New Fast Passes in the works?

[DeaverTex]

I have to agree that this sounds really creepy. It's maybe one step removed from having somebody else take your vacation for you. Wow! What fun!

I fail to see the joy inn a so-called "vacation" that's scheduled as tightly as a corps-level military operation. What next? Traffic control plans as you move from your 10:27 Dumbo ride to your 10:52 bathroom break?

 

[disneyholic family]

for those of us who have been to WDW 4 billion times and like to play it by ear, and if we get on a ride woohoo and if we don't, well them's the breaks...and we're not going to ever stand in a 3 hour line and we like to be spontaneous etc etc etc.. - for that group, this might be annoying and inappropriate..

but for those people - who the podcast team often mentions - that run around the parks, all sweaty and tired and angry that they're not seeing and doing everything and not getting their money's worth and weren't able to get to this that and the other...the group that screams at each other and has exhausted and nasty looks on their faces...
that group....that comes for 4 days and wants to do everything, perhaps for that group an organized system would help them cover more ground with less difficulty....

i'm in the middle...if we come at a time when no one else is there, then we want to play it be ear, because it's possible to do that..
but when we come in july, with the rest of the planet, frying under the hot sun, and since we probably won't be back for a few years, we really would like to be assured of seeing and doing everything without the sort of effort that it now takes to do that....

 

[CarrieR]

Yeah... that sounds both awful and creepy. I do not need big brother knowing what ride car or bathroom stall I am in, every given second!

 

[WaltD4Me]

but for those people - who the podcast team often mentions - that run around the parks, all sweaty and tired and angry that they're not seeing and doing everything and not getting their money's worth and weren't able to get to this that and the other...the group that screams at each other and has exhausted and nasty looks on their faces...that group....that comes for 4 days and wants to do everything, perhaps for that group an organized system would help them cover more ground with less difficulty.....

Yes, but this is the group that doesn't do any research or planning now. This is the group that just expects to show up and have Disney magic envelope them with no work on their part. This group would not be using a complicated planning system like xpass. And can you imagine someone not all that familiar with WDW trying to use something like this?

 

[ngoldy]

Very creepy. Know what it reminds me of? ...... Wall-E.

Exactly what I was thinking! This whole approach is ludicrous. It basically assumes that visitors will be in perfect health and temperament on each day of their scheduled trip and the weather will be sunny and pleasant. If not, then when little Susie has a sensory overload meltdown, Mom has a migraine, or Grandad gets overheated you choose between taking a rest break or losing your scheduled ride on Space Mountain. Thunderstorm during your BTMRR time slot? Too bad, so sad.

 

[PinkBudgie]

Wow, only in WDW do the people feel the need to plan every last minute of everyday 6 months out! I see them when they decide to give DLR a try. They post on the DLR forums in a panic because they can't make a reservation 6 months out and it is "already" 4 months out and DLR "still" does not have a daily calender of shows up yet. That sounds nuts to me and this Xpass sounds like it ramps up the craziness. Like I'm supposed to know what ride I want to go on which day? Please don't let that craziness come to DLR! Don't get me wrong, I like to plan and have an idea of what we are doing and the best way to do it (otherwise I wouldn't even be on this board. )

Now if an Xpass was like a free FP that could be used anywhere on any day at any time, then I'm for that. Also keeping track of your ride pics and so on could be handy. I'd like to have the option to buy a ride pic at the end of trip instead having 10 min. to decide.

A few years ago I heard rumors about DLR looking into using that similar technolgy with APs. You might fill out a questionaire about likes and dislikes. Then as you went through the park, things would respond to you as you walk by. On a ride your favorite character might greet you by name. That sort of thing.

