No more free Express Passes?

['Canes Fan]

IMO, I think USO is headed down a similar path as Six Flags. If you want FOTL, you must pay for it by either staying on-site or buying an express plus pass. Again, just my opinion.

I've been to WDW many times in the off-season when attractions have the covers over the FP machines. the standby times weren't 30 minutes, but were 20. I sincerely doubt this is a ploy to force UO guests to stay onsite or purchase EPP's during the off-season. the rates are reson enough to do that. we drive over and arrive at the gates at 8:40. works for us every time.

 

[2BigKIdz]

There is a difference between being annoyed and requesting or even accepting a refund. If the OP had not been able to ride even one thing, then a refund might be in order. But just because, someone has to wait in line, to me, doesn't warrant a refund. I'm sorry if I disagree with that. There have been many times at Disney that I have waited in long lines but I still felt I got my monies worth. If the themeparks refunded admission charges for everyone who had to wait in line, they would be out of business.

I agree with this, but I also agree with the OP that a sign should have been placed at the entrance that express passes were not available that day. It wouldn't have influenced my decision to enter the park but I guess it may other's.

 

[F-L-A]

30 minutes?

30 MINUTES!?!?!? OH GOD, THE HORROR! THE HORROR! WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!1111!1111

If you can't wait in a line, you don't belong at a theme park. Period. I think it's rediculous that they gave you a refund.

 

[DiscussDisney]

30 minutes?

30 MINUTES!?!?!? OH GOD, THE HORROR! THE HORROR! WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!1111!1111

If you can't wait in a line, you don't belong at a theme park. Period. I think it's rediculous that they gave you a refund.

Thank you for your comment. By the way, it is "ridiculous", not "rediculous" (1st grade English).

 

[dpuck1998]

30 minutes?

30 MINUTES!?!?!? OH GOD, THE HORROR! THE HORROR! WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!1111!1111

If you can't wait in a line, you don't belong at a theme park. Period. I think it's rediculous that they gave you a refund.

I think the POINT is not knowing ALL the FOTL pass machines were shut down. Read the thread before flamming.

 

[LIFERBABE]

I think the POINT is not knowing ALL the FOTL pass machines were shut down. Read the thread before flamming.

Im a US AP holder and I do agree with the OP. We have been to US/IOA several times and since they increased their rates, we do not stay onsite for FOTL. We do arrive early, but when it starts to get busy, the waits can be very long with all the purchasers of EP and FOTL guests. (Shrek line is the worst! then Jimmy Neutron)

Thats when we decide to leave, in essence, only using our AP's for a few hours a visit. As our renewal day nears, I ask myself, do I want to spend $500 for our family of 4 just to go to US/IOA for a few hours once or twice a trip? (even if we make it twice in 1 year).

We are huge US/IOA fans, but the costs have been increasing since we became consecutive AP holders back in 2001.

My choice is spend $200 night to stay at their hotel, or buy EP for everyone in our family on top of the costs of the AP. We also have transportation costs to get there from WDW.

I too feel that they limit the free Fast Passes so that guests will buy them or stay onsite.

 

[MrsMud]

DiscussDisney:

I feel for you. I am somewhat of a complusive planner and, like you, would certainly have planned my park day around the Expresspass system. I have done just that when we have gone to WDW, and if the Fastpass system was not working we would not have gotten as much done as we planned to. It would have been nice to have a sign up at the entrance telling you the system was not operating. I am pleasantly surprised that they refunded your money. Not quite sure why some people are being so hard on you.

BTW: We were also there on 10/3 (actually 10/1 to 10/4), and were surprised at how busy the parks were for weekdays. And before anyone jumps on THAT, I know the parks were not busy as in peak times, yet they were much more crowded than our previous trips in Sept. and May. We stayed onsite and so had FOTL, and we were very glad we did. The regular lines for some of the rides did look quite long. Sorry you could not enjoy the parks, hope you have a better experience next time.

 

['Canes Fan]

I guess the next step for UO is to post approximate wait times for attractions before you enter the parks. or even better, the approximate time the Ep's will run out for any given attraction during the day.

 

['Canes Fan]

Thank you for your comment. By the way, it is "ridiculous", not "rediculous" (1st grade English).

and that's just another NJ tourist snide comment. another reason WE don't vacation in beautiful Newark.

