More updated Fastpass+ information

[bauer1168]

The thing that would stop it is the turnstyle at the park entrance gate. Right now a person can't walk into a park with a handful of tickets and go to a fast pass machine to pull fast passes for their friends. Everyone has to go through the turnstyle. The system could be set up, or maybe it is now, that there is only one ticket per person, and that person could not enter a park on one ticket, then enter another park the same day on another ticket. It wouldn't be that difficult for Disney to program it that way. They already scan your fingerprint.

And for the plus passes, I speculate that they wouldn't activate until you walked through the gates. The technology is probably already in place, or soon will be.

Was thinking the RFID technology may stop it somehow? I'm not the most tech savvy .
If a person went to RD with the 1 day ticket, enters, then leaves. Returns later with their ticket that had the RFID FP+ slots on them, would the turnstile deny the access as could it see it was the same person, same name and location etc?

 

[Turn the Page]

They intend to have the system setup for you to have an "Experience Party" where you can assign FP+ reservations to everyone in the group. This means that one person can make all the arrangements for the entire group ahead of time.

So, what if that Experience Party is really just multiple tickets sold to the same person who enters the park multiple times that day with different RFID bands? I don't see how Disney prevents that (other than having the pricing so high that few would try it), if somebody wanted to spend their money that way. I am certain that Disney doesn't try to match the biometrics to other tickets (the overhead of that would be immense). They just want to verify your biometric matches the one for the ticket you're using.

Oh, ok. Now I understand what the PP was asking. I would think, for the vast majority of people, that method would be way too cost prohibitive. I doubt it would be a serious issue.

 

[DorianDonP]

FP, as it stands today, is eventually going away. Once they get the vast majority of guests onto the paperless tickets, which can't participate in the current FP system, FP will be effectively dead in the water anyway.

Yeah, I understand that. I was just thinking about the people in this thread that have said they hope there will be a period where the two systems will run concurrently. I'd imagine Disney would want to get everyone switched to FP+ as quickly as possible, and not have a period of both just to limit the confusion.

And then the name Fast Past Plus. I'm wondering if once they get FP+ running, and FP as we know it today is dead, will they drop the "Plus" part of the name and simply market it as fastpass. I try to explain theme park stuff to my family and they get frustrated so easily lol.

I introduced "Fast Pass Plus" to them and as soon as I said it aloud, I felt like I was selling something. Name has always just sounded funny to me. Think I would have preferred New fastpass or fastpass 2.0 or something. But that's prolly just me playing armchair ceo. I just hope the entire transition can go over without really confusing people. You wouldn't think it would, but my family and friends prove to me at least, that even little changes in the name can make their head hurt.

 

[mom2rtk]

They intend to have the system setup for you to have an "Experience Party" where you can assign FP+ reservations to everyone in the group. This means that one person can make all the arrangements for the entire group ahead of time.

So, what if that Experience Party is really just multiple tickets sold to the same person who enters the park multiple times that day with different RFID bands? I don't see how Disney prevents that (other than having the pricing so high that few would try it), if somebody wanted to spend their money that way. I am certain that Disney doesn't try to match the biometrics to other tickets (the overhead of that would be immense). They just want to verify your biometric matches the one for the ticket you're using.

And since Disney is in the market to sell more tickets, I can't imagine why they would actually try to prevent it. I would never pay the price of a second admission for a few fastpasses.

 

[dadddio]

Also keep in mind that FP+ can only be used for one park per day, so knowing you'd be in two different parks that day doesn't allow you to reserve slots at both parks 60 days in advance.

FP+ can only be prescheduled for one park per day. No word has been given as to whether same-day FPs will be able to be chosen for park #2.

 

[Tekneek]

If that was true, which I'm not sure it would be, then I say, "have at it". There can't be that many guests who would go to such extremes for a few extra rides.

What part? The "Experience Party" part? It's already in the Terms of Service for My Disney Experience. I'm not making it up.

 

[Tekneek]

FP+ can only be prescheduled for one park per day. No word has been given as to whether same-day FPs will be able to be chosen for park #2.

Correct. My point being that, based on what we know today, we may not be able to do it.

 

[Wood Nymph]

And since Disney is in the market to sell more tickets, I can't imagine why they would actually try to prevent it. I would never pay the price of a second admission for a few fastpasses.

