This just in from Disney Parks blog!

[Mad Hattered]

I think you might be the best person on the internet ... seriously.

I will be posting a day by day, from May 2 - May 16th. Its going to be ALLLLLL about FP+ in direct comparison to last year, the exact same time frame. Which my wife dutifully recorded, literally hour by hour, because she is a scrapbooking fiend.

I will represent, hard.

I'm pretty sure there are about 7,017,846,920 people who would beg to differ. But those stats were from 2012...

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

I'm pretty sure my Mom isn't on the internet to help pad those stats, though.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

I would love if if this was true although it raises some issues.

1. What will be available the day off? The headliners are already booking out. What will be available mid afternoon for your fourth and fifth FP choices?

2. Will this mean people have to change the way they are touring? The earlier you could make your fourth FP+ choice, the better chance you have at getting a worthwhile choice. So will it be better to make all your FP choices for before midday so you can then make your fourth and fifth choices earlier. It will also mean the earlier you can make your fourth FP+ for, the sooner you can make your fifth FP+ and so on, meaning more FP+ times.

3. If you can only use kiosks, rather than the phone app, they are going to need more kiosks. The lines are crazy long at most of them now.
__________________

 

[Disney_Princess83]

That's what bothers me about all the criticism here on the boards - it's so short term. Eventually, it can make park-going fun and easy for 90% of Disney's guests (the 90% who actually want to make it fun and easy). So again, I feel bad for those who are experiencing problems now, but I am certain that months from now or years from now, it will be an awesome system that the vast majority of guests won't want to give up.

Personally speaking, we absolutely hated FP+ (and that was when you could still get paper FP too) We hate having to schedule so far in advance (how do I know where I will be in 60 days time? We don't place like that) And it really took away spontaneous touring (which we always did).

We sleep in until 10am most days, don't get into the parks until 11am or later. So we could schedule TSM, or Soarin, Peter Pan mid afternoon and have a minimal wait. I would miss each of those rides in preference to the old system.

The basis of the system is not short term. Paper FP is gone. You will have to prebook rides 60 or 30 days out depending on your ticket and where you are staying. It is already difficult to get certain FP's (Anna and Elsa are an extreme example, Soarin' is a fairly standard example) making day of changes are absolutely impossible for anything that you really need a FP for. These things aren't short term, they are here to stay. It has only been worse now that everyone can pre-book.

Some people will like this new FP+ system, some don't. We have already decided if we don't like the FP+ system this next trip we won't be back. And we are AP Holders and have been for years, we are regulars and the new system is making us seriously reconsider future trips. Will Disney care? No. But we do

 

[Jennasis]

Make no mistake about it. FP+ is not a "time saving" system. It is only a "time planning" system. It doesn't save you time waiting in line (because like you said it just redistributes wait times).

But it does allow you to plan your day better. You could make sure you have a FP for a ride just before your dinner, or just after. You can make sure you get that ONE important thing done with no fuss. You can make sure to have an efficient plan for navigating the park.

Disney went to great lengths to make sure the system is not exploitable. If people stop trying to analyze FP+ to death to "get the most out of it", and instead use it to help plan their day...they'll be a lot happier.

It's two sides of the same coin. I analyze it to help plan my day so I can get the most out of FP+ and my day so I will be happy.

If I'm not getting the most out of it, I'm not happy.

 

[WillAustin]

Disney went to great lengths to make sure the system is not exploitable. If people stop trying to analyze FP+ to death to "get the most out of it", and instead use it to help plan their day...they'll be a lot happier.

Exploiting and optimizing are two completely different things.

I will be posting a day by day, from May 2 - May 16th. Its going to be ALLLLLL about FP+ in direct comparison to last year, the exact same time frame. Which my wife dutifully recorded, literally hour by hour, because she is a scrapbooking fiend.

I'll be interested in your reports. We have a short trip coming up in June. It sure would be nice if the ability to get more FPs is in effect by then.

 

[thehogsters]

So when is this starting? I will be at DW next week.

 

[Disneylover99]

Exploiting and optimizing are two completely different things.
.

Exactly!

 

[mickeysgirl17]

I would love if if this was true although it raises some issues.

1. What will be available the day off? The headliners are already booking out. What will be available mid afternoon for your fourth and fifth FP choices?

