they were. Virtually walk ons when we were there. YMMV and I am sure that there are various times of the year when one has to wait a SHORT period of time but compared to Disney, well, the comparison simply isn't fair. Fp simply isn't in the same league as express pass. Whether it be because of the number of people or the way the park crowds move or whatever, I have never ever read of people who had EP waiting on anything other than the HP stuff for long periods of time compared with D .

 

[mesaboy2]

I was the poster and it wasn't hyperbole.

In our experience, both times we have used it, the Express Pass at Universal has been a front of the line pass. I use that expression to describe how it worked for our family, not how the item might be described in Universal's promotional materials.

We have visited at the beginning of December and the end of August and the crowds were very low in the parks. We were able to walk to the front of pretty much all the lines (including Despicable Me, Spider-Man, Transformers). We did have to wait about 10 minutes at Rip Ride Rocket once, but that was the one noticeable exception.

At a couple of rides, (Men in Black, Mummy) the ride operators told us how to come back through the baby switch area to re-ride, so we didn't even have to go outside and walk through the line to get back to the front of the line. In this way, we were able to ride Men in Black six times in a row before we had to quit to get to our locker before time ran out.

If we ever do a trip to Universal during a more busy time of year, and find that Express Pass waits become more than 0-5 minutes, I may feel differently. But as of now I definitely think of them as front of the line passes.

P.S. Despite similarly low crowds during our August Disney World visit, the waits were generally 5-10 minutes, or what I would qualify as short waits, not front of the line.

Since you chose to quote me let me add some further clarification for you. While true that Universal does clearly state that their passes are NOT FOL, FOR US they very much were REAL FOL esp when compared to Disney and the numerous outrageous SB lines that WE encountered on so many rides that used to be walk ons FOR US prior to the implementation of fp+. At U. on all rides that used EP that WE rode WE went right to the FOTL (all except Gringotts and FJ and on FJ I did single rider after doing the castle tour with dh). While true that on some of our FP's at Disney WE also went FOL, there were so few of them, with such long lines on the others the impact ON US was significant.
So when I called them real FOL I did so because FOR US that is exactly what they were. Virtually walk ons when we were there. YMMV and I am sure that there are various times of the year when one has to wait a SHORT period of time but compared to Disney, well, the comparison simply isn't fair. Fp simply isn't in the same league as express pass. Whether it be because of the number of people or the way the park crowds move or whatever, I have never ever read of people who had EP waiting on anything other than the HP stuff for long periods of time compared with D .

I appreciate both of you responding to this exchange, and I suspected both of you meant that FOTL is what your experience was and not that it would be the case for all. None of us can or should question your personal experiences since they are just that.

I'm sure you realize that in a medium such as these forums, words that are typed as they are thought of hang around forever and sometimes are later interpreted very literally by others looking for debate points.

 

[Luckybee]

I appreciate both of you responding to this exchange, and I suspected both of you meant that FOTL is what your experience was and not that it would be the case for all. None of us can or should question your personal experiences since they are just that.

I'm sure you realize that in a medium such as these forums, words that are typed as they are thought of hang around forever and sometimes are later interpreted very literally by others looking for debate points.

I agree with you, except that I think "interpreted" should have the letters mis at the beginning. All of us are posting about our own experiences, whether it be someone who indicates the waits were long or short at any of the parks for it could be nothing else .

 

[mesaboy2]

I agree with you, except that I think "interpreted" should have the letters mis at the beginning. All of us are posting about our own experiences, whether it be someone who indicates the waits were long or short at any of the parks for it could be nothing else .

It occurs to me just now that if I took the PP's "could probably pull a dozen recent quotes" phrase as literally as they took your posts, I could have some fun myself. But nah, I'm out. I'm trying to quit.

 

[Luckybee]

It occurs to me just now that if I took the PP's "could probably pull a dozen recent quotes" phrase as literally as they took your posts, I could have some fun myself. But nah, I'm out. I'm trying to quit.

Oh cmon...by tonight you as well as the rest of us will see something that'll drag you back in

 

[RebeccaRabbit]

We went to USO 12/30-1/5 and stayed onsite, so we had EP for each day in the parks.

We wanted to go to WDW for one or two days during that trip, but we couldn't get any decent (to us) FP's whenever we tried to reserve them in advance of getting there. We knew WDW was going to be very crowded so without them we didn't want to take a chance, especially when we could see the wait times for the things we wanted to do online.

Back at USO, more often than not we found ourselves waiting in an EP line. But we understood that EP didn't mean "walk right on", that it would result in a wait of a fraction of the SB time - which it did. When Despicable Me standby was 100 minutes, EP was about 10-15. While I seldom ever had to wait in an FP+ line for that long, I considered EP to be an advantage because at least I was IN the EP line at a time when I couldn't even get FP's, and I could use EP to beat the standby lines at most of the attractions and wasn't limited to 3.

