Paid FP options coming soon to WDW?

[SaharanTea]

Agreed - if it comes out that way and everyone has access to securing the specific rides they want then I at least see some positive angles to it, so hope that is the case

You'd pay $15 per person, per ride for one time on each of MK's mountains? At 11 people that's an extra $700 just for those four rides, just that one day. Family of four? $250 extra.

And if they reduce the upfront FPs, they'd force you to choose from an even worse footing. You can only rope drop one, and rope dropping would almost certainly get worse as it'd be the last way to get those rides with low waits on a "budget."

I know you said you usually only get 30 days out, but I bet most of those mountains are still available (save 7 Dwarfs) that close.

 

[Monicapfan]

IF this was implemented only for the major, hard-to-get attractions, I actually would be OK with this. One could always rope drop to get an “extra” ride. But, if this is implemented across the board, I would be sorely disappointed.



And, Martin said there may be three different FP packages available. So, an “All the Mountains!” package at MK may include BTMRR, 7DMT, SM, & Splash. You wouldn’t have to worry about securing those FPs, they would be guaranteed.

They already were kind of doing this last year....

 

[ljmiii]

However, if he truly knew the details his rumor "changes/updates" in the span of 3 days wouldn't be so dramatic if he knew all the details. A large corporation doesn't/won't move that fast especially with a majority of that time being a weekend...

Wanna buy the sublease on a Tesla store? ;-)

More seriously, all this year's FP changes - both verified and rumored - have the feel of trial balloons. Lets do it and see what happens and/or lets put out rumors through 'reliable sources' and see what the response is. I'm more or less locked into a DVC split stay in Dec/Jan and after a month or so of fretting decided to relax and make reservations to cover as many bases as I can. Next up is seeing if I can somehow get a continuous DVC stay at 7 months.

In the meantime I get to follow threads like this one...hopefully the dust will settle soon.

 

[tlmadden73]

Here is what I would love to see. (IF they are going to charge)

The elimination of EMH (lets admit it -- its coming. Why would they keep giving away for free what people are willing to pay for in EMM?)
Drop the free Fast Passes to 2.
Charge for the third.
Give resort guests that third fast pass for free with the ability to UPGRADE (just that 3rd one) to a anytime/anywhere fast pass for a fee.

The perks for staying onsite are less (especially now they charge you for parking at the hotel). I would love the option to have a flexible anytime fast pass. I LOVE getting those when a ride breaks down that I had a FP for. I would continue to stay in Disney hotels for that perk.

 

[Mac30188]

The challenge with some of the packages becomes scheduling. That could get ugly in a hurry. Example

Congratulations on your Mountain Package Purchase! Please choose your times

SDMT 9:00 / 9:15 / 9:30 PM only
Space Mountain 12:00 / 12:15PM only
Splash Mountain 9:30 / 9:45 AM only
Big Thunder Mountain 6:15 / 6:30 / 6:45PM only

Hope you were planning on a commando day, not having a good dinner/lunch ADR, or throwing one away.

Honestly, if they evolve down to minimal reserved fast pass and more day of fast pass purchases with a limit of only for next 3 hours. That way no matter what time you show up, you have a chance to start locking in fast pass reservations for rides and minimize the feeling of being captured by a plan you formed 60 days in advance. I doubt the cost would be out of line with what people pay at Universal.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

You'd pay $15 per person, per ride for one time on each of MK's mountains? At 11 people that's an extra $700 just for those four rides, just that one day. Family of four? $250 extra.

And if they reduce the upfront FPs, they'd force you to choose from an even worse footing. You can only rope drop one, and rope dropping would almost certainly get worse as it'd be the last way to get those rides with low waits on a "budget."

I know you said you usually only get 30 days out, but I bet most of those mountains are still available (save 7 Dwarfs) that close.

would depend on the details - and no, not all of them if they are $15 each/person (but if it was like $30/person for all of them together, something like that I would consider it

More thinking the very, very hard FPs to get I might pay per ride (so like FoP, Mine Train, Slinky Dog ... and likely would just pick 1 of them to pay for)

 

[Katrina Y]

If they were to still give the three free at 60 days for the resort stayers, but then have packages to buy for some of the top tier, I'd probably be okay with that. So like $150 or $200 for four top tier like FoP, one SWGE rides, Tron, GotG, Rat, etc, especially if the four passes could be used throughout the trip. I'd actually maybe might consider that for a guarantee to ride...maybe.

