Sorry to everyone else with the focus here on WDW and FP+. I think it is true that, as others have pointed out, it sheds light on DLR and MaxPass and the future of DLR FP in general so I am going to venture a little more here but promise not to go on forever about WDW in this thread.
So with that, I would like to think about the PP a little more.
First, the days of legacy FP with late usage are long gone so let's not compare to that. Let's compare to the system at DLR for the last few years where FP windows are enforced. If I recall, WDW also did that for awhile too until FP+ was implemented.
I would say that FP+ means I get on 1-2 less headliners a day than before. That is the downside. If I remember your posts the last few years, you shifted to DLR once FP+ came out so maybe you never used it yourself? If so maybe you do not have a good feel for the "headliner cost" of 1-2 rides per day, but I think that is a fair assessment based on my experience. I have made two trips with FP+ (with a 3rd in a few weeks where I have booked FPs but not used them of course) so I am far from an expert. But that is what it feels like to me.
Today, FP+ has evolved to where you can book extra FPs (after your initial three) on your phone. That is so huge. I went to WDW in 2015 with FP+ and you had to go to kiosks to book extra FPs. Bottom line is we did very little of that because of the hassle.
But now you can do it from your phone. My sense from my March trip is that having a smaller group makes it much easier to get extra FP sets. We only had two people (DW and me), unlike my trips in earlier years when I had the whole crew of 6. So having two people makes it easier. I might feel differently if I was doing this for a larger group.
I could go down a long laundry list of all the pros and cons of FP+, but I do not care to do that here. So I will focus on a couple the major ones.
First, the major con is having to book the FPs in advance. If you are one of those who book ADRs at WDW, then you already are making park decisions in advance. Adding FP+ onto that is not a huge stretch from there. I have always made ADRs so FP+ is not a stretch for me.
Since I know what rides I want to do at WDW, making FP decisions in advance (60 days in my case) is not a major con but a minor con.
From there the impact is really how much I can get done in a day. It is my opinion, supported by TP studies I linked earlier, that FP+ has not had a major impact on the non-headliner rides. I think that is, for the most part, equal to before. The main impact is that I ride less headliners. That is a major con no matter how you slice it. So I agree with you there.
I found it pretty easy to get extra FP sets at WDW when I was there in March using my smartphone, and I would say getting two extra sets (for a total of 5 FPs) was not that hard. At least on days I made all my FPs windows early in the day. On my AK day I used a FP for Rivers of Light at night, and thus there was not chance to get extra FP sets. But for the most part, I was able to get extra FP sets. And I was typically able to get at least one of them for a major headliner. For example, I was able to get extra FPs for FEA and Soarin at Epcot, and RnR and ToT at DHS. So where as before I may have ridden RnR and ToT 3 times a day, on this trip it was only twice.
The pros I have mentioned already: I do not to walk as much. I used to crisscross parks all the time to get extra FPs. And you know what? It was typical to end the night with at least one if not two or three unused FP sets. So my extra walking was all in vain. That always frustrated me. I knew how I hoofed it across a park in the heat to get the FP set while the others in my crew were sitting down for lunch in a nice air conditioned restaurant. Then we never got to use that FP. Do for me, it was the extra walking to get the FP, plus the extra walking to get FPs we never in fact used. That was a drain on my energy. But it was also
time I had to leave my family - so I had less time with them. I would say it averaged 10-30 minutes a day depending on the park.
So now, I am not spending that time. I get to enjoy things a slow down a little more now than I allowed myself before because of the mad race to "get that one extra FP set". That was especially nice in March with DW since it was just the two of us.
DW and I are in our 50's now and she has some health issues that drain her energy a bit. So I try to minimize excessive walking for her. This worked to perfection on one of our Epcot days. We entered the main entrance at RD and went straight to Soarin. From there we basically made our way back slightly to the Seas area and had an early lunch there. Then across to the Mission Space, and finally into World Showcase going clockwise. We did the new FEA with FP, visited most of the national pavilions along the way, had dinner there, watched aconcert at America Gardens, and finally left by the International Gateway to grab an Uber back to our hotel. It was a fairly linear path and involved at most 2 miles of walking inside Epcot.
For me that is a big "pro" for FP+. I was able to make FP+ times and ADR times to minimize walking and - bottom line which is always important - have a more relaxed and stress-free time with DW.
For me there is a positive tradeoff for what I have gained from FP+ compared to the headliners I have lost. I understand YMMV. I was initially prepared to despise FP+. I found I did not. I am not a huge proponent now. I just know that it has some advantages I did not anticipate and it is not as bad as many people predicted it would be. For me at least.
