My impression of FP+ for the masses

[wisblue]

Do you think the fringe guests who rode one ride LOTS of times were really numerous enough to greatly impact the experience of the average guest? I'm seriously asking the question, and I don't know the answer.

That's a good question, but when dealing with the most popular attractions, it even makes a difference if guests are looking to do something twice. And, judging from the posters on this board, that group is fairly significant.

I also know from observation that in the paper FP days, a lot of people would rush to the FP machines at an attraction like TSMM, grab FPs for a group, and then push through the line to join that group in the standby line. That probably meant that hundreds of guests were getting 2 rides apiece on TSMM in the first hour or two after park opening, and at least some of them probably took another FP as soon as their window opened up again.

Your question raises for me the broader question of how representative posters on forums like this are of WDW guests as a whole. If the percentage of guests who are looking to do certain things multiple times is so low that it doesn't have a significant impact on the rest of the guests, then it shouldn't be hard to understand why Disney isn't overly concerned about doing something they don't like.

 

[cakebaker]

You know, I read a lot of these FP threads. And I have never seen anyone claim to ride TSMM 16 times. Come to think of it, I have never seen anyone claim to ride it 6 times.

Must've just missed it-

In the past, on a four day visit, I could ride TSMM approximately 16 times using legacy FP, rope drop and stand by strategies. Now, with FP+ in effect, I am luck to get 6 rides in the same number of days, which sounds like a lot, but is a far cry from what I had in the past.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=52505961&highlight=tsmm+16#post52505961

Another thread someone claimed that they could collect as many as 16 fp's a day for the popular rides:

I would always collect FPs for the big rides while we did the less popular ones. It wasn't unusual for me to have a pack of 16 FPs in my pocket at dinner time.

Just a note: I have to be extremely bored to mess with searching past posts. This is what happens when it goes from 80 degrees one day to below freezing the next- too cold to go outside! This one was easy though- tsmm 16-

 

[Mambo Junkie]

There are extremes on both ends...from someone that claimed they could ride TSMM 6 times in one day to those that are just happy to be in the parks and not ride anything.

If people think Disney is all about thrill rides and roller coasters then I can understand how they don't feel the magic. If getting multiple fast passes every day is the key to your happiness then yeah, maybe it would be better to spend your money going to another park. Having been to WDW since the first year I have seen the rides evolve (in part) to please the crowds. Disney used to be about experience rather than thrill; they have come to add fun rides like the roller coasters and ToT (I believe in part to appease those who want thrill rides and to compete with theme parks that basically have those types of rides as their only calling cards) while still keeping a standard of telling a story or offering more than just a ride (even a simple log flume is turned into an experience with the Song of the South story) There is so much about Disney to enjoy and appreciate that you can go there and not ride a single roller coaster and still have a good time, and if you can't then I am sorry for you.

 

[lugnut33]

So, that little experiment that they did by dumping in loads of FP+ availability for 7 Dwarfs, here are the consequences according to EasyWDW:

While it’s too early to make a definitive statement on what effect that allocation has had on actual FP+ and standby waits, it looks to have pushed up standby waits about 30% and doubled FP+ waits from about four minutes to about eight minutes.

 

[mom2rtk]

Must've just missed it-




http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=52505961&highlight=tsmm+16#post52505961

Another thread someone claimed that they could collect as many as 16 fp's a day for the popular rides:




Just a note: I have to be extremely bored to mess with searching past posts. This is what happens when it goes from 80 degrees one day to below freezing the next- too cold to go outside! This one was easy though- tsmm 16-

And you must have missed the part where the PP claimed someone claimed to ride it 16 times in one day. The quote you pulled out is from someone claiming to ride it 16 times as a solo traveler over a 4 day trip.

 

[mom2rtk]

If people think Disney is all about thrill rides and roller coasters then I can understand how they don't feel the magic. If getting multiple fast passes every day is the key to your happiness then yeah, maybe it would be better to spend your money going to another park. Having been to WDW since the first year I have seen the rides evolve (in part) to please the crowds. Disney used to be about experience rather than thrill; they have come to add fun rides like the roller coasters and ToT (I believe in part to appease those who want thrill rides and to compete with theme parks that basically have those types of rides as their only calling cards) while still keeping a standard of telling a story or offering more than just a ride (even a simple log flume is turned into an experience with the Song of the South story) There is so much about Disney to enjoy and appreciate that you can go there and not ride a single roller coaster and still have a good time, and if you can't then I am sorry for you.

It's not necessarily about people not being happy visiting a Disney park if they can't ride a single coaster. It's about whether they feel value for the cost of admission if they don't ride a single coaster. And that value will be different for different people. Regardless, any time someone can ride less than they did last year, while paying more for admission, a fair number of them are not going to be as happy with what they just spent.

 

[itchin2go]

Your question raises for me the broader question of how representative posters on forums like this are of WDW guests as a whole. If the percentage of guests who are looking to do certain things multiple times is so low that it doesn't have a significant impact on the rest of the guests, then it shouldn't be hard to understand why Disney isn't overly concerned about doing something they don't like.

Smartest thing I've read in awhile. It definitely gave me pause.

The only thing I'll say, as devil's advocate, is that we may be few, but we're loud.

