MyTwoPrincesses
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2009
- Messages
- 1,408
Just back from a magical trip to WDW. We had 4.5 park days. We were at MK for 1.5 days and DHS, EPCOT, and AK for 1 day each. We had regular MYW tickets, not park hoppers. We stayed at POR.
MAGIC BANDS: These worked well. We had no issues with them falling off and they were comfortable. Only problem was that the new system of scanning to redeem FPPs was slower than the old system. It created large backups at major rides like Space Mountain, the Safari and other as guests tried to scan their magic bands and RFID cards.
OFF SITE: We did NOT stay off site. However, I would not consider staying off site under the new system. We are not RD people - we get to the park on the later side because it is just too hard to wake everyone up to get there by 8:15 for a 9 AM opening. Lines for off-siters to book FPP were tremendous at every park. I suspect all the good stuff is gone fairly early because when I tried to change FPP on the fly, there were few options at all parks except MK.
FPP: I had mixed feelings. FPP saved my late arrival day. We got to MK at 3:45 pm on the Sunday of a holiday weekend on an EMH night. Needless to say, it was crowded. Thanks to FPP, we got a lot done (3 major attractions plus we mixed in other things - we did ETWB, IASW, Dumbo, PP, Jungle Cruise, BTMRR x2 for everyone but me with child swap, Philharmagic, Spectromagic, Wishes, dinner at LTT). However, I had a few disappointments with FPP.
- Changing FPP on the fly doesn't work well. The good stuff seems to disappear earlier. Under the old system, you were blocked from collecting more than one Fastpass until a new window opened. Now, with 3 FPPs being collected at once, it seems to mean that you can't wait until the afternoon to get an FPP. The issue is really pronounced at EP and DHS. I got to the Great Movie Ride, for example, and the wait was 5 minutes. So, I decided to just do standby and get an FPP for something else. Well, my only choices were Disney Jr. and a few other things. Same thing happened at Epcot. Mission Space was a walk on. When I went to change my FPP for something else later in the day, my choices were Captain EO and Figment.
- The app is incredibly glitchy. Half the time, the MDE app didn't load properly or crashed. It's also extremely slow. Just as bad as it is at home. And it's a huge process to move around FPPs. You can't change both experience and time simultaneously for a single attraction.
- FPP was virtually useless at DHS. I got my FPP for TSMM, but I never had a problem getting an FP for TSMM in prior trips. However, it was very hard to keep FPPs and see shows at DHS. I ended up only using the TSMM FPP because, as noted above, it was not really feasible to change the FPPs on the fly. My advice would be to book all 3 FPPs in the AM, not the PM and save the shows for the PM.
BABY SWAP: This really was double valuable with the new system. Most of the time, they let 4 people in, not 3. And for most rides (except Space Mountain), the baby swap pass was good to the end of the month. We didn't do this, but you can save them for a different day. We used baby swap to get FPP for both Soarin' and Test Track. We were a party of 6 (including my 38" 3 year old), so I booked 3 FPP for Soarin' and 3 for Test Track and then we used baby swap so that everyone could ride.
ROPE DROP: Really important in parks with tiers. It's the only way to ride the headliners even once with little to no wait at EPCOT or DHS if you can't use baby swap. That was NEVER an issue in the past - I always got FPs for all of the headliners we wanted to ride but now you really do need to get there early.
MEMORY MAKER: There seemed to be way fewer Photopass Photographers than in previous visits. I only saw TWO at DHS, both near the Sorcerer's Hat, other than at the character m&gs. There were more in the other parks, but way fewer than in past visits. There used to be a few in random locations, but now they all seem to be at the park entrance or at meet and greets. This is disappointing because the price keeps on going up, but the number of photographers is way less. Disney advertises that you can capture your memories but they really seem to exaggerate the presence of photographers. I would ONLY recommend Memory Maker if you plan to do a lot of meet and greets.
EDIT: Wanted to make clear that we had a great time and did everything that we wanted to. Just know that between the glitchy MDE app and the kinks still being worked out in FPP, don't count on changing FPP on the fly. As long as you have a plan, you'll be fine. This would NOT stop us from returning to WDW. We had a better time this trip than we did in May 2013.
