Paid FP options coming soon to WDW?

[TiggerBouncy]

That's always been dependent on the individual restaurants. I've been accommodated recently at Tiffins when we were quite early for our dinner ADR and figured we'd see if they could seat us early rather than trying to kill time. Oga's took us in earlier than mobile check in was active.

not even the restaurant, but the person. And it seems to be a bigger issue with covid and the new system.

in the past, I have been able to just go up to sci-fi and get on a waiting list. This last trip, they wouldn’t even talk to me. They said if you have a reservation you can check in on the app only when it enables. If it’s not enabled, you’re too early and they can’t help you.

If you don’t have a reservation, go away.

literally, that’s all they would say to anyone. It was.... different... from my usual experience.

 

[Disturbia]

With IT issues I wouldn’t want to do same day dining reservations. I was there the day Oga’s accidentally released same day reservations and overbooked so there was a huge line to get in despite having reservations. 60 days is good.

I also don’t think it’s feasible for everyone to be getting ready in the morning and one person obsessing over fast passes for the day.

Maybe there should be a set time and staggering: e.g. at 7 am you get one fast pass selected rides 9-12 pm; then at 12 you can try for passes 12-3 pm. Resort guests get extra 2 fast passes to be used say 4-9 pm. This would actually involve more planning vs just knowing you have 3 booked and going with the flow the rest of the time.

I do like the fastpass plus system and was always able to maximize it. Disney does want to appeal to the people who are ok with everything not being like Universal (they differentiate themselves as they are trying to appeal to a different demographic - families with young children (kids 38-44 inches tall).

 

[JakeAZ]

How do the uber/lyft charges affect the savings out of curiosity? I don't use either service often enough to get a sense to how much they add. I wouldn't think it would be much more than a rental car + parking, especially with the prices of rentals lately.

I guess it depends on how much they save by staying off-site. If they are considering Deluxe at current insane Deluxe pricing, they could probably save quite a bit staying off-site. Even if they spent $100 per day (on the very high end) with Uber / Lyft, they'd come out ahead.

 

[Jrb1979]

With IT issues I wouldn’t want to do same day dining reservations. I was there the day Oga’s accidentally released same day reservations and overbooked so there was a huge line to get in despite having reservations. 60 days is good.

I also don’t think it’s feasible for everyone to be getting ready in the morning and one person obsessing over fast passes for the day.

Maybe there should be a set time and staggering: e.g. at 7 am you get one fast pass selected rides 9-12 pm; then at 12 you can try for passes 12-3 pm. Resort guests get extra 2 fast passes to be used say 4-9 pm. This would actually involve more planning vs just knowing you have 3 booked and going with the flow the rest of the time.

I do like the fastpass plus system and was always able to maximize it. Disney does want to appeal to the people who are ok with everything not being like Universal (they differentiate themselves as they are trying to appeal to a different demographic - families with young children (kids 38-44 inches tall).

I would do away completely with having set times for FP. Limit FP to a percentage of guests per day with no pre booking. Make it the same as every other park. It's never made sense to me in that I have to pre book what rides I want to do at what time before I get to the park. Same with ADRs. How do I know before hand what I feel like eating or riding that day?

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

The system broke for me when Fastpass+ was not available for the Galaxy's Edge rides. Not so much Millennium Falcon (standby only at first), but definitely RotR with its boarding group structure. I didn't mind having limited rides in exchange for knowing that I would be able to reserve the newest, most popular ride. In any event, I don't think FP+ was working well for Disney, at least not toward the end.

They didn't have fastpass for ROTR because of reliability issues. HOnestly, it's not even that they couldn't have fastpass, it's that they couldn't have standby for that one. They added fastpass for millenium falcon pretty quickly.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

This is exactly it.

FP availability (or lack thereof) is its own issue. The larger issue is the hourly scheduling of individual rides two months in advance.

By and large, people hate that ****. And it turns off the big spenders even more.

Disagree with this completely. Everyone I know, including plenty of casual disneygoers, liked fastpass.

 

[AdamsMum]

So you will paying for something that used to be included?

I am not sure how anyone could see anything positive in this.

I agree, aren't Disney theme park tickets already expensive enough? I wish they'd go back to the old fastpass system, walk up to the kiosk, request a fast pass, come back later. Get another fp 1 hour after your window opens. I guess I'm a dinosaur, but to add $70 to $100 per person per day for a universal express style fp seems excessive.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

I guess I'm a dinosaur, but to add $70 to $100 per person per day for a universal express style fp seems excessive.

If Disney decides to sell Universal-express-pass-style unlimited fastpasses, the cost will almost certainly be much, much higher than $70 to $100 per person per day! I suspect there will be various options for sale, including perhaps a few extra fastpasses for somewhere around $50 per person per day, and packages of fastpasses for groups of particular rides (like some of the international parks do), with prices ranging from maybe $75 to $150 depending on the number of fastbasses in the package and the desirability of the rides. If they do sell an option of unlimited fastpasses on all rides all day, I would expect it to cost at least $250 per person per day, and probably more like double that.

 

[AdamsMum]

would expect it to cost at least $250 per person per day, and probably more like double that.

