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

[mom2rtk]

"mostly first time visitors" ?

What do you think... on a given day, what percentage of guests...

x% ... are on their first trip
y% ... are on their 2nd or 3rd trip
z% ... are on their 4th or greater trip

What would you guess for x, y, and z. They should sum to 100 obviously.
(we obviously don't know but we can make estimates)

Don't have a clue. Just repeating what I was told here on the DIS many times when I explained that people should have been smart enough to figure out legacy FP.

 

[North of Mouse]

No, my mind has not changed - do not like to choose months in advance what park or ride I want at any given time. Also, don't like not being able to ride the rides I want (with FP) instead of 'choosing' in a given 'tier'. We were far from FP hoarders, just a few a day, 'but' they were when and where we wanted them - total freedom for us.

Will I adjust? Yes, what choice is there? Will it make me come back as often as I used to? A big NO! We have AP's and will go 2-3 times in the AP year, then we have no plans for the next several years - are looking to explore other directions.

Will Disney care, or miss us? Certainly not, but that doesn't bother us at this point. We enjoyed many years of Disney when it was truly a relaxing vacation for us. We are not uber planners, that is fairly 'normal' life at home - we, personally, don't do that on vacations - just a 'loose' itinerary is good for us. To each their own.

 

[draybook]

Giving me 60 days rather than 45 or 30 or 10 causes no extra planning at all. I spend perhaps an hour at most picking out a few rides and that's it. Any other planning I do is because I want to.

And no one HAS to do anything. This is all a choice. I will forever be puzzled as to why people do something they so obviously dislike when there are so many other choices out there.



And that's it, right there. There's the explanation for why they do what they do in the way they do it.

It used to be that you could walk up, spend 30 seconds at a machine, and then walk away with FPs for your party and ride whatever. Now you have to stand in a line for 5-20 minutes, then wait for the CM to work the machine, and then IF the system is acting up you only have to scan one band to make your selections. On top of this, the rides that didn't need FP now have manufactured lines because of this "lovely new system". And the whole planning 60, 45, 15, 250, 600 or however many days you want it only screws over the people that make short notice/spontaneous trips. Mine Train you say? Nope, unless you're close to that 60 day mark then you'll be waiting in the stand by line.

As for why people choose to do something that they complain about, um, isn't that what you have to do if you want to book those FPs? If you're going to pay thousands for a vacation to WDW then don't you want to take advantage of whatever perks are there? There is no other choice other than stand by.

 

[draybook]

We noticed a particular "tic" amongst all of the CMs who had to deal with the confused and frustrated, and we called it "the Cast Member eye roll". And it really had nothing to do with English versus non-English speakers. The frustration level will surely dissipate over time. But for now, the CM reaction to all of this was obvious and palpable.

Well, we noticed it after seeing them deal with the South Americans and even witnessed a Buzz CM say "Jesus" after having a difficult time with some of them in line. And it was "Jesus" not HAY-SOOS.

 

[cakebaker]

For an example check out the Dining plan.

Talk about complicated to the point of mind numbing. If someone were to ask me what gripe I had about WDW, the dreaded dining plan-in particular the "free" dining plan"-would be it. I'm tired of standing behind some clueless guest who is trying to wring out every penny of worth, who gets the chocolate milk even tho the kid is screaming for water, because it's worth more. It lengthens the lines at dining and I absolutely hate it. The one bright side? I love seeing the look on a CM's face when they ask if we're on the dining plan and I answer with an emphatic NO. I swear, you can see the relief on their faces.

Explaining to a guest how to select a ride is child's play compared to having to explain the dining plan and your choices within it day after day after day.

But you know what? It makes Disney a boatload of money and so they do it, despite the fact that I hate it. That's my problem, not theirs.

 

[MrInfinity]

x% ... are on their first trip
y% ... are on their 2nd or 3rd trip
z% ... are on their 4th or greater trip
What would you guess for x, y, and z. They should sum to 100 obviously.

Don't have a clue. Just repeating what I was told here on the DIS many times when I explained that people should have been smart enough to figure out legacy FP.

Well, can you... make a guess? Obviously you don't accept what you're told on the Dis as fact, and you did use the % to make a point... so surely you have an opinion on what the percentages might be? I know you don't know per se, I'm just asking you to share what you think the %'s are. That's all. It'd be interesting to hear, since you used them to make a point, but didn't actually share what you thought they were.

 

[mom2rtk]

Talk about complicated to the point of mind numbing. If someone were to ask me what gripe I had about WDW, the dreaded dining plan-in particular the "free" dining plan"-would be it. I'm tired of standing behind some clueless fool who is trying to wring out every penny of worth, who gets the chocolate milk even tho the kid is screaming for water, because it's worth more. It lengthens the lines at dining and I absolutely hate it. The one bright side? I love seeing the look on a CM's face when they ask if we're on the dining plan and I answer with an emphatic NO. I swear, you can see the relief on their faces.

Explaining to a guest how to select a ride is child's play compared to having to explain the dining plan and your choices within it day after day after day.

But you know what? It makes Disney a boatload of money and so they do it, despite the fact that I hate it. That's my problem, not theirs.