 

[JanaDee]

If people think Disney is all about thrill rides and roller coasters then I can understand how they don't feel the magic. If getting multiple fast passes every day is the key to your happiness then yeah, maybe it would be better to spend your money going to another park. Having been to WDW since the first year I have seen the rides evolve (in part) to please the crowds. Disney used to be about experience rather than thrill; they have come to add fun rides like the roller coasters and ToT (I believe in part to appease those who want thrill rides and to compete with theme parks that basically have those types of rides as their only calling cards) while still keeping a standard of telling a story or offering more than just a ride (even a simple log flume is turned into an experience with the Song of the South story) There is so much about Disney to enjoy and appreciate that you can go there and not ride a single roller coaster and still have a good time, and if you can't then I am sorry for you.

I didn't say anything about riding roller coasters and/or thrill rides (which WDW doesn't have).

I am not paying thousands of dollars to just be happy to be allowed to walk in the front door, so to speak.

 

[wisblue]

So, that little experiment that they did by dumping in loads of FP+ availability for 7 Dwarfs, here are the consequences according to EasyWDW:

Just out of curiosity, where are you seeing that? I didn't see it on the easywdw site.

 

[lugnut33]

Just out of curiosity, where are you seeing that? I didn't see it on the easywdw site.

It's in this post:

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...ndwich-beef-flatbread-and-garlic-knots-11314/

 

[Mambo Junkie]

I didn't say anything about riding roller coasters and/or thrill rides (which WDW doesn't have).

I am not paying thousands of dollars to just be happy to be allowed to walk in the front door, so to speak.

I quoted your post because I liked it. My subsequent post was not directed at you but rather the people who are melting down over the fast pass thing. It is possible to go to WDW and have a good time without using fast passes except perhaps for the rides with long wait times. If people feel like they should be able to walk into the park and walk on every ride then they are not being realistic. Even from the earliest days of WDW I have never know this to happen. IMO all the fp+ thing is doing is creating a "must have or I will die" hysteria. Hence the threads such as Maximize your fps and Throwaway Rooms. The excessive waits are being created by people who are afraid they're going to have to wait which in the past they have always had to do. Having a line at Disney is nothing new.

 

[wisblue]

It's in this post:

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...ndwich-beef-flatbread-and-garlic-knots-11314/

Thanks. I see that that item was written on November 5 so it could only have covered the first two days of the 3 week "dump" of additional FPs.

Now that the 3 weeks are almost half over it seems less likely that this is heading toward a FP+ only test, though that could still be coming. I think the more likely purpose of this is for Disney to try to strike an optimum balance between greater FP availability and slightly longer FP+ and standby waits.

I'm not sure what that optimum balance would be, but I don't think an average FP+ wait of 5-10 minutes is too long, as long as it doesn't spike up above 15 minutes very often.

 

[lugnut33]

Thanks. I see that that item was written on November 5 so it could only have covered the first two days of the 3 week "dump" of additional FPs.

Now that the 3 weeks are almost half over it seems less likely that this is heading toward a FP+ only test, though that could still be coming. I think the more likely purpose of this is for Disney to try to strike an optimum balance between greater FP availability and slightly longer FP+ and standby waits.

I'm not sure what that optimum balance would be, but I don't think an average FP+ wait of 5-10 minutes is too long, as long as it doesn't spike up above 15 minutes very often.

I do agree that Disney is trying to strike a balance, that they are not going FP+ only yet, and that 8 minutes isn't too long for a FP+ line. I just have a problem with increasing the standby line. Plus it's proof that FP+ does increase standby wait times.

 

[cakebaker]

And you must have missed the part where the PP claimed someone claimed to ride it 16 times in one day. The quote you pulled out is from someone claiming to ride it 16 times as a solo traveler over a 4 day trip.

No I saw I saw- just pointing out I think that's where the sixteen came from. The second quote was 16 headliner or popular rides in one day though.


The same ride 16 times no matter how many days you stay ( within neason of course) along with 16 times for popular rides in a single day is probably something Disney wanted to discourage as well they should as far as I'm
concerned. I'm with the poster who said they can't work up a lot of sympathy for not being able to do that anymore.

If they're not going to build a park full of new rides they don't have enough headliners to have them be dominated by a few super users.

 

[wisblue]

I do agree that Disney is trying to strike a balance, that they are not going FP+ only yet, and that 8 minutes isn't too long for a FP+ line. I just have a problem with increasing the standby line. Plus it's proof that FP+ does increase standby wait times.

I disagree with that as a blanket statement, and apparently so would Josh at easywdw. As the item you linked says, since FP+ has started the standby lines are longer at some things and shorter at others.

Because 7DMT always had FP+ we'll never know what the standby line would be like without it, but over an hour for most of the day is a pretty good bet.

The current situation only shows what will happen when a higher percentage of a ride's capacity is allocated to FPs. It shouldn't matter if those FPs are distributed in advance like FP+ or the old fashioned paper way.

Disney may have been reluctant to allocate a higher percentage of a ride's capacity to FP with paper FPs because the result would probably have been a small percentage of guests getting even more FPs than they got otherwise. With FP+, the distribution of FPs among all guests is almost certainly a lot more level than it used to be, so the impact of longer standby lines falls more evenly too.