LOVE or HATE FP+ Anyone's mind been changed ??

[flicx]

In less than 30 hours, eight pages of mostly the same things posted by mostly the same people as all the other FP+ threads...

Probably 80% of this board is the same stuff repeated over and over. A lot of the same advice, tricks etc.

 

[WillAustin]

I have often reiterated how by having 3 rides guaranteed, it actually frees up a lot of our day to be more spontaneous.

Sure, as long as being spontaneous doesn't mean riding more rides without very long waits. Most of our spontaneity now occurs outside the parks.

 

[Laketravis]

They are experiences, they are expensive ones, and there are 50,000 other guests paying significant amounts of money to enjoy them too.

Which is exactly the problem. Good job summing it up!

 

[MrInfinity]

Yes, one can still get a lot done. We did on our DHS day. I'm not debating that. What I'm saying is that we got *more* done - of what we *wanted* to do under legacy than under FP+. The benefit *to us* of being able to cherry pick a TSMM time is not better than having the FP availability for all of the other rides in DHS that we had under legacy.

Well, thank you. That's pretty much my point. That altho some may dislike FP+, it is not the end of the world. Just be flexible, look at where you are actually saving time as a result, and you can get in about as much as before. You can save time in different areas, and enjoy spontaneity that is created by FP+ in new ways. If you don't like something, figure out a way to make it work. "Go! Fight! Win!". Some ppl talk about leaving the parks in surrender now. Come on. Nobody drops thousands on a vacation to leave daily in surrender to getting nothing done. Take the system, and make it work for you. List out what you actually got on before, and I bet you can find a way to get on a similar number of things, now. Then go have fun -- at Disney World. Making it so stressful is not necessary.

It sounds like you had more 4th FP+ availability than we did. At 3:15 when we went to get a 4th FP, there was no headliner availability at all - no TOT, no RNRC, no Star Tours.

At DHS, we didn't have anything good after our first 3 either. GMR.

 

[Josh Hendy]

Regarding the comparison raised by a previous poster that the situation is similar to the Statue of Liberty which must be booked a long time in advance ...

It's a fair comparison in some ways, but in other ways, not so much. The difference is that the SoL is unique in the whole world and its uniqueness is also one of its main attractions. No matter how large the demand becomes to visit the SoL, its capacity will never be increased and it won't be duplicated in such a way that people will consider the duplicate to be a "good enough" substitute.

Whereas at WDW many people want to know why all the money was spent inventing what is essentially a ride-rationing system instead of spending it on adding more rides, whether or not they are unique or duplicates.

The answer is that they believe that profit margins will be higher for every dollar spent on ride-rationing than they would be for dollars spent on new or expanded rides. This belief is based on many assumptions, all of which must be true in order for the new system to be successful in the long run:

1) The overall cost of building, operating and maintaining a computerized ride-rationing system is cheaper than the cost of adding new/duplicated rides

2) Enough new customers will be found to replace the numbers of old customers who eliminate or cut back on WDW trips because they are unhappy with the $/ride tradeoff.

3) The jaded old customers will be such a small minority that they will not discourage potential new customers through word of mouth.

4) Last and perhaps most important: customers visiting WDW will spend more $ in the time periods when they are not queuing for rides or walking between rides on very high-margin products such as souvenirs and snacks (especially drinks)

You can see how factors such as massive cost overruns on building the new system, and the requirements for frequent CM intervention might negate assumption (1). Furthermore, the CM interventions fixing FP+ problems might hurt employee morale as compared to working on rides or in retail.

Assumption (2) may be perfectly valid, for now anyways. Possibly the overall economic conditions in the USA and elsewhere have a greater effect on decisions to visit WDW for the first time than on anything else.

In the absence of major economic booms or busts, I think that assumption (3) can be very important. Very few people visit WDW without first discussing it with a friend or family member who has already visited. If the previous visitor had either a great time, or else was either unhappy or only so-so in their recommendation, I think this will make a huge impact on decisions to go to WDW. The exception is "tour groups" of young people who hardly care where they're going or what previous customers thought, as long as it's away from home, they're with their friends, and someone else is paying for it.