2. Will this mean people have to change the way they are touring? The earlier you could make your fourth FP+ choice, the better chance you have at getting a worthwhile choice. So will it be better to make all your FP choices for before midday so you can then make your fourth and fifth choices earlier. It will also mean the earlier you can make your fourth FP+ for, the sooner you can make your fifth FP+ and so on, meaning more FP+ times.

3. If you can only use kiosks, rather than the phone app, they are going to need more kiosks. The lines are crazy long at most of them now.
__________________

Exactly right. In busier times of the year, such as Christmas week or mid summer, the headliner attractions are going to run out of fastpasses right away. Most will probably be gone in advance because of all the people booking from home 30 or 60 days ahead. People who just go to the park that day who didn't book ahead now are out of luck and have to wait standby (several hours just for ONE headliner). If by chance there are some left, there is going to be a mad rush and long lines at the kiosks.

Regardless, I have always gone in off season (although there really is no off season at Disney anymore in my opinion) and have always done the headliner attractions first thing so my touring plan doesn't have to change much, but i'm assuming many others might have to. Going to a park later in the day now has its disadvantages because it will be harder to get those extra fastpasses so more people will go at rope drop and therefore, my plan of getting there early for shorter waits has gone out the window. My advice would be to get those 3 reserved from home done right away as early as possible and then get to a kiosk and get the next fp as soon as possible to take the most advantage of it. However, I believe fp return lines are getting longer since FP+.

More kiosks are going to be absolutely necessary.

 

[WillAustin]

It's two sides of the same coin. I analyze it to help plan my day so I can get the most out of FP+ and my day so I will be happy.

If I'm not getting the most out of it, I'm not happy.

If there's a way to wait less time in lines than average, we'll figure it out.

Exactly right. In busier times of the year, such as Christmas week or mid summer, the headliner attractions are going to run out of fastpasses right away. Most will probably be gone in advance because of all the people booking from home 30 or 60 days ahead. People who just go to the park that day who didn't book ahead now are out of luck and have to wait standby (several hours just for ONE headliner).

This assumes they don't hold any back at all. Based on the way things have been going, I think they may hold some back to allow for changes and non-advance guests. Any no-shows will recycle into the system to be given out again. Missed morning FP slots (which would then be filled from the standby line) can be given out later in the day without causing overall ride throughput issues.

 

[OtherScott]

Well thank goodness that FP+ isn't as complicated to understand and use as FP- was!

My questions is when Disney is going to stop requiring everyone who uses FP+ to select 3 FP's? As far as I can tell you still have to pick 3 or MDE will select more for you and you can't cancel just one - it's all or nothing, correct? It might help some to allow people who actually only have 1 or 2 rides they want to do to select only those and thus free up slots for those who would actually like them.

There isn't a need to drop the minimum of 3 requirement to free up more FPs. With data, Disney will know with a fair degree of certainty the number of FPs that will actually get redeemed for rides. And that number will allow for overbooking.

Disney has always been able to measure which guest pulled which FPs and in what order. It could drill down to measure subsets, such as park hoppers, or rope droppers, or late arrivals, or families with kids of certain ages, and many more.

But specific info on who is redeeming these FPs is a little trickier. They could measure the actual total number, and even use the return window numbers to loosely match them to distribution times, but unless someone was scanning these little pieces of paper after the fact, precise data wasn't available.

And 50% weren't using it at all.

Now Disney will know the likelihood that a FP for Space Mountain at 6pm on April 4 will actually be redeemed based on how many days out it was booked, by who, by what other attractions/ADRs this guest has planned, by which day of their multi-day ticket they're on, by where they've already been and where they're going, by what the lines will be like based on what everyone else is booking.

So the minimum of 3 will set the hook weeks out, as designed, and as long as some variation of it is adhered to, more revenue opportunities in the park.

The earliest and the latest planned attractions are the most important reservations to Disney.

 

[JimmyV]

2. Will this mean people have to change the way they are touring? The earlier you could make your fourth FP+ choice, the better chance you have at getting a worthwhile choice. So will it be better to make all your FP choices for before midday so you can then make your fourth and fifth choices earlier. It will also mean the earlier you can make your fourth FP+ for, the sooner you can make your fifth FP+ and so on, meaning more FP+ times.

