Misled by fastpass plussers

[JimmyV]

You get 3 FP+ to start and I think it is safe to say you really only needed 1 or 2 in a given park as that is the whole reason for tears

I love the Freudian slips that FP+ has engendered.

We think the new system is crap, but we make the most of it and still enjoy our vacation.

While I have not welcomed our new overlords with open arms, I am resigned to agree with the above.

 

[bpadair32]

If I may add my two cents. I have not used the new FP+ system yet, but I will in 29 days (not that I am counting). The thing is, it depends on your family and how you do Disney that is going to be a big factor in whether you like it or not. For us, I think that it is going to be great.

When I am going to Disney, I am going on vacation. I have no interest in setting an alarm, racing to get everyone ready, be out the door and at the park for rope drop, run around gathering fast passes, run around to all of the other rides to try and get on early, and be exhausted by 2pm. That is not a vacation for me. We get up and get going at our leisure, we get to the park when we get there. We have our FP+s set for a little later in the day. We have them set for the 3 rides that I know my kids will want to go on. I know that we will get on those rides. For the rest of the day, we will enjoy the magic and experience of being at Disney and have a nice relaxing vacation. Will we ride other rides, of course, but do I care if I get to ride splash 5 times, not at all.

 

[famsen]

Main problem is the fastpass system now relies heavily on smartphone usage. In the parks trying to find charging areas is like a scavenger hunt; if you can find a spot at all. Also while we've been down here there have been technical difficulties everyday with the system. Everyone had to experienced it; even at the kiosks. It's micromanaging. You are even locked into dining reservations up to 2 days in advanced. It's very difficult planning down to the minute for EVERY aspect of your precious vacation time. Just my opinion. If you love it; awesome.

 

[Robo]

In the parks trying to find charging areas is like a scavenger hunt; if you can find a spot at all.

Your other points: I concur.

But, this one is moot if you pay $10-20 for a pocket cel-phone charger unit.
So easy. So small. It'll keep your phone running all day and beyond.
Dozens and dozens of them out there. I bought mine at Walmart.

 

[mom2rtk]

Your other points: I concur.

But, this one is moot if you pay $10-20 for a pocket cel-phone charger unit.
So easy. So small. It'll keep your phone running all day and beyond.
Dozens and dozens of them out there. I bought mine at Walmart.

Or if you go Android and just swap out the battery.

 

[disneyjunkie]

don't want to get into fastpass arguments, i realize it works for some, just not for me... I acknowledge I have usually gone in Oct, or early Nov, a few in mid to late Jan... at MK I could always in a day, ride splash 3 or 4 times, BTMR 3 or 4 times, space a time or 2, wait no more than 5 to 7 mins for pirates or HM and often walk right back on.... At the studio's, Tsmm 2 to 3 times, TOT 3 to 4 times, RNR a time or 2, Star Tours never more then 5 to 10 mins... Epcot, Soarin 2 to 3 times, Test Track 1 or 2 times, Maelstorm walkon, Spaceship earth walkon... I never had a fast pass runner, or ran for a fastpass myself, never used a fastpass after it expired... I go to WDW to ride rides, don't want to hear how much more there is to do there... Don't really care for shows, parades bore me, don't want to meet Mickey or Minnie or Donald or Goofy... I'm there for rides... Don't tell me it wasn't fair with the old fastpasses, what could be more fair than you wake up in the morning, go to a park, and everyone has the same chance... But no you don't want to go to rope drop, that's your choice..... myself I don't want to stay up till 8:30 or 9:00 for fire works that's not fair, you should have them at 6:00 to be fair to me

I hate FP+

We go to Disney for the rides. We only travel when school is out. Most of our trip have been during spring break (a few of those were during Easter) With the old system we were able to ride headliners 4 or more times each day.

This year (Easter week) we missed Test track and soaring. We only rode splash once, space twice, EE twice, TT twice,RNR twice, Toy Story once, Star tours once.....

As far as rides go, this was our worse trip ever. To be honest, if this had been my first disney trip, I would never return.

I'm hoping that they will tweak things a bit. Allowing guest who purchase hopper passes to get 3 morning FPs and 3 evening FPs would be nice.

Guest should be able to use all of their FPs on one ride if they wish.