I imagine that assumption (4) is already pretty well known to Disney management, and that the trend was established within the first few hours of the first day that FP+ went live and global across all the parks. It might have been known long before, during trials when the combination of using FP+ and MagicBands allowed overall riding/shopping behavior to be tracked among the first test subjects. But unless we hear of pretty reliable leaks or get some kind of insider tipoff or hints from statements by management, we might not know about this for some time. Disney might be loath to either brag about high spending by park visitors because of the perception that they've put one over on the public, or to complain about low spending because of the damage to management egos/careers.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Well, thank you. That's pretty much my point. That altho some may dislike FP+, it is not the end of the world.

No one said it's the end of the world.

Just be flexible, look at where you are actually saving time as a result, and you can get in about as much as before.

FP+ didn't save us time. It may have saved you time, it did not save us time.

If you don't like something, figure out a way to make it work.

I do. However, that doesn't mean it's a better way or that the new flexible way is a significant benefit. It isn't for us.

List out what you actually got on before, and I bet you can find a way to get on a similar number of things, now.

If I can get to rope drop, yes, I'm sure I can. Without rope drop, it was not our experience to be able to do a similar number of things now as in the past.

Then go have fun -- at Disney World. Making it so stressful is not necessary.

I'm not making it stressful. Disney has added a level of planning that, for our touring style, adds more pre-planning than we enjoy. It isn't that it's "omg, pulling my hair out stressful" - but it's not *fun*. Planning for us used to be more fun.

Could we not plan FP+ ahead? Sure. But, after having seen the lack of availability we ran into in the parks this November, I'm not taking the risk on that when we're going over the same time period next November with 3x the number of people in our group.

I still don't understand why you have been insisting that for someone to pull a TSMM FP at 11, they'd have to have a return time of 12:30p to pull another one at 1. There are many who frequently come in to correct the hyperbole that some put forth regarding what you can accomplish with FP+ - I think it's fair to also call out the hyperbole when discussing what legacy was. If one pulled a TSMm FP+ at 11am that had a return time of 3:30, one did not have to wait til 3:30pm to pull another FP. They could pull another at 1pm. This is fact. What rides in DHS, other than TSMM, consistently ran out of FPs by 1pm? (By consistently I mean not factoring in the insane peak weeks like Christmas which are not representative of the vast majority of the year).

 

[jtowntoflorida]

...
So in summary, your experience was...
RD... pull TSMM FP- 9:00-9:15
Standby ride TSMM, 9:15-9:45
pull TSMM FP- 9:45-10:00
Fastpass ride TSMM 10:00-10:30
At 12:30, see what's left. Which won't be much. Use your FP to TSMM.
...

This was our actual legacy experience:
H&V breakfast
JTA signups
Pull TSM FP #1 (return time: 9:40-10:40)
Ride TSM SB (Ride #1)
Meet Buzz & Woody
**fart around for a bit here, because usually we were done before 9:30; usually we'd do pressed pennies & take a bathroom break**
9:40: Pull TSM FP#2
Then ride TSM with FP#1 (Ride #2)
Ride Star Tours, because lines were short (in this slot, one year we met Sofia because she wasn't at H&V at that time)
10:30: Check in for JTA
11:00-11:30: JTA
11:40: Pull TSM FP #3
Then we'd usually ride Star Tours again, then have lunch.
1:40: Pull TSM FP#4
Ride TSM with FP #2 (Ride #3)
Then we'd go do some other things, including pulling as many Star Tours FPs starting at 3:40 and/or riding that that over and over SB depending on the lines, which typically weren't over 20 minutes. By late afternoon, we'd head to the Animation Building for Characterpalooza, which put us back in the TSM area to use FPs.
Late afternoon/early evening we'd ride TSM again (Ride #4)
And then we'd go do other things, have some dinner, and then ride TSM with our last FP before leaving the park (Ride #5).

