NextGen/xPass Making the News Again

[ssleblanc]

Am I the only one who cringed at the word "wristband?" lol. I hate those things and would not want to wear one for nine days. Not to mention they scream "county fair" and that is not what I want to feel like on a vacation that I just spent $1000s on. Even if it was something that could be taken off and on, then I'd be afraid of loosing it (and it's connected to my info and credit cards?) No thanks.

NO, not at all! I cringed too. One year my kids' school had a weekend-long fair. The $25 pay-one-price wrist band for games and bounce-houses had to be left on from Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. Elementary school boys should never wear anything for 3 days. They were SOOOO nasty by the end of the third day. It was disgusting. It would have been worth it to pay the $40 it would have cost to buy each day individually just to get a new wrist band each day.

I really hate wrist bands. Hate them.

 

[stargazertechie]

I had a long convo with two CMs on my last trip about nextgen- one in an official cm/guest capacity, one with my BFF.

It won't replace FP, you won't have to book all of your rides- you will be limited to a certain amount. It will actually decrease wait time- if they only have X number of xpass reservations for a given day, they can tinker with how many fast passes to distribute for rides that day.

 

[Cyrano]

Let's not get this thread closed by devolving into a political discussion.

Good advice

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

This is Fox News, and as you know, Fox News isn't true most of the time. They posted the wrong castle too

Funny I find them alot more factual then nbc, nbcc, cbs, abc or the famous *CNN, The Clinton news network*

AKK

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

I dont see this as being anything more then a glorified Fast pass system, with limited munber of planed ride times, etc......with a reservation system for meals biult in.

Why?

Lets face it we are human.and being human.....we are late or early for things..events etc. ..How about just plain wanting to change our minds and want to due something else.! What about alst minute trips?


What about ride break downs.....shut downs.weather..etc.etc....

No IMHO.........a all reservation system cannot work perfectly becuase we and WDW are not perfect.


AKK

 

[dragonfly57005]

Won't this make it more stressful? We need to be over here so we can't stop to enjoy what we happen to bump into?

 

[mesaboy2]

OP here, yet again asking for all to keep political viewpoints out of this thread. Is this really so difficult?

 

[Sammie]

Whether we want it or not, it is coming. They have invested way too much money already to just back away.

To me it is just an expanded version of VIP tours.

 

[dragonfly57005]

Whether we want it or not, it is coming. They have invested way too much money already to just back away.

To me it is just an expanded version of VIP tours.

I saw an hour long commercial for Disney, no wait it was a show on the travel channel, and chuckled about the lady talking up the VIP tours. Way to advertise.

 

[doconeill]

Jim Hill originally said it was a pay system. Now he says they changed their minds, and it will be free. Next week it could be free on alternating Tuesdays.

iPads still need wi-fi, right? As far as I know, Disney parks don't have wi-fi so only those with smartphones/data plans would be able to do it. That lets me out! I hate the idea anyway.

Disney is supposedly rolling out free guest-access wifi across the parks and resorts.

I'm not sure where exactly there is a great advantage to pre-ordering your QS meals. You still have to go somewhere, give them some information for them to look up, then they pick the food and give it to you. You just didn't have to pay for it on the spot (presuming doing so is automatically charged back to the room). Still a line to wait in if pre-ordering is popular.

But at least any order errors are yours, and not the CM order-taker. Much less likely that I won't end up with 7 sodas for three people, and then have them "correct" it to only one.

 

[CamoMama]

I think some people are making assumptions and getting way too upset about issues that have not been announced (and likely won't be for some time). Also, I read the article and the castle depicted is Cinderella castle, they may have realized their mistake and updated, but it is the right castle now.

No one has said that you HAVE to reserve your ride time in order to ride anything. It definitely will not replace standby lines, and I seriously doubt it will completely replace in-park FP. From everything I've read it seems like there will be a limited number of pre-visit ride reservations available online. I would assume that there will be a limit to the number of rides you can reserve in a day. It is still possible to walk into restaurants that take ADRs, you may have to wait a while, but it is possible, and I (again am assuming) don't think it's going to make rides nearly as long a wait as restaurants. Another assumption, you'll reserve an hour block of time just like the FP does now, not a specific to the minute ride time. Your reservations will be electronically stored on your RFID, and if you don't have that hour reserved or an in-park FP for that time, you won't be allowed in the FP line. I don't see them enforcing times (if you don't show up, I mean, just like with FPs now, there's no penalty if you don't use it), such as with restaurants, and I don't see them holding anyone else up if you don't arrive in the FP line at your allotted time.

As for the bracelets, I've seen them, they're not the funky paper-on-plastic backing bracelets that you see elsewhere. They are rubber, customizable and removable, so the kids can take them off at night to shower. I have a similar bracelet that is also a USB drive. I never wear it on my wrist, but hook it through my belt loop. It doesn't come off with normal (even vigorous, I used it when I was deployed in Afghanistan) activity, it requires me to actually pop it open. I would love to have a bracelet, especially one that I can customize as there would be less risk of me losing that than a card. I don't know how many times during my vacation that I reached in to get my KTTW card and freaked out because I couldn't find it, only to realize that I'd put it in a different pocket.