It will change things for some people. There cannot be a universal, wholesale change in the way everyone books their FPs, because not everyone will be able to get the coveted "early times" (assuming that it turns out that early is better. More on that below.) Only a small percentage of people will be able to get the early times, as they are allocated and finite. So before the change, people might worry about FPs for a popular ride running out, period. In the future, people will worry about the early times running out. Since there are far fewer early FPs than there are total FPs, that means more people worrying over a more limited commodity. More angst and frustration. Instead of a Rope Drop where people run to get FPs early in the day, we will now see a "Window Drop" where people stalk their computers at midnight 60+ days out. This was already happening to a degree. (See Elsa and Ana). Now, it is assured. That is, again, if it turns out that earlier is better.

Which is why this board will prove to be so helpful, and yes, the seemingly endless debates about the merits of FP+ really is a discussion in strategy, and here is where the payoff is. Right now, many people are assuming that early is better so that you can re-open your window for booking more FPs. But the devil is in the details, and first-hand reports here will be critical. If a FP+ commando books FPs for 8:00, 9:00 and 10:00, and uses their third FP at 10:01, and hits up a kiosk at 10:07 and reports back that there weren't any good options left to book at that time, then the "get 'em early" strategy will have failed, and we would all be better off shooting for late-morning to afternoon, leaving the early RD hours the way they were. (Of course, in the busiest times, the early times are still going to get booked up by people who make last minute choices because that is all they will have left to choose from.) I can definitely see that at 2 of the 4 parks, (E and DHS) rushing to use up your FPs so that you can open up your booking window again is going to be pretty futile. Do you really think that a TSM FP is going to be available at 10:30? And if it is, but the return time is 7:10 p.m., then grabbing that FP will lock you out of a possible 5th, 6th or 7th FP for the remainder of the day. Unless they reinstate the "return time or two hours, which ever comes first" rule, and instead stick to the "once you've used your FP, you can then get another one" rule, the odds of being able to use more than 4 FPs in a day at 2 of the 4 parks seems pretty slim to me. People seem to think that the "best" strategy is to book 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 at Epcot, and then at 11:10, grab another Fast Pass for TT, use it, then book another for Soarin' and use it, then..... Never going to happen. Your 4th FP will not be usable, if at all, until late in the day so you will be stuck at 4 (at best). Remember, that if the conventional wisdom is to book early times, what do you think is going to be left when it comes time for you to grab your 4th FP?

My predicition is that for all parks other than the MK, people are going to come back here and report that booking early didn't really work because they weren't able to book any additional meaningful FPs (which Disney already knows, so they have thrown us an inedible bone), and that riding SB at RD followed by FPs later in the morning/afternoon is still the better strategy. And once these reports filter back here, the angst level will go down and people will realize that stressing and setting alarm clocks to book early FPs is useless strategy. (At the MK, I can still see that as an advantage due to the number and diversity of experiences that people will want to book).

 

[5Hfan]

It's also completely illogical.

As long as a ride is operating to capacity, then all FP+ does is redistribute wait times. If there are people -- and reading these threads, there certainly are people -- who are waiting more to go on rides and/or going on fewer rides, it is only because other guests are waiting less or going on more rides that they would have with paper FP. It's impossible for all guests to spend more time waiting in line than previously.

Now, mind you, I think the reality is that you have a lot of people saving a little time in line and a small number of people waiting a lot more time in line. But of course some people are better off -- a lot of folks who, for example, had never gone or would never had gone on TSMM or Soarin' without a 60+ min wait now will have FP+ for them.

didn't the article yesterday say because of FP_+ they crammed 3000 more guests in at Christmas time? So wouldn't everyone be waiting in more lines because there are more people?

 

[JimmyV]

didn't the article yesterday say because of FP_+ they crammed 3000 more guests in at Christmas time?

We have to be careful in using this quote. Disney said that they crammed 3,000 more people in at Christmas. But it hasn't said that all of these people had the same experience in terms of rides completed and wait times experienced as in the past. If the average number of rides completed on such a crowded day was 9 and the average wait time was 45 minutes, and Disney crammed 3,000 more people in the park and the average number of rides completed dropped to 8 and average wait times rose to 55 minutes, the only winner in that equation is Disney. The fact that they were able to add 3,000 people to the park is only meaningful if the experience of all the guests was unchanged as compared to past performance, and Disney has not told us that. In fact, I'm not sure there is any way for them to measure it.

 

[csmith041177]

If this news is true, it sounds like they are trying to address the primary problems that people are having with the system.

 

[morethananyonex]

If this news is true, it sounds like they are trying to address the primary problems that people are having with the system.

