MK fast passes today [7/29] and line times

[snappy]

We were clueless at the Poly pool yesterday until 2 pm until our neighbor back
At home sent us a link to a local news report about it. No info whatsoever from Disney. Like it never even happened. Luckily yesterday at 4 pm after about an hour wait for a bus to take us to HS, we had no trouble getting in to use our fast passes, although all lines even fast passes lines seemed S L O W too. I believe the weather closing slinky dog greatly increased the standby lines at other rides, with the impact of the morning fiasco likely adding more fast passes to the equation as well. But don’t get me started on the extremely long security lines at HS while getting in the turnstiles was a breeze with no line at all at 4 pm. But security was definitely a huge bottleneck. New security tables etc, but not up to even afternoon entry lines. I assume the powers that be have a better plan for end of August.

On the other hand, going through security at the Poly right before getting in monorail has been wonderful, although we always go late morning or mid afternoon. Also good luck with short walk to the TTC to catch the monorail to EPCOT on Sunday. Had to go through security twice but EPCOT crowds were low so no real bottleneck there at least Sunday. Moving to the Dolphin tomorrow so we will be accessing Epcot through the IG. The Skyliner vehicles were moving fast in and out of the HS station at 4 pm. They were hanging in the wind at 7 when we exited when weather was in the area.

 

[Captainkidd76]

Not sure where the stories started that it didn’t affect magic bands. We have magic bands with tickets attached and couldn’t get in and were stuck in the guest services line and most people around me in line also had magic bands. The worst part was that there was no communication, someone from
guest services just went down the line to make sure we were in the right line, no apologizing, they were acting like it was normal to have a two hour wait to see guest services to get into the magic kingdom. We had a 9am keys to the kingdom tour, and the guides (who work in guest relations) said there was nothing they could do and they would catch us up when we could join the tour. We overheard someone say their magic band worked and so we got out of line and tried ours again at the gate and saw the green light finally, after about 45 minutes in line at guest services with no announcement or information. After all this at the beginning of the tour we had to hear the spiel about the Disney values of efficiency and courtesy! It was awful but i really feel terrible for the families with small children or those who saved for so long for this one special time at Disney. It was a disaster.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is beyond frustrating. Doesn't surprise me that nobody apologized though. That has become the norm at WDW over the past several years. I honestly think they are trained to seem sympathetic, but never apologize as that would be admitting wrong on their part and heaven forbid Disney ever do anything wrong.

 

[Captainkidd76]

We were clueless at the Poly pool yesterday until 2 pm until our neighbor back
At home sent us a link to a local news report about it. No info whatsoever from Disney. Like it never even happened. Luckily yesterday at 4 pm after about an hour wait for a bus to take us to HS, we had no trouble getting in to use our fast passes, although all lines even fast passes lines seemed S L O W too. I believe the weather closing slinky dog greatly increased the standby lines at other rides, with the impact of the morning fiasco likely adding more fast passes to the equation as well.

This is a huge problem at any of the parks (though breakdowns do occur obviously), but more so at the Studios. There simply aren't enough attractions to handle the crowds. They try to offset this with Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones, and it works to an extent, but it won't help when Galaxy's Edge opens. Doesn't help that Disney decided to refurb one whole side of the Tower of Terror in the dead of summer.

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

But if there's a chance it happened this way, isn't there also then a chance that it happens the other way? That access to the MB database is down, but people with cards would be able to get in?

That’s what I was thinking. It’s just a matter of time before the MB holders are in some kind of ticketing or FP (or both) distress.

 

[AngiTN]

But if there's a chance it happened this way, isn't there also then a chance that it happens the other way? That access to the MB database is down, but people with cards would be able to get in?

Yes but then you'll have 2 options, a MB and/or a RFID ticket. If both are down, then both are down. But if only 1 is down, you'll have the other. Seems worth the small cost to me.

 

[Searc]

I feel so bad for those families who had a single day at MK and wasted hours of it waiting to get in!

Me too and shame on Disney for refusing to issue refunds. I really hope people pushed back on that and were able to get refunds for their wasted day.

 

[AngiTN]

We were at Disney last summer, July I believe too, when the entire MDE system went down for a day. That time, it was working in the morning but down all afternoon.
That time, you could still get into the parks but couldn't make any changes to resorts, book resorts, access FP, book FP, change FP. No idea about dining, we don't use it anymore. You could purchase food. You could view your FP on the kiosks if you didn't remember them. They didn't tell anyone anything then either. I wanted to extend our stay a day but with the system down, both online and on property, they couldn't do it so we didn't.

We've been there for 1 other major outage, the day 6, 7 years ago when MDE was rolled out. December something or other (forget the year now). Same year New Fantasy Land opened. They'd announced that bookings for new stays would be down for a few days but that is all that was expected. Well we arrived to chaos at the resort. You couldn't check in, couldn't use the dining plan, couldn't access tickets. FP were still paper and it was before MB, they used KTTW cards. The only option offered was to wait on rooms and you had to pay for your own food and get a refund and apply dining credits when it was working. They gave everyone single day park tickets, non expiring, to use to go to the parks that day. They didn't even ask if you planned to go to the parks or not, you just got the tickets when checking in. We weren't so we saved all the tickets. We took a long time for a room so we got a 2nd set of tickets. 6 NE tickets did come in handy for a future trip. The part that I thought was the worse was having to pay for meals and get the credit later. It was no problem with my group, it was just 3 of us and the cash outlay was not too much. But imagine if you came with a big family, thinking all your meals are paid for already. You may not have budgeted a big outlay of money, even knowing you'd get it back it may be hard. There was no real notice of when it was working again or how long it would take or even apology about the huge inconvenience.

Anyway, the point is, they have a very long history of this and it doesn't surprise me one bit they do as little as possible during an outage. And never say sorry

 

[Dis Dragon]

Not sure where the stories started that it didn’t affect magic bands. We have magic bands with tickets attached and couldn’t get in and were stuck in the guest services line and most people around me in line also had magic bands. The worst part was that there was no communication, someone from
guest services just went down the line to make sure we were in the right line, no apologizing, they were acting like it was normal to have a two hour wait to see guest services to get into the magic kingdom. We had a 9am keys to the kingdom tour, and the guides (who work in guest relations) said there was nothing they could do and they would catch us up when we could join the tour. We overheard someone say their magic band worked and so we got out of line and tried ours again at the gate and saw the green light finally, after about 45 minutes in line at guest services with no announcement or information. After all this at the beginning of the tour we had to hear the spiel about the Disney values of efficiency and courtesy! It was awful but i really feel terrible for the families with small children or those who saved for so long for this one special time at Disney. It was a disaster.

So you actually tried to scan in, they didn't work, you stood in line for 45 minutes, tried again and it did? Were people getting in when you first tried and was denied access?

 

[DCPrincess]

So you actually tried to scan in, they didn't work, you stood in line for 45 minutes, tried again and it did? Were people getting in when you first tried and was denied access?

That’s correct. We tried to enter park per normal, it didn’t work. We were sent to guest relations, waited there a while, my husband tried the magic band again and it didn’t work. After about 45 minutes waiting in line at guest relations (and no where near the front of the line) we overheard someone say that someone’s magic band worked so we tried for a third time and it worked.

 

[Dis Dragon]

That's so frustrating, I hope that didn't define your day. I know it would take me a while to stop fuming about that.