Stand By Lines and FP+

[g-dad66]

I think the test in December was still tiered, so they were forced to choose something other than an E-Ticket, at ETWB I think was in the second tier, and like you said, was very low capacity.

I forget, was that on the list for this test?

Yes, it was.

See: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=48598174&postcount=79

Hey look, Robo, your instruction paid off. I was able to create a link to an individual post, just like you explained it!

Regarding Enchanted Tales with Belle, though, I'm not quite sure how to compare the effect of FP+ on its Standby lines, since it was a new attraction. What was there previously to compare it to?

Oh, and Happy Independence Day, everybody. Just finished a big fireworks extravaganza with the grandkids!

 

[NicoleK1974]

I think the test in December was still tiered, so they were forced to choose something other than an E-Ticket, at ETWB I think was in the second tier, and like you said, was very low capacity.

I forget, was that on the list for this test?

I was part of the December test group.

We got 3 choices each day at one park.

We were able to choose from the main attractions, parade reserved seats, front of the line meet and greets and smaller attractions.

We did the "girly" stuff since DD was 4.

There was a HUGE line for Enchanted Tales with Belle.
We were the ONLY ones at the FP+ door.
We waited about 5 minutes, were let into the room all by ourselves and about 2 minutes later about 40 more people were let in.

At Mickey Mouse meet and greet, the line was pretty long, they took us around a little corridor, but it met up with the main line, just roped off.
We were put in front of the line, let in the room by ourselves, there were about 15 people ahead of us and we waited a few minutes before the next people were let in, including a mother and father and their approx. 6 or 7 year old daughter that were at the front of the line.
The father then began verbally assaulting me by first asking rudely "who are you? Some big-wigs family member that you don't have to wait in line?"
I tried to be nice and explain that we were lucky enough to be chosen as a test family to try out a new FP+ system that Disney was considering implementing.
He returned my nice explanation with "I don't give a flying F___ about you and you special F____ing test family, we have been waiting in this G*d d____ line for 45 minutes and your little princess a___es (looking down at my 4 year old DD in her princess dress) get to waltz right up to the front of the line. That's a bunch of bull s____!"
Not only was this guy not stopped or escorted out, but some of the people behind him actually agreed with him, and not a single person came to our defense!

I was actually scared (as was my daughter) and we literally RAN out of there as soon as we saw Mickey (kinda spoiled her experience too) I threw her in the stroller and headed back to the hotel for fear we might be chased down and taunted some more by the angry mob. Luckily it was getting close to nap time anyways, but still this incident should NOT have happened!

At Toy Story Mania, 90 minute stand by wait, we went up to the FP+ line and waited about 10 minutes.
They would let about 20 of our line go through, then about 20 of the regular line.

At the parade, more controversy, which was handled well by the CM's.

We were given a time (I think it was about 20-30 minutes prior to parade time) to meet in front of the castle.
There was a roped off area for us to stand, and there were a bunch of people standing behind the rope that got mad because they were waiting there for the parade.
There were signs at the end of each rope that said FP+ holders only, or something like that, so the CM's kinda took the heat for us coming up and standing in front of people.

There was also an issue of what some here may seem as karma if you have experienced "I don't speak english so I can stand/sit/go wherever I want and hop in the middle of a huge waiting line, etc." phenomenon that I noticed a few times in our travels.

The rope for the parade FP+ stopped about 6 inches from the curb at one point, there are people 5-6 people deep as far as the eye can see....

About 5-10 minutes before the parade was due to start (the pre-parade had already gone by), an apparently foreign family of about 6-8 adults and 10-12 kids came and took up the entire front of the curb past the ropes, right in front of us.
A CM came by and said "you can't sit here" to which one replied "sorry, no english" and continued to just stand there talking with the group while the rest of the family arranged the children on the curb.
The cast member again came by and said "You can't sit here, it's reserved."
Another guy laughed at her and looked at his buddy and said "sorry, no english".
This happened one more time and the lady brought 2 guys who forcefully told them to get out and pointed to the opening in the walkway.
The whole group was making a huge ruckus about it as they were gently led to the opening of the path to the right off the castle and one of the guys looked back and yelled "F____ you! American pig!" And gave the male CM the finger.
Aaaaaaand, everyone behind the rope clapped and cheered, and they ended up dropping the rope and letting us all the way up to the curb.

