Paid FP options coming soon to WDW?

[Aussie RJ]

The speculation in this thread from a business sense is funny! No way Disney gets rid of the FP perk, it's a wonderful, sellable profit centre. IMHO - After the 'general experience' of spring break resides, the calls from those traditionally hooked on the guarantee of 3 quick ride experiences per day onsite will only get louder. I understand local AP holders hate FP's.. but they don't fill the hotel rooms.

 

[JakeAZ]

The speculation in this thread from a business sense is funny! No way Disney gets rid of the FP perk, it's a wonderful, sellable profit centre. IMHO - After the 'general experience' of spring break resides, the calls from those traditionally hooked on the guarantee of 3 quick ride experiences per day onsite will only get louder. I understand local AP holders hate FP's.. but they don't fill the hotel rooms.

While I agree with you, WDW isn't going to transition to 100% to standby lines, I don't think FP turned out to be the profitable endeavor WDW imagined it would be. My guess is as soon as Universal introduced the EP, they regretted "including" FP for everyone.

Now, when it comes back, my guess is it will be a cash cow!

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I mean, if people still pay the prices, then Disney isn't overcharging for anything. That's just basic economics.

People are not paying the prices. Other than at peak times the occupancy rates appear to be very low.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

People are not paying the prices. Other than at peak times the occupancy rates appear to be very low.

Are you talking about right now during the pandemic or pre-pandemic?

 

[Aussie RJ]

People are not paying the prices. Other than at peak times the occupancy rates appear to be very low.

We are in the middle of a pandemic.. No Brazillian / Mexican tour groups, No Europeans etc.. It will rebound. Travel agents need perks such as FP to sell the Disney experience. My guess is FP will come back with a fee, the onsite guest fee will be lower than the standard.

 

[Eric Smith]

People are not paying the prices. Other than at peak times the occupancy rates appear to be very low.

Mostly due to the fact that there is a pandemic going on. It's not like hotels anywhere else are doing better. Pre-pandemic, Disney was at 90% occupancy or higher in their hotels.

 

[Aprilshack]

We are in the middle of a pandemic.. No Brazillian / Mexican tour groups, No Europeans etc.. It will rebound. Travel agents need perks such as FP to sell the Disney experience. My guess is FP will come back with a fee, the onsite guest fee will be lower than the standard.

If they do introduce a fee, i wonder for those that have already booked, Disney will waive it?

 

[Eric Smith]

If they do introduce a fee, i wonder for those that have already booked, Disney will waive it?

If there’s a fee, it’ll come with a whole redesign of the system. I expect that on site guests will get some kind of FP perk.

 

[Makmak]

If they do introduce a fee, i wonder for those that have already booked, Disney will waive it?

I think it will be bookable as “add-on” so doubt they will waive anything. May have priority to book your choices/first dibs on the add-on. We are not seeing many trends of free perks

 

[MickeyWaffles]

If they do introduce a fee, i wonder for those that have already booked, Disney will waive it?

No, since they’re not offering free FP now, people who already booked would likely just have the option to pay to add it if they’d want. Because they aren’t offering FP now and nobody is booking thinking they are getting complimentary FP, no need to waive anything.

 

[whiporee]

I think the fact that we haven't had any reasonably supported rumors leads me to believe that FP will come back in exactly the same way it left. If you work under the assumption that WDW will be back to "normal" by October -- which everyone seems to be insinuating with the vaccine rollout and Fauci's comments, then there's not enough time to really come up with an entirely new system. So I think that when WDW starts talking about full capacity -- which I think will be sometime next month (not full capacity but the conversation about full capacity) then FPs will start to be made available to resort guests at the 60-day window. So I expect FPs in their old form will be reservable in late July, with use available the last week of September and into October.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I think the fact that we haven't had any reasonably supported rumors leads me to believe that FP will come back in exactly the same way it left. If you work under the assumption that WDW will be back to "normal" by October -- which everyone seems to be insinuating with the vaccine rollout and Fauci's comments, then there's not enough time to really come up with an entirely new system. So I think that when WDW starts talking about full capacity -- which I think will be sometime next month (not full capacity but the conversation about full capacity) then FPs will start to be made available to resort guests at the 60-day window. So I expect FPs in their old form will be reservable in late July, with use available the last week of September and into October.