 

[bpadair32]

I hate FP+

We go to Disney for the rides. We only travel when school is out. Most of our trip have been during spring break (a few of those were during Easter) With the old system we were able to ride headliners 4 or more times each day.

This year (Easter week) we missed Test track and soaring. We only rode splash once, space twice, EE twice, TT twice,RNR twice, Toy Story once, Star tours once.....

As far as rides go, this was our worse trip ever. To be honest, if this had been my first disney trip, I would never return.

I'm hoping that they will tweak things a bit. Allowing guest who purchase hopper passes to get 3 morning FPs and 3 evening FPs would be nice.

Guest should be able to use all of their FPs on one ride if they wish.

I really don't think that you are the kind of guest with the kind of touring style that Disney designed the system for. I think that people that go to Disney for the rides are the minority. I think most of us go for the experience and the rides are just one part of that. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with how you go, I just don't think that's what the system is designed for.

 

[DisneyOma]

This is our first time using Fastpass Plus and I can't stand it. We never are sure where we will be at every moment of every day or may even want to change parks if one is too crowded. Fastpass Plus has been an epic fail in our experience and this is coming from someone who has been to Disney dozens of times throughout the years. We are here at WDW now and I just can't believe this system is even in place. Everyone I have talked to is confused by it or finds it to be a debacle.

Find new friends? Just kidding, of course. But I do want to ask how you did the old FP system if you didn't know where you wanted to be (so how could you get a FP that didn't tie you to a certain park for a few hours at least) and how changing parks made it easier to get a high demand FP? For example, if you switched over to HS because Mk was too crowded, there would be no way you'd secure a FP for TSMM if you arrived at HS in the early afternoon. We actually got SDFP+ for TSMM on our last trip.

Main problem is the fastpass system now relies heavily on smartphone usage. In the parks trying to find charging areas is like a scavenger hunt; if you can find a spot at all. Also while we've been down here there have been technical difficulties everyday with the system. Everyone had to experienced it; even at the kiosks. It's micromanaging. You are even locked into dining reservations up to 2 days in advanced. It's very difficult planning down to the minute for EVERY aspect of your precious vacation time. Just my opinion. If you love it; awesome.

We charged our phones each night, and never had to recharge during the day, even though we brought rechargers with us. My daughter takes a screenshot of the FP+ schedule and saves it as her screen. Since she aligned the FP+ on the computer at home to optimize wait times, we didn't have to do any app stuff. We did use the app to check wait times, but that was it.

 

[wisblue]

I really don't think that you are the kind of guest with the kind of touring style that Disney designed the system for. I think that people that go to Disney for the rides are the minority. I think most of us go for the experience and the rides are just one part of that. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with how you go, I just don't think that's what the system is designed for.

I wouldn't agree that people who go for the rides are in the minority. But, I do think that people who go with the desire to do one ride 4 or 5 times in a day are in the minority.

And, regardless of how many people would like to ride a popular attraction 4 or 5 times a day, only a small minority would actually be able to do it. That is a necessary result of the ride's capacity and the number of people in the park who would like to experience the ride at least once.

 

[Lucius Best]

I really don't think that you are the kind of guest with the kind of touring style that Disney designed the system for. I think that people that go to Disney for the rides are the minority. I think most of us go for the experience and the rides are just one part of that.

I wish that were true, I imagine that if the people who go to Disney for the rides were in the minority, then the lines would be a lot shorter.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I think there are people who are happy with doing any three things without a wait and don't care what they are or when they do it. For those people it's probably great and I don't think they are misleading people. I know when we had annual passes we would go to EPCOT and ride TT and then spend the rest of the day just kind of strolling in and out of the shops and displays. Of course now that we don't have annual passes anymore and aren't going as often riding something once or only 3 things isn't as appealing (of course neither is TT since they ruined it).

Where I do think people are being misled is when they say they don't see availability for things and people jump on and post things like "I get A&E or 7dmt day of all the time". While I'm sure that's theoretically possible it's not the experience that the vast majority of people experience. We just returned from a cruise and made short turn around decision to go to MK the day before the cruise. At that time there was nothing available for PP, either parade, wishes, A&E or 7dmt. I went ahead and booked FP+ for HM, Pooh and SW hoping to move things around. I checked pretty regularly the night before and day of and the only thing out of the blocked out rides that came up was PP one time with an 8:05 start time which didn't work with our need to get the 2yr olds out before Wishes.