In contrast, since FP+, our experience has been three TSM rides, 1 with FP+, and two SB--one at RD and one right before we were leaving the park. The RD line is now slower than it was before, so we've generally sacrificed the Buzz & Woody M&G because the line was already too long for us by the time we exited the ride. The SB line at the end of the day is short(ish) (we've had luck--under 30 minutes each time the three times we've done this), but under legacy FP, the total wait to use all 4 of our FPs was still shorter than one wait in SB. So it takes more time AND we get fewer rides.

Star Tours FPs now sell out by early afternoon at moderately busy times, so we're doing all SB there, whereas before we at least had some FPs sprinkled in with the SB rides. I did make a mistake on our last trip that I won't repeat, and that was schedule Star Tours FPs for late morning, thinking that we'd be able to pull ones for later. Now that isn't the case anymore, so I'll adjust my strategy on future trips. Luckily, it's still easy to avoid significant waits on Star Tours for good chunks of the day, the SB waits for it are significantly inflated, and it's one SB queue I don't mind standing it because it's so interesting.

On our last legacy FP trip, we easily spent the entire day in DHS, from RD to close, riding TSM and Star Tours repeatedly. On our last trip in December, we spent significantly less time there simply because we did everything fun that had short waits, and then there was nothing left to do without long waits. So we left. Leaving DHS after only 4 or 5 hours would have been inconceivable in the past.

 

[MrInfinity]

On our last legacy FP trip, we easily spent the entire day in DHS, from RD to close, riding TSM and Star Tours repeatedly. On our last trip in December, we spent significantly less time there simply because we did everything fun that had short waits, and then there was nothing left to do without long waits. So we left. Leaving DHS after only 4 or 5 hours would have been inconceivable in the past.

I think this is the key difference here. On one trip you stay all day (RD to close) and ride 5 times. Next trip you ride 3 times and leave after 4 or 5 hours. By staying the full day instead, you could easily have fit in the 4th and 5th ride of TSMM.

RD to close at HS is 12 hours. That's almost triple the time of your later trip. Yet in 4 or 5 hours you were able to ride TSMM 3 times, plus ST and TOT? That is pretty amazing no? To say one can go to HS, and due to FP+, ride TSMM twice at Rope Drop (9am, 9:30am), get breakfast, 3rd time via FP+ (11:30am) and two other rides (12-2pm) and be out of there by 2?

And then easily ridden a 4th, 5th, or 6th time if you stayed till close?

A case for FP+ being less efficient... your argument does not make. All this points out is in a 1/2 day you can do about 1/2 of what you can in a full day.

 

[edk35]

All we used to do was subscribe to Tour Guide Mike for our trips and go to the parks each day that he suggested. Throw in a few dining ressies and WE HAD A TRIP.
I was able to start booking my FP's this past Sunday for our 9 day trip coming up in 8 weeks...... and all I can do is a day or two in one sitting. I still haven't finished booking them. PLUS I have already gone back in and changed some

DRIVES ME NUTS to do this, but if I don't then my only other choice is to do standby.


I MISS THE GOOD OLD DAYS. I really do, but I love DISNEY so until things get really we will keep going each year.

 

[Hokie2000]

I've been trying to stay away from these FP+ threads since our trip, mainly because I don't want to argue with the same people over and over. But, here goes...

I loved FP+ last January and I still love it after our most recent trip Jan. 10-18. I don't think the system is perfect but it works very well for me and my family.

This trip was actually busier than we're used to since it was bookended by the marathon and MLK weekends, yet it was our most relaxing one yet. I'm not going to claim that FP+ was the sole reason, as there were many contributing factors:

1. The kids are all one year older. Everything is easier, from bathroom breaks to getting dressed in the morning.

2. They all learned how to swim this past summer. I could relax at the pool (somewhat) rather than being a nervous wreck the whole time. And we finally got to a water park! Typhoon Lagoon has been on my list since it opened; it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

3. The weather was mostly good. Just enough rain and chill to make us really appreciate the sunshine.

4. We were able to stay at the Grand Floridian w/ DVC. It was amazing, the convenience of the monorail/boat transportation cannot be overstated.