 

[disneyholic family]

Yes, but this is the group that doesn't do any research or planning now. This is group that just expects to show up and have Disney magic envelope them with no work on their part. This group would not be using a complicated planning system like xpass. And can you imagine someone not all that familiar with WDW trying to use something like this?

if i were disney i would offer it only to onsite guests - like DDP...
as a perk of staying onsite...

and i would leave a form of the current FP system in place.....
perhaps where when you arrive at the park you would go into a main FP place where you could order a few FPs for the day - and the computer system would know what's still available..

just as now, they don't completely fill up the restaurants with ADRs - they leave some places open for last minute guests.....
so too, they would only lock up some spots for the advance FP system..
and they would leave some open for the 'walk ups"...
but just as today, where FPs for the top rides often run out in the morning, so too in the general system..

i don't know...it could be good....it could be bad.....depending on the execution....

 

[disneyholic family]

that's funny - i was just on the disney website (checking to see if they've changed EMH for our trip) when a survey popped up - guess on what?

you guessed it - on advance fastpasses!

 

[k5jm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI

 

[disneyholic family]

by the way, the survey also asked several questions about the ADR system - how do you make your reservations?, what do you prefer? why?
there were a lot of questions asking for an explanation of why i had picked a previous answer.
and there seemed to be no limit on the length of my answer.

 

[disneyholic family]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI

it's all well and good to want spontaneity when you visit the park every year and even multiple times a year, but there are people who only get to visit once - and for those people WDW is not necessarily a pleasant experience.

If you come in the summer, besides the unfit for man or beast weather, you encounter heaving crowds, all fighting to be at the front of everything.

i know many people who have gone to WDW recently and sworn on the lives of their children, grandchildren and everyone to come that they will never visit again as it was a horrifying experience....the crowds...the lines...the crowds...the difficulty of seeing and doing anything.....oh and did i mention the crowds?....

i understand that those of you who go every third tuesday want to be able to just wander the parks - and i'm sure you'll still be able to do that.....

but disney is looking for a way to improve the experience of those who may only be able to come 3 or 4 times in a lifetime...
as the experience is now, there are some who come once, and will never ever visit again....
and worse, when they go back home they tell everyone else how horrible the experience was, warning them not to waste their money...

disney needs a way to improve the experience for those people...the ones who come for 5 nights/6 days and want to relax AND see and do a lot....

and i'm sure it's possible to find a way to improve their experience while maintaining the experience of the play-it-by-ear types...

 

[eeyorethegreat]

it's all well and good to want spontaneity when you visit the park every year and even multiple times a year, but there are people who only get to visit once - and for those people WDW is not necessarily a pleasant experience.

If you come in the summer, besides the unfit for man or beast weather, you encounter heaving crowds, all fighting to be at the front of everything.

i know many people who have gone to WDW recently and sworn on the lives of their children, grandchildren and everyone to come that they will never visit again as it was a horrifying experience....the crowds...the lines...the crowds...the difficulty of seeing and doing anything.....oh and did i mention the crowds?....

i understand that those of you who go every third tuesday want to be able to just wander the parks - and i'm sure you'll still be able to do that.....

but disney is looking for a way to improve the experience of those who may only be able to come 3 or 4 times in a lifetime...
as the experience is now, there are some who come once, and will never ever visit again....
and worse, when they go back home they tell everyone else how horrible the experience was, warning them not to waste their money...

disney needs a way to improve the experience for those people...the ones who come for 5 nights/6 days and want to relax AND see and do a lot....

and i'm sure it's possible to find a way to improve their experience while maintaining the experience of the play-it-by-ear types...

An these are the same families that assume WDW is like any other vacation destiniation. Make travel arrangements buy tickets go. Then they get to WDW and discover that there is so much more to WDW that just going. The reason they don't have a good time is because the don't plan or research their destination. Xpass won't change that because to use Xpass the way it is being proposed would require time in advance and the people you described are the people who do not put that time in advance already. I don't see this proposal helping those people.