 

[JakeAZ]

If they do sell an option of unlimited fastpasses on all rides all day, I would expect it to cost at least $250 per person per day, and probably more like double that.

Easily.

Universal was $300+ for their EP pricing over Spring Break.

 

[Disturbia]

The reason for timed fast passes is to spread out crowds (no passes for the last 30 minutes or so). Disney limits the number of fastpasses for headliners by giving you tiers so you have to standby other rides; I haven’t seen the waits reduce with this system either.

Personally I liked the printed fastpass system better. We’ve never been able to do as many rides as we did with the printed passes, but that was also inefficient (couldn’t ride Soarin until pm and can’t get another) but we made it work.

We’ve been going for a decade now and have seen a significant increase in crowds so the old printed fast pass system probably won’t work anymore.

With people fainting while waiting in lines last summer, Disney will bring back fastpasses in some form, and we will have to adjust accordingly. I’m just hoping they don’t do it without sending an email/notification (I didn’t get a notice on ROTR change from 10am to 7am) and mess up my June trip (I’m ready to cancel and book if they release fastpasses later this summer). They’re already releasing hours 2 weeks before a trip and adding dining at different times.

 

[jkh36619]

FP could be improved but I do like having everything planned out so I dont have to plan anything while I'm there.

 

[CJK]

My issue with the old paper FP system is that it required you to arrive early to get in on the headliner rides. With FP+, we could schedule 3 good rides whenever we wanted. As annual passholders, we sometimes wouldn't go until after work. It was great knowing that we'd get 3 guaranteed good rides. With the old FP system, we'd probably only get to use standby lines.

 

[New Mouse]

They didn't have fastpass for ROTR because of reliability issues. HOnestly, it's not even that they couldn't have fastpass, it's that they couldn't have standby for that one. They added fastpass for millenium falcon pretty quickly.

Rise doesnt have enough capacity. Its the first ride Disney built knowing not everyone will get to ride. The tech issues dont help the matter, but even running perfectly they wouldt be able to serve all guests.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Rise doesnt have enough capacity. Its the first ride Disney built knowing not everyone will get to ride. The tech issues dont help the matter, but even running perfectly they wouldt be able to serve all guests.

I don’t think this is really true though. They could have let it go standby and then when it got to 3 or 4 hour waits natural selection would have caused people to not ride it (I’m not waiting in a 4 hour line!) and then it would have been fine. The problem was that it’s so unreliable that they would have constantly had people waiting in 4 hour lines and then having to evacuate the line and have a ton of pissed off guests. There are plenty of rides at disney that “not everyone gets to ride” every day because the ride doesn’t have the capacity. It gets sorted out by having a high queue wait and those people choosing not to wait in it.

 

[ThistleMae]

How do the uber/lyft charges affect the savings out of curiosity? I don't use either service often enough to get a sense to how much they add. I wouldn't think it would be much more than a rental car + parking, especially with the prices of rentals lately.

My DD feels the savings of staying offsite ,even using uber/lyft to go back and forth to the parks, will save $. They've been using this service for the last two trips, even staying onsite, just for convenience. But with more and more perks being taken away from onsite guests, staying at a much nicer, roomier hotel, is the way to go for future trips.

 

[JakeAZ]

staying at a much nicer, roomier hotel, is the way to go for future trips

Completely agree. Especially the "roomier" part. We have an on-site stay coming up in November. We are only staying on-site because we had some DVC rental credits that needed to be used. Going forward, we will be looking off-site. The only thing that could change our mind (possibly) would be a major on-site benefit being introduced. Not something like a better booking window for a feature everyone gets. It needs to be an exclusive you only get for staying on-site.

 

[Jake]

My feelings. What ever thats worth. Disney will limit fasspasses, or what ever they change the name to. For Disney hotel guest only or hotels on there property.

Disney can not increase there attendance any 1 or 2% a year. No people left in the world? So in order to increase there profits they will increase hotel prices and give hotel guest some type of fasspasses. So many for budget, more for mods. More for deluxe.

Disney doesn’t really care about the day people who bring there food and drinks to the park. They want the guest who stay on site and buy food, drinks, snacks.

What also have prices increases. Not to many years ago you could get a hamburger for $10. Now it’s like $18 with some fancy bacon,cheese, fake meat? Burger

 

[Jake]

My feelings. What ever thats worth. Disney will limit fasspasses, or what ever they change the name to. For Disney hotel guest only or hotels on there property.

Disney can not increase there attendance any 1 or 2% a year. No people left in the world? So in order to increase there profits they will increase hotel prices and give hotel guest some type of fasspasses. So many for budget, more for mods. More for deluxe.

Disney doesn’t really care about the day people who bring there food and drinks to the park. They want the guest who stay on site and buy food, drinks, snacks.

What also have prices increases. Not to many years ago you could get a hamburger for $10. Now it’s like $18 with some fancy bacon,cheese, fake meat? Burger

 

[Jake]

Disney started fastpass so people would eat and buy thing when you don’t have to Waite on line. Don’t think that worked out for them. People Waite on different lines when waiting for fastpass time to come.

It has to cost them major money to have all those CM checking on guest fastpass times. With out Disney getting any financial benefits from. FP.
I think Disney will do something like FP for there hotel guest then increase hotel prices