not a fan of fast pass plus

[mom2rtk]

You were the one holding it all together, your leaving did this, its your fault.

That's right, I said it.

LOL, I have 3 kids. I'm used to it all being my fault.

Once I get my son settled back into college tomorrow, I promise not to leave things unattended again for a while.

 

[nugov2]

All this does is drive more people to stay at Disney resorts. I know I wouldn't stay offsite and hope I can get on rides and hope there is fast passes when everyone staying at a Disney resort can book their fastpasses 60 days prior to their visit. I would spend the money to stay onsite to ensure my kids get on 3 rides a day especially during peek seasons, but most people cant afford the extra and are going to be disappointed with not being able to get on rides with out along wait. I already know 12 families that are no longer going as a result because they can only afford to stay offsite.

You will see offsite hotels close down over the next few years as a result

At least with the old system if I didn't use my fast passes I could give them off to someone else. Now if I don't use them they are wasted and besides I will be surprised if Disney down the road does charge you a fee when you don't use the pre booked fastpasses, like they do for missing dinner reservations.

.

I can see the threads of people upset that someone booked 5 FP+ for space mountain for 2-3 but didn't show and how can people be so selfish when someone else would have gladly taken them and I am so glad WDW is now charging those entitled people $5 per person for missed FP+

 

[Mad Hattered]

LOL, I have 3 kids. I'm used to it all being my fault.

Once I get my son settled back into college tomorrow, I promise not to leave things unattended again for a while.

I was going to alert you to this thread but then I thought your motherly instincts would kick in. I blame Peyton Manning.

 

[Joe Dirt 1972]

I really don't understand why people are bashing people for using the old fast pass system. I have been to WDW 4 times since the fast pass system was put in. Before going I did my homework understood how to get the most fast passes and maximise my families joy in the parks. But for all the people that did what myself and many others have done to get the most fast passes these methods and tricks of the trades were available to every guest so we lets be fair

Also one thing that I like about the old fast pass system was if you couldn't use the fast pass or someone else couldn't use theirs it was a matter of handing it off to someone else and they could enjoy the ride. There were times where something came up and we couldn't use our passes and we gave them to people with their kids standing in line and it brought a smile to their faces.

It is herding and more planning the only thing I ever planned or booked was my restaurants because we were on the dining plan , but this year we are not getting the dining plan because it cut in the day too much because your whole day revolved around your dinner reservation. Same as the new fast pass + will cause more headaches because you are tied to that time at least with the old fast pass system if you couldn't make it or were on another ride you could just had it off to someone else.

Why spend the money on a park hopper?

 

[Shaden]

All this does is drive more people to stay at Disney resorts. I know I wouldn't stay offsite and hope I can get on rides and hope there is fast passes when everyone staying at a Disney resort can book their fastpasses 60 days prior to their visit. I would spend the money to stay onsite to ensure my kids get on 3 rides a day especially during peek seasons, but most people cant afford the extra and are going to be disappointed with not being able to get on rides with out along wait. I already know 12 families that are no longer going as a result because they can only afford to stay offsite.

You will see offsite hotels close down over the next few years as a result

At least with the old system if I didn't use my fast passes I could give them off to someone else. Now if I don't use them they are wasted and besides I will be surprised if Disney down the road does charge you a fee when you don't use the pre booked fastpasses, like they do for missing dinner reservations.

I don't like having plan every aspect of my trip. I better schedule my bathroom breaks

We need to all complain and email Disney or contact them through their website.

I am not sure if this will have this effect at all .... While I am sure Disney is trying to improve on, what I think the 2013 rate of 79% occupancy at the onsite resorts, there just isn't enough capacity to fit nearly all of the guests on site.

Even if they ran at 100% capacity, unless that entire 20% came from only a few hotels, it wouldn't really put many hotels out of business, it might trim out their profits and their occupancy rates a bit for sure ... but Disney isn't going to hit 100%, they just aren't. The people offsite aren't going to spring for Deluxe resorts, heck they might not even spring for Mods, the price difference is just too steep.

 

[Shaden]

LOL, I have 3 kids. I'm used to it all being my fault.

Once I get my son settled back into college tomorrow, I promise not to leave things unattended again for a while.

Excellent, that way, if someone makes another "list" ... as it turns out it might have to be a list of people who were "absolutely correct" .... you will be sure to be on it ...

You don't want to get left off the "list" after all.

