My recent experience with MDE/FP+...from a "hater"

[txfigment]

I'm very happy the FoF falls right at nap time. I'm not tempted to make it work.
My first FP+ experience will be over thanksgiving. I am hoping for the best. Our mornings (stand by) and early afternoon (FP+) are all planned but we don't have any for after dinner when we return to the parks.

 

[larryz]

I'm finally off the fence, willing to try it now that the furor has died down some. Thanks for your encouraging report.

 

[Shonte Durrett]

OK... Somewhat....


I haven't been to WDW in 5 years (tragic, I know)! YOU HAVE TO HAVE A FP+ for parades and fireworks now? Oh, AND meet and greets with characters?

 

[BudgieMama]

OK... Somewhat....


I haven't been to WDW in 5 years (tragic, I know)! YOU HAVE TO HAVE A FP+ for parades and fireworks now? Oh, AND meet and greets with characters?

You don't have to have, but you can choose to have (if availability permits)... it just allows for more priorities than the older system. As an adult travelling in a couple with no children, I found FP+ for Meet and Greets and the FOF parade useful, as I wanted to experience them without waiting around. Other people make different choices on their priorities for their FP+ allocations though.

 

[BrianL]

The Fantasmic! day-of FP shouldn't be too hard to snag. There are so many, and they really only offer you a broader choice of seating, like you can use the FP side or the regular side depending on how full either side has gotten and your seat preference. It doesn't really mean you can show up too late and get a preferred seat. Robo always explains this so well.

 

[AngiTN]

OK... Somewhat....


I haven't been to WDW in 5 years (tragic, I know)! YOU HAVE TO HAVE A FP+ for parades and fireworks now? Oh, AND meet and greets with characters?

No, not at all.
As other have said, it's VERY easy to see parades with no wait and without a FP. Just watch them from Frontier Land or Liberty Square. The parade is the same parade no matter if you watch on Main St or if you watch in Liberty Square. 5 Min is about all the line up time is needed there. But they do offer FP for it.

Wishes is different in that the only place to see it perfectly is near the hub in where Main St meets. Yes you can see it elsewhere but that is the sweet spot it was designed to be seen from.
So it does take a bit more time to stake out a spot there, if you want to see it from that sweet spot.
A Wishes FP will allow you to watch from that area without a long wait to get a spot. Only you can determine if it's worth giving up additional FP for the day. Since we have found that we rarely bother with a 4th we do use a FP for Wishes.

 

[jharaldson]

Wishes is different in that the only place to see it perfectly is near the hub in where Main St meets. Yes you can see it elsewhere but that is the sweet spot it was designed to be seen from.
So it does take a bit more time to stake out a spot there, if you want to see it from that sweet spot.
A Wishes FP will allow you to watch from that area without a long wait to get a spot. Only you can determine if it's worth giving up additional FP for the day. Since we have found that we rarely bother with a 4th we do use a FP for Wishes.

What I like to do is use my arrival day FP on Wishes. That way my family gets a great view and since it is a partial day at the park we are not wasting the rolling 4th FP.

 

[Jennytoon]

....Where things will really be noticeable for me will be in USING the system in the parks again. Last time I felt scheduled to death, but DH has been reminding me that we are not married to our passes and can simply not use them at anytime (which is silly, as someone else could have used them. With old FP we only pulled passes we intended to use). Honestly the true enjoyment of FP+ is going to have to come from me retraining myself to no longer think of Fast Pass like I use to...as our golden ticket/something of value. I have to retrain my brain to think of it as something far less...something totally throw-away-able.

We found this was the biggest adjustment for us as well, how we perceived the "appointment". With legacy FP we had actually always regarded them as something that could be handed off to someone who would use it if our appointed time arrived and it didn't work for us, so we were pretty carefree about giving those away (I suspect our touring style is quite different from yours). With the new ones, we were initially regarding them as you described, the golden ticket not-to-be-missed. Once we stopped weighting them so heavily in our mind, we found that the super-scheduled feeling went away, so I wish you success with your retraining. And it *was* nice to be able -- in the instances where we arrived at the appointed time and it just wasn't working for us -- to have some options to reschedule them. It wasn't always successful, but it really scored a good percentage of the time.

One other mental retraining point -- you didn't mention but (just in case) I have seen others post that one thing they don't like about FP+ is that if you're not going to use your FP then you can't just hand them to someone else and they are going to waste if you don't go in and cancel them or reschedule them to something not in demand. I'd just like to offer up the thought here that if you don't use your FP and you don't cancel it, it's true that you haven't witnessed the gratitude of the recipient, but because availability for a time slot is limited you have effectively just given your FP to the first person in the standby line after your virtual self, who is now getting on the ride one party sooner than if you had been ahead of them. So not a waste at all -- someone is still getting on that ride faster.

 

[mesaboy2]

I haven't been to WDW in 5 years (tragic, I know)! YOU HAVE TO HAVE A FP+ for parades and fireworks now? Oh, AND meet and greets with characters?

You may find the green link in my signature helpful.

 

[lustergirl]

OP: looks like it is growing on you

 

[Jennasis]

OP: looks like it is growing on you

Let's not get carried away...LOL!

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm glad you had a good trip and that you now hate it less.