MaxPass / Digital Fastpass - Discussion Thread

[disneychrista]

Has there been any word or speculation on how MaxPass will work with tickets that have already been bought when it goes live? Especially with regard to third party resale tickets? We're going next month but I haven't bought tickets yet because I don't know how the possible activation of Max Pass before our trip would affect our ability to add it to the tickets, if we choose.

My guess is that you will load the pass to the app and add it there. This will give visitors the flexibility to add it if they choose / change their mind.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

But there's been at least one report of a glitch in the official app as well.

Meh, I don't know that I'd call that a glitch. If you open up a ride to FP times and don't go back to the list sometimes it hasn't refreshed when you open it back up. That has more to do with how you have your phone set up, how often it refreshes and your signal. That poster never came back but others reported it working fine at the same time. I've used many wait apps including Lines and the official app is by far and away the most accurate IMO. Five days in the park and it never steered us wrong

I agree with wenrob that it wasn't a glitch as much as user error. The app wasn't wrong for us at all during our 5 days there either. You should of course use what works best for you, but in my experience, I find the official Disney app to be the most reliable with the best info.

 

[DLgal]

Based on your recent post, I'm gonna say... wifi?

Touche.

I actually thought about that right after I posted but I was too tired to edit.

 

[DLgal]

Thank you for this confirmation. I'm sure it will help calm a lot of anxiety around here. How was your experience with DAS and FP today?

We actually haven't had to even use DAS yet because of the immediate FP return times! We only use the DAS when lines exceed about 30 min and never ran into that. Our longest wait was Autopia at a whopping 10 min. We did Big Thunder three times (usually use DAS) using the immediate return times. We didn't go into DCA on Friday and we only use DAS for RR in there (and occasionally Soarin).

The system won't issue a DAS if the wait time is under 20 min. Not sure if that is new but the CM at guest relations mentioned that when he asked which ride we wanted to start with. We just passed on DAS and headed straight to BTMRR to get an immediate entry FP.

 

[cmwade77]

Has there been any word or speculation on how MaxPass will work with tickets that have already been bought when it goes live? Especially with regard to third party resale tickets? We're going next month but I haven't bought tickets yet because I don't know how the possible activation of Max Pass before our trip would affect our ability to add it to the tickets, if we choose.

According to everything I have seen you can't add it until day of and it all has to be done through the app, which you add the ticket to as well by scanning it from the app after logging into your account.

 

[HydroGuy]

Uh...no. All they did was make it bigger.

I can't think of one thing WDW does better than Disneyland. Not one.

Wow, I love DLR with all my heart and it is my home. But I just do not agree with this. Not wanting to start a big debate about it here. I just disagree.

I have gotten some new perspective the last few days on WDW on one of the threads on the WDW side. There are some folks that resent what they see as underinvestment by Disney in WDW in recent years. If WDW has not kept up, in their view, it is not because of any flaws in WDW but because the company neglected it.

 

[jetskigrl]

Ok - we have a little first hand information from yesterday that confirms what most people have already said. There is no picture when you scan your ticket/FP to return. Just a green circle on the machine if there is a valid FP on the ticket. We purposely mixed up our tickets and still had no issue. We were also able to give our kids our tickets and let them use the FPs on them. So while you can't pixie dust the FP to a stranger, it was definitely no problem to share with family members if you are willing to let them hold your ticket for awhile.

We have never used lanyards at DL before but for now I can definitely see an advantage to having one. Our tickets were definitely pulled out and handled a lot more than in the past.

We also experienced the immediate FP return times early in the day but what we also discovered was very long FP return lines later in the day.
Our kids had gotten stuck on BTMRR and had to be walked off. In addition to umbrellas to keep the sun off of them while they waited and water as they left the ride, they also had an anytime FP scanned onto their tickets (so no more paper, good for any ride, FPs). And the FP was only good for DL (not DCA).
But when they went to use those later in the day, they went to Matterhorn, Indy and Splash only to discover huge FP return lines. We don't know if that was because they had broken down at sometime during the day and that forced the long return lines later, or if it is related to the new FP distribution times.

Another thing we were wondering about was if the system can tell the anytime/anyride FP from one actually pulled for a ride. Ex. they had the anytime one on the ticket and also a valid FP for Indy and then return to the ride. Would the system know which FP to use so that it didn't apply the anytime FP when there was an Indy FP (but we weren't able to test that since we didn't have both at the same time).