 

[Joe Dirt 1972]

If its a once in a lifetime trip you will spend the money to ensure your family can get on 3 rides a day

 

[xie]

UK visitors are down at WDW while they are up at Universal. I may or may not be known as a rocket scientist depending on who you ask, but I am pretty sure Universal will see another increase in UK visitors around June. Disney "may" see an increase...maybe it will offset us who say thanks, but no thanks.

Well, specifically with UK visitors - do you mean visitors staying on WDW property as resort guests are down, or do you mean UK visitors passing through the park turnstiles are down? Because personally I bet it's the former- Disney keeps hiking room prices and it's been getting progressively cheaper to stay offsite in a nicer property for a number of years now. If you're coming from overseas and staying 2-3 weeks, you can stretch your money a *lot* further by staying offsite. (Even with the discounts - have you seen the Expedia UK thread over on the Budget Board today? )

Anyway this brings me back to what's going on at WDW. Why is it so overcrowded - where are all these people coming from? Has Central Florida suddenly become the only vacation destination in the US? Husband thinks it's because nobody in the southeast can afford to travel any farther away, so they're staying in CF at the Motel 6 and going to WDW. That, and there seem to be more and more tour groups every year (thank the exchange rate for that, I suspect).

I'd love to see an internal attendance chart of "through the turnstile" admissions for the last 5 years. It's gotten so crowded that last trip I rarely was able to use the bathroom without standing in a line unless it was "protected" by being inside a table service restaurant.

 

[Shaden]

If its a once in a lifetime trip you will spend the money to ensure your family can get on 3 rides a day

You do realize that MANY of the guests to WDW can't afford to stay onsite right ? That's WHY they stay offsite.

And many can't afford to stay onsite as often as they like to travel to WDW, so by your logic, sure they will pay to stay onsite, and thus they will go less, which means WDW will actually be more empty and this will not actually serve the purpose Disney intends ...

 

[summermac]

I can't remember who asked but our trip starts on Weds before Presidents Day. We fly home on Presidents Day.

 

[Planogirl]

Hey, wait. I'm seeing way too many people say that they're going to Universal. I know that Universal would love that but I don't want to suddenly find crazy lines there too.

I'm still reeling over the park maps still showing legacy kiosks and not FP+ kiosks. Just wow.

 

[TLSnell1981]

The company that got the contract to manufacture the rubber bands, and the company that got the contract to manufacture the RFID chips.

You asked.

I am serious, and meant specifically, "who" got the contracts?

Ticket prices have increased approximately 30% in recent years,while dining prices are up, over 40% . Now, we are reduced to 3 FP, one per ride and/or tier. Oh, EMH have also been scaled back, along with the monorail. Park hopping is virtually worthless.

I want to throw up.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Well, specifically with UK visitors - do you mean visitors staying on WDW property as resort guests are down, or do you mean UK visitors passing through the park turnstiles are down? Because personally I bet it's the former- Disney keeps hiking room prices and it's been getting progressively cheaper to stay offsite in a nicer property for a number of years now. If you're coming from overseas and staying 2-3 weeks, you can stretch your money a *lot* further by staying offsite. (Even with the discounts - have you seen the Expedia UK thread over on the Budget Board today? )

Anyway this brings me back to what's going on at WDW. Why is it so overcrowded - where are all these people coming from? Has Central Florida suddenly become the only vacation destination in the US? Husband thinks it's because nobody in the southeast can afford to travel any farther away, so they're staying in CF at the Motel 6 and going to WDW. That, and there seem to be more and more tour groups every year (thank the exchange rate for that, I suspect).

I'd love to see an internal attendance chart of "through the turnstile" admissions for the last 5 years. It's gotten so crowded that last trip I rarely was able to use the bathroom without standing in a line unless it was "protected" by being inside a table service restaurant.

The stats I have seen could only represent the number of UK visitors staying onsite at WDW. Our unscientific fact is that we don't say "these people sound like the characters in HP" as much as we say....huh?

 

[mamabear0222]

Crap crap crapitty crap. Lol we go in a month. While I'd gladly pay for a throwaway room.....the grandparents would not. Since we are touring together for most of it.. .I'm screwed. I can only hope 90% get sucked into the fp+ lines while I wait in a shorter stand by line? That's my silver lining. Please don't burst my bubble lol

Sent from my Samsung S3 using DISBoards

 

[brockash]

I'm not sure about the whole it's only really negatively affecting off-site guests. While they certainly have it worst, we personally haven't stayed off-site in almost a decade, but now with the fastpass + stuff, rising prices etc. we are seriously looking at staying off-site and just not doing much, if any actual Disney stuff. We've gone every year for almost 10 yrs. and each trip we seem to find more things we don't really like and I think for us this 3 fastpasses a day, having a line just to get into the fastpass line etc. has pushed us over the line. I'm sure we'll be back at some point of course, but I think we'll start exploring new places for the next 10 yrs. or so.

