The FP+ Saga - spoiler alert: its terrible.

[DoingDisney]

So here we are, booking another trip, this time with FP+ in full full swing.

Nov 13 - 20th, very much looking forward to it.

We have a split group, some of us arriving on the 13th, others the 14th (work schedules just didn't allow everyone to come down on the Friday, nothing they could do about it)

ADRs were a bit of a bother, but mostly got what we wanted, when ISH we wanted it, so OK, not terrible.

Then came FP"+" oh FP, how I miss thee.

Of course we have to book FPs on two different nights (60+10 windows open up on different nights) so I know that's going to be a headache, but fine whatever.

Keep in mind, for a group like this we have already had to meet to plan ADRs for a couple hours, now we met to discuss FPs, what parks people wanted to do on what days etc ... most of the people in the group just thought this was generally stupid, planning out which park I will feel like going to 65 days from now ? Hrm, it will be 76 degrees and sunny I am sure, so I guess thats a magic kingdom day ? this again took a couple hours at least. Fine we get it all down, I have a spread sheet (yay?) yadda yadda ...

First opening window comes up, 12:01am I am on, immediately go for the 7DMT and Anna Elsa ... all gone except for our second to last day for 7dmt and our last day Anna and Elsa ... of course the only times available for A&E will make it dangerously tight to get back to the resort and make out Tragical Express back to the Air Port ...

What's worse is that the site keeps erroring and asking for either more time, or to cancel. It continues to do this for the next 45 mins or so until it straightens itself out ...

The other fastpasses go OK, and I mean just ok. First having to select them, then scanning the options they offer you (which often 2 of the 4 actually exclude one of the FPs you have selected ... whats the point in that ???) then trying to book them as far off your actual plans as possible in order so that you can THEN modify each one (each time waiting for the glorious Disney IT to work itself out) to the actual time you would want. Of course it doesn't list ALL the possible times, it just guesses at what you want, so you have to keep moving the FPs around until it actually offers you the time slot you wanted to begin with, even though its been available all along. Repeat this 24 times for all your FPs, and then a few more times for the people who want different FPs, and well, fun way to spend a couple more hours at Midnight on a work night.

Day 2, exhausted since I didn't get much sleep, I get to stay up til Midnight to do it all again for the second group, except this time there is less availability (I did manage to get a 7dmt time slot that over laps with the first group on the second to last day by breaking the second group up one by one, which itself took about 45 mins of messing around) ... no A&E of course, I mean, I was only booking 67 days out, so naturally they were all gone at this point.

Then I get to the other fastpasses, and repeat the process from the night before, except with the added complexity of desperately trying to match up the FP times, which again is frustrated by the fact the system just doesn't offer you all the times available, or even the ones that match your parties' even though it can see you are linked to them and they have stuff booked. And of course the system was doing the same crap again where you have to try and retry before it can figure itself out and actually let you book ... Oh happy days. Total time spent this night about 2.5 hours.

So, other than A&E, I guess in the end we basically got what we wanted, it "only" took 4.5 hours of work, and several more hours of planning ... 2 absolutely exhausted days of work (at my job). Generally a miserable experience for 2 days.

Oh, and of course this only allowed us to book 3, and almost half of those are useless due to tiering. What's hilarious is how much MORE time I will spend criss crossing the parks running to the kiosks after the 3 are gone to see what's available (though I love the tip I read here to just take something and change it on the APP later)

TLDR - Legacy system MUCH better, never ran from place to place, just picked up as we toured, got many more than 3 FPs each day this way, never worried about them being gone, knew with 100% certainty that if we showed up at even a relatively decent time any FP we wanted would be there.

Haven't even arrived yet and already hate what this has done to my trip.

And yes I have been in the parks with FP+ and it did nothing to make the trip better, the downsides weren't terrible (having to go to kiosks and stand in line), but no where near as efficient and easy as legacy FP. This is just the first time I have had to prebook with FP+ when there was full offsite and onsite competition.

Edited to add: and of course now I can't sleep tonight because I took today off work because I was so exhausted and slept until well past noon ... not that thats really WDW's fault, but its kinda messed up.

 

[Robo]

So sorry that it did not go smoothly.

 

[ilovefh]

Just a suggestion, instead of making new FP for the second group you can also copy the FP from the first group. It's one of the options on MDE. It only works if the same times are available, so it may not have worked for 7DMT or A&E but may have worked for the rest.

ETA: Now that I think about it, I think it will copy of there are any FP available for the day, not just the same time and it will give you what is available.