The other ones we used, no HUGE lines, no HUGE issues.....

So those that use the FP+ system, be prepared for some grief, from those who are oblivious of it's existence...

I personally loved it and will use it again and have a few choice remarks for anyone who decides to harass/threaten me about using it in from of my daughter.

 

[doconeill]

There was a HUGE line for Enchanted Tales with Belle.
We were the ONLY ones at the FP+ door.
We waited about 5 minutes, were let into the room all by ourselves and about 2 minutes later about 40 more people were let in.

So, your FP+ use hardly seems responsible for the long lines...although it was interesting that they waited...

At Mickey Mouse meet and greet, the line was pretty long, they took us around a little corridor, but it met up with the main line, just roped off.
We were put in front of the line, let in the room by ourselves, there were about 15 people ahead of us and we waited a few minutes before the next people were let in, including a mother and father and their approx. 6 or 7 year old daughter that were at the front of the line.
The father then began verbally assaulting me by first asking rudely "who are you? Some big-wigs family member that you don't have to wait in line?"
I tried to be nice and explain that we were lucky enough to be chosen as a test family to try out a new FP+ system that Disney was considering implementing.
He returned my nice explanation with "I don't give a flying F___ about you and you special F____ing test family, we have been waiting in this G*d d____ line for 45 minutes and your little princess a___es (looking down at my 4 year old DD in her princess dress) get to waltz right up to the front of the line. That's a bunch of bull s____!"
Not only was this guy not stopped or escorted out, but some of the people behind him actually agreed with him, and not a single person came to our defense!

I was actually scared (as was my daughter) and we literally RAN out of there as soon as we saw Mickey (kinda spoiled her experience too) I threw her in the stroller and headed back to the hotel for fear we might be chased down and taunted some more by the angry mob. Luckily it was getting close to nap time anyways, but still this incident should NOT have happened!

I hope you at least provided this "feedback" about the testing!

Was this the regular Mickey Mouse M&G? The one that already has Fastpasses?

 

[DreamSweetsLove]

He returned my nice explanation with "I don't give a flying F___ about you and you special F____ing test family, we have been waiting in this G*d d____ line for 45 minutes and your little princess a___es (looking down at my 4 year old DD in her princess dress) get to waltz right up to the front of the line. That's a bunch of bull s____!"
Not only was this guy not stopped or escorted out, but some of the people behind him actually agreed with him, and not a single person came to our defense!

I was actually scared (as was my daughter) and we literally RAN out of there as soon as we saw Mickey (kinda spoiled her experience too) I threw her in the stroller and headed back to the hotel for fear we might be chased down and taunted some more by the angry mob. Luckily it was getting close to nap time anyways, but still this incident should NOT have happened!

...........

At the parade, more controversy, which was handled well by the CM's.

We were given a time (I think it was about 20-30 minutes prior to parade time) to meet in front of the castle.
There was a roped off area for us to stand, and there were a bunch of people standing behind the rope that got mad because they were waiting there for the parade.
There were signs at the end of each rope that said FP+ holders only, or something like that, so the CM's kinda took the heat for us coming up and standing in front of people.

There was also an issue of what some here may seem as karma if you have experienced "I don't speak english so I can stand/sit/go wherever I want and hop in the middle of a huge waiting line, etc." phenomenon that I noticed a few times in our travels.

The rope for the parade FP+ stopped about 6 inches from the curb at one point, there are people 5-6 people deep as far as the eye can see....

About 5-10 minutes before the parade was due to start (the pre-parade had already gone by), an apparently foreign family of about 6-8 adults and 10-12 kids came and took up the entire front of the curb past the ropes, right in front of us.
A CM came by and said "you can't sit here" to which one replied "sorry, no english" and continued to just stand there talking with the group while the rest of the family arranged the children on the curb.
The cast member again came by and said "You can't sit here, it's reserved."
Another guy laughed at her and looked at his buddy and said "sorry, no english".
This happened one more time and the lady brought 2 guys who forcefully told them to get out and pointed to the opening in the walkway.
The whole group was making a huge ruckus about it as they were gently led to the opening of the path to the right off the castle and one of the guys looked back and yelled "F____ you! American pig!" And gave the male CM the finger.
Aaaaaaand, everyone behind the rope clapped and cheered, and they ended up dropping the rope and letting us all the way up to the curb.