5. Magicbands are still awesome.

6. And, finally, FP+. I did not feel compelled to get everyone up and moving like it was a school day, every day of our vacation. I mostly booked FP+ early/late afternoon and we got to the parks when we got there and hopped a good bit. It worked beautifully for the most part. I did need to change things around some, but I found that the app worked great for me with one exception. I wanted to change parks so I deleted my Epcot FPs the night before on the way back to our room. The app would not load to let me make AK reservations. I waited to get back to my room to book the FPs on my laptop. It was annoying that the app didn't work, but I did get FPs for Expedition Everest, Prim Whirl, and Dinosaur for the 5 of us with my choice of times.

The negatives: Standby lines did seem longer across the board. It was busier than we're used to, but I do think that overall the lines have increased for secondary attractions, as many have claimed. We rode almost everything we wanted with minimal-to-acceptable waits, so I'm not going to get all upset about it yet.

I do agree (I think it's Laketravis that has said this) that FP+ highlights the lack of attractions at DHS and Epcot. I also think this problem will be solved, it's just a matter of when.

So we had a great trip and I'm already planning our next in December, anxiously awaiting my FP+ reservation day

 

[norybell]

HATE. Hate, hate, hate. Hate the micro-level pre-planning (and I'm a planner). Hate the difficulty of making it work for a large, mixed-age, and mixed-interest group (having so many separate appointments led to us spending much less time together as a group than we typically did with legacy). Hate staring at my phone on vacation. Hate the erratic and clunky app, which rarely worked in the parks for us. Hate having controls placed on which rides we can FP and how many times we can FP them. Hate the obvious negative effect on SB lines. Hate the appointment mindset.

My ride-junkie days are over, so I don't care so much about not being able to ride headliners over and over (though in the past it would really have bugged me). But for the sake of discussion, on a non-rainy day in October 2010 at DHS with legacy, this is what I did between approximately 10:30 and 3:00 (in random order):
- TSMM
- RNR x2
- TOT x5
- VotLM
- ST
- Brown Derby lunch
How would this ever be possible with FP+?

 

[wisblue]

Update on posted/actual Epcot wait times as of 1:40 EST, per Disney Wait Times site:

Test Track 60/50
Soarin 35/37
Mission Space 15/2
Nemo 15/7
Spaceship Earth 10/10
Living with the Land 0/0

Looks like a slow day at Epcot to me.

 

[SmithSmith]

Just some random notes:

1. BTMR went down while waiting standby. We were given an anytime/anywhere Fastpass (there may have been exclusions) for the rest of the month (4 days later). So, in our case, we didn't lose a FP, we gained one.

2. I wasn't commenting on whether or not half of all guest dislike FP+. I agree with Fuzzy, I think people have a tendency to be far more vocal about something the dislike, than something they like. I believe this to be true because of my own behavior. If I'm unhappy with a product or service, I am definitely airing my grievances with that company. I do this to vent my frustrations and more importantly to seek compensation. In other words, I get something out of it. I am not likely to receive any compensation for giving positive feedback, so I'm far less likely to provide it. I think this is a major reason we are seeing businesses print out incentives on receipts to provide feedback. I know for sure you can find survey information on Walgreens and Home Depot receipts for a chance to win thousands of dollars, just for taking a simple survey.

3. I was approached twice to take part in a survey during our last trip. The first instance, I don't know how I looked to the surveyor. It was great weather, I had just rode ToT so I probably looked happy. However, in my second instance I can say for sure I looked and felt absolutely miserable. The rain had been getting to me all week, and this last day it had broken me. So I absolutely was not a smiling/beaming person when I was approached.

 

[Suvadoo]

Update on posted/actual Epcot wait times as of 1:40 EST, per Disney Wait Times site:

Test Track 60/50
Soarin 35/37
Mission Space 15/2
Nemo 15/7
Spaceship Earth 10/10
Living with the Land 0/0

Looks like a slow day at Epcot to me.

