sonofanarchy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2013
- Messages
- 1,821
OK, so I was very much against FP+ from the onset. Here is my opinion of both after 10 days in the world.
MB's we had a bunch of issues with the first 2 days. Nobody's tickets were tied to the bands. After the 2nd day, that was resolved, except for the occasional blue light getting into the park, but that happened before MB's as well, so no surprise. No real advantage over the cards, other than everybody has to wear their own. I think it's kind of silly to expect a young child to want to wear one for an extended period of time, but it is what it is.
FP+ - I'll break it down simply. In theory, idea is OK, but the number needs to increase (especially in Magic Kingdom), and tiering needs to go away. We never had problems with our FP+ not working. The MDE app at times was fast and fantastic, and at other times was slow and inaccurate. It would allow us to change a FP, then we'd go check and it wouldn't show up. That was annoying. Biggest problem of all - The kiosks. We never waited less than 10 minutes to get access to one to make 4th selection and so on. If they moved this over to the app (and got the app working the way it should), then it would be great. But what is the point of standing in line to get something that is supposed to let you avoid standing in line?
I found that the best way to make use of FP+ was to pick out the most popular selections first thing in the morning, then choose rides like Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Pirates for later in the day. The FP return time never seemed to be more than 30 minutes later for those. Problem is, rides that never had lines before (It's A Small World, Pirates, Imagination, Carousel, Teacups) all have lines now. And rides that had shorter waits of around 20-30 minutes, now have waits of 40-60 minutes.
So, there are definitely bugs to work out. Most CM's seemed happy to help. We ran into some fantastic ones, and we ran into some miserable ones.
Bottom line - It's not nearly as bad as I feared, and there is great potential for the system, but there's much work to do.
Parks - Magic Kingdom and Epcot had it's typical share of walls up. Lots of cracks in pavement at MK, but other than that, the park looked good.
Downtown Disney - Avoid at all costs. Only having the 1 bus stop has created a disaster area at the Marketplace bus stop. It's not worth the trip.
Tour Groups were everywhere, but were pretty well behaved. Seems like some rules have been put in place for them. Universal was a different story. They were obnoxious, rude and disrespectful there. Thumbs up to Disney for whatever they have done to improve this problem.
Transportation - We stayed at the Boardwalk and it was awful. We waited 30, 40, even 60 minutes for a bus. Most times it was standing because they picked up at Yacht and Beach first. Loved the resort but will never stay there again because of the bus issues.
I'll post a separate report on food in the restaurant section.
MB's we had a bunch of issues with the first 2 days. Nobody's tickets were tied to the bands. After the 2nd day, that was resolved, except for the occasional blue light getting into the park, but that happened before MB's as well, so no surprise. No real advantage over the cards, other than everybody has to wear their own. I think it's kind of silly to expect a young child to want to wear one for an extended period of time, but it is what it is.
FP+ - I'll break it down simply. In theory, idea is OK, but the number needs to increase (especially in Magic Kingdom), and tiering needs to go away. We never had problems with our FP+ not working. The MDE app at times was fast and fantastic, and at other times was slow and inaccurate. It would allow us to change a FP, then we'd go check and it wouldn't show up. That was annoying. Biggest problem of all - The kiosks. We never waited less than 10 minutes to get access to one to make 4th selection and so on. If they moved this over to the app (and got the app working the way it should), then it would be great. But what is the point of standing in line to get something that is supposed to let you avoid standing in line?
I found that the best way to make use of FP+ was to pick out the most popular selections first thing in the morning, then choose rides like Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Pirates for later in the day. The FP return time never seemed to be more than 30 minutes later for those. Problem is, rides that never had lines before (It's A Small World, Pirates, Imagination, Carousel, Teacups) all have lines now. And rides that had shorter waits of around 20-30 minutes, now have waits of 40-60 minutes.
So, there are definitely bugs to work out. Most CM's seemed happy to help. We ran into some fantastic ones, and we ran into some miserable ones.
Bottom line - It's not nearly as bad as I feared, and there is great potential for the system, but there's much work to do.
Parks - Magic Kingdom and Epcot had it's typical share of walls up. Lots of cracks in pavement at MK, but other than that, the park looked good.
Downtown Disney - Avoid at all costs. Only having the 1 bus stop has created a disaster area at the Marketplace bus stop. It's not worth the trip.
Tour Groups were everywhere, but were pretty well behaved. Seems like some rules have been put in place for them. Universal was a different story. They were obnoxious, rude and disrespectful there. Thumbs up to Disney for whatever they have done to improve this problem.
Transportation - We stayed at the Boardwalk and it was awful. We waited 30, 40, even 60 minutes for a bus. Most times it was standing because they picked up at Yacht and Beach first. Loved the resort but will never stay there again because of the bus issues.
I'll post a separate report on food in the restaurant section.
But I see this comment a lot..."FPP would be ok if I could get more"...Ditto for tiering since removing tiering would in essence give you more for the headliners.