 

[famy27]

I'm not sure about the whole it's only really negatively affecting off-site guests. While they certainly have it worst, we personally haven't stayed off-site in almost a decade, but now with the fastpass + stuff, rising prices etc. we are seriously looking at staying off-site and just not doing much, if any actual Disney stuff. We've gone every year for almost 10 yrs. and each trip we seem to find more things we don't really like and I think for us this 3 fastpasses a day, having a line just to get into the fastpass line etc. has pushed us over the line. I'm sure we'll be back at some point of course, but I think we'll start exploring new places for the next 10 yrs. or so.

Agreed. It's not that it sucks for offsite guests, it just sucks MORE for them. I'm staying onsite in June, and that FP return for BTMRR was not making me happy at all. This makes me wonder if tiering is going to find its way to MK as well. If so, I am going to throw a shoe at someone. MK with 3 FPs is bad enough. MK with 1 headliner is intolerable. My only hope with the tiering was that the elimination of the paper FPs and the double-dipping might free up capacity to allow them to get rid of tiers. I am not seeing that happening at all. Reading this thread and the other MK thread has really not done wonders for my mood.

C'mon Disney. Get your stuff together. You can do better. I know you can. Let's just go back to March 2012. The golden days of FP. It was a simpler, happier time.

 

[redrosesix]

Such a shame that they "improved" the FP system. MB might be great, but FP+ is anything but. Once again I am so thankful we had our trip this summer. We were there during peak time and had nothing like those lines. I had a feeling it would be bad, but this is just worse than I thought it would be. I certainly will be keeping my fingers crossed that this system is going to improve a lot.

mhmm. We've been there over MLK wknd and it was nothing compared to Pres Week. That is crooowwwdddeeed -- and unnecessarily so. The lines are all because of FP+, and so are the crowds that the everyone has to maneuver around. So by the time you get on your ride, finally, it's just not going to be as much fun.

I think we all knew there would be long waits at the kiosks due to the nature of the FP+ app...but still...just wow. Why in the world wouldn't they anticipate this and triple their efforts to get CMs trained and people signed up.

And these lines are related to FP+ rollout no matter how you slice and dice it, scanner issues or no and IMO completely unacceptable.

Agreed. but they must realize it because they had the signs and ropes made up to cordon off those lines.

I was just thinking the same thing earlier today. 2015 could be the Year of Magical Discounts.

The thing is, I get the feeling that thanks to the exchange rates, and the practice of selling the rooms much less expensively to overseas guests, international travelers will just fill the place up even if most of us in the US go less or stop going altogether. I'm honestly not sure who, if anyone, Disney considers their "bread and butter" client - who spends the most and thus pays the larger share of the bills.

Nope -- we're paying the same rates as US guests and coming from Canada. But this year, mostly because of FP+ we're going to use our off-site days to go to US and SW (tickets just arrived in the mail) when usually we'd be golfing and doing the Disney waterparks (or just sleeping in once in a while). Our first off-site days in 3 years, because even though we go during Pres Week, we had learned to avoid crowds and still don't like them.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

Crap crap crapitty crap. Lol we go in a month. While I'd gladly pay for a throwaway room.....the grandparents would not. Since we are touring together for most of it.. .I'm screwed. I can only hope 90% get sucked into the fp+ lines while I wait in a shorter stand by line? That's my silver lining. Please don't burst my bubble lol

Sent from my Samsung S3 using DISBoards

Not sure how big your total party will be but I've heard that campsites can be booked for up to 10 people.

 

[Shaden]

Not sure how big your total party will be but I've heard that campsites can be booked for up to 10 people.

OOOOOOh throw away campsite isn't a bad idea at ALL .... $49 or something is the cheapest I think ?


And by not a bad idea, I mean the least costly stupid alternative that people are now having to consider all the while paying more than they ever had for the parks and food just to get what looks to be a less enjoyable time than in their past vacations.

For most people anyway...

 

[mummabear]

Hah! Forget fights in the line.... you will know that they have officially jumped the shark when they start hiring ball park barkers to sell peanuts, popcorn, hotdogs and beer to all the people stuck in lines.

They do this at RSR at DL, I think it is an awesome idea (although would rather a short line!). Even for a 45 minute line in the heat I can be dying for a drink, even a machine in the line would do me =)