True, they may not try to prevent it, but I don't think they are going to try to encourage it, either. Disney is also in the market to sell resort rooms, meals and merchandise. Their tickets are priced to get you into their resorts and parks, and keep you there as long as possible. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be tiered the way it is now.

 

[Brian Noble]

I realize that you are likely just trying to be snarky and don't really want to discuss the issue, but your statement is factually incorrect. By limiting people to one FP per attraction, they will actually increase the number of distinct riders on popular attractions.

I think what Robo was saying was you can't increase capacity---the number of rides a particular attraction can offer in a day.

And, interestingly, this also isn't quite true. For example, Thunder is capable of running five trains, but it often will run four---at a lower overall capacity. They could run with even fewer trains. Doing so saves costs---maintenance on the trains, and if they run few enough trains they can even close one of the loading platforms and save on staffing as well. Heck, even with four trains and both platforms open, they might be able to hit their dispatch interval with fewer load CMs than they need to keep five trains moving.

At Disney, that only happens though while the line is relatively short. So, on a moderate-attendance day, they might start with three trains, bring a fourth an hour or two later, and bring the fifth on only if they need to. But, during Easter week they probably start with all five ready to rock.

 

[dadddio]

While the app/site may allow booking of FP during that day, keep in mind that the paperless tickets are going to kill the current FastPass service. It's in the Terms of Service for My Disney Experience that converting to paperless tickets means you cannot participate in the standard FastPass service. Once everyone is on paperless tickets, those distribution stations will be removed.

That doesn't at all mean that FPs won't be offered same-day. It merely means that they will be virtualized through MM+.

 

[dadddio]

So a rational parent said "well lets simply keep a piece of cake for each kid that's coming to the party", duh why didn't we think of this before?

And you guessed it-the other collective feet began to stomp.

We tried that. Then one kid got mad because he didn't like ice cream and instead wanted two pieces of cake.

 

[Tekneek]

That doesn't at all mean that FPs won't be offered same-day. It merely means that they will be virtualized through MM+.

Right. What I stated was accurate. FP, as it stands today, will be gone and the distribution sites will be removed. Doing it through an app is a material change compared to the way FP works today.

 

[Brian Noble]

I will be shocked if FP+ reservations can't be made the same day---and I'm sure there will be kiosks in the parks for those without smartphones.

However, I also suspect that the limit will be the limit: one "person" (really, ticket) can only have X per day, whatever X is, no matter when they are made. I could be wrong about that, we'll see.

 

[bjakmom]

I do hope you are right. Which would certainly fit with the fact that they have been experimenting with the system all year to see how many "extra" they can milk out of that system.

Except for I have said all along, even back when they experimented with centrally located kiosks in Animal Kingdom. The easier you make the acquisition of a FP, the more it will be used. I'm one who doesn't mind putting in the effort for a payoff. Once people have them at the tips of their fingers with little effort, that alone will change the system, regarless of anything else.

I agree! I believe that once this system is in place and advertised, whatever allotment of FP+ for "E ticket" rides they allow will be gone like dinner ADRs at BOG - within minutes of on-line availability! - this is why I believe they will HAVE to tier the choices for guest satisfaction- and add in parades, meet and greets, riding the fire engine, eating lunch, using the new Rapunzel rest rooms. . .

Also - what about wasted FPs? I wonder how many get pulled and never used now?

I could see a new system being designed to recognize unused capacity and feed it back into the system in real time.

So you could get to the park at 2 pm and still have FPs for TSMM is there were a lot of no shows before you.

It seems like a more intelligent system, if I look at it that way. Which I will do, until my hopes are crushed by half-baked ideas rolled out in ham-handed fashion like many are fretting about!

Since the enforced FP return times, we have walked away with several unused FPs over our last few trips - just couldn't get there for whatever reason. But how would they know if your FPs for any given time frame were going to be unused until the end of the time frame? Then the next batch of FPs is coming right in. My guess is they'll build in an allowance for unused FPs - overbooking like hotels and airlines do - so it might take a while for them to work out those 'amounts' at first.

That would be smart. Unfortunately, Disney wep applications/services don't have a great reputation. I hope they're going to blow this out of the park. However, the problems people continue to have with the online ADRs gives me little confidence that Disney will deliver on the full potential.