 

[mom2rtk]

We also experienced the immediate FP return times early in the day but what we also discovered was very long FP return lines later in the day.
Our kids had gotten stuck on BTMRR and had to be walked off. In addition to umbrellas to keep the sun off of them while they waited and water as they left the ride, they also had an anytime FP scanned onto their tickets (so no more paper, good for any ride, FPs). And the FP was only good for DL (not DCA).
But when they went to use those later in the day, they went to Matterhorn, Indy and Splash only to discover huge FP return lines. We don't know if that was because they had broken down at sometime during the day and that forced the long return lines later, or if it is related to the new FP distribution times.

Could easily have been some breakdown issues. But I remain highly suspicious that they have been tinkering with the amount of FPs issued (pushing it to see the upper limit of what the system can put through in a day).

When you plan to sell a FP system, FP becomes currency. And I can see they trying to maximize that.

 

[auteur55]

Could easily have been some breakdown issues. But I remain highly suspicious that they have been tinkering with the amount of FPs issued (pushing it to see the upper limit of what the system can put through in a day).

When you plan to sell a FP system, FP becomes currency. And I can see they trying to maximize that.

I here now and digital fast pass has been disasterous today. We waited so long to scan our space mountain fast pass, huge line expanding all the way out to sidewalk. Then went to splash mountain and the fast pass line completely jammed people all over he walk ways. We gave up couldn't use our fast passes. Don't know if this is from ride break downs, bad planning what but very frustrated.
Matterhorn broke down right when we came back for fast pass as well and they threw us out. This has been extremely frustrating.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

The FP returns do look much longer, but I'm not positive they are actually taking longer.

On Friday morning we were shocked when we went to use our Space Mountain FP and the line extended all the way down the ramp in addition to the whole top of the ride... but we actually made it through that FP portion of the line in less than five minutes. I suspect that it's because before, they just had to take a stack of tickets at that second spot (they didn't stop and "inspect" them like they do at the first checkpoint), but now each person has to scan their ticket. Certainly our party of three took at least three times as long to each scan vs the past where we would have handed off a stack and been done with it.

 

[DLgal]

The FP returns do look much longer, but I'm not positive they are actually taking longer.

On Friday morning we were shocked when we went to use our Space Mountain FP and the line extended all the way down the ramp in addition to the whole top of the ride... but we actually made it through that FP portion of the line in less than five minutes. I suspect that it's because before, they just had to take a stack of tickets at that second spot (they didn't stop and "inspect" them like they do at the first checkpoint), but now each person has to scan their ticket. Certainly our party of three took at least three times as long to each scan vs the past where we would have handed off a stack and been done with it.

This. The fastpass return lines LOOK super long, but once you scan and head in, you end up walking the entire length of the queue and boarding quickly. I experienced this yesterday on Indy, Space, and Matterhorn. Matterhorn had a slight wait...maybe 5 min, as did Space. Indy was almost a walk on as soon as I got into the queue even though the FP line took about 5 minutes until I scanned in.

 

[pudinhd]

We were in the parks on Thursday and Friday. We did have an issue with 2 tickets that weren't scanned right when we entered Disneyland. Space Mountain & Star Tours gave us "fastpass cards" to be used for those 2 rides. Thunder did the same, but told us we had to go to City Hall to fix the tickets. Indiana Jones also did the "fastpass card" but told us we needed to go to the main entrance to get the ticket scanned again. Once we did that it was fine.

I had taken a screen shot of my AP through the app. I was able to get the scanner to recognize the barcode. I did not try it at any other rides because it just seemed easier to pull out the AP.

I asked a castmember at Space Mountain if there was an early / late entrance policy. She told me it is the same that it was before, which I think is 5 minutes early and 15 minutes late. We did enter a few rides in the 5 minute early time period without any issues.

Thunder Mountain was down around 10:45 pm on Friday night. We were still able to get FastPasses while it was not running.

The FastPass times were the same weird "right away" times. We would get the FP even if the ride lines were short and they made the wait times even shorter. The FP lines did seem longer than normal, but moved fairly quickly.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

It really sounds like they're testing the limits of FP.