 

[F-L-A]

I think the POINT is not knowing ALL the FOTL pass machines were shut down. Read the thread before flamming.

And my POINT is that you shouldn't need Express or FOTL to enjoy a day at a theme park. God forbid it was never invented. Because, you know, it wasn't always there.

I read just fine.

 

[DiscussDisney]

[QUOTE='Canes Fan]and that's just another NJ tourist snide comment. another reason WE don't vacation in beautiful Newark.[/QUOTE]

 

[A Mickeyfan]

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Yes, hotel guests still get FOTL.

I personally would be thrilled if express pass and fast pass at Disney were discontinued. Believe it or not it makes the wait time longer for everyone. When you hold an express pass, it is like you are in line for 3-4 rides at a time. You get the express, then ride 2 or 3 more rides, taking up space in those lines and then go use your express pass and take up a space in another ride. Whereas if no one had express, while you are in line at one ride, you are not taking space in another line. Essesntially, the lines will be shorter for everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I agree 100%! Once they all came out with Fastpass/Express-pass the regular line waits became extremly long! I was working for Disney when they started Fastpass. They didn't do it to help the guest, they did it so the guest didn't have to spend as much time online but instead they could go elsewhere in the parks to spend money. The longer the lines, the less likely guests will shop. As far as Universal, I can't say why they started the free one, but we all know why they started the the fee one, more money for Universal.
You can do parks without fastpass/express-pass. As you have said, early in the morning you can hit nearly every major attraction in one of the parks. That is how we do it. It is just harder to do more than one park in one day.I would never pay for express-pass. Universal gets enough money out of me, why do I have to pay to get on the ride

also to the OP... I agree with you, 30 minutes is a wait. No, it may not be the 100 minute wait that some guests have experienced, but it is still what I call a long wait. What is even worse is when you pay to stay onsite & the wait with your room key is over 30 minutes. I have had that happen to me the week of Christmas in the middle of the afternoon Yes it may have been shorter than the regular line, but not short enough for me. To me a short wait is 5 minutes, a wiat I can deal with is maybe 20, but 30 is long to stand for a 90 second ride ... yes it is shorter than the 100 minute wait like I said, but it is still a bit of a wait.

 

[dpuck1998]

 

[ralfrick]

I personally would be thrilled if express pass and fast pass at Disney were discontinued. Believe it or not it makes the wait time longer for everyone. When you hold an express pass, it is like you are in line for 3-4 rides at a time. You get the express, then ride 2 or 3 more rides, taking up space in those lines and then go use your express pass and take up a space in another ride. Whereas if no one had express, while you are in line at one ride, you are not taking space in another line. Essesntially, the lines will be shorter for everyone.

I gotta say, Bev, that the idea of riding several rides instead of waiting in one long line for one is the best argument in favor of Express/FastPass that there is. It is a new twist, though, on the standard argument against FP saying that it plugs up the walkways because people aren't in line.

Peter Pan at WDW, with FP has stand-by waits of about an hour in busy times, whereas Peter Pan in DL, with no FP, has wait times of about an hour. The wait for Splash Mtn with FP in the stand-by line is about 60-90 minutes when busy, but the wait times for Splash before FP on a busy day was about 60-90 minutes.

I see the argument a lot that wait times are longer with FP/EP than they were before, and in my experience, this is not true. I've spent more time in DL than the Orlando parks, but the bottom line is this. Before FP, I'd waited in hour plus lines. Since FP, I've waited about 30 minutes for the Matterhorn a couple of times. I've waited 20 minutes a couple of other times, plus once for Peter Pan, and neither of those have FP. So in the 14 days I've been in DL since the introduction of FP, I've only had to wait 20 minutes or more for a ride 5 times. For the record, these visits were in August and Thanksgiving week.

How? Are you saying they should announce it on their website? It is in a trial basis during the non-peak times. Themeparks seldom announce when they are just trying something out. Even Disney is considering eliminating fast pass. Disney is trying it at Disneyland right now and have not made the information available to the public.