 

[lovin'fl]

OP, I am in full agreement with you. We also do WDW with larger family groups and it is a pain. The tiering is ridiculous and the having to plan so far in advance is ridiculous. I like how US does with the express pass.

 

[Sherrkel]

You have my sympathies DoingDisney! Back in December 2014, when I was selecting FP+ for our extended family trip of 20 ppl - over two nights - there were many sleepless hours spent on the task . . . I will say that it was much easier to get A&E for a few of us AND SDMT for 20 (2 times during our trip) for that trip (it was for the end of Feb).
Flash forward to earlier this AM ... selecting FP+ for just me and DH was a breeze for our trip coming up in November. However, I was disappointed we could only get SDMT on the last day of our 7 day trip. I'm guessing FP+ availability is limited due to the shorter park hours and the party events (although, the last week of February had somewhat shorter hours too) .
Unless of course there is a service out there hoarding FP like ADRs . . .

I hope you all have a wonderful trip!

 

[amylevan]

Just a suggestion, instead of making new FP for the second group you can also copy the FP from the first group. It's one of the options on MDE. It only works if the same times are available, so it may not have worked for 7DMT or A&E but may have worked for the rest.

ETA: Now that I think about it, I think it will copy of there are any FP available for the day, not just the same time and it will give you what is available.

I know it's of no help now, but this does work. If you "copy" the FP+ times to other travelers, it will find the same or overlapping times for you (if available).

 

[momof2n2]

SMH

So you're saying this WASN'T magical? Didn't you spontaneously take a day off work? THAT'S like a vacation, right?

J/K of course.

I thank you for taking the time to post your experience. It is true for many of us that FP+ can't offer what we once loved. Yes. It works for many. But there are still some of us who lost big time in the switch.

Sometimes our "runner" would have to crisscross the park. But that was just one person with a pocket full of tickets. I'm afraid our whole group will be crisscrossing parks all day long.

 

[Jennasis]

Sounds like my experience, and I was only booking for 4 adults. I hate it. It blows. I didn't find it to be convenient or better when actually utilizing it in the parks. I'm working around it.

 

[igk]

FP+ isn't for guests benefit, it's for Disney's benefit. It is worth big $$ to them to know attendance numbers for each park very accurately in advance. Then thay can plan staffing, merchandise, food orders etc. very efficiently.
They spin it as how it's so awesome for guests, but after spending a week checking/tweaking the system to get 7DMT for 3 of us at a time we will actually be in the park it's not awesome to me.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I'm only planning a trip for two of us, my expectations were that 7DMT would be gone and I didn't care about A&E. My park days are somewhat flexible but I actually didn't need that. Except for not getting multiple 7DMT options everything went great. I was able to go back in and tweak times, I was able to move fast passes around. It worked really smoothly. Honestly it was better than the last time I used it but in fairness the last time I used it was back during the testing phase and there were bugs in the system. Last night it worked smoothly, I was done choosing 6 days worth of fast passes within 20 minutes, even was able to pick a different time for 7DMT. Once again though my expectations were to pick other experiences, I had no desire for the fast passes that were extremely limited, I'm not a parade person or fireworks person (although I will watch if I happen to be where they are). I am a FP+ fan, I like knowing there will be 3 rides per day that I don't have to worry about. But I know some people don't like it, just giving my experience from last night at midnight.

 

[Mikie]

Sorry it was such a pain. Group planning has so many challenges of its own without another layer of complexity.

When I see discussions about FP+, I usually see the most common criticisms/suggestions being a desire to make the 4th from a phone, allowing hopping, no tiering. But for me, the best improvement would be being able to select each and every FP according to all times available, rather than getting preselected menus of choices. I think Disney uses their pre-sets to try to steer us to certain times, but they could still offer "simple search" with a big button for those who aren't going to finesse down to the minute and a tiny little "advanced search" button for those of us looking for things at more specific times.

 

[5kidsmommy]

Sorry it was such a pain. Group planning has so many challenges of its own without another layer of complexity.

When I see discussions about FP+, I usually see the most common criticisms/suggestions being a desire to make the 4th from a phone, allowing hopping, no tiering. But for me, the best improvement would be being able to select each and every FP according to all times available, rather than getting preselected menus of choices. I think Disney uses their pre-sets to try to steer us to certain times, but they could still offer "simple search" with a big button for those who aren't going to finesse down to the minute and a tiny little "advanced search" button for those of us looking for things at more specific times.