For attractions like Harry Potter that didn't have an EP line, the SB lines were typically 45-60 minutes long. We would regularly get in line if it was 45 minutes (something we would never do before because we hadn't deemed anything at WDW worth that long of a wait) and found the wait tolerable because (1) the queue is fascinating and (2) the ride itself is worth the wait.

I think the biggest difference between EP and FP is that EP uses a much higher SB to EP ratio in the queues (which is why there would most likely always be a short wait for EP) and that allows them to offer EP on an unlimited basis on most attractions.

I"ve also stated that I think WDW would be able to move closer to that model and achieve the same benefits by simply adjusting their queue ratios so that more SB guests were admitted thru the queue per FP guests.

I think you've hit the nail on the head Laketravis. At really busy times, the SB lines on even the lamest stuff are huge at Disney. I would not be a happy camper if I had to wait 30 minutes for PeopleMover or whatever either. Especially if I could not even get a FP for Big Thunder or anything halfway decent. So at busy times with FP, you end up with no waits on 3 (potentially not very good) rides and really long waits on everything else. With EP you still wait, but you wait much less overall. People who have experienced both of these understandably prefer EP.

The scenario in slow periods is different. In our crowd level 3 week, we found non-headliners to be walk-ons at Disney in the early mornings. Then we used FP+s for the headliners at mid-day. Result: total wait time for the day of 0. With EP, by contrast, there was no way to achieve wait time of 0, or anything close to it, because of how it works and its limited scope. Thus my impression that EP is "worse" (in that period of time).

The best thing might be for both parks to use a FP-like ride reservation system for headliners, and an EP-like system for everything else. Or maybe a FP-like system in slower periods, and an EP-like system in busy ones. They could do this by adjusting the SB/FP ratios at different times like you suggested. (I'm not sure if Disney could do anything like EP though, since they have such greater volume and so many more guests staying in their hotels...)

Also, I bet neither one would want to admit the other is on to something

 

[DisneyKidds]

We went to USO 12/30-1/5 and stayed onsite, so we had EP for each day in the parks. We wanted to go to WDW for one or two days during that trip, but we couldn't get any decent (to us) FP's whenever we tried to reserve them in advance of getting there. We knew WDW was going to be very crowded so without them we didn't want to take a chance, especially when we could see the wait times for the things we wanted to do online. Back at USO, more often than not we found ourselves waiting in an EP line. But we understood that EP didn't mean "walk right on", that it would result in a wait of a fraction of the SB time - which it did. When Despicable Me standby was 100 minutes, EP was about 10-15. While I seldom ever had to wait in an FP+ line for that long, I considered EP to be an advantage because at least I was IN the EP line at a time when I couldn't even get FP's, and I could use EP to beat the standby lines at most of the attractions and wasn't limited to 3. For attractions like Harry Potter that didn't have an EP line, the SB lines were typically 45-60 minutes long. We would regularly get in line if it was 45 minutes (something we would never do before because we hadn't deemed anything at WDW worth that long of a wait) and found the wait tolerable because (1) the queue is fascinating and (2) the ride itself is worth the wait. I think the biggest difference between EP and FP is that EP uses a much higher SB to EP ratio in the queues (which is why there would most likely always be a short wait for EP) and that allows them to offer EP on an unlimited basis on most attractions. I"ve also stated that I think WDW would be able to move closer to that model and achieve the same benefits by simply adjusting their queue ratios so that more SB guests were admitted thru the queue per FP guests.

I'm sorry Lake, but you expect us to believe you remember that level of detail, from that long ago?

 

[Laketravis]

I think you've hit the nail on the head Laketravis. At really busy times, the SB lines on even the lamest stuff are huge at Disney. I would not be a happy camper if I had to wait 30 minutes for PeopleMover or whatever either. Especially if I could not even get a FP for Big Thunder or anything halfway decent. So at busy times with FP, you end up with no waits on 3 (potentially not very good) rides and really long waits on everything else. With EP you still wait, but you wait much less overall. People who have experienced both of these understandably prefer EP.

The scenario in slow periods is different. In our crowd level 3 week, we found non-headliners to be walk-ons at Disney in the early mornings. Then we used FP+s for the headliners at mid-day. Result: total wait time for the day of 0. With EP, by contrast, there was no way to achieve wait time of 0, or anything close to it, because of how it works and its limited scope. Thus my impression that EP is "worse" (in that period of time).

The best thing might be for both parks to use a FP-like ride reservation system for headliners, and an EP-like system for everything else. Or maybe a FP-like system in slower periods, and an EP-like system in busy ones. They could do this by adjusting the SB/FP ratios at different times like you suggested. (I'm not sure if Disney could do anything like EP though, since they have such greater volume and so many more guests staying in their hotels...)

