Question for the folks who don't like FP+

[Networth]

See I found the bands equal in time and faster for park admission than the old paper mediums(FP & Tickets). As long as the guest know to "put Mickey to Mickey" and the system works the line moved quick the last 3 times I was their. Of course their is always the person who thinks they can just swipe the band like a credit card or glitch that holds up the line. But I feel like once those two issue are worked out the bands will be faster when entering the parks and equal to FP entrances compared to the old paper system.

 

[glamdring269]

OP, I can understand your pain from MK yesterday. Some of the pics Josh has been posting on twitter are crazy. The Haunted Mansion FP+ return line is madness. Same for Jungle Cruise.

And to previous poster, I know what you're saying about the MB being easy to use but the problem is it may not be for everyone. Surely everyone could hand over a KTTW card or piece of paper. Aligning the Mickey heads? Woo hoo magic time... that is much less efficient than the old way.

 

[JimmyV]

See I found the bands equal in time and faster for park admission than the old paper mediums(FP & Tickets). As long as the guest know to "put Mickey to Mickey" and the system works the line moved quick the last 3 times I was their. Of course their is always the person who thinks they can just swipe the band like a credit card or glitch that holds up the line. But I feel like once those two issue are worked out the bands will be faster when entering the parks and equal to FP entrances compared to the old paper system.

For FP entry (and not park entry), there is no way mathematically that a party of 6 can scan their Mickeys faster than the alpha member of the group could wave 6 fanned-out FP tickets to a CM. Assume that each of the 6 people places their MB up to the Mickey post and holds it for a count of three seconds, and then it takes the next person in the group a count of two seconds to position themselves at the post. Even assuming that the group uses the Mickeys on both sides of the entrance, you get the following:

• Person #1.....3 seconds____________Person #2.....3 seconds (Simultaneously)
• Gap in time....2 seconds____________Gap in time....2 seconds
• Person #3.....3 seconds____________Person #4.....3 seconds (Simultaneously)
• Gap in time...2 seconds____________Gap in time....2 seconds
• Person #5.....3 seconds____________Person #6.....3 seconds (Simultaneously)

Total time for 6 people to pass through FP entry=13 seconds. And that is if everything goes perfectly and the group has the speed and coordination of Jimmie Johnson's pit crew. There was never, ever a time that it took 13 seconds for a group of 6 to get waved past a CM when they were flashing their FP tickets. Now, we might only be talking about a savings of 12 seconds. But again, not everything goes right all the time, and not every group is as fast and coordinated as the example above. If you bump that time difference up to 20 seconds for every 5 people, then for every 100 people who go through the FP line, you would be adding 400 seconds, which is almost 7 minutes. Obviously this isn't catastrophic by any stretch. But to say that "Mickey to Mickey is faster or just as fast as paper FP" is simply unsupported.

 

[Networth]

Nice number crunching. That is assuming that a group has the passes in hand and is ready to go. Yet I suppose if your the kind of person fumbling for passes you probably will fumble with the band as well. On the bright size park admission is much much quicker with the bands IME.

 

[OtherScott]

FP+ lines are building because it takes longer to scan MBs than it does to check paper FPs, then add in the glitches people mention here w/FP+s not showing up, etc..so FP+ line builds.

That explains why it would increase one's wait on this side of the magic bronze Mickey, but what about on that side?

Unless the line for those already past the checkpoint loaded the ride faster than the checkpoint could replace them, there wouldn't be any effect. And if that were to occur, the riders needed to load would be drawn from the SB line.

No?

 

[magicbob]

That explains why it would increase one's wait on this side of the magic bronze Mickey, but what about on that side?

Unless the line for those already past the checkpoint loaded the ride faster than the checkpoint could replace them, there wouldn't be any effect. And if that were to occur, the riders needed to load would be drawn from the SB line.

No?

That depends. There have been a lot of recent reports of PotC boats leaving half empty on the FP side. They can't just take more people from SB because of the way they divided the line and made one side exclusively FP+.

 

[OtherScott]

That depends. There have been a lot of recent reports of PotC boats leaving half empty on the FP side. They can't just take more people from SB because of the way they divided the line and made one side exclusively FP+.

Makes sense. I only rode that once i my life (last visit) and don't remember it being exceptionally fast loading so as to outpace supply, even given the extra seconds. Now a few MB/database problems would certainly jam it up, because they would take 30 seconds before deciding to something other "try it again"

 

[CinqueTerre]

That depends. There have been a lot of recent reports of PotC boats leaving half empty on the FP side. They can't just take more people from SB because of the way they divided the line and made one side exclusively FP+.

I don't think PotC should even have a FP+ line. It wasn't designed for that. And I think the same about Haunted Mansion. Both of those rides should be standby only.