I was one of those people (bolded above) who had no idea I actually had to plan a trip. We were being taken as a gift (by a non planning Disney vet no less) and I thought just picking the park was as much as I would need to do. She would shuttle us effortlessly through the parks. I was wrong. We waited in the Dumbo line for an hour (all the while the Disney vet told me this was normal when I said there must be a better way to do this). We were overwhelmed with the lines and the crowds and this was at arelatively quiet time of year. We cam home thinking wow we need to figure out how to plan this the right way. I satrted researching AFTER we came home and discovered places like the Dis, back then TGM was new and full of great planning info, along with other planning sites. When we went the next time, it was at Christmas/New Year. THE busiest time of the year. We did everything we wanted to and didn't wait more than 20 minutes tops for a ride even the most popular rides. This was becasue I spent the time researching and making a plan. The Xpass sounds like it will work for those first time visitors, the ones that realize WDW requires a plan but the majority of first time visitors don't go with a plan at all and therefore this system will be one thing further that gives them the NEVEr again experience.

Now that I have been to WDW several times, I am still a planner, a BIG planner and yet oddly enough I think the way the Xpass is being desribed right now will totally stress me out. What if I miss my FP time or we stop and watch streetmosphere and are late for our character meet. What if we decide to take a break out of the heat for a bit and we miss something else. What if a character comes out that we want to meet that we haven't scheduled for... The stress alone keeping to this Xpass could be the end of me. This is coming from an ultra planner one must have a plan in place and must have the cards with me even if I have the plan by now commited to memory.

I don't know there has to be a happy medium somewhere for those who can relax with the clock ticking loudly in their ears. I'll be watching how this all pans out. Right now I know how to plan effectively for my family it really worries me that I might have to be tied to some sort of computer chip that keeps me bound to timetable which won't allow for unexpected events that so often happen at WDW. I do see some advantages like ride photos and photopass being effortlessly logged so I don't need to keep track of a separate card ADRs could be a benefit as well. I wonder if this will change the policy on late FP returns which right now are a great benefit to those planners who know how to use them. If the Xpass restricts that, It isn't something that I see as a benefit to us. We use about 80% FP in the time frame but for those 20% it is good to know that we can use it anytime after the window restricting that will certainly change the way we relax at WDW in the parks.

I am sure more info will comeout as the idea continues to develop.

 

[disneyholic family]

and for those of us who DO PLAN and plan and plan and plan - we still encounter ridiculously long lines....and have to do ridiculous things to get on rides like toy story mania...
it's beyond silly....
'be sure you're at the park before rope drop....and then be sure you're at the front of the pack by the rope....but make sure you're on the right hand side of the pack of people.....and then when the rope drops be sure you're right behind the CM and make sure you stay to the right so that when you get to TSM, you'll be on the side of the FP and then you'll maybe possibly have a smidgeon of a chance of getting an FP with return time before midnight'.....

that's insanity.....i don't know how else to define that....insanity....insanity...
insanity...

that is not a vacation....it's insanity.....i did it last june and was completely shocked at myself that i did it....it's ridiculous....and i PLAN AND PLAN AND PLAN.....and then plan some more...

there has to be a better way.....sure we can all laugh about it.......but there has to be a better way....disney understands this......

i'm not saying that what they're thinking about will be better...i don't know...
maybe it will be worse....i don't know.....but i'm hoping it will be better....

 

[disprincessatheart]

Ok, so my first thought was, I hate this idea - won't work for my family at all. We have a toddler and can't really plan anything because of naps, meltdowns, etc. BUT, the last post from disneyholic got me thinking. I think this could work if they keep these reservations limited enough that someone can walk in and still do the parks just like they do now - no plans, no xpass. AND if they give guests the option to use parts of it, but not the whole. If I can use it to book a few adrs and maybe a fast pass or two per day, I would do that. If I have to plan every detail, no I won't do that. Let's hope they solicit LOTS of feedback during development AND use it!

 

[Danibelle]

sounds fabulous to me...

i'd love to have everything in the parks mapped out for me before i come..

preferably by someone else...


they ask me what i want to see, and then they'd schedule it for me...

it would save me running all over the park to get FPs (as the advance commando of the team)..

i would really love it....

some people could have every minute scheduled, others could have lots of chill time scheduled in between the attractions..

i envision them sending me a questionnaire asking me what i want to see/do (they already would know how many days i'm coming for)...

it wouldn't be a perfect world, but it would be better than racing around a hot, packed park not knowing whether i'm getting onto something or not...