Too bad the real primary problem is the lack of attractions which leads to the other problems

Wish they were addressing that one before 2016 (or is it 17?) when Avatarland is supposed to open, or 2050 when Disney finally decides Epcot deserves some love.

 

[JimmyV]

If this news is true, it sounds like they are trying to address the primary problems that people are having with the system.

I would state it differently. They are trying to address the primary complaint that people have with the system. Were they to actually address the problem, that would result in people getting 4 or 5 meaningful FPs per day at Epcot and DHS. And if FP usage climbs past the 80% rate as they expect, people simply cannot achieve those numbers. So we are peresented with the hope and illusion of being able to get more FPs which should quell a good bit of the discontent. But in reality, if your 4th FP is for Figment and your 5th FP is for Reflections of China, what have we accomplished? There is no way that people can ever go back to the way things were and experience a day when they rode Soarin' 3 times and Test Track 3 times, once each at RD, and twice each with FPs. That was actually pretty easy to pull off before. Now it is impossible. To the extent that people found this to be a "problem", that problem has not been addressed, because it cannot be.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I would love if if this was true although it raises some issues.

1. What will be available the day off? The headliners are already booking out. What will be available mid afternoon for your fourth and fifth FP choices?

2. Will this mean people have to change the way they are touring? The earlier you could make your fourth FP+ choice, the better chance you have at getting a worthwhile choice. So will it be better to make all your FP choices for before midday so you can then make your fourth and fifth choices earlier. It will also mean the earlier you can make your fourth FP+ for, the sooner you can make your fifth FP+ and so on, meaning more FP+ times.

3. If you can only use kiosks, rather than the phone app, they are going to need more kiosks. The lines are crazy long at most of them now.
__________________

Depends on the time of year, but yeah, I agree, I don't think there is going to be much available for the headliners by the afternoon.

I think making people select it at the kiosks is by design. It lets them say that there are no limits to the numbers of FPs you can get! but it puts up a barrier to actually getting those FPs. I think the key to the kiosks is they want you to be in the park. Once you go back to your resort, they would prefer you stay there. Or go bowling or mini-golf or shopping...

 

[mom2rtk]

I would state it differently. They are trying to address the primary complaint that people have with the system. Were they to actually address the problem, that would result in people getting 4 or 5 meaningful FPs per day at Epcot and DHS. And if FP usage climbs past the 80% rate as they expect, people simply cannot achieve those numbers. So we are peresented with the hope and illusion of being able to get more FPs which should quell a good bit of the discontent. But in reality, if your 4th FP is for Figment and your 5th FP is for Reflections of China, what have we accomplished? There is no way that people can ever go back to the way things were and experience a day when they rode Soarin' 3 times and Test Track 3 times, once each at RD, and twice each with FPs. That was actually pretty easy to pull off before. Now it is impossible. To the extent that people found this to be a "problem", that problem has not been addressed, because it cannot be.

It's really quite clear that Disney's definition of success in this system could be mutually exclusive with the definition of success by many guests.

 

[ArwenMarie]

My predicition is that for all parks other than the MK, people are going to come back here and report that booking early didn't really work because they weren't able to book any additional meaningful FPs (which Disney already knows, so they have thrown us an inedible bone), and that riding SB at RD followed by FPs later in the morning/afternoon is still the better strategy. And once these reports filter back here, the angst level will go down and people will realize that stressing and setting alarm clocks to book early FPs is useless strategy. (At the MK, I can still see that as an advantage due to the number and diversity of experiences that people will want to book).

I agree with your prediction.

Except there will be people saying (including bloggers and other commentators) that they could get this or that. But it will be for one FP, not a whole group of FPs. You can see this already.

 

[mom2rtk]

Depends on the time of year, but yeah, I agree, I don't think there is going to be much available for the headliners by the afternoon.

I think making people select it at the kiosks is by design. It lets them say that there are no limits to the numbers of FPs you can get! but it puts up a barrier to actually getting those FPs. I think the key to the kiosks is they want you to be in the park. Once you go back to your resort, they would prefer you stay there. Or go bowling or mini-golf or shopping...

I agree. I think Disney has seen the impact of removing barriers to access of FP. I'm really afraid the kiosk thing might not be temporary for additional FPs as it was for same day guests getting on board. That of course would then leave guests to wonder if it's worth 15 minutes in a kiosk line to avoid a 25 minute POTC line. Knowing all along of course, that either of those wait estimates could be wildly off.