 

[estherhead]

Making a ride have LESS capacity is simply ridiculous. I also think POTC shouldn't have FP+

 

[Angel Ariel]

That explains why it would increase one's wait on this side of the magic bronze Mickey, but what about on that side?

Unless the line for those already past the checkpoint loaded the ride faster than the checkpoint could replace them, there wouldn't be any effect. And if that were to occur, the riders needed to load would be drawn from the SB line.

No?

The sheer number of people using fp+ is much greater than those who used legacy, which would account for longer fp+ lines in general

 

[Angel Ariel]

I don't think PotC should even have a FP+ line. It wasn't designed for that. And I think the same about Haunted Mansion. Both of those rides should be standby only.

That's why legacy fp was removed from those rides in the first place...

 

[joy13]

I don't think PotC should even have a FP+ line. It wasn't designed for that. And I think the same about Haunted Mansion. Both of those rides should be standby only.

This is my big concern, the rides that didn't have Fastpass before, now having Fastpasses. Those are the rides we did later because the SB line was short. I think just doing the opposite of what I used to do will work best. Those rides in the morning, headliners and shows in the afternoon.

 

[ferd]

I think just doing the opposite of what I used to do will work best. Those rides in the morning, headliners and shows in the afternoon.

Now I know this could just be the Spring Break crowd thing, but yesterday afternoon (around 3pm) the line for Philharmagic literally (no joke) spilled out deep into Fantasyland past the carrousel and almost to the castle walls near where the Tremaines meet. And if you've done Philharmagic you know there is quite a decent amount of queue space inside to wind around and accomodate a large amount of people.

Normally the 1-5pm time frame is great for things like Philharmagic, but IDK, the whole FP+ thing might even be messing up that strategy...

 

[estherhead]

Now I know this could just be the Spring Break crowd thing, but yesterday afternoon (around 3pm) the line for Philharmagic literally (no joke) spilled out deep into Fantasyland past the carrousel and almost to the castle walls near where the Tremaines meet. And if you've done Philharmagic you know there is quite a decent amount of queue space inside to wind around and accomodate a large amount of people. Normally the 1-5pm time frame is great for things like Philharmagic, but IDK, the whole FP+ thing might even be messing up that strategy...

We are here today and at 1:30 Philharmagic was a walkon. And the theater didn't fill. Are you sure that wasn't the Fastpass+ kiosk? The stupid kiosk line runs parallel to the Philharmagic line. I've never been so stressed at Disney World by crowds as I was right there today. We have said a zillion times the past 3 days: the kiosks have to GO!

I tried to type this earlier but this ap broke. The other super confusing area was Monsters/Buzz. There are 2 standby lines, 2 FP return lines, and a kiosk line running practically together. It was almost impossible to get into the line you actually wanted.

We have two little kids, two GAD kids, and an aspergers kid with us. We are really good at managing our days so we ride everything with very little lines. However, it's the walkways that are horrible for us because of all the extra lines. It's very hard to keep track of all our kids & have them not freak out. I had read that before coming and I was worried. And it has proven true. It is terrifying for many of our crowd.

I do realize it is super crowded right now, but if Disney can't handle this level of people they shouldn't let this many people in the park.

Or an even better solution is to get the MDE ap to work properly and then bring the offsite people online.

 

[ferd]

We are here today and at 1:30 Philharmagic was a walkon. And the theater didn't fill. Are you sure that wasn't the Fastpass+ kiosk?

Yeah, I'm positive it was for Philharmagic. I'm an AP and frequent the parks a few times a week and I know how horrible that kiosk is there in Fantasyland but this was 100% the Philharmagic line. It was absolutely INSANE. I wish I would've snapped a picture (like I did of the horrible zoo that was the Pirates FP+ return line) but at the time I just wanted to get out of there. We had headed that way to take our daughter who is 2 to see the show but once I found out what the line was (I asked mulitple people) I decided to bail.

 

[estherhead]

Yeah, I'm positive it was for Philharmagic. I'm an AP and frequent the parks a few times a week and I know how horrible that kiosk is there in Fantasyland but this was 100% the Philharmagic line. It was absolutely INSANE. I wish I would've snapped a picture (like I did of the horrible zoo that was the Pirates FP+ return line) but at the time I just wanted to get out of there. We had headed that way to take our daughter who is 2 to see the show but once I found out what the line was (I asked mulitple people) I decided to bail.

This is one irritating thing to me. The lines are horribly inconsistent. One minute something is 20 minutes and the next second it's 80.

But one thing I do know, on a 9 day there is no sense being in the MK from 3-8 even with FP+ Reservations. The walkways are incredibly stressful then.