I like being able to go in an change the times but yeah your suggestion would eliminate that step. I just picked the option they gave me and then went back and moved the times on each experience individually. It was pretty easy but your idea would be nice, especially because I don't think all people using the system know they can individually change times once a fast pass is selected.

 

[lahobbs4]

This was my first time to plan for a group, as well! I understand your frustration. It's has been easy for me in the past with just 4 of us (kids tall enough to ride everything), but now I had to factor in grandparents and too-short toddlers….UGH. I am one that honestly enjoys the planning (no, really!) but this was just too much. Made my FP last night, I'm done and I really don't even care what I got at this point!

 

[Robo]

FP+ isn't for guests benefit, it's for Disney's benefit. It is worth big $$ to them to know attendance numbers for each park very accurately in advance. Then thay can plan staffing, merchandise, food orders etc. very efficiently.
They spin it as how it's so awesome for guests, but after spending a week checking/tweaking the system to get 7DMT for 3 of us at a time we will actually be in the park it's not awesome to me.

I'd agree if I thought that MOST guests actually did book FP+ well in advance, but it is highly unlikely that MOST guests do book FP+ in advance.
Until it becomes mandatory, I doubt that enough guests -take the time, pay attention, understand, expend the effort, or even KNOW about- advance FP+ to book it... and give Disney enough "real numbers" to use for their day-to-day park planning.

 

[Mikie]

I'd agree if I thought that MOST guests actually did book FP+ well in advance, but it is highly unlikely that MOST guests do book FP+ in advance.
Until it becomes mandatory, I doubt that enough guests -take the time, pay attention, understand, expend the effort, or even KNOW about- advance FP+ to book it... and give Disney enough "real numbers" to use for their day-to-day park planning.

I never really thought about the proportion of people who do and don't book FPs in advance, but I guess I assumed most people did pre-book. My assumptions are tainted by hanging out at the DIS, which is surely not an accurate sampling of "average" visitors and my visits are too infrequent to judge what happens in the parks.

Total blind stab in the dark, what percentage would you say don't pre-book at all and what percentage may book but at some shorter time than 30/60?

 

[jimim]

So here we are, booking another trip, this time with FP+ in full full swing.

Nov 13 - 20th, very much looking forward to it.

We have a split group, some of us arriving on the 13th, others the 14th (work schedules just didn't allow everyone to come down on the Friday, nothing they could do about it)

ADRs were a bit of a bother, but mostly got what we wanted, when ISH we wanted it, so OK, not terrible.

Then came FP"+" oh FP, how I miss thee.

Of course we have to book FPs on two different nights (60+10 windows open up on different nights) so I know that's going to be a headache, but fine whatever.

Keep in mind, for a group like this we have already had to meet to plan ADRs for a couple hours, now we met to discuss FPs, what parks people wanted to do on what days etc ... most of the people in the group just thought this was generally stupid, planning out which park I will feel like going to 65 days from now ? Hrm, it will be 76 degrees and sunny I am sure, so I guess thats a magic kingdom day ? this again took a couple hours at least. Fine we get it all down, I have a spread sheet (yay?) yadda yadda ...

First opening window comes up, 12:01am I am on, immediately go for the 7DMT and Anna Elsa ... all gone except for our second to last day for 7dmt and our last day Anna and Elsa ... of course the only times available for A&E will make it dangerously tight to get back to the resort and make out Tragical Express back to the Air Port ...

What's worse is that the site keeps erroring and asking for either more time, or to cancel. It continues to do this for the next 45 mins or so until it straightens itself out ...

The other fastpasses go OK, and I mean just ok. First having to select them, then scanning the options they offer you (which often 2 of the 4 actually exclude one of the FPs you have selected ... whats the point in that ???) then trying to book them as far off your actual plans as possible in order so that you can THEN modify each one (each time waiting for the glorious Disney IT to work itself out) to the actual time you would want. Of course it doesn't list ALL the possible times, it just guesses at what you want, so you have to keep moving the FPs around until it actually offers you the time slot you wanted to begin with, even though its been available all along. Repeat this 24 times for all your FPs, and then a few more times for the people who want different FPs, and well, fun way to spend a couple more hours at Midnight on a work night.

Day 2, exhausted since I didn't get much sleep, I get to stay up til Midnight to do it all again for the second group, except this time there is less availability (I did manage to get a 7dmt time slot that over laps with the first group on the second to last day by breaking the second group up one by one, which itself took about 45 mins of messing around) ... no A&E of course, I mean, I was only booking 67 days out, so naturally they were all gone at this point.