MAGIC BANDS: These worked well. We had no issues with them falling off and they were comfortable. Only problem was that the new system of scanning to redeem FPPs was slower than the old system. It created large backups at major rides like Space Mountain, the Safari and other as guests tried to scan their magic bands and RFID cards.
OFF SITE: We did NOT stay off site. However, I would not consider staying off site under the new system. We are not RD people - we get to the park on the later side because it is just too hard to wake everyone up to get there by 8:15 for a 9 AM opening. Lines for off-siters to book FPP were tremendous at every park. I suspect all the good stuff is gone fairly early because when I tried to change FPP on the fly, there were few options at all parks except MK.
FPP: I had mixed feelings. FPP saved my late arrival day. We got to MK at 3:45 pm on the Sunday of a holiday weekend on an EMH night. Needless to say, it was crowded. Thanks to FPP, we got a lot done (3 major attractions plus we mixed in other things - we did ETWB, IASW, Dumbo, PP, Jungle Cruise, BTMRR x2 for everyone but me with child swap, Philharmagic, Spectromagic, Wishes, dinner at LTT). However, I had a few disappointments with FPP.
- Changing FPP on the fly doesn't work well. The good stuff seems to disappear earlier. Under the old system, you were blocked from collecting more than one Fastpass until a new window opened. Now, with 3 FPPs being collected at once, it seems to mean that you can't wait until the afternoon to get an FPP. The issue is really pronounced at EP and DHS. I got to the Great Movie Ride, for example, and the wait was 5 minutes. So, I decided to just do standby and get an FPP for something else. Well, my only choices were Disney Jr. and a few other things. Same thing happened at Epcot. Mission Space was a walk on. When I went to change my FPP for something else later in the day, my choices were Captain EO and Figment.
- The app is incredibly glitchy. Half the time, the MDE app didn't load properly or crashed. It's also extremely slow. Just as bad as it is at home. And it's a huge process to move around FPPs. You can't change both experience and time simultaneously for a single attraction.
- FPP was virtually useless at DHS. I got my FPP for TSMM, but I never had a problem getting an FP for TSMM in prior trips. However, it was very hard to keep FPPs and see shows at DHS. I ended up only using the TSMM FPP because, as noted above, it was not really feasible to change the FPPs on the fly. My advice would be to book all 3 FPPs in the AM, not the PM and save the shows for the PM.
BABY SWAP: This really was double valuable with the new system. Most of the time, they let 4 people in, not 3. And for most rides (except Space Mountain), the baby swap pass was good to the end of the month. We didn't do this, but you can save them for a different day. We used baby swap to get FPP for both Soarin' and Test Track. We were a party of 6 (including my 38" 3 year old), so I booked 3 FPP for Soarin' and 3 for Test Track and then we used baby swap so that everyone could ride.
ROPE DROP: Really important in parks with tiers. It's the only way to ride the headliners even once with little to no wait at EPCOT or DHS if you can't use baby swap. That was NEVER an issue in the past - I always got FPs for all of the headliners we wanted to ride but now you really do need to get there early.
MEMORY MAKER: There seemed to be way fewer Photopass Photographers than in previous visits. I only saw TWO at DHS, both near the Sorcerer's Hat, other than at the character m&gs. There were more in the other parks, but way fewer than in past visits. There used to be a few in random locations, but now they all seem to be at the park entrance or at meet and greets. This is disappointing because the price keeps on going up, but the number of photographers is way less. Disney advertises that you can capture your memories but they really seem to exaggerate the presence of photographers. I would ONLY recommend Memory Maker if you plan to do a lot of meet and greets.
EDIT: Wanted to make clear that we had a great time and did everything that we wanted to. Just know that between the glitchy MDE app and the kinks still being worked out in FPP, don't count on changing FPP on the fly. As long as you have a plan, you'll be fine. This would NOT stop us from returning to WDW. We had a better time this trip than we did in May 2013.