The cards at WDW with the showtimes and such do, in fact, list which, if any, attractions will not have FP. It is also not entirely accurate to say that they are eliminating FP at DL, although they scaled it back with good reason. They had it for the 3D movies at DCA, and I doubt that anyone has ever had to wait beyond the start of the next show for either. They eliminated it from Star Tours because in the evening it had gotten to be about a 5 minute wait. Pirates and the Mansion never needed them, except for the NBC overlay. Well, they could've certainly used it in 1969. Basically, shortly after the introduction of FP, they went way overboard at DL and have corrected that.

Cheers.

 

[phamton]

It is also not entirely accurate to say that they are eliminating FP at DL, although they scaled it back with good reason.

The reason I mentioned that Disneyland may eliminate them all together was because of an article on miceage.com They usually research their rumors pretty well on there. It was a few months back and the article stated that Disneyland was going to start phasing out fastpass and suggested that WDW would be following suit. The article mentioned that fastpass was no achieving what they expected which was for people to spend more time shopping.

I'm still looking for the article and when i find it. I'll edit my post to add the link. I did find this interesting tidbit:
http://www.miceage.com/kevinyee/ky080405a.htm
"I rejoiced at seeing FastPass-free lines at Haunted Mansion and Pirates, both of which sported 15-minute waits. Meanwhile, the other big E-Ticket rides had Standby lines over an hour. As a reference point in the eternal FastPass argument (long timers will remember that I'm anti-FastPass on the whole, but will use it as long as the company insists on having it in the parks), I noted that Space Mountain had sixty minute waits all week long before its official opening (and thus before its FastPass machines were ever turned on), whereas wait times in the Standby line shot up to 155 or 180 minutes (no joke) on the days after FastPass started."

 

[Foladar]

DiscussDisney:

I feel for you. I am somewhat of a complusive planner and, like you, would certainly have planned my park day around the Expresspass system. I have done just that when we have gone to WDW, and if the Fastpass system was not working we would not have gotten as much done as we planned to. It would have been nice to have a sign up at the entrance telling you the system was not operating. I am pleasantly surprised that they refunded your money. Not quite sure why some people are being so hard on you.

BTW: We were also there on 10/3 (actually 10/1 to 10/4), and were surprised at how busy the parks were for weekdays. And before anyone jumps on THAT, I know the parks were not busy as in peak times, yet they were much more crowded than our previous trips in Sept. and May. We stayed onsite and so had FOTL, and we were very glad we did. The regular lines for some of the rides did look quite long. Sorry you could not enjoy the parks, hope you have a better experience next time.

I was also there 1st - 4th. Had FOTL, got every show and ride done at Universal Studios going just 3-4 hours a day for three days. Some lines were long, think longest I saw was Mummy at 30 minutes - but isn't this expected? Now, I was shocked @ Disney when lines were 60-70 minutes for several rides, expected 40-50 max. But there was nothing wrong with no express pass, they weren't even there beforehand, oh no what would you do then?

Edit: Might I add, those few hours per day began @ 3-4pm until close.

 

[married@wdw]

I've also never noticed any signs at DL or WDW telling what rides were not operating (outside the park before you enter).

At least at WDW, unless a ride is down unexpectedly, there are ALWAYS signs outside the park that list which rides are down.

I am a huge fan of fastpass. Without it, we'd spend a lot less time (and therefore money) in the parks. I HIGHLY doubt Disney will ever "phase out" fastpass at WDW or DL -- they are constantly tweeking the system, but the fan base they cater to has become much too accustomed to the system now.

 

[phamton]

At least at WDW, unless a ride is down unexpectedly, there are ALWAYS signs outside the park that list which rides are down.

Universal does have a sign saying Jaws is down. It's a quite large sign you see before entering the park at the turnstiles.

 

[staceyfe]

DiscussDisney,

Some people need to understand that others like to be fully informed before they shell out lots of $$ for a day in a theme park. I feel for you that many on this thread have posted incredibly rude and condescending comments. It's ridiculous! I am going to USO/IOA in 2 weeks and hopped over to this board from the budget board and I'm shocked how "unfriendly" people seem to be. Granted, there seem to be many nice, helpful people, but how helpful is it to flame someone? I haven't seen it over at the budget board. Think I'll go back before I get flamed, too.

 

[dpuck1998]

Just ignore them, the rest of us are nice