 

[mom2rtk]

No one has said that you HAVE to reserve your ride time in order to ride anything. It definitely will not replace standby lines, and I seriously doubt it will completely replace in-park FP.

But every ride time they pull out of the system for NexGen is coming from somehwere. Either there will be fewer FP's available to get on a given day in the park, or the standby line will be longer.

 

[d1gitman]

all i know is we did our first ever Universal Studios trip a couple weeks ago and had the unlimited xpress pass. all i can say is i would gladly pay for a fastpass option like Universal's xpress pass to be available at WDW/DLCA. it makes the day completely care free. i have to say i'd pretty much be willing to pay whatever they charge, it was that good IMHO

 

[CamoMama]

But every ride time they pull out of the system for NexGen is coming from somehwere. Either there will be fewer FP's available to get on a given day in the park, or the standby line will be longer.

How would the standby line be longer? I can't see it having an effect on anything but the existing FPs. They will likely use a limited number of FPs that are already available and make them available for reservation online. I don't see this having the effect that you're predicting. They've already begun enforcing FP return windows, which has had a small effect on FP lines from what I hear, how would making some of those FPs available from a different place affect it any more or the standby lines at all? Having them available isn't going to magically make more people ride the attractions.

 

[doconeill]

How would the standby line be longer? I can't see it having an effect on anything but the existing FPs. They will likely use a limited number of FPs that are already available and make them available for reservation online. I don't see this having the effect that you're predicting. They've already begun enforcing FP return windows, which has had a small effect on FP lines from what I hear, how would making some of those FPs available from a different place affect it any more or the standby lines at all? Having them available isn't going to magically make more people ride the attractions.

But we DON'T know if they are going to just use some of the Fastpass pool yet. They might. They might not. Or they might, but put more in the pool, which necessarily takes slots away from the standby line, which makes it longer (of course, there are some self-limiting factors on the standby line, as some won't get in the line if the wait is too long, etc.)

 

[WillAustin]

How would the standby line be longer? I can't see it having an effect on anything but the existing FPs. They will likely use a limited number of FPs that are already available and make them available for reservation online. I don't see this having the effect that you're predicting. They've already begun enforcing FP return windows, which has had a small effect on FP lines from what I hear, how would making some of those FPs available from a different place affect it any more or the standby lines at all? Having them available isn't going to magically make more people ride the attractions.

Whether they take a percentage of existing FPs or not, it still will have an effect. If the number of FPs available to guests in the parks drops by any significant amount, there will be a lot of unhappy people.

I can easily imagine enough people wanting to take advantage of this to completely use up existing FP numbers, especially if they send an email to every guest announcing they can reserve rides for their upcoming trip. They'll have to find a sweet spot in between too few advance reservations being available and so many available that the in-park FPs disappear in an hour. I'm not sure that sweet spot exists.

Adding more FPs, which they are already reportedly doing, is probably a likely scenario, so the standby lines will be longer.

 

[GAN]

At first glance, without knowing what the final product will be like, I must say it doesn't interest me. I'm just glad I'm past the point where I need to worry about what attractions I need to hit or what park I need to be at on a particular day. But when they say, “This xPASS/NextGen effort is going to fundamentally change how people visit the Disney parks” -I read that as "is anyone going to want to visit the parks anymore?" While everyone may not agree, many believe they've already ruined Dining in the World with the dining plans -will this be what the "Next" refers to in 'NextGen'?

 

[mom2rtk]

One of two things will have to happen:

1) they will take NexGen spots from the existing FP spots. That's not a winner in my book.

or

2) they will make them in addition to the existing FP spots. That means more people going in through FP, which means fewer in through stand-by.

Rides have a constant capacity. It has to come from somewhere.

If this is a free perk, it has to be in very small numbers, or only for deluxe resort guests or some such thing. There are so many more resorts at Disney than at Universal, the numbers could easily overwhelm the system.

Or if it's a paid perk, they'll have to price it high enough that the number of people taking advantage is self-limiting.

Neither of those deals gets me really excited.

 

[Robo]

I'll make my skepticism very clear:

If they take away anything from the way things work now, FP or Standby, I'm calling that a negative.

And, I must point out, they have already arbitrarily taken away a perk that was used -and worked very well- for over a decade... after-window, same-day FP.

No matter what, they're starting at a deficit of convenience to many long-time guests.

 

[mom2rtk]

I'll make my skepticism very clear:

If they take away anything from the way things work now, FP or Standby, I'm calling that a negative.

And, I must point out, they have already arbitrarily taken away a perk that was used -and worked very well- for over a decade... after-window, same-day FP.

No matter what, they're starting at a deficit of convenience to many long-time guests.

Yep.