Because of our family dynamics, I would rather have longer return times (and the resulting fewer FP/day) than significantly longer FP lines. For most FP rides, we will be abandoning at least one member of my family to wait for us or ride something alone while the rest of us use our FP. It sounds like a balance needs to be struck, and hopefully that will happen before our trip in a month.

I'm also wondering how this all affects the few rides with FP that we'd like to use the DAS for instead --for example, TSMM. Are DAS users being sent to the same FP line?

 

[mom2rtk]

Thunder Mountain was down around 10:45 pm on Friday night. We were still able to get FastPasses while it was not running.

That's really not good. I thought that not issuing FPs when an attraction was down made a lot of sense so things didn't get as backed up when it eventually came back online. I mean, it's great if you're trying to get a FP, but just not so great in terms of line backups.

 

[auteur55]

This really hasn't been a good experience for us, people with fast passes from hours ago are heading to the lines at the same time. Having to stand out on the sunny walkways has just drained us. Bad form Disney. They need to make sure these kinds of changes will help the guest experience not test them on those that spent months planning and saving.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

The FP returns do look much longer, but I'm not positive they are actually taking longer.

On Friday morning we were shocked when we went to use our Space Mountain FP and the line extended all the way down the ramp in addition to the whole top of the ride... but we actually made it through that FP portion of the line in less than five minutes. I suspect that it's because before, they just had to take a stack of tickets at that second spot (they didn't stop and "inspect" them like they do at the first checkpoint), but now each person has to scan their ticket. Certainly our party of three took at least three times as long to each scan vs the past where we would have handed off a stack and been done with it.

This. The fastpass return lines LOOK super long, but once you scan and head in, you end up walking the entire length of the queue and boarding quickly. I experienced this yesterday on Indy, Space, and Matterhorn. Matterhorn had a slight wait...maybe 5 min, as did Space. Indy was almost a walk on as soon as I got into the queue even though the FP line took about 5 minutes until I scanned in.

Yes to both of these. In our experience the lines to get your pass/ticket scanned were definitely longer, however moving through the line was significantly shorter. In my opinion, it ends up a wash - although I personally feel the return lines ended up shorter overall, start to finish.

That is to say that others won't experience different things as FO gets tinkered with and/or crowds go up. But I wouldn't let the long initial return line away you from using your FPs.

 

[Hofmanns4]

Good to know but I wonder how late. Pretty much need know from first-hand experience.

We were 15 min late for TSMM yesterday and smiled big and asked nicely and they let us in.

 

[DLRExpert]

We were 15 min late for TSMM yesterday and smiled big and asked nicely and they let us in.

Did the FP return machine light up Green? Or did a CM have to let you through?

 

[maleficent55]

It was just that. I'm on an iPhone and I close my windows regularly. Not sure what happened?!

 

[Jperiod]

We actually haven't had to even use DAS yet because of the immediate FP return times! We only use the DAS when lines exceed about 30 min and never ran into that. Our longest wait was Autopia at a whopping 10 min. We did Big Thunder three times (usually use DAS) using the immediate return times. We didn't go into DCA on Friday and we only use DAS for RR in there (and occasionally Soarin).

The system won't issue a DAS if the wait time is under 20 min. Not sure if that is new but the CM at guest relations mentioned that when he asked which ride we wanted to start with. We just passed on DAS and headed straight to BTMRR to get an immediate entry FP.

Hmm, that would be new and kind of a bummer. Occasionally we're across the park and ask for a return time for a ride on the other side without first looking at the current wait because the ride usually has a long line. CMs have still entered the request and told us we could go on in whatever short time it was (to our pleasant surprise), which is nice because sometimes we don't make it over for an hour and even though the line might get longer, the DAS return time is still in effect.

One interesting thing we experienced earlier this month with DAS is we got a return time for Space that had a 2 hour wait. During that time, the standby wait shortened significantly to something like 45-60 minutes. We asked a CM to reissue the return time for the new wait and they wouldn't -- stating it was a virtual queue like the standby line and we still have to wait our allotted time. Didn't really make sense to me because if we had gotten physically in line at 7 pm with a posted 2 hour wait time, then the wait was down to 1 hour by 7:30, wouldn't that mean I would be riding by 8:30 (or sooner) instead of the original 9:00 I thought? It wasn't a big deal, but a new one, nonetheless.