The other ones we used, no HUGE lines, no HUGE issues.....

So those that use the FP+ system, be prepared for some grief, from those who are oblivious of it's existence...

Where was the cast during these incidents? Why was there no explanation when there other guests were confused and angry? In the first case it could have diffused the situation. It's not the guests job to explain it. Why are these aggressive verbally abusive and potentially dangerous people not escorted out by security? I'm sorry you and especially your kids had to go through that. It's not cool that that would happen anywhere let alone a Disney park.

 

[mom2rtk]

So, your FP+ use hardly seems responsible for the long lines...although it was interesting that they waited...



I hope you at least provided this "feedback" about the testing!

Was this the regular Mickey Mouse M&G? The one that already has Fastpasses?

It sounds like the PP didn't have a lot of FP+ folks in her group for ETWB. There will be a small wait required with anyone using FP+ for this attraction, as they will have to wait for the group ahead of them to clear through and the next group to be let in. I will say that I had a longer view of the area since we were in line for right at an hour and saw one person after another go in that back entrance for FP+.

The way they handled the MM FP+ does strike me as different from regular fastpass. It sound like they handled it more like a front of the line pass, which seems odd. When this rolls out, I just can't see that being the case.

 

[SoonerSean]

If the FP+ system means the end of the current FP program and you aren't allowed any more passes once in the gate... then a far simpler solution to have to schedule your three rides would be to simply give every guest that enters the gates three generic FP and let them ride the three rides they want with those.

There... "problem" solved.

I'd prefer that to having to go online days, weeks, months out and schedule a TSM for 10AM on a day when maybe I wake up feeling sick and don't leave my room until 11AM or the kids left something at MK the day before and we have to go back and look at lost and found. Or we simply CHANGE OUR MINDS and want to do something that isn't scheduled.

Years ago during an anniversary celebration Disney gave out special magic FP or whatever they were called. You could use them anywhere - but they were given out randomly. We were at AK one day and they gave them out to like the first 25 people in a line for something. We won and uses ours to ride EV - one time - then gave the rest away to a family we saw in line bc we were done at that park for the day. So giving away random FP that you can use anywhere has been done before and, to me, would work far better than this new FP+ that requires you to pre-book a ride.

If I went into MK and was given 3 FP I'd use them for BTM, PPF, and SM.
EPCOT - slam dunk there given how few rides they even have.
DHS - TSM, RR, ToT.

Sure this could mean more FP people in line for certain things vs. the current system that limits the # of FP per hour, but giving people a choice vs. pre-booking would work a lot better and allow for some flexibility which is important when you're on vacation. Plus, except at maybe EPCOT and DHS there are enough rides to divert the FP holders to various rides and thus "thin" the demand.

 

[Robo]

Years ago during an anniversary celebration Disney gave out special magic FP or whatever they were called.

1- You could use them anywhere - but they were given out randomly. We were at AK one day and they gave them out to like the first 25 people in a line for something. We won and uses ours to ride EV - one time - then gave the rest away to a family we saw in line bc we were done at that park for the day.

2- So giving away random FP that you can use anywhere has been done before and, to me,

3- would work far better than this new FP+ that requires you to pre-book a ride.

1- Well, not exactly "anywhere." They were good for one ride each, on FP-ready attractions.

2- These "Dream FP's" were given out only in (relatively) very small quantities... not to everyone who entered the park.

3- I don't think that giving them out to everyone who entered the park would work "better,"
but I do think that the "60 days in advance" deal is going to generate some unintended problematic issues.

 

[DreamSweetsLove]

If the FP+ system means the end of the current FP program and you aren't allowed any more passes once in the gate... then a far simpler solution to have to schedule your three rides would be to simply give every guest that enters the gates three generic FP and let them ride the three rides they want with those.

Except this wouldn't work, the number of FP is limited for each attraction and people using it at anytime makes no sense. There would be no way to control line flow in that scenario, it would make more sense to just get rid of FP altogether in that case. We really have no way of knowing how it will work though since nothing has been announced yet. It's impossible to speculate how to make the system better without knowing the the system will officially be like.

