Magic Bands/Fast Pass Plus - Last week of March (loved them)

[ColoradoDisney]

Mini Review - Magic Band/Fast Pass Plus

Trip Details
7 Nights at the Yacht Club
Last week of March 2014
2 adults / plus kids (14/11)
Magic Your Way Tickets with Hopper

Magic Bands: A+
Fast Pass Plus: B

We absolutely loved our Magic Bands. I left my wallet in the hotel safe for the entire week. No trying handing out or collecting park tickets. No losing the room key. Charging purchases at stores and restaurants worked great. Waterproof at the pool (especially nice since Storm Along Bay required them for entry). Entering into the parks as fast if not faster than physical tickets. I give Disney a near perfect score on the Magic Bands as I can't think of anything bad.

As for Fast Pass Plus, our experience was generally good. First, I will say that it was better for us than the old system. I hated running all over the park trying to get fastpasses and then coming back later to ride. Fast Pass Plus reduced the amount of back tracking and walking. Second, it allowed us to sleep in and still see headliner attractions like Toy Story Mania. Most days, we had FP+ for attractions in the afternoon during the parks busiest hours. This allowed us to either sleep in or ride less popular attractions in morning. We used the Disney Experience App to change our FP+ times a few different times and it worked fine. We never waited more than 30 minutes for an attraction the entire week even though Soarin had 140 minute wait and Toy Story had 150 minute waits. We were able to go on all the attractions on our list at a reasonably leisure pace. We never did rope drop either.

How would we change FP+?

-Park Hopper Option (based on the last podcast, it sounds like that is in the works)
-3 FP+ can be limiting, especially at the Magic Kingdom. At AK, 3 is fine. They may need to adjust the amount based on the park.
-Not all FPs are worth the same. Having FP for American Idol is a joke.

Given that Magic Bands and FP+ are brand new, I thought Disney did an amazing job at implementing. For our family, we had a more relaxing trip as a result of Magic Bands and FP+. I can see how the commando tourist might be disappointed with the new FP+. With the old FP system, if you planned and were diligent, you could get more attractions in per day.

 

[TimothyG]

I was down there that week as well and had a very similar experience. I love the magicbands, have several, rotated them throughout the week, and never had a single problem with them. I also left the wallet in the room as well. I just wish they could tie the AP discounts to the magicbands instead of forcing you to use the discount card or physical AP in addition (this should be easy).

FP+ was also great when sleeping in and arriving late. This was only like 1 or 2 days, but much better than being forced to wake up early on vacation.

I'm really excited and optimistic about the future of it.

 

[msp2mco]

Our family had a good experience with FP+ the last week in March too. We wanted more FP's, and we felt that we did not do as many attractions as we usually do. The parks also seemed much more crowded than when we have been there the same week in March other years.

 

[ColoradoDisney]

We found Magic Kingdom to be particularly busy that week (March 24th). Thursday (3/30) was crazy busy at MK. We waited 45 minutes to get counter service lunch. The counter service restaurants we running out of different food items. One place was out of pretzels. One cart ran out of all sandwiches. It was holiday level crowds.

Strangely, we found AK and EPCOT to be pretty be much less crowded.

 

[BrittyRo]

We found Magic Kingdom to be particularly busy that week (March 24th). Thursday (3/30) was crazy busy at MK. We waited 45 minutes to get counter service lunch. The counter service restaurants we running out of different food items. One place was out of pretzels. One cart ran out of all sandwiches. It was holiday level crowds. Strangely, we found AK and EPCOT to be pretty be much less crowded.

OMG yes I was at MK on 3/30 and there seemed to be 40 minute waits for EVERYTHING!
Pirates for most of the day was reading 60 minutes! Only got to ride it once boo! I guess that's the choice I made for riding space mountain 2 extra times haha.
3/29 was my arrival day and I got the entire park done in that half a day when I barely got stuff done in the full day on 3/30. WAY TO MANY PEOPLE for my taste lol!!
I also LOVED the magicbands A+
As for FFP I liked it didn't love it. Need more FP at MK and no tiering at Epcot and Id be perfectly happy.

 

[puffkin]

Sounds promising for our June trip. We are not commando tourists and generally only used about 3 FP- a day, so I am looking forward to trying the new system. I just wish the park hopping thing would get "defined" by our June trip. Outside of MK, I think the limit of 3 will be fine for us though. We will have PAP's so I am looking forward to using the water parks more and not worrying about rushing around gathering fast passes. We can head into a park later that day and know we have them reserved. And since I was usually the runner, I am looking forward to a much more relaxing trip for me at least

Glad you had a good experience and gave an honest and thoughtful review. I think many people will fall into your bucket with the new system over the doomsday people on these boards. Thanks again for the review.

 

[momto3gr8boys]

Thank you for posting such a positive review! When FP+ was first announced, I thought it sounded great being as we are not RD people anymore and the cross crossing the park and waiting for our times was never very appealing.

But then there was all the negativity. It's nice to hear of a family who tours like we do having a great experience!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[ColoradoDisney]

One last comment that is semi related to FP+. The posted wait time estimates were off more than other trips. The posted times seem to be 50-100% longer than actual. We waited 20 minutes for Jungle Cruise when it was posted at 45 minutes. This happened repeatedly on our trip. We have been to WDW many times and I have never seen the post wait times so far off.

I'll save you the trouble of responding by saying, yes I know how lucky we were to have shorter than posted wait times.

I appreciate that the times were better than posted, but accurate wait times help visitors plan better. It is annoying to find out that we could have done an attraction before an ADR or a parade if we had known the posted wait time was double the actual.

Is the inflated wait times a result of FP+? Not sure.