In July 2008 I went to DLR. They were doing some sort of celebration, I don't remember what. Anyways, I got to DL at park open and one of the early rides I rode was Pirates. Coming off Pirates, a CM was handing out lanyards with fast passes for every ride that had fast passes. I had already grabbed paper FP for some of the rides. I was able to use those, plus other paper FP, plus the freebie FP. Let me tell you, it was an awesome day at DL. And I will be honest, the 4th FP at WDW sometimes gives me a little bit of the same feeling.

Here is what I would love to see. (IF they are going to charge)

The elimination of EMH (lets admit it -- its coming. Why would they keep giving away for free what people are willing to pay for in EMM?)
Drop the free Fast Passes to 2.
Charge for the third.
Give resort guests that third fast pass for free with the ability to UPGRADE (just that 3rd one) to a anytime/anywhere fast pass for a fee.

The perks for staying onsite are less (especially now they charge you for parking at the hotel). I would love the option to have a flexible anytime fast pass. I LOVE getting those when a ride breaks down that I had a FP for. I would continue to stay in Disney hotels for that perk.

 

[amberpi]

Give resort guests that third fast pass for free with the ability to UPGRADE (just that 3rd one) to a anytime/anywhere fast pass for a fee.

The perks for staying onsite are less (especially now they charge you for parking at the hotel). I would love the option to have a flexible anytime fast pass. I LOVE getting those when a ride breaks down that I had a FP for. I would continue to stay in Disney hotels for that perk.

The anytime FPs really are worth more. We fly by the seat of our pants somewhat, and I'd happily pay a premium for anytime FPs vs. locked in ones.

 

[crvetter]

Wanna buy the sublease on a Tesla store? ;-)

I'll give you that, Elon Musk runs Tesla as a start-up (to a degree it is) and is a micro-manager. Perhaps I should say a well-established corporation with many corporate structures and sub-companies typically doesn't run with a start-up mentality (the corporate structure set-up inherently different between start-ups and established businesses) and allow the lower level structures handle the development and design of products and approval gets pushed up the line.

More seriously, all this year's FP changes - both verified and rumored - have the feel of trial balloons. Lets do it and see what happens and/or lets put out rumors through 'reliable sources' and see what the response is.

This assumes Martin is reliable and I don't want to debate that point here at all (he probably is on most issues). But this assumption that Martin is being told falsehoods would make him unreliable as his sources could no longer be trusted. With that being said I was specifically told by Disney (DVC leadership and management at Guest Relations) on multiple occasions when I've called regarding issues that they do monitor discussion boards quite frequently so your point does stand, but it makes the case that this is a done deal less so (let alone how it will work, which was a point I was making).

All in all it should be treated as rumor, IMO, and as such should be taken with a grain of salt, which was my main point. If Martin truly knew the exact specifics his discussions wouldn't be as fluid (no matter if he was trying to protect a source, the details are wildly different each day even sometimes hour to hour). I think we assign too much truth to his rumors more than he contributes himself.

 

[tlmadden73]

They already were kind of doing this last year....

I think that is the way to charge for Fast Passes - without simply removing one and charging for it.

Charge for GUARANTEED access to one of the key attractions.

SO I could see them still giving everyone 3 FPs, but holding some in reserve so they could sell packages that would replace your free ones but include high-demand attractions like a Toy Story package (that includes SDD) .. a Star Wars package (that includes both of those rides) .. a pandora package that includes both Avatar rides, etc.
Maybe even make them more appealing by letting them be NON-SCHEDULED. Just walk onto SDD whenever you want during the course of one day.
If they dont sell may of these packages, the system should handle it, right?

 

[amberpi]

I think that is the way to charge for Fast Passes - without simply removing one and charging for it.

Charge for GUARANTEED access to one of the key attractions.

SO I could see them still giving everyone 3 FPs, but holding some in reserve so they could sell packages that would replace your free ones but include high-demand attractions like a Toy Story package (that includes SDD) .. a Star Wars package (that includes both of those rides) .. a pandora package that includes both Avatar rides, etc.
Maybe even make them more appealing by letting them be NON-SCHEDULED. Just walk onto SDD whenever you want during the course of one day.
If they dont sell may of these packages, the system should handle it, right?

They would have to make these packages different prices though, based on demand, right? I think you could be on to something though.

 

[Iowamomof4]

But, those people need to log in over and over again to get it to work. For each FP they try for. So, they are not choosing certain people.

Just to correct one thing... not everyone is having to log in and out to get it to work. It worked for me every day and I never had to do anything special. No refreshing, no logging in and out.... I just went in, picked my date, picked my park, and selected fastpasses. Easy peasy.

