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

[Angel Ariel]

Oddly we did much more criss-crossing the parks on the last trip than ever, due to the need to use the Kiosks to see whats available and book anything beyond the first 3.

We did as well. I'll fully own that a good chunk of that was my own fault. I picked FP+ in neighboring areas, but I didn't really think about touring. So, for example, on our first day this is what I booked:

BOG FP+ 12:35-1:05
ETWB: 1:40-2:40
Space Mtn: 2:50-3:50
BTMRR: 3:55-4:55

BOG/ETWB/Space worked well. After BOG, we did Little Mermaid, then went to ETWB. After ETWB, it was about 2:30 or so and we started walking towards tomorrowland. We stopped by Storybook Circus and saw Minnie and Daisy, and then did Autopia b/c it had a 5 min wait (the FOF parade was on by this time, which I think is why the wait was so low). We went and did Space Mtn after that, then Buzz. We saw the stage show around 4pm, stopped to watch it as we were crossing the park from Tomorrowland to BTMRR. BTMRR was really the only thing we went to that side of the park for that day. I think we rode Pirates after BTMRR (due to lack of FP+ 4th options) before heading to the Frozen Holiday wish (so more criss crossing there also). We left the park after the holiday wish to make the David Cook concert at Epcot at 8pm (plus it was MVMCP, and we didn't have tickets).

Is it a huge ton of backtracking? No. But it's more than we would have done under our old style of touring.

ETA:

For us, the advantage to FP+ was on arrival day. Because we had stuff booked that afternoon/evening. That was nice, not that we wouldn't have been able to pull FPs under FP-, but with such a short period in the park and on our first day, it was good to know we could have it all set up ... beyond that, FP+ lost all its advantages for us.

That pretty much sums it up for us too.

 

[Josh Hendy]

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.

I would like to know, do Len and his touring-plan testers book a WDW resort room and log in at 60 days, or do they buy tickets-only in advance and book at 30 days, or do they have AP's and book the day of, or whenever you're allowed to when you have an AP? Do they use kiosks or their phones? Does every testa, err, tester, book their own personal FP+s or does someone book the passes for them, give them a touring plan and then send them out to walk the parks? Do they test at low times or high crowd-level times? And depending on all these factors, how drastically does the availability of FP+s and therefore the touring plan change? What do the testers report with respect to standby queues, queues for FP+ kiosks, and the availability and reliability of the FP+ interface by computer or smart phone? Do they use throw-away rooms or other tricks to maximize their touring plans?

 

[WillAustin]

For us, the advantage to FP+ was on arrival day. Because we had stuff booked that afternoon/evening. That was nice, not that we wouldn't have been able to pull FPs under FP-, but with such a short period in the park and on our first day, it was good to know we could have it all set up ... beyond that, FP+ lost all its advantages for us.

For us, any FP+ value comes on arrival/departure days and on our "resort" rest days. On a day we'd plan to spend at the pool, we set up 3 in a row and then do a quick hit and run for 3 rides in a little over an hour, then leave the park.

 

[mom2rtk]

For us, any FP+ value comes on arrival/departure days and on our "resort" rest days. On a day we'd plan to spend at the pool, we set up 3 in a row and then do a quick hit and run for 3 rides in a little over an hour, then leave the park.

I can see the value on arrival day as well. And that carries more weight on a short trip. But we usually stay a full week and do 9 or 10 park days, so not quite as valuable, but still nice.

Departure day for us is usually rope drop at the MK on Sunday morning for just a few hours, so we never needed FPs that day anyway.

 

[wisblue]

Here is an article titled "Disney World in the Era of FP+" from Dave Shute, who co wrote the book "Easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit" with Josh from easywdw.

http://**************.net/2015/01/27/disney-world-in-the-era-of-fastpass/#comment-500323

I found it interesting because he addresses a number of the issues about what people like and dislike about FP+ that are raised all of the time in threads like this.

 

[Suvadoo]

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

I'm sorry, I wasn't objecting, but your post seemed to come out of left field since you didin't provide the context of the previous post.

 

[Laketravis]

I can see the value on arrival day as well.

Same here. Now if I could just get Jet Blue to offer an earlier flight from Austin to MCO that doesn't land after 8pm.........