Then I get to the other fastpasses, and repeat the process from the night before, except with the added complexity of desperately trying to match up the FP times, which again is frustrated by the fact the system just doesn't offer you all the times available, or even the ones that match your parties' even though it can see you are linked to them and they have stuff booked. And of course the system was doing the same crap again where you have to try and retry before it can figure itself out and actually let you book ... Oh happy days. Total time spent this night about 2.5 hours.

So, other than A&E, I guess in the end we basically got what we wanted, it "only" took 4.5 hours of work, and several more hours of planning ... 2 absolutely exhausted days of work (at my job). Generally a miserable experience for 2 days.

Oh, and of course this only allowed us to book 3, and almost half of those are useless due to tiering. What's hilarious is how much MORE time I will spend criss crossing the parks running to the kiosks after the 3 are gone to see what's available (though I love the tip I read here to just take something and change it on the APP later)

TLDR - Legacy system MUCH better, never ran from place to place, just picked up as we toured, got many more than 3 FPs each day this way, never worried about them being gone, knew with 100% certainty that if we showed up at even a relatively decent time any FP we wanted would be there.

Haven't even arrived yet and already hate what this has done to my trip.

And yes I have been in the parks with FP+ and it did nothing to make the trip better, the downsides weren't terrible (having to go to kiosks and stand in line), but no where near as efficient and easy as legacy FP. This is just the first time I have had to prebook with FP+ when there was full offsite and onsite competition.

Edited to add: and of course now I can't sleep tonight because I took today off work because I was so exhausted and slept until well past noon ... not that thats really WDW's fault, but its kinda messed up.

ok so i read all this. i feel bad for you cause you exhausted alot of energy on this. meetings for planning, being up, ect. but it seems like you all have been there a few times before? if so then who cares. i know it sucks to hear that, but you seriously will still be able to do what you want with a bit f early mornings or later nights. when we took our neighbors we ended up in mk our first night. they wanted to weatch the parade and fireorks but i said we had that planned another night or 2. i said just come with us and we will go on some rides. we always do this. we hit 8 major rides. BTMR, 7DMT in there along with a few meet and greets and were still out of the park before closing. we always do this. . . stay in late or make sure we hit that rope drop and never ever since FF+ started have missed something we wanted to do and usually ride headliners more than once in the week. i know this stings a bit to hear too. . . but just wong it. get what you can and then just wing it. we enjoy ourselves so much more. i'm sure you will be back from the sound of it.

 

[jenf22]

I know it's of no help now, but this does work. If you "copy" the FP+ times to other travelers, it will find the same or overlapping times for you (if available).

This is my first time booking FP+ since we haven't been in a couple of years. But so far I've been able to just use the copy feature and it's always come up with the same times as the original person. I don't know if we're just lucky or what. I also just took random rides when I first booked for a party of 4 people (I let the machine pick). Then I went and changed the rides one by one and was able to get everything - Mine Train and all. Since the first day, I've added 3 people to our reservation (with the most recent one yesterday) and it's been able to copy just fine. But maybe we're going at a slow time? (Oct 24-29)

 

[Robo]

I never really thought about the proportion of people who do and don't book FPs in advance, but I guess I assumed most people did pre-book. My assumptions are tainted by hanging out at the DIS, which is surely not an accurate sampling of "average" visitors and my visits are too infrequent to judge what happens in the parks.

Total blind stab in the dark, what percentage would you say don't pre-book at all and what percentage may book but at some shorter time than 30/60?

Total blind stab in the dark (with a bow to Long Playing records) 16.66 - 33.33%

 

[10-4 Good Buddy]

I'd agree if I thought that MOST guests actually did book FP+ well in advance, but it is highly unlikely that MOST guests do book FP+ in advance.
Until it becomes mandatory, I doubt that enough guests -take the time, pay attention, understand, expend the effort, or even KNOW about- advance FP+ to book it... and give Disney enough "real numbers" to use for their day-to-day park planning.

That's a really good point - if they feel they can't accurately forecast because they aren't getting enough guests to participate in pre-planning activities it could explain the continued marketing efforts to encourage everyone to do so and survey questions geared to determine if those efforts are being heard.

But then, scarcity of select FP's so soon into the planning window seems to indicate a high percentage of participation.

 

[lugnut33]

Yeah, but OP gets to sleep in while on vacation!! Unless of course they want to ride certain attractions they didn't get a FP+ for, in which case you better be there 30 minutes before rope drop!