OK, and your point in posting this is??

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

I've been trying to stay away from these FP+ threads since our trip, mainly because I don't want to argue with the same people over and over. But, here goes...

I loved FP+ last January and I still love it after our most recent trip Jan. 10-18. I don't think the system is perfect but it works very well for me and my family.
This trip was actually busier than we're used to since it was bookended by the marathon and MLK weekends, yet it was our most relaxing one yet. I'm not going to claim that FP+ was the sole reason, as there were many contributing factors:
1. The kids are all one year older. Everything is easier, from bathroom breaks to getting dressed in the morning.

2. They all learned how to swim this past summer. I could relax at the pool (somewhat) rather than being a nervous wreck the whole time. And we finally got to a water park! Typhoon Lagoon has been on my list since it opened; it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

3. The weather was mostly good. Just enough rain and chill to make us really appreciate the sunshine.

4. We were able to stay at the Grand Floridian w/ DVC. It was amazing, the convenience of the monorail/boat transportation cannot be overstated.

5. Magicbands are still awesome.

6. And, finally, FP+. I did not feel compelled to get everyone up and moving like it was a school day, every day of our vacation. I mostly booked FP+ early/late afternoon and we got to the parks when we got there and hopped a good bit. It worked beautifully for the most part. I did need to change things around some, but I found that the app worked great for me with one exception. I wanted to change parks so I deleted my Epcot FPs the night before on the way back to our room. The app would not load to let me make AK reservations. I waited to get back to my room to book the FPs on my laptop. It was annoying that the app didn't work, but I did get FPs for Expedition Everest, Prim Whirl, and Dinosaur for the 5 of us with my choice of times.

The negatives: Standby lines did seem longer across the board. It was busier than we're used to, but I do think that overall the lines have increased for secondary attractions, as many have claimed. We rode almost everything we wanted with minimal-to-acceptable waits, so I'm not going to get all upset about it yet.

I do agree (I think it's Laketravis that has said this) that FP+ highlights the lack of attractions at DHS and Epcot. I also think this problem will be solved, it's just a matter of when.

So we had a great trip and I'm already planning our next in December, anxiously awaiting my FP+ reservation day

Bolding is mine, but I think these are important points. Everyone's response is going to be based on how well FP+ works for their family. I think what some of us find particularly frustrating is when people say that what we experienced didn't happen. Like in some way we are misrepresenting our experiences. Truth is, with legacy fast pass we were able to ride both Soarin and TT twice in one day with little wait. With FP+ we can't do that.

We can probably still do the same number of things in a day, but they won't be the same things. I think Len Testa said that when they re-worked the touring plans for the Unofficial Guide to include FP+, they came out about the same or a little ahead. BUT, the basic touring plans they offer are designed to help a family experience every attraction once. My kids were 8 and 10 on our last trip and right now, they are all about the rides. FP+ makes re-riding our favorite attractions more difficult. It's not ideal for us, but I think that we can still make it work. We also had to deal with a lot of rain on our last trip, including thunder in MK which closed down a lot of rides. I'm sure that was a contributing factor too.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

Just some random notes:

1. BTMR went down while waiting standby. We were given an anytime/anywhere Fastpass (there may have been exclusions) for the rest of the month (4 days later). So, in our case, we didn't lose a FP, we gained one.

And we got one when were evacuated from It's a Small World. Not the same as what happens to your FP+ when a ride is down.

 

[wisblue]

OK, and your point in posting this is??

Simply updating some information that another poster provided earlier in this thread. You didn't object to that.

 

[Angel Ariel]

A case for FP+ being less efficient... your argument does not make. All this points out is in a 1/2 day you can do about 1/2 of what you can in a full day.

We have never done a full day at DHS. As I said, previously we'd ride TSMM 2x, TOT at least twice, RNRC once, ST a few times (anywhere b/w 3-5 times with legacy FP).
On the FP+ trip, We only got multiple rides on RNRC, and that's because we did single rider the second time. No multiple rides on any of the other attractions.