The other part is with the "ease of use" and when you have a party of 2 or less that can be very true. Anymore that that and it can get very complicated with all of the suggestions to try and break things up and look for overlapping times. Add this to the fact that no matter what you select as your primary choices the three return options are completely unrelated and you have a perfect recipe for confusion and frustration. I often see people complain about the people who abused the old system by not going during the set return time yet there are threads devoted to multiple ways to cheat the new system so there are far more ways to abuse this and block others from having the same experiences.

I also think Disney helps with this misinformation because while there were billboards everywhere about reserving your experience they were all displaying headlines like 7dmt, TT, Safari, etc. Not one of the billboards advertised Figment, Teacups or Triceratop Spin which is what is available to you if you are trying to reserve when you are down there.

FP+ isn't one size fits all and I'm not sure it's even one size fits most.

 

[BrokeMack]

I love how in just a few short years WDW has from the happiest place on Earth to a natural human right. FP+ is not the cause of your problems. FP+ is Disney's answer to the fact that increased global prosperity has made their parks more crowded than ever and you guys act like you're ready to plead your case to the Hague.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I love how in just a few short years WDW has from the happiest place on Earth to a natural human right. FP+ is not the cause of your problems. FP+ is Disney's answer to the fact that increased global prosperity has made their parks more crowded than ever and you guys act like you're ready to plead your case to the Hague.

If that were true that would be one thing but it's not. Attendance is not significantly up from the early 90s where these kinds of issues weren't as prevalent. Oddly you could argue there are more things to do in MK now which seems kind of counterproductive except for one significant change.

 

[mom2rtk]

I love how in just a few short years WDW has from the happiest place on Earth to a natural human right. FP+ is not the cause of your problems. FP+ is Disney's answer to the fact that increased global prosperity has made their parks more crowded than ever and you guys act like you're ready to plead your case to the Hague.

FP+ was not the only option in response to attendance growth. They could have chosen to add attraction capacity to keep up with that growth.

 

[BrokeMack]

FP+ was not the only option in response to attendance growth. They could have chosen to add attraction capacity to keep up with that growth.

You mean like by expanding Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios?

 

[BrokeMack]

If that were true that would be one thing but it's not. Attendance is not significantly up from the early 90s where these kinds of issues weren't as prevalent. Oddly you could argue there are more things to do in MK now which seems kind of counterproductive except for one significant change.

While Disney doesn't publish such numbers, anecdotally many people (insiders and bloggers included) have remarked on the fact that the "off-season" is pretty much non-existent these days. I would argue that speaks very strongly towards increased attendance.

 

[mom2rtk]

You mean like by expanding Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios?

I doubt those additions will even keep up with attendance growth between now and when they finally open, let alone add what was needed already when MM+ was chosen.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

You mean like by expanding Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios?

For 2 billion they could have added more to EPCOT as well and done more for moving visitors around and locking them in than app and a rubber bracelet.

 

[JimmyV]

While Disney doesn't publish such numbers, anecdotally many people (insiders and bloggers included) have remarked on the fact that the "off-season" is pretty much non-existent these days. I would argue that speaks very strongly towards increased attendance.

Not if the increase in offseason attendance comes from a shift in peak season attendance. Disney doesn't publish attendance numbers but they are out there. Current numbers are higher than pre-9/11 numbers. But not by all that much. And yes, the expansion of AK and DHS will be useful. But they could have been done sooner if so much money hadn't been invested in a new way to open your resort room door. And it remains to be seen if DHS will be an expansion. The number of new attractions announced doesn't seem to be enough to eat the crowds that have been pushed onto the pavement from corresponding closures.

 

[Mommy2Corinne]

While Disney doesn't publish such numbers, anecdotally many people (insiders and bloggers included) have remarked on the fact that the "off-season" is pretty much non-existent these days. I would argue that speaks very strongly towards increased attendance.

Or, the overall numbers have stayed the same but they've just done a better job at marketing (free dining, special events, etc.) the off season.