 

[doconeill]

1- Well, not exactly "anywhere." They were good for one ride each, on FP-ready attractions.





2- These "Dream FP's" were given out only in (relatively) very small quantities... not to everyone who entered the park.

They were definitely in very controlled quantities, and were an early experiment on different ways they could change the Fastpass system to a certain degree. They could be used any time during that day...and if they gave them to everyone instead of just the lucky few, imagine the logjams at prime times, like near the end of the day.

Obviously they decided not to go that route.

 

[Robo]

Hey look, Robo, your instruction paid off. I was able to create a link to an individual post, just like you explained it!

Gold star duly awarded.

 

[KelleyGirl]

Do you recall what attractions you experienced this at? (Attractions which never had regular Fast Pass but now have a Fast Pass+ entrance.)

I'm really curious about the effect on Standby Lines at such attractions, especially from a very limited number of FP+ testers.

We first noticed them at Haunted Mansion. The line was almost out to the Liberty Tree Tavern. We did not get on the attraction at that time. At Goofy's Barnstormer, we got in standby to a listed 30 minute wait. The Fastpass line here was active, and we probably got on the attraction about 65 minutes later. I have been at Disney many different times of year, and never saw a wait for this attraction that long. We also saw Fastpass+ at Tomorrowland Speedway, but didn't ride, it looked too long (though that line is always long).

 

[SciFi]

At Mickey Mouse meet and greet, the line was pretty long, they took us around a little corridor, but it met up with the main line, just roped off.
We were put in front of the line, let in the room by ourselves, there were about 15 people ahead of us and we waited a few minutes before the next people were let in, including a mother and father and their approx. 6 or 7 year old daughter that were at the front of the line.
The father then began verbally assaulting me by first asking rudely "who are you? Some big-wigs family member that you don't have to wait in line?"
I tried to be nice and explain that we were lucky enough to be chosen as a test family to try out a new FP+ system that Disney was considering implementing.
He returned my nice explanation with "I don't give a flying F___ about you and you special F____ing test family, we have been waiting in this G*d d____ line for 45 minutes and your little princess a___es (looking down at my 4 year old DD in her princess dress) get to waltz right up to the front of the line. That's a bunch of bull s____!"
Not only was this guy not stopped or escorted out, but some of the people behind him actually agreed with him, and not a single person came to our defense!

Wow! Sorry you had to endure such abusive behavior.

 

[xipetotec]

Initially I was excited about the next gen options coming to WDW. As details came out, I was less excited (for example only 3 fast passes per day and in only one park).

Then after our June trip I am less optimistic that Disney is technologically competent enough to pull this off smoothly (we had several major and minor technology glitches during our stay).

So, I am looking for a silver lining. I'm assuming traditional fast passes will be a thing of the past. Will this new system take pressure off of uber long stand by lines and make them more reasonable?

What do you think?

For me, the "3 a day" limit doesn't seem like a game changer. I don't think we use more than 3 a day in our family. ( we'll typically get one between big thunder and splash and wait for the other. Maybe get one for Space Mountain, and maybe something in FantasyLand. If I'm using MK as an example ).

What worries ME is the advance reservation system. The whole thing just being sold out before you even get a chance. OR having to reserve 60 days in advance? Ludicrous.

Current system is that if you want it bad enough that day. You hightail it to the attraction ( With everyone's passes in tow ) and get a fastpass for everyone. It's a system the lends itself well to *anyone* who arrives that day and just really wants to ride something specific.

Having a system where people will now be booking fastpasses weeks in advance and now having a schedule of attractions... all bad.

"Oh but you don't *need* to do advanced booking" ... of course not. And you don't need to get a fastpass at all either. I'm already stressed enough thinking I might not be able to get my family into dinner at BOG with bookings the way they are. Now we have to worry about possibly getting fastpasses?


Wow... I didn't expect my response to turn into a Pete Warner rant.