But you can choose to avoid the dining plan and not have your park experience diminished.

You cannot choose to avoid FP+ and not have your park experience diminished. In my opinion, of course.

The reason people care so much about this is because it affects the core park experience.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

And there's the other half of the "if you don't like FP+, it's because you don't like change" critique. It's the "if you don't like FP+, it's because you aren't tech-savvy" critique...... designed to insult people into silence, for fear of being labeled a Luddite.

Good tech is intuitive and customer friendly. Just because something is more high-tech does not make it inherently better.

To me, when people bring out those arguments, I think that they have already lost the argument. They aren't arguing facts. They are not taking what others have said and refuting it. Instead, they are bringing out old, dried arguments that really hold no water. New Fantasyland? Great! Changes made to Haunted Mansion those years ago? Excellent! The idea of bringing Star Wars land? Bring it on (and I don't even like Star Wars)! FP+? Terrible. My family and I are straight up getting less for our money. We go on fewer rides. We are standing in line longer than we have in the past. We have to try and guess what rides people are going to want to have FP+ for 60 days out or hope that we will be able to get what we want the day before and hope it fits with our touring strategy that we had to plan out 60 days before (which, by the way, has not really worked out for us the past 3 times we have tried but maybe 4th time is a charm). We are spending less time in the parks are more time at the resort. For a system that was designed to keep people in the park longer, it is a colossal failure. I hear many people say that they love it because they didn't like doing rope drop or they were incapable of getting up early enough for rope drop and now, with FP+, that is no loner a problem. Good for them. That reinforces that FP+ actually has not helped keep people in the park linger. Rope droppers are taking more midday breaks or leaving the parks early for the night. Non-rope droppers are still not getting there for rope drop. The majority of people I have known who have taken a trip to WDW recently either don't like FP+ or are indifferent about it. Repeat visitors I know had mastered the FP system. And let me be clear by what I mean by mastered. First, it means that they had more than 3 a day. It also means that they didn't have a "runner" who split up from the group to go pull fast passes. Furthermore, it means that there was no crossing the park to just get a fast pass. These people, myself included, are not getting to go on as many rides. They are crossing the park to do fast passes or get a fourth fast pass more than they did in the past. They are standing in longer lines. It is a negative experience when compared to FP+ for us. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with the technology. It has nothing to do with hating change. It has everything to do with how planning takes much longer than in the past, not knowing which rides would be best for our family to choose FP+ reservations for, having less time to do things, waiting longer for most rides, and finding the entire process to be significantly more stressful. Why on earth should "stressful" be an adjective used to describe a vacation?

 

[mom2rtk]

x% ... are on their first trip
y% ... are on their 2nd or 3rd trip
z% ... are on their 4th or greater trip
What would you guess for x, y, and z. They should sum to 100 obviously.


Well, can you... make a guess? Obviously you don't accept what you're told on the Dis as fact, and you did use the % to make a point... so surely you have an opinion on what the percentages might be? I know you don't know per se, I'm just asking you to share what you think the %'s are. That's all. It'd be interesting to hear, since you used them to make a point, but didn't actually share what you thought they were.

How about "a lot"?

 

[cakebaker]

But you can choose to avoid the dining plan and not have your park experience diminished.

It absolutely affects our park experience. The quality of dining has seriously diminished since this little idea came to fruition. And standing in line at a food court or qs dining in the parks while people try and figure out how much they can pile on that's included- arguing that they should be able to get this that or the other- takes forever.

But since I don't own Disney, I can choose to put up with it or not. Griping about it won't make it go away.

 

[cakebaker]

Well, we noticed it ....

I'm not including the remainder of your comments because really, it's just offensive.

 

[richmo]

I'm going to give my thoughts on the original question of the thread without reading thru 26 pages of answers.

Next month will be my third visit since FP+ started. For the most part, I'd lean towards positive with a few negatives.

What I like:
- The ability to make plans in advance. In my case, I usually stay offsite, so I make my plans 30 days or less ahead. I don't have little kids that have to see Anna and Elsa. I've had no problems getting times I want for attractions and have had pretty good success making changes when necessary. The middle trip of the three with FP+ was set up only about two weeks ahead. The only attraction I didn't have success with that time was 7DMT. I know some feel constrained by picking out attractions far ahead, but that hasn't been my experience. In fact, it has helped with timing dining ADR's.
- Able to ride popular attractions when arriving at the park late in the day. An example here on the last trip was arrival day at DHS...arrived at the park about 3:00, on TSM at 3:30. Never would have happened with the old system. FP's would have been long gone.
- The Magic Bands have also worked well. Not quite as advantageous during offsite visits, but nice to open the room, get on Magical Express, make purchases, show up for FP+'s, etc. without digging into the wallet, which I try to button down on rides.