This sounds way too planned out. I make some ADR's each trip and do CS for the rest. I do use the FP when needed. I would really hate to have to plan each and every move I make. In the near future, I will be bringing a small DGS to the parks and need some flexibility. This change does NOT bring a smile to my face!

 

[disneyholic family]

This sounds way too planned out. I make some ADR's each trip and do CS for the rest. I do use the FP when needed. I would really hate to have to plan each and every move I make. In the near future, I will be bringing a small DGS to the parks and need some flexibility. This change does NOT bring a smile to my face!

it's a thought process....you quoted what i said at an earlier point in this thread...
i'm working through my views.....i wouldn't want every minute planned...

but certainly would like to have a FP to toy story mania without having to do the commando assault described in post #33 above..

 

[alice99]

From a person who can be somewhat cynical...
Please, correct me if I am wrong ...... but , when I read this this is what I see.....

When this new XPASS comes into effect, will the old Fastpass concept still be in effect?..... meaning, you are passing people who have walked up, without a reservation..... OR .... Are you waiting on line for an average of 20 - 40 minutes with everyone else that has a reservation time similar to yours?

Will a person who knows how to "work" the system now with fastpasses end up actually being "hurt" by the new method?

It seems that maybe Disney is trying to even out the flow of people entering the rides .... so instead of wait times being 20 minutes at low point in the day , then 75 minutes at peak time ..... all visitors would wait 40 minutes per ride?

I would love the idea of reserving my fast-passes on line prior to my trip... but I'm not sure that's exactly what this is.

Maybe I am missing something. What I read on the first page of this thread doesn't seem to really indicate this making things better.... just different, or possibly worse.

 

[alice99]

I believe one advantage to this new Xpass is that if you want to split a day between 2 parks, you would actually have some Xpasses (fastpasses, whatever they'll be called) for the second park....

We sometimes will go back to the Magic Kingdom to walk around and enjoy the scenery.... but by then all fastpasses are gone and wait times can be ridiculous.

It would be nice to do Animal Kingdom in the morning then go to Magic Kingdom knowing I can fastpass my way to the front on Space Mountain, Peter Pan, Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

If this is something were I could pick a few key rides, meet & greets, etc. along with my ADR's to make in advance - and whose arrival times had some flexibility to them I think it could be a good thing. Especially if you add in being able to see photopass pictures, etc. on your phone

BUT if this turns into something where you have to start planning out every little thing months in advance I thin kit will really take a lot of fun out of a trip to the World

 

[Squidgyness]

if i were disney i would offer it only to onsite guests - like DDP...
as a perk of staying onsite...

and i would leave a form of the current FP system in place.....
perhaps where when you arrive at the park you would go into a main FP place where you could order a few FPs for the day - and the computer system would know what's still available..

just as now, they don't completely fill up the restaurants with ADRs - they leave some places open for last minute guests.....
so too, they would only lock up some spots for the advance FP system..
and they would leave some open for the 'walk ups"...
but just as today, where FPs for the top rides often run out in the morning, so too in the general system..

i don't know...it could be good....it could be bad.....depending on the execution....

If they ever did this I would, as much as it would pain me to do so, stop going to WDW.

Think of the loss in revenues from offsite and villa guests. Or international guests without phones.

"Yeah, sorry guys we know you pay to get in the parks, but you'll just have to wait in line for 2 hours or scramble to get 1 of the 50 FP's we have for the day. If only you havd booked a 2 week stay for 2-3X as much onsite you could have got the FP's."

Not only is it hideously complicated it is unfair to boot. In order to make it in any way attractive to me they would have to slash the park tickets, because you will get much less value from them due to increased wait times.

Otherwise, people who get less access to FP's should pay much less, imo.