Also, I bet neither one would want to admit the other is on to something

Totally agree. I think one thing going forward that will determine who can offer the best system is who does a better job at bringing additional capacity online. A few weeks ago, we saw USO working on a huge construction project (later found out it's the new Kong attraction) that they started last summer and estimate finishing this coming summer. That's about a year to get a huge people-eating attraction built as part of a strategy to start the next as soon as they finish one.

That might help them keep a leg up on providing enough capacity for a growing number of guests and ensuring that EP continues to be of benefit, while WDW is having to play catch up in terms of finding enough capacity to serve the number of guests they already have.

 

[Luckybee]

I think you've hit the nail on the head Laketravis. At really busy times, the SB lines on even the lamest stuff are huge at Disney. I would not be a happy camper if I had to wait 30 minutes for PeopleMover or whatever either. Especially if I could not even get a FP for Big Thunder or anything halfway decent. So at busy times with FP, you end up with no waits on 3 (potentially not very good) rides and really long waits on everything else. With EP you still wait, but you wait much less overall. People who have experienced both of these understandably prefer EP.

The scenario in slow periods is different. In our crowd level 3 week, we found non-headliners to be walk-ons at Disney in the early mornings. Then we used FP+s for the headliners at mid-day. Result: total wait time for the day of 0. With EP, by contrast, there was no way to achieve wait time of 0, or anything close to it, because of how it works and its limited scope. Thus my impression that EP is "worse" (in that period of time).

The best thing might be for both parks to use a FP-like ride reservation system for headliners, and an EP-like system for everything else. Or maybe a FP-like system in slower periods, and an EP-like system in busy ones. They could do this by adjusting the SB/FP ratios at different times like you suggested. (I'm not sure if Disney could do anything like EP though, since they have such greater volume and so many more guests staying in their hotels...)

Also, I bet neither one would want to admit the other is on to something

I do think as well though that one has to clarify exactly what they mean by "waits" at both parks. I have yet to see anyone with express pass even at the busiest times talk about what I would call "long" waits for secondary attractions(and by long I mean those getting to 20-30 minutes). For our touring style that is where D has failed. We didn't care if we got on all the biggies, if that meant long waits or long park days...we were always happy if we just got on a bunch of rides at our leisure. This used to work beautifully because we could stroll, and as we got to a ride it was hmmm ok no long line lets do it. In Sept/ Oct. a traditionally slower time(when previously there were lots of walkons throughout the day), this strategy was non existent because when were were there there were no short sb lines(we don't do early park mornings).
I agree with you that they should have FP+ for headliners..and imho nothing for the secondary rides....but wait....wasn't that what regular fp was ?

 

[Laketravis]

I do think as well though that one has to clarify exactly what they mean by "waits" at both parks. I have yet to see anyone with express pass even at the busiest times talk about what I would call "long" waits for secondary attractions(and by long I mean those getting to 20-30 minutes). For our touring style that is where D has failed. We didn't care if we got on all the biggies, if that meant long waits or long park days...we were always happy if we just got on a bunch of rides at our leisure. This used to work beautifully because we could stroll, and as we got to a ride it was hmmm ok no long line lets do it. In Sept/ Oct. a traditionally slower time(when previously there were lots of walkons throughout the day), this strategy was non existent because when were were there there were no short sb lines(we don't do early park mornings).
I agree with you that they should have FP+ for headliners..and imho nothing for the secondary rides....but wait....wasn't that what regular fp was ?

I guess 5 minutes is a long time for some while 20 minutes seems quick to others. I never really timed how long it took us to get thru an EP line because it always felt quick to us. We got EP because we stayed on site, but while "waiting" in the EP line we spoke to several others who paid over $100 each for EP for the day. Personally, that's outside my value equation but they weren't complaining about it and saw value in it. Some of them were even wearing MB's and expressed less than positive opinions about FP, but yet they were willing to pay so much for EP?

I think what that indicates is that Disney certainly could have charged for some portions of FP to some guest demographic, but so far they've chosen not to. And while that is most likely a business decision that can be attributed to a core philosophy and set of guiding principles, it also represents a huge challenge for FP to accommodate growing demand across all guests on a "free" basis.

 

[SmithSmith]

Apparently I need to clarify. When I responded to this post with the same text bolded:

I have done Onsite Universal trips 2x and going on my 3rd this week..The most I have ever had to wait for express pass was 20 mins on despicable me and that was during a peak time in August..Most times the waits were 5 mins if any wait at all ..They advertise waits of 20 mins or less.It isn't Front of the line access immediately.I cant tell you how many people I heard flipping out at Universal employees thinking that the passes give immediate access..They don't. If the SB lines are showing 20mins and you wait 20 mins in the ep line, then the SB line time is not right or the ride has/had downtime

I was ONLY providing examples of why some Uni guests might have a misunderstanding of what an EP actually entitles them to.

 

[Cyrano]

Thread is done