TSMM I will fully admit was because we didn't arrive at RD this time. All of the rest, though,we never had issues with them running out under legacy. We did have that problem with FP+.

Could we have done ridden multiple times had we arrived at Rope Drop? Yes, probably. But that is a function/result of RD, not a FP+ related improvement/benefit.

 

[JanaDee]

Here's something to consider - EasyWDW has today at a "2".

Yet, right now, in Epcot:

Test Track: 70 minutes
Soarin: 90 minutes
Mission Space: 30 minutes
Spaceship Earth: 25 minutes

In MK:

Peter Pan: 100 minutes
Seven Dwarfs: 70 minutes
Jungle Cruise: 55 minutes
Space Mountain: 55 minutes

Is "2" the new "8" ???

No way today is a 2, with those wait times.

 

[Laketravis]

Josh, your comments make so much sense that there has to be something wrong with them, right?

Me thinks not.

If more people would consider the bigger picture, the longer term ramifications of all of this, then it might start to make sense why many of us are concerned about the future impact on our visits and whether or not there will even be an effective strategy after all opportunities have been homogenized to the "average" guest level. Maybe this subject is simply too deep for boards who like safe topics like what color Magic Band to pick, thus the endless debates over what someone's experience was or opinion is without consideration to long term impact. Or maybe not.

Regarding the comparison raised by a previous poster that the situation is similar to the Statue of Liberty which must be booked a long time in advance ...

It's a fair comparison in some ways, but in other ways, not so much. The difference is that the SoL is unique in the whole world and its uniqueness is also one of its main attractions. No matter how large the demand becomes to visit the SoL, its capacity will never be increased and it won't be duplicated in such a way that people will consider the duplicate to be a "good enough" substitute.

Whereas at WDW many people want to know why all the money was spent inventing what is essentially a ride-rationing system instead of spending it on adding more rides, whether or not they are unique or duplicates.

The answer is that they believe that profit margins will be higher for every dollar spent on ride-rationing than they would be for dollars spent on new or expanded rides. This belief is based on many assumptions, all of which must be true in order for the new system to be successful in the long run:

1) The overall cost of building, operating and maintaining a computerized ride-rationing system is cheaper than the cost of adding new/duplicated rides

2) Enough new customers will be found to replace the numbers of old customers who eliminate or cut back on WDW trips because they are unhappy with the $/ride tradeoff.

3) The jaded old customers will be such a small minority that they will not discourage potential new customers through word of mouth.

4) Last and perhaps most important: customers visiting WDW will spend more $ in the time periods when they are not queuing for rides or walking between rides on very high-margin products such as souvenirs and snacks (especially drinks)

You can see how factors such as massive cost overruns on building the new system, and the requirements for frequent CM intervention might negate assumption (1). Furthermore, the CM interventions fixing FP+ problems might hurt employee morale as compared to working on rides or in retail.

Assumption (2) may be perfectly valid, for now anyways. Possibly the overall economic conditions in the USA and elsewhere have a greater effect on decisions to visit WDW for the first time than on anything else.

In the absence of major economic booms or busts, I think that assumption (3) can be very important. Very few people visit WDW without first discussing it with a friend or family member who has already visited. If the previous visitor had either a great time, or else was either unhappy or only so-so in their recommendation, I think this will make a huge impact on decisions to go to WDW. The exception is "tour groups" of young people who hardly care where they're going or what previous customers thought, as long as it's away from home, they're with their friends, and someone else is paying for it.

I imagine that assumption (4) is already pretty well known to Disney management, and that the trend was established within the first few hours of the first day that FP+ went live and global across all the parks. It might have been known long before, during trials when the combination of using FP+ and MagicBands allowed overall riding/shopping behavior to be tracked among the first test subjects. But unless we hear of pretty reliable leaks or get some kind of insider tipoff or hints from statements by management, we might not know about this for some time. Disney might be loath to either brag about high spending by park visitors because of the perception that they've put one over on the public, or to complain about low spending because of the damage to management egos/careers.