 

[vinotinto]

This is my theory:

The 74-day FP window that some people recently had was not a glitch. It was a test. They wanted to make sure that the programming would work before rolling it out to everyone. The plan being to charge onsite guests a fee for early FP access, similar to the CL level package but without the extra 3 special FP. Guests who buy it will have that programming code added to their account. Guests who don’t purchase it will still get 60 days and offsite guests will still get 30.

That’s why they had to stop the rolling 60 for throwaway rooms and why they had to “break” the 60+ advantage for split stays.

Now, how many FPs each guest will continue to get is up for debate. But I think that this is the route they’re going.

This is exactly what I had speculated on the “Disney to cancel FPs” thread. All of this testing behind the scenes, and the early 74-day window, and the ability to only make FPs for your reservation, not the entire length of stay, and the addition of more resorts getting the 60-day FPs, all just sounds to me like they are going to monetize an early window opening.

 

[Marionnette]

If it was a bug it would be random days, not just 74 days ahead.

Bugs can happen anywhere in a program. This isn’t a bug in the 74-day window. The bug is the need to refresh in order to make another FP for those who were selected for this test.

 

[snappy]

Just to correct one thing... not everyone is having to log in and out to get it to work. It worked for me every day and I never had to do anything special. No refreshing, no logging in and out.... I just went in, picked my date, picked my park, and selected fastpasses. Easy peasy.

I am happy to hear this. My 60 day FP window was today. I had to sign off and in 5 or 6 times. It took me over an hour to make FP’s for 7 days. Often my husband disappeared from my party, other times when I went to modify a FP for both of us, only one would show up. Lots of backing out and sometimes the only way to refresh was to sign out. I was able to complete my selections though as I expected this to happen do I m re the fixes. At least I never got the Olaf screen. I hope MDE works at WDW better than it did last month. So many sign ons and offs and time in the phone, I had to recharge my phone mid day.

 

[OSUZorba]

I think Martin's info keeps changing because the discussion by those in the know keeps changing; meaning it's still a fluid situation and they know they are going to change it, they just don't know how yet... or they didn't.

If I were to leak out everything I heard in meetings and were in discussion at my company, everyone would think I was full of it because things change so much. Also people tend to leak more about things they find "toxic" so less mature information gets out.

 

[Katrina Y]

Just to correct one thing... not everyone is having to log in and out to get it to work. It worked for me every day and I never had to do anything special. No refreshing, no logging in and out.... I just went in, picked my date, picked my park, and selected fastpasses. Easy peasy.

How did you know to even attempt to book your FP 74 days out?

 

[Aron1012]

I would wait for specific details on this before you can say a lawsuit is to be had. Again personally I don’t see a lawsuit holding up.

I'm not going to argue the potential merits of a case for this change, but 20-30 years ago many corporations operated very conservatively to avoid potential lawsuits. In the past 10-15 years as pressure has mounted to produce profits (and CEOs/Executives have been incentivized to think short term), many corporations have become lax in that approach. They looked at the past and saw how few lawsuits they were paying out on and then looked at how much money they were leaving on the table to make sure they avoided any reputational hits from a lawsuit. Is anyone surprised that profit-driven executive teams decided to wade right into the muck?

Yes in past winning lawsuits against a giant like Disney may have been tough, but not because they had the best and brightest lawyers but because they were cautious. Many recent cases have proved these giant corporations are prime candidates for oversight and simple greed clouding their judgment.

 

[disneyseniors]

Well, this is just another nail in the coffin as far as our Disney trips are concerned.! Stack it on top of all the upcharges for formerly free events/nights, increased daily passes, tiered charges, increased food costs, etc, etc that have occurred rapidly over the past year or so.
I'm just glad our family got to enjoy Disney before all the money mongering from the current management.
I don't even feel saddened that we are not going back, and That's sad.
We are going to take more trips to the Space Center, Sea World, Sanibel, Universal, the beautiful National Parks that we have in the US. There is so much more to see and enjoy. I am slightly hopeful that one day Disney see's more of a future than their current money gouging pace.
I never thought I'd say that we are done. I write a guest column on another popular Disney site and have taken yearly WDW trips. Our kids and grandkids have enjoyed Disney trips for years. We are all done with it now, but have wonderful memories of "another" Disney World gone by.
It took a lot for us to move on from Disney, and I actually feel free from anger, frustration over the money grabbing (which is just a small part of the reasons) ways. Goodbye Disney!

 

[SaintsManiac]

How did you know to even attempt to book your FP 74 days out?

There is a thread on here about it.