We know that they came up with a "Genie" system that was probably ready to roll out a while ago, that in some fashion was going to involve fastpasses. So it seems pretty unlikely it comes back exactly as it left. They're going to release whatever their genie system is.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

I think the fact that we haven't had any reasonably supported rumors leads me to believe that FP will come back in exactly the same way it left. If you work under the assumption that WDW will be back to "normal" by October -- which everyone seems to be insinuating with the vaccine rollout and Fauci's comments, then there's not enough time to really come up with an entirely new system. So I think that when WDW starts talking about full capacity -- which I think will be sometime next month (not full capacity but the conversation about full capacity) then FPs will start to be made available to resort guests at the 60-day window. So I expect FPs in their old form will be reservable in late July, with use available the last week of September and into October.

Plenty of things happen without substantiated rumors. Most recently the elimination of DME.

Insiders have hinted at paid FP for a long time. We know that one of the biggest hurdles Disney would have with this change would be how to take free FP away and seamlessly transition to paid. Well, Covid hit, they had to suspend FP, and when the time is right to bring back FP they have the perfect opportunity to transition it to paid.

Sorry, I don’t think there’s any chance complimentary FP return in their old form. Especially since it didn’t even work that great. Standby lines slowed down so much, and FP lines weren’t always exactly short. The system could use refreshing anyway to be more efficient.

 

[Eric Smith]

We know that they came up with a "Genie" system that was probably ready to roll out a while ago, that in some fashion was going to involve fastpasses. So it seems pretty unlikely it comes back exactly as it left. They're going to release whatever their genie system is.

Genie wouldn’t be related to fast passes. It was going to mimic what people did with Touring Plans.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Genie wouldn’t be related to fast passes. It was going to mimic what people did with Touring Plans.

There were credible reports that genie was going to be much more than what you describe, and would involve granting "wishes" (fastpasses).

 

[Eric Smith]

There were credible reports that genie was going to be much more than what you describe, and would involve granting "wishes" (fastpasses).

All of the reliable rumors I saw said that it was just a Disney version of Touring Plans.

 

[Jrb1979]

First I just want to ask this for those that say their kids couldn't handle long wait times. Do you ever take your kids to regional parks? I take my nieces to my local park a lot and the average wait is 30 minutes to an hour and they never complain.

Second with them covering up all the Fast pass signs now makes me think there is going to be big changes coming. I know for Shanghai they do a paid system. Its about $90 for the top seven rides per person.

 

[Eric Smith]

First I just want to ask this for those that say their kids couldn't handle long wait times. Do you ever take your kids to regional parks? I take my nieces to my local park a lot and the average wait is 30 minutes to an hour and they never complain.

Second with them covering up all the Fast pass signs now makes me think there is going to be big changes coming. I know for Shanghai they do a paid system. Its about $90 for the top seven rides per person.

Covering up those signs isn't a new thing. Kilimanjaro Safaris has been covered up since the parks reopened and Space Mountain was covered up in the fall.

 

[tjkraz]

But I would prefer that they just get rid of the FP system altogether. It would dramatically decrease wait times per ride across the entire day.

Depends on how you tour. We've had 8 months to see what the four WDW theme parks look like without FastPass and it's not very encouraging. Right now, Splash has a 90 minute wait, Pirates is 50 and Buzz is 55. Without FastPass, it would take almost 4 hours to ride three attractions. And that's with the parks operating at less than 50% capacity.

With FastPass, I could schedule all 3 of those in a 2 hour window. And without having to stand in line, I can sprinkle in a handful of high capacity / low wait rides like Peoplemover, Philharmagic and Ariel.

When you aren't standing in line for the most popular attractions--which would have the longest lines--it's a huge time saver. Main drawbacks are the need to book some FPs weeks in advance and the likelihood of having to return to a park 2-3 times to get passes for all those headliners. Small price to pay, in my opinion.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

First I just want to ask this for those that say their kids couldn't handle long wait times. Do you ever take your kids to regional parks? I take my nieces to my local park a lot and the average wait is 30 minutes to an hour and they never complain.

Second with them covering up all the Fast pass signs now makes me think there is going to be big changes coming. I know for Shanghai they do a paid system. Its about $90 for the top seven rides per person.

At regional parks I know there are plenty of kiddie rides that willl not have waits greater than 15 minutes. No, I would not attempt to wait with a 2 year old on an hour long line for anything.