The one scenario we haven't tried yet is coming up in March; staying off-site with AP's and a rental car. We'll be able to determine two things with that trip (1) what kind of FP's we will be able to get for each day without a resort stay and (2) if we will be compelled to spend as much time in the park(s) as we do when we stay on-site.

I don't currently see how it could be so but we could find that we are happy with just a couple of hours a day at WDW while enjoying other things in Orlando.

 

[Laketravis]

Here is an article titled "Disney World in the Era of FP+" from Dave Shute, who co wrote the book "Easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit" with Josh from easywdw.

http://**************.net/2015/01/27/disney-world-in-the-era-of-fastpass/#comment-500323

I found it interesting because he addresses a number of the issues about what people like and dislike about FP+ that are raised all of the time in threads like this.

Good article. One part caught my attention:

"FastPass+ has two purposes: improving guest experiences (although, as noted, that doesn’t work for all old ways of touring the parks) and improving Disney’s economic performance.

The economic part has multiple pieces, but the most important point is keeping people in the Disney parks."

We initially found that to be a very compelling manipulation, so much so that we started extending our stays to two weeks. But as I just posted above, we are now making a transition to spending less time at WDW. So upon our realization of the primary intent of it all, we adjusted, and not to Disney's benefit. A big fail on that part of the objective.


.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I, too, find that FP+ is valuable on late arrival days, or on days where you want to hit it and quit it (LOL). But the legacy FP, pull as you go, just worked better for us. Really, what it comes down to is lack of availability. Give us more rides (or lower crowds), the ability to book 4th+ FPs via phone, and FP+ would be brilliant. But it's just no substitute for additional attractions when crowds are what they are now.

 

[WillAustin]

But we usually stay a full week and do 9 or 10 park days, so not quite as valuable, but still nice.

Our next trip will be our longest yet. Coincidentally my daughter's dance nationals are at Downtown Disney before our resort time starts.

Same here. Now if I could just get Jet Blue to offer an earlier flight from Austin to MCO that doesn't land after 8pm.........

Me too. I hate that.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Here is an article titled "Disney World in the Era of FP+" from Dave Shute, who co wrote the book "Easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit" with Josh from easywdw.

http://**************.net/2015/01/27/disney-world-in-the-era-of-fastpass/#comment-500323

Well written, unbiased article. The tone of the article was quite refreshing.

Another piece of the both the customer experience and economic rationales is that people waiting in lines aren’t having fun and aren’t spending money. Consider Fantasmic, where even with FastPass+, because the best seats are still first-come first-served, around ten thousand people wait 90-30 minutes. They don’t want to be in this line, and they aren’t spending money elsewhere.

The answer is an all-reservation system, where every bit of capacity can be reserved in advance. There’s a lot of arguments against this, the most important being that theme parks are designed to have tens of thousands of people in queues (and hence don’t have enough circulation space for the same numbers out of queue—this is why the Disney parks can “feel crowded” on low-wait days—because hardly anyone is line).

It would be very hard to retrofit the current parks to an all-reservation system. But I wouldn’t be too surprised to discover that some of the new areas being developed at the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios launch as FastPass+ only…what do you think?

The ending of the article does concern me, though (I understand it's just analysis/questions he's raising, not facts or news). I would not be happy at all if they start making certain things FP+ only. I was not happy about any of those testings, and sincerely hope that they do not advance that thought process.

 

[Laketravis]

Me too. I hate that.

We tried Southwest earlier this month - they have a non-stop that got us into MCO around 11am. I just checked and that one has even changed now to land around 2pm.

But it's Southwest and we just like Jet Blue better.

 

[Suvadoo]

I, too, find that FP+ is valuable on late arrival days, or on days where you want to hit it and quit it (LOL). But the legacy FP, pull as you go, just worked better for us. Really, what it comes down to is lack of availability. Give us more rides (or lower crowds), the ability to book 4th+ FPs via phone, and FP+ would be brilliant. But it's just no substitute for additional attractions when crowds are what they are now.

I know everyone is reporting higher crowds, based on what they've seen and experienced. But I wonder have the crowds really increased substantially or is this the redistrubution of the crowds? More people are in the park common areas waiting for FP+ reservations? I don't know if it's true or not. But is this a possibility?

