My FP+ Observations

[Mainebound]

I was in the World Feb 12 - 18. Some things I noticed about FP+; the FP+ lines were longer than I had ever seen FP lines in the past. The lines for the FP+ Kiosks were ridiculously long. If you didn't make your selections before you got to the park and didn't have a devise to make or change your selections you had to wait in a long line to do that. Then you got to wait in another long FP+ line to experience the attraction. Fortunately I had all my FP+ selections before I got to the parks.

I could have easily used 5 or more FP+'s each day if they were available. FP+ dilutes the magic and it's really no fun at all. I hope all the people with rose colored glasses enjoy their FP+, for us realists it's a bad system.

I've been visiting WDW at least once per year since 1992 and a few times before that. I was not able to do nearly as much as I did in the past because of FP+. This latest experience will have me thinking long and hard about returning any time in the near future.

We were at WDW Feb 15-21, and had a very similar experience to the OP.

The FP+ kiosk lines were truly unbelievable. In one case, at AK, it was due to people stopping at the first FP+ station, not realizing there were more in the park. A CM was trying to tell people to move to other areas. But at Epcot, MK, and Studios, every single FP+ kiosk had a line of 50-100 people. I have pictures if anyone doubts me. Yes, I was so stunned, that I actually photographed the FP+ kiosk lines.

We experienced some very long FP+ lines, and others that seemed typical of the legacy FP system. We noticed the CMs were very testy at many FP+ entrances. Sometimes they would tell us only one member of our party had to put our magic band up to the Mickey post, other times they would make us all do it. They would get very annoyed at people who did not realize there were FP+ on both sides of the entrance. Either way, we seemed to be getting yelled at a lot by CMs!

We liked the magic bands very much, but our park experience was less enjoyable because of FP+. We ended up spending much less time at the parks than in the past. It just wasn't worth it.

This really hit home to us when we moved over the Universal for the last 2 nights of our trip, staying onsite and having "Express Passes". We were in the parks from opening to closing. My kids rode their favorite rides multiple times, and we rode every ride at least once. At the Disney parks, we only rode the three FP+ rides each day, had a meal, walked around, and left.

Now, some of this was our own fault: because we had FP+, we didn't get to the parks as early as we once did. Next time -- if there is a next time -- we will get to the parks at rope drop, like we used to when the kids were little, to ride some rides standby. But the fact is, when our FP+ were used, and we were looking at 60 minute lines, what was the point of staying?

A final point is related to the wifi. I have a Verizon iPhone 4S which has 3G. The wireless was terrible all over Disney (and out resort, the Beach Club, was the worst). I was always trying to get into the MDE app to make changes and it was so slow I felt I was spending the week looking at my darn phone, not exactly what I want to be doing on vacation. I suppose this could be due to having an older phone.

We've gone to Disney World once a year for 12 years. It was overall a good trip, but this is the very first time we left when we were not planning our next Disney trip, but instead talking about non-Disney World alternatives, for next year. I guess that says it all.

 

[geony]

We just got back from our trip Feb 15-21. We stayed onsite. My family had no problems with FP+. We still showed up at rope drop, but instead of one of us running to get a fast pass we headed to the ride we did not FP+ and went on that right away. It was a great trip

 

[Laketravis]

Point of all this is, the app is not the problem. the device itself and the networks supporting it are the bottle necks.

Oh, okay. Right. I guess that explains why every other db query app I run on my Samsung Galaxy with a 4G data connection work just fine but the MDE app doesn't.

 

[disney1990]

I was in the World Feb 12 - 18. Some things I noticed about FP+; the FP+ lines were longer than I had ever seen FP lines in the past. The lines for the FP+ Kiosks were ridiculously long. If you didn't make your selections before you got to the park and didn't have a devise to make or change your selections you had to wait in a long line to do that. Then you got to wait in another long FP+ line to experience the attraction. Fortunately I had all my FP+ selections before I got to the parks.

I could have easily used 5 or more FP+'s each day if they were available. FP+ dilutes the magic and it's really no fun at all. I hope all the people with rose colored glasses enjoy their FP+, for us realists it's a bad system.

I've been visiting WDW at least once per year since 1992 and a few times before that. I was not able to do nearly as much as I did in the past because of FP+. This latest experience will have me thinking long and hard about returning any time in the near future.

OK, we were always able to get and use more than 3 FPs when we were at Disney. Now we are limited to only 3. But, here's the problem. People are reporting that the FP+ return lines are terrible. How can people expect to get more than 3? Won't that make the return lines even worse? I vote that we scrap FP+ all together. But, we all know that isn't going to happen. So, what's the solution?

 

[ariane37]

We were there 2/8-2/18, on-site, and I agree with the OP, Mom2Princesses, Mollygirl13, and all the other posters who had issues with FP+. Too much planning, app not working so no changing FP's on the fly OR nothing available, long FP lines. Every time we passed a kiosk DH & I said "thank GOD we're not off-site, those lines are RIDICULOUS!". On top of that, I hated seeing people with their faces buried in their phones/Ipads, and I hated being so tied to ours between checking our FP times or trying to change one. Yes, its been that way before as people check standby times, but I definitely noticed a huge increase in it this trip. Walking by, you could hear people mumbling about FP's as they diligently worked away at their phone or Ipad so I know that's what they were doing. Totally took away some of our magic and I'm sure it took away others, too.
This is the first time DH didn't start talking about our next trip as soon as we returned