 

[g-dad66]

We first noticed them at Haunted Mansion. The line was almost out to the Liberty Tree Tavern. We did not get on the attraction at that time. At Goofy's Barnstormer, we got in standby to a listed 30 minute wait. The Fastpass line here was active, and we probably got on the attraction about 65 minutes later. I have been at Disney many different times of year, and never saw a wait for this attraction that long. We also saw Fastpass+ at Tomorrowland Speedway, but didn't ride, it looked too long (though that line is always long).

Thanks much for the info.

I'm not sure that the FP+ tests were responsible for these lines, though. Since you didn't ride two of them, you probably weren't in a position to see how many folks were being shuttled in from the FP+ line. And I think Barnstormer has regular FP these days.

Still, it's interesting to hear anecdotal evidence and to see if more and more similar experiences occur as more FP+ testing is done.

 

[SoonerSean]

There just has to be a better solution than letting people only have three FP that require you to go online or to some kiosk at your resort or in the park to schedule those three rides.

The Dream Pass was what I was talking about... and I meant that you could essentially use them anywhere bc they gave you the right to ride each ride listed which in the case of some parks was basically the only rides you would want it for anyway - like EV in our case.

Obviously if you give out 20,000 FP and 10,000 people head straight for Space Mountain you'd have a problem. Or if 5,000 people waited until 30 minutes before the park closed to use their FP at BTM.

So maybe just giving people 3 generic ones as they enter the park wouldn't work. But there has to be a solution that's better than FP+ seems to be heading towards (elimination of the existing FP system and having to schedule in advance).

Even if you just hit a kiosk each morning at your resort and pick your three it still seems like a recipe for chaos. TSM could still run out or you could be planning to ride it before noon (like you could now if you got there at or close to RD) but now you'll go to schedule it and potentially be told it's not available until 5PM even though you have dinner reservations at EPCOT at 5:30.

Or what if you schedule all your rides at MK one morning and the monorail is broken and you have to stand in an hour+ line for the ferry and you miss a ride time or two? Just seems like having to schedule anything other than a meal creates the potential for a mess either in the scheduling hassle itself or in the execution should even the most minor challenge present itself on that day.

 

[g-dad66]

I was part of the December test group.

We got 3 choices each day at one park.

We were able to choose from the main attractions, parade reserved seats, front of the line meet and greets and smaller attractions.

We did the "girly" stuff since DD was 4.

There was a HUGE line for Enchanted Tales with Belle.
We were the ONLY ones at the FP+ door.
We waited about 5 minutes, were let into the room all by ourselves and about 2 minutes later about 40 more people were let in.

At Mickey Mouse meet and greet, the line was pretty long, they took us around a little corridor, but it met up with the main line, just roped off.
We were put in front of the line, let in the room by ourselves, there were about 15 people ahead of us and we waited a few minutes before the next people were let in, including a mother and father and their approx. 6 or 7 year old daughter that were at the front of the line.
The father then began verbally assaulting me by first asking rudely "who are you? Some big-wigs family member that you don't have to wait in line?"
I tried to be nice and explain that we were lucky enough to be chosen as a test family to try out a new FP+ system that Disney was considering implementing.
He returned my nice explanation with "I don't give a flying F___ about you and you special F____ing test family, we have been waiting in this G*d d____ line for 45 minutes and your little princess a___es (looking down at my 4 year old DD in her princess dress) get to waltz right up to the front of the line. That's a bunch of bull s____!"
Not only was this guy not stopped or escorted out, but some of the people behind him actually agreed with him, and not a single person came to our defense!

I was actually scared (as was my daughter) and we literally RAN out of there as soon as we saw Mickey (kinda spoiled her experience too) I threw her in the stroller and headed back to the hotel for fear we might be chased down and taunted some more by the angry mob. Luckily it was getting close to nap time anyways, but still this incident should NOT have happened!

At Toy Story Mania, 90 minute stand by wait, we went up to the FP+ line and waited about 10 minutes.
They would let about 20 of our line go through, then about 20 of the regular line.

At the parade, more controversy, which was handled well by the CM's.

We were given a time (I think it was about 20-30 minutes prior to parade time) to meet in front of the castle.
There was a roped off area for us to stand, and there were a bunch of people standing behind the rope that got mad because they were waiting there for the parade.
There were signs at the end of each rope that said FP+ holders only, or something like that, so the CM's kinda took the heat for us coming up and standing in front of people.