 

[wisblue]

He could have just said "longer wait times" because that is almost universally true. Whether its the difference of one family getting in front of you due to FP+ vs SB on a ride that previously didn't have it (thus increasing your wait time very minimally) or 100 ... (increasing it much more dramatically) ... wait times are "longer" in general.

As for the Headliners, again I would like to see more updated data on this (and for the middle attractions as well), But if you were unwilling to wait more than 30 mins for something, this really doesn't impact you. Decreasing the wait for SM from 75 to 60 mins means nothing to me since I am not going to ride it at either of those wait times

I would like to see an updated study on the wait times too. It would also be interesting if we could have data on how park attendance has changed at traditional slow periods, but I'm sure we'll never see that.

Our reaction to some of these longer wait times at attractions like POC, HM, SE may be different because we have often visited at the busiest times of the year and our touring style has been developed to avoid being in the parks when crowds are largest. And, if we are in the parks in the middle of the day, we dont expect to do rides like these. They have always had significant lines in the middle of the day on those busy days, so it doesn't matter to us if that wait time is 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, or longer. If we wanted to do those rides we made a point of getting to them earlier in the day before the lines built up. Now we also have the option of getting a FP for some of them.

 

[wisblue]

Well written, unbiased article. The tone of the article was quite refreshing.



The ending of the article does concern me, though (I understand it's just analysis/questions he's raising, not facts or news). I would not be happy at all if they start making certain things FP+ only. I was not happy about any of those testings, and sincerely hope that they do not advance that thought process.

I hope the reservation only approach doesn't take hold either. Maybe as WDW unveils new areas they should do what Universal has done with the new HP attractions and not offer FP for them at all.

 

[Laketravis]

I know everyone is reporting higher crowds, based on what they've seen and experienced. But I wonder have the crowds really increased substantially or is this the redistrubution of the crowds? More people are in the park common areas waiting for FP+ reservations? I don't know if it's true or not. But is this a possibility?

Based on Disney's 2014 Annual Stockholder report, domestic park attendance was only up by 3%. But that would be thru fiscal year end of 9/31/14, not the calendar year end.

 

[Laketravis]

I hope the reservation only approach doesn't take hold either.

Sure hope not.

Maybe as WDW unveils new areas they should do what Universal has done with the new HP attractions and not offer FP for them at all.

What do you suppose the reason for no EP at the HP attractions was? I suspect the design has an additional queue built in - which they currently use for the "Tour Only" queue. But I did find it interesting that the most popular attractions in both parks are Standby Only. They didn't add them to the Express Pass pool in order to increase the value of EP's, whether "free" by staying on-site or purchased (for over $100 on some days).

 

[edk35]

Up to and including this post.

I can't even catch up on the thread I started. WOW this has gotten longgggggggggggggggggggg

 

[SmithSmith]

He could have just said "longer wait times" because that is almost universally true. Whether its the difference of one family getting in front of you due to FP+ vs SB on a ride that previously didn't have it (thus increasing your wait time very minimally) or 100 ... (increasing it much more dramatically) ... wait times are "longer" in general.

As for the Headliners, again I would like to see more updated data on this (and for the middle attractions as well), But if you were unwilling to wait more than 30 mins for something, this really doesn't impact you. Decreasing the wait for SM from 75 to 60 mins means nothing to me since I am not going to ride it at either of those wait times

Yes, I understand that wait times are longer. However, in last weeks podcast and in many threads there have been exagerations that there's never a good time to ride certain attractions because they always have long standby lines. I just want to make it clear that the first hour or two and the last hour or two still have the same wait times under FP+ as they did under legacy. I just don't want anyone getting the wrong impression.

In my earlier example, I mentioned ToT only had a 10 minute wait on that day in Sept in 2014. However, on that day in 2013 it had a 20 minute wait. In my case, 20 minutes is the limit for my DH and I to wait. So the wait time under FP+ would be far more preferable to us.

 

[WillAustin]

We tried Southwest earlier this month - they have a non-stop that got us into MCO around 11am. I just checked and that one has even changed now to land around 2pm.

But it's Southwest and we just like Jet Blue better.

My kids thought JetBlue was better than American Airlines First Class. I think it's the TVs.

Maybe as WDW unveils new areas they should do what Universal has done with the new HP attractions and not offer FP for them at all.

I have a bad feeling they are going the opposite direction. I remember some quotes about moving toward a more cruise-like experience with more pre-scheduled items. Let's hope not.