What I don't like:
- As a park hopper or AP holder, I don't like that FP+'s can not be split among parks. In fact, I think a benefit of a park hopper or AP should be that you could automatically get a fourth FP+ as long as they weren't all in the same park.
- Additional FP+'s have to be done at a kiosk. I would think by now this would have been resolved, but apparently it has not.
- Related: Once the original three FP+'s are used, a PH or AP should be able to schedule the next one at a different park before arrival.
- The MDE app has improved greatly in the past few months, both on desktop PC's and mobile devices. There is still considerable room for improvement. Especially on desktop devices, I'd like to see some kind of grid with openings that you could just check off and customize your schedule in one shot. I find myself initially taking times way off what I'd like, then individually changing them to fit my needs. It works, but could be a lot better.
- Tiering, especially at Epcot. The problem here isn't the FP system, but that Epcot needs some more E ticket attractions.

 

[draybook]

I'm not including the remainder of your comments because really, it's just offensive.

Lol, if you find that offensive then life must be really difficult for you. I'm sorry that pointing out the nationality of someone offends your delicate nature. I'm guessing that the Disney bubble isn't the only bubble you're in in life.

 

[DisneyKidds]

So you like FP plus because you've got 3 rides with shorter waits. But what about the rides that never had or needed FP and now have longer stand by lines?

Here we goooooo.......tell the person who likes it why they are WRONG!!! Hey, obviously they waited in those 'long lines for everything else' and it wasn't nearly as bad for them as it appears to have been for others!

 

[DisneyKidds]

So, basically you are saying that Disney consumers are all predictable sheep who are being conditioned to serve the needs of "the man.

Back to Pavlov and his.........

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

It absolutely affects our park experience. The quality of dining has seriously diminished since this little idea came to fruition. And standing in line at a food court or qs dining in the parks while people try and figure out how much they can pile on that's included- arguing that they should be able to get this that or the other- takes forever.

But since I don't own Disney, I can choose to put up with it or not. Griping about it won't make it go away.

That's not necessarily true... http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...229_1_childhood-obesity-fat-kids-innoventions

 

[DisneyKidds]

Costs can increase all by themselves for more reasons than anyone can list here.

Hey, silly....don't you know inflation doesn't exist in the Disney 'Bubble'!!!!

 

[Laketravis]

And there's the other half of the "if you don't like FP+, it's because you don't like change" critique. It's the "if you don't like FP+, it's because you aren't tech-savvy" critique...... designed to insult people into silence, for fear of being labeled a Luddite.....

Add to that the recently introduced "You like it for the wrong reasons and you're just trying to undermine Disney......" classification.


.

 

[JimmyV]

Why do you think CM frustration level will dissipate? From what I saw on our last trip, CM's were spending a lot of time explaining FP+ to the uninitiated guests. IMO this population will remain constant. The only way I see CM frustration diminishing is if Disney starts giving them Valium at start of their shifts.

Well, let's not forget that we aren't even a year into FP+ in its current iteration. I was there exactly a year ago for my first (disastrous) foray into FP+. We stayed at the Dolphin and were considered "off site" guests. And all "off site" guests had only "day of" FP privileges. No 7 days in advance. No 30 days in advance. Nope. It was: rush to get to the park and head to a kiosk. And then stand there while clueless people, (and I put myself in that category as well, so I am not throwing stones here), tried to use the kiosks with no prior experience. It was awful. The twitter and Instagram photos of the kiosk lines are now legendary. The FP return queues backed up way beyond the parks' ability to hold them. We "returned" to Everest by getting in a line that formed on the other side of the Nemo theater. Seriously. We "returned" to the Safari line by following a CM who held up a "FP Return" sign directing us like the Pied Piper to an area that no one would have otherwise found on their own, hundreds of yards from the actual return entrance. I could go on. But Disney got rid of this "testing phase" and implemented what we see now. But the point of this story is that the change was made less than a year ago. So we can't assume after (9?... 10?) months that things will never get better. They have to. We just don't know if the change will be meteoric or glacial. Frustration can never be reduced to zero. But it will lessen. To what extent can only be answered by knowing what percentage of guests are either first time visitors; first time using FP+ visitors; or visitors who are simply incapable of grasping the system no matter how many times they visit. (And yes, language and culture do present barriers here, whether the P.C. crowd wants to admit that or not).

 

[Angel Ariel]

And no one HAS to do anything. This is all a choice. I will forever be puzzled as to why people do something they so obviously dislike when there are so many other choices out there.

You're right, no one has to preplan FP+. In choosing not to preplan FP+ at all, one should then be willing to accept that they *may* have significant waits for *some* (not all) headliner attractions.

The preplanning aspect of all of this is what I don't like. I actually didn't mind it in the parks (though would have liked more than 3). I do the part I don't like - the preplanning - because I am adapting to the system and I know that it benefits my park day to use FP+ for certain attractions and I'm not one that is comfortable taking the risk that what I want will be there when I arrive now. I understand this about myself, so despite not liking the preplanning, I accept that it is part of the adaptation to this new system.

Just as those who don't like getting to RD never liked that some attractions ran out of legacy before they would arrive at the park, or that legacy FP were unavailable when they hopped parks in the afternoon - and yet they still dealt with the FP system as it was and used it to better their trip as best they could - , I doubt I will ever like planning rides before my arrival in FL - and yet I will deal with the FP+ system as it exists and learn it and use it as best I can to better my trip.