There was also an issue of what some here may seem as karma if you have experienced "I don't speak english so I can stand/sit/go wherever I want and hop in the middle of a huge waiting line, etc." phenomenon that I noticed a few times in our travels.

The rope for the parade FP+ stopped about 6 inches from the curb at one point, there are people 5-6 people deep as far as the eye can see....

About 5-10 minutes before the parade was due to start (the pre-parade had already gone by), an apparently foreign family of about 6-8 adults and 10-12 kids came and took up the entire front of the curb past the ropes, right in front of us.
A CM came by and said "you can't sit here" to which one replied "sorry, no english" and continued to just stand there talking with the group while the rest of the family arranged the children on the curb.
The cast member again came by and said "You can't sit here, it's reserved."
Another guy laughed at her and looked at his buddy and said "sorry, no english".
This happened one more time and the lady brought 2 guys who forcefully told them to get out and pointed to the opening in the walkway.
The whole group was making a huge ruckus about it as they were gently led to the opening of the path to the right off the castle and one of the guys looked back and yelled "F____ you! American pig!" And gave the male CM the finger.
Aaaaaaand, everyone behind the rope clapped and cheered, and they ended up dropping the rope and letting us all the way up to the curb.

The other ones we used, no HUGE lines, no HUGE issues.....

So those that use the FP+ system, be prepared for some grief, from those who are oblivious of it's existence...

I personally loved it and will use it again and have a few choice remarks for anyone who decides to harass/threaten me about using it in from of my daughter.

Man, what a gruesome experience.

Like doconeill said, I hope you were able to report this during your FP+ feedback (although I guess the same sort of thing could happen with regular FP as with FP+).

If you didn't have the opportunity during FP+ feedback, I hope you'll still contact WDW to let them know about the event. I'm sure they don't want CMs ignoring/tolerating such behavior.

 

[doggydoc]

But there has to be a solution that's better than FP+ seems to be heading towards (elimination of the existing FP system and having to schedule in advance).

There is. Add FP+ and keep regular FP. The main argument seems to be that: a) the number of FP's available won't accommodate this and b) it's not "fair" to those that don't plan or want to get up early.

 

[mom2rtk]

The problem of course is the reported desire on Disney's part to lock people into park selections 2 months out so they can "maximize" staffing in all the parks. The more flexible the system, the less benefit to Disney to "right size" that staffing.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

I don't know how they expect any of the FP+ features to work when their website doesn't. This is the fourth time in months now that I have tried to link the room ressies to the ADRs - this time just to be sure the ADRs are in the system. As before, It can bring up the room, a little step further this time because it actually brought up the first ADR. It asks you to link them, and when I hit "next" the system went down for "maintenance." That is the same experience I have had ever time! Sorry for breaking it.

 

[Rileygirl]

The fp+ test group was apparently 3000 people, if I recall correctly 'whatsarahsaid' said. (cant seem to find the post)

Hardly enough to impact any single standby line, especially HM which has the OHRC of 3600, even if they all showed up in the same day, even same hour.

I am not sure why everyone thinks Disney is actually testing fp+ with these tests, the way they intend to roll out the program though.

According to the T&C, fp and fp+ are going to be mutually exclusive. So, already we know they are not testing certain parameters with this June test.

One major debatable point has always been how many fp per hour were generated for each ride with the old fp system, and the numbers have been bandied about, anywhere from 20- 30 % up to 80%. I have always thought that anything above 30 or 40% was not logical, just based on my own personal experience in the fp line.

I have been wondering though, if Disney is experimenting simulatneously with the test fp+ group, drastically changing the regular fp up to say 70%, to 'engineer' a similar environment as to what they anticipate when fp+ is live and online.

Too few reports to go one though. And I have been waiting to hear someone comment on the number of people in the fp line, but nothing so far. However, if the CM's have been told to ALWAYS let all FP people go ahead of standby line, they can be 'forcing' or engineering a similar climate to the one they intend to create when it goes live (and, a large percentage of users with the program).

Or, Perhaps analyize customer reaction in the standby line. Is it too much stick? Just the right amount? They will come up with the exact ratio.

Just some random thoughts.