^^THIS!!!^^ I have many years experience of Disney sites not working when you need them to - ADRs not being loaded in on time - or at all - I shudder!! (is there a shuddering smilie?)LOLclose enough

 

[fbb]

Disney has stated that they want to eliminate room discounts.

Maybe someone can put Disney in touch with the people that keep raising the rack rate, offering discounts, and heavily marketing those discounts on Disney hotel rooms.

 

[Wood Nymph]

What part? The "Experience Party" part? It's already in the Terms of Service for My Disney Experience. I'm not making it up.

No. I agree with you about the Experience party and the fact that one person can assign the FP+ slots to the members of their group. I read the literature.

I was referring to whether or not Disney would be able to prevent people from using multiple tickets in a single park day. Maybe they will figure a way to stop it. If the finger print scan can attach the "points" to an RFID ticket, then it would stop the use of multiple tickets, wouldn't it?

 

[Tekneek]

I will be shocked if FP+ reservations can't be made the same day---and I'm sure there will be kiosks in the parks for those without smartphones.

The TOS seems to indicate that they can be made same day. It also says that FP+ can only be made for one park per day. If they still allow FP outside out FP+, then that would be for other reservations. If the whole thing becomes FP+ going forward, and there is no FP, then it is going to be difficult.

 

[Tekneek]

y would be able to prevent people from using multiple tickets in a single park day. Maybe they will figure a way to stop it. If the finger print scan can attach the "points" to an RFID ticket, then it would stop the use of multiple tickets, wouldn't it?

The overhead required to do that level of cross-matching would require them to rebuild the system and would make entering parks a lot more time consuming. The scenario is an outlier, so I doubt any development would go into it without evidence that it is an actual problem.

 

[Brian Noble]

whatever allotment of FP+ for "E ticket" rides they allow will be gone like dinner ADRs at BOG - within minutes of on-line availability!

I don't think so. I posted this on another site, but it bears repeating here (edited a little bit to make it clear I mean operational not theoretical capacity at TSMM)

I thought about this a little bit more. I don't think it is very likely.

TSMM's operational hourly capacity is something in the neighborhood of 1,000---some estimates are higher, some lower. An average operating day is about 12 hours, so 12,000 total rides. Word on the street is that the default FP ratio is 60%, so if that doesn't change, you've got 7,200 rides reservable in advance. An average attendance day in the Studios is something like 26,500. So, to book the ride full, more 1/4 of all the guests who end up attending on a given day would have to reserve this.

Doubtful, IMO.

"But what about the restaurants? Those book up right at 180 days!" Good question, but a completely different scale. BOG, for example, seats about 350 guests. Dinner service runs roughly 4:00 to 9:00, so figure they can turn each table 4 times each night. So, that's about 1,400 guests total. That's probably a high estimate; I'd be surprised if they can turn a table in 75 minutes---the "turn time" is the time from one guest sitting down, ordering, eating, paying, clearing, and resetting the table to the next set of guests sitting down. Plus, the tables aren't going to be full---odd-numbered parties will leave empty seats and so on. So, let's call it 1,200 diners per night. An average MK day is just shy of 47,000 guests. So, now we are talking about only one in 40 guests who have to book early to fill the restaurant.

There's also a question about whether TSMM is going to be every guest's first choice. During testing, you could not use all of your reservations on "headliner" experiences. For example, you could reserve two of TSMM, Tower, and Coaster, but not all three. And, once it's fully deployed, it won't be just the rides. Figure that Fantasmic will be in that first set too. Most families making early reservations might still choose TSMM and Fantasmic, but not all of them.

In fact, I'm thinking I might make liberal use of the "experience" reservations. Fantasmic is a pain to see---you either need to wait a good 45-60 minutes, or you need to commit to a meal at a really odd time. I often skip it because it's a hassle. However, the three rides are easy to see with no waiting: just show up at rope drop and ride them in this order: TSMM, Coaster, Tower. If I can reserve one of those in the evening too, it gets even easier.

 

[Brian Noble]

If they still allow FP outside out FP+, then that would be for other reservations.

If I remember the terms of service correctly, though, a single ticket can be used for only one of FP or FP+, not both.