Now That FP(4+) Can Be Booked On A Mobile Device...

[JimmyV]

Today, you can choose to do the constant refresh dance or, like me probably, be satisfied with the 3 you get conveniently and let the die-hards do the clicking.

We leave for WDW on Saturday. I primed the pump at dinner tonight that we will most likely be satisfied with our original three and that we shouldn't get too excited about getting more. Like many people, my daughter was jazzed about being able to use her phone to grab more. Better to go in with lower expectations. Disney's new motto: "We strive to meet your lowered expectations".

 

[Airb330]

I expect that saving on kiosk staffing costs is one of the reasons they moved forward with the 4th FP by phone right now.

I'm sure. Paying 2-3 people to stand around to help people book fastpasses seems inefficient. Well the whole FP+ has been a $ blunder so I guess that isn't a surprise.

I think a good way to save some money on staffing would be to also just hook up Ipads there. The kiosks and whatever enterprise software they use are horrendously slow and have quite inaccurate touch screens. Ipads would be a more consistent experience and staff wouldn't need to do half the work for people (I see people really struggle with those kiosks on their own).

 

[jade1]

We leave for WDW on Saturday. I primed the pump at dinner tonight that we will most likely be satisfied with our original three and that we shouldn't get too excited about getting more. Like many people, my daughter was jazzed about being able to use her phone to grab more. Better to go in with lower expectations. Disney's new motto: "We strive to meet your lowered expectations".

What is your touring style/plan?

We have been reserving FP+ for the evenings and then picking any park we want in the AM-having gotten a lot done if at RD.

Then again we also like an afternoon break and go back for the evenings.

Did a lot of other things last week down there, didn't get enough time to test much since Sunday. But we did reserve FP+ for MK one AM, then got Fantasmic for that evening. Tuesday evening we hit MK without FP+ and noticed pretty small SB lines-not sure if it was just crowds thining out, or too many FP+ ressies that did not show up.

 

[JimmyV]

What is your touring style/plan?

No real pattern. For example, at Epcot, we like to spend the afternoons in WS. So we loaded up on early FPs at FW. Not because we expected to get more. But because we don't plan to be there after 12:30 or so. And for AK, it is sort of the same. We will arrive at RD and do what we normally do for the first hour or so, all Standby. Then, before we are ready to call it a day, we will make one last circuit of the park using our FPs from 2:30-5:00. At MK, one day we will use morning FPs and hope to get more in the afternoon. (Crowd level prediction is a 4 or 5). If that fails, then Oh Well. The second day at the MK will be one where we sleep in a bit. So we will arrive in time for lunch, and then use FPs in the early to mid-afternoon. I would probably re-think all of this if I thought that the crowd levels were going to be 7, 8, 9 or 10. Our plan pretty much depends on the crowds being less than people have been experiencing over the past month. If that turns out not to be the case, we might be in for a world of hurt. But again, if crowds are ridiculous in the third week of April when predictions are for 4s, 5s and 6s, this might be our last trip to WDW for a very long time.

 

[jade1]

No real pattern. For example, at Epcot, we like to spend the afternoons in WS. So we loaded up on early FPs at FW. Not because we expected to get more. But because we don't plan to be there after 12:30 or so. And for AK, it is sort of the same. We will arrive at RD and do what we normally do for the first hour or so, all Standby. Then, before we are ready to call it a day, we will make one last circuit of the park using our FPs from 2:30-5:00. At MK, one day we will use morning FPs and hope to get more in the afternoon. (Crowd level prediction is a 4 or 5). If that fails, then Oh Well. The second day at the MK will be one where we sleep in a bit. So we will arrive in time for lunch, and then use FPs in the early to mid-afternoon. I would probably re-think all of this if I thought that the crowd levels were going to be 7, 8, 9 or 10. Our plan pretty much depends on the crowds being less than people have been experiencing over the past month. If that turns out not to be the case, we might be in for a world of hurt. But again, if crowds are ridiculous in the third week of April when predictions are for 4s, 5s and 6s, this might be our last trip to WDW for a very long time.

Sounds like your on a good track.

So no hoppers correct? Like DHS after AK (unless ROL opens of course)?

Also kinda sounds like your not evenings in the park really? Would make a big difference, as we use most of ours then and night shows.

 

[JimmyV]

So no hoppers correct? Like DHS after AK (unless ROL opens of course)?

Also kinda sounds like your not evenings in the park really? Would make a big difference, as we use most of ours then and night shows.

No hoppers. We found that at most, we hopped once per week Twice tops. The money we would have spent on hoppers has been reallocated to a day at Universal.

As for nights, the parks aren't open super late. AK is an early closing park, so it will be Disney Springs and Morimoto's that night. Epcot always closes at 9:00, and we have 7:00 ADRs each day we are there which will be followed by Illuminations. One day at the MK we have a BoG dinner ADR. Hopefully the park will be manageable after that for some rides on the attractions we love to do at night. (Splash, Thunder Mt., Jungle Cruise, etc.) And the day we go to DHS is the day we fly home, so no night time activities there.

 

[jade1]

No hoppers. We found that at most, we hopped once per week Twice tops. The money we would have spent on hoppers has been reallocated to a day at Universal.

As for nights, the parks aren't open super late. AK is an early closing park, so it will be Disney Springs and Morimoto's that night. Epcot always closes at 9:00, and we have 7:00 ADRs each day we are there which will be followed by Illuminations. One day at the MK we have a BoG dinner ADR. Hopefully the park will be manageable after that for some rides on the attractions we love to do at night. (Splash, Thunder Mt., Jungle Cruise, etc.) And the day we go to DHS is the day we fly home, so no night time activities there.

Sounds like a good trip. Was getting quite a bit thinner yesterday, and US is a great day as well.

You can watch Star Wars Fireworks from outside DHS with a better view than just inside-if you have some extra time, but really could barely hear it which is more than half the fun.

 

[Dis2016Can]

We just got back from 6 days at the parks and I've got to say, the ability to get a 4th FP from the app was a game changer. I think we only waited stand-by a handful of times and were always able to get 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. FP for rides we wanted (BTMR, Space Mountain, Splash, etc.). The only ones we never got another FP for were TSMM and 7DMT but we had one booked for each day at MK so that wasn't an issue.