Yeah, I'm pretty sure you are in the minority, but who knows, maybe you are in a large group of people who are spending hundreds of dollars a day for entry to a park where you then have lunch in a neat restaurant, watch a parade, ride a carnival ride, and meet someone in a costume.
Now you're just being sarcastic and condescending to those who think they'll get more out of FP+ than they did out of FP. There's no need for that.
Again, for frequent visitors, or those where money is of little concern, so value isn't a calculable entity, FP+ will be great. For you, it sounds like would be great. But, you must realize most people are expecting more for $95 a day.
Jason
Sounds like
you're expecting more - or more accurately, you're expecting them to do only what will benefit
you. And that's fine. But don't imply that everyone thinks like you do, and don't imply that FP+ is only for people who want to throw their money away. Again, it's condescending, rude, and really adds nothing to a healthy debate about what FP+ is and what it will do.
If FP+ works like it seems it will, for me personally, it will actually be better. And I'm a person who loves taking advantage of FP as much as I can. However, when I go to the MK (for example), I rarely end up obtaining more than 3 or 4 FP. The kind of "commando" style FP obtaining needed to get 4-5+ FP in one day isn't fun. Between running to the FP machines to get my FP, then going to other attractions, then coming
back to use the FP, then running to another machine to see if there are still FP left for the next thing I want to do, then running around doing other things, then coming back to use the FP 5 hours later... You see the pattern here. In order to get more than 3-4 FP, it takes a lot of motoring around the park. It's an exhausting affair.
I'd honestly rather plan in advance for 3 FP+ rides (Splash, Space, BTMRR for example), and know that I don't have to scurry around checking return time windows, waiting for my next FP time to expire so I can obtain a new FP, then go do stuff (away from that attraction) for a while, then have to trek back to use the FP hours later.
With FP+, I actually know - Splash at 5pm, Space at 7, etc. This frees up virtually the whole rest of the day to do things at a calmer pace, in a more organized way, without running around like a chicken sans-head doing the obtain-wait-use cycle 4-5 times just to feel like I'm fully taking advantage of FP.
And here's the other thing - FP users who want to get 5-6 or more FP in a day are the ones that are overburdening the system. It was never intended to be used like that. It was simply an exploit that Disney allowed because there weren't that many people doing that. The more FP has become common knowledge, the more the system is allowing people to exploit certain attractions and get multi-rides. Yes, that's great - riding splash 5 times in one day is fun. Before FP, I remember waiting in line 3 hours for Splash because I had no choice. I rode it once and was happy, despite losing THREE hours of my day waiting for it. How should I now be able to ride it 4-5 times in a day and have that NOT affect the rest of the crowd levels? Can you ride Harry Potter FJ 4-5 times in a day without waiting in line, using FREE passes obtained outside the attraction?
In that regard, FP was always a ridiculously awesome bonus. The fact that it was included for no upcharge is crazy. No other parks in the country do that besides Disney. And that was the problem. The system was never designed to be a way to let you ride splash 4 times, BTMRR 2 times, Space 3 times, etc. The system needed a change. There were too many FP exploiters going commando on the system in order to ride splash 5 times. Ironically enough, FP+ is going to be more conducive to an organic experience of MK, eliminating the need to scurry around the parks obtaining FP. I hate that scurrying aspect of FP, but I always do it because there was no alternative if you actually wanted to skip a line. FP+ eliminates all that scurrying and desperate careening across the park to get/use FP.
I'm not concerned that I'll miss my favorites. In fact, maybe knowing my FP+ in advance will help me stop and smell the roses a little more, especially at MK, knowing that there's no fastpass machine to scurry to and check the return time to see if I want to grab another that I end up missing or not using anyway because I'm tired or hungry.
It's a trade off. FP+ is not "win-win". Nothing is; fastpass wasn't. FP required a lot of diligence and a whole boatload of walking all over the park to take serious advantage of it. You can't expect to never wait in a line for any attraction ever. The math doesn't work out. There are thousands of people in this park that want to ride everything as much as you do. FP was an unbalanced system, favoring commando park-goers and pretty much killing people with families who want to get as much in as possible, because a family of 4-5 can't scurry around nailing the FP machines on opposite sides of the park like that.
Oh, and as for the off-topic discussion of Seven Dwarfs mine train: it was never supposed to be an "e-ticket" (if we're obsessed with labeling rides as "tickets"). In fact, it wasn't even going to exist - it was a last-minute decision to replace what was going to be basically a spinner ride. Yeah, it's a glorified dark ride, but it should be one of the best glorified dark rides in the entire MK. Not every ride needs to be an e-ticket. The bottom line is that the Fantasyland expansion eliminated a cute but unremarkable dark ride, in favor of a unique restaurant, the Little Mermaid ride, the mine train coaster, and some other family friendly experiences. It's an upgrade. No, they're not blowing you out of the water with a mega-E-ticket. I wish they would, too. But let's not act like the mine train coaster is a flop and pointless and they shouldn't have bothered. It's bringing some mild-thrill value to a land that had none, while still being a ride that virtually the whole family can enjoy. I can appreciate that, and I don't even have kids.
