TSM standby-less test Oct. 6-9

[Cyrano]

I have to disagree with this….

I am a social media manager for a very large non-profit company here in the United States.

We use various social media sites for our company (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc). The term, "social", itself, is defined as having INTERACTION.

The largest social media site, Facebook, is set up to allow comments on your page - or not. (I, as the manager of our FB page, can turn "off" the comments). By turning on the comments, we, as managers, assume that we will be having a DIALOGUE with our customers. We do NOT erase negative comments on our FB page…we will address the issue, and deal with it so that we are an "open" page.

WDW, by eliminating negative comments, is not having a dialogue with their customers, at all. They are basically saying, "Your comments are not important to us…unless they're positive." That is NOT a good message to send to their customers.

A billboard is not considered social media. Therefore, I do not look at a billboard in the same way at all as a Facebook page.

Just my opinion...

I tend to concur with your comments. For me the clue is in the term Social media.

 

[grimley1968]

I think everyone in this thread understands that Disney needs to test things. The majority of the criticism is not from running the test itself, but from not giving any notice of the test to its guests - in effect, blindsiding them.

Does it matter to me, personally? no, I wasn't there. But I feel for the people who were on their once in a lifetime trip who were turned away from TSMM. If Disney had made them aware of what was happening, maybe they could have rearranged plans so that they wouldn't be shut out of riding completely.

Yes, I know, Disney doesn't guarantee riding anything and there are shut downs and refurbs all the time...but this situation is different than a ride malfunction or a refurbishment or a weather shut down. In those situations *no one* is getting to ride. In this situation, the family that didn't have a FP+ was still watching others get to ride while being told they cannot. If Disney had made them aware of the testing, maybe that family could have been riding.

I agree.

I don't think the validity of the results would have been affected at all if they had simply given adequate public notice of the test. The way they executed the test without notice, though, ensured a PR disaster. Huge blunder on Disney's part.

 

[momof2n2]

But I couldn't tour my way. We park hop and with fp, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to get fp's for the evening park we hopped to. We had to adjust how we toured the parks or give up riding the popular rides in the evening or get in long standby lines. Even in our morning park, we had to make a mad rush to the fp machine to get fp's for the popular rides before the return times were too late for us to use them. We adjusted as best we could and managed to enjoy ourselves in spite of the problems we had.

But you did have standby at the park you hopped to. You made the best of it because you still had the option.

Very true- works both ways. I just don't recall there being any uproar about it when it was just fp. And that is just one feature of fp+ I like- the ability to schedule fp's to a time I like rather than what the machine gave me.

I get that you like to pick the time. But we now can only have one first tier. So while we could choose one (say RNRC) we can now get completely locked out of the other if they don't offer standby --- which is what this thread started about. Nor could guests rude SB in RD dash.

You say you like to do a lot of other things besides rides and shows. You like partial days. You can still do that. Folks like me can not.

 

[cakebaker]

I am not assuming anything. I saw it happen with my own eyes.

My entire day is spent on social media - the nature of my job. (Lucky me, huh?!) If I'm not managing my own company's sites, I'm researching other companies' sites - to see how they're handling complaints, to see what they're posting, to get inspiration, etc.

It was becoming very obvious, after studying the WDW Facebook page over several weeks, that negative comments were being erased.

As to why they may not be doing it now, who knows?? Maybe they told their Social Media Manager to knock it off….maybe they were overwhelmed with too many negative comments and couldn't keep up…maybe their SM Manager is on vacation (and where DO Disney employees go on vacation, btw? To Walt Disney World??!!)...

I went back as far as several weeks ago and there are plenty of negative comments and reviews. So no vacation, no suddenly telling them to knock if off and I seriously doubt they are being so overwhelmed with negative comment that they are wore out from clicking delete and can't keep up any more.

So who knows, but there's no indication it's happening or has been happening for quite some time.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I went back as far as several weeks ago and there are plenty of negative comments and reviews. So no vacation, no suddenly telling them to knock if off and I seriously doubt they are being so overwhelmed with negative comment that they are wore out from clicking delete and can't keep up any more.

So who knows, but there's no indication it's happening or has been happening for quite some time.

I believe this is where comments of that nature (Disney deleting things from FB) began:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3237287&highlight=facebook

(ETA: This post is not to be mistaken as commentary on it.. just providing the link, nothing more).

 

[AmyB2006]

Are there any thoughts that they are testing the capacity of FP+ only for this reason?

This week's test of eliminating the standby line, leaving just FastPass+ available for riders, is a trial run to see just how the attraction can be reconfigured in the future. Once the expansion is complete, park operations will have the option to configure two tracks as FastPass+ and one track as standby, or one track as FastPass+ and two as standby. Using real-world guest testing this week should give designers enough insight to configure the new layout for optimum performance.

http://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions...story-mania-at-disney's-hollywood-studios.htm

 

[Angel Ariel]

Are there any thoughts that they are testing the capacity of FP+ only for this reason?



http://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions...story-mania-at-disney's-hollywood-studios.htm

That may be the case for TSMM...but A&E and Soarin?

It very well could be what they are doing it at TSMM for, but I don't believe that's the only place they are looking to implement something similar.

 

[SColling007]

I think everyone in this thread understands that Disney needs to test things. The majority of the criticism is not from running the test itself, but from not giving any notice of the test to its guests - in effect, blindsiding them.

Does it matter to me, personally? no, I wasn't there. But I feel for the people who were on their once in a lifetime trip who were turned away from TSMM. If Disney had made them aware of what was happening, maybe they could have rearranged plans so that they wouldn't be shut out of riding completely.

Yes, I know, Disney doesn't guarantee riding anything and there are shut downs and refurbs all the time...but this situation is different than a ride malfunction or a refurbishment or a weather shut down. In those situations *no one* is getting to ride. In this situation, the family that didn't have a FP+ was still watching others get to ride while being told they cannot. If Disney had made them aware of the testing, maybe that family could have been riding.

Unfortunately there is always going to be 1st time, 1 time guests at the parks who are going to be affected by something like this in nature.

I think that the purpose of the test was to not notify anyone in advance other than the short notice that was given. Yes this would blindside people but it would also allow Disney to get a true look at the metrics. If they had posted this weeks before or even months before that would have skewed the results. The negative feed back from guest experience during this time is actually what they might have been looking for, and even if not it shows a more accurate representation of a typical day.

 

[cakebaker]

Are there any thoughts that they are testing the capacity of FP+ only for this reason?



http://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions...story-mania-at-disney's-hollywood-studios.htm

This was mentioned earlier in the thread and while I think it's certainly a possibility, it's not near as controversial nor is it near as gloom and doom as the "it's the end of stand by lines everywhere" possibility.

Damn Disney and their trying to figure out a way to reduce line waits at their parks!

 

[Planogirl]

This was mentioned earlier in the thread and while I think it's certainly a possibility, it's not near as controversial nor is it near as gloom and doom as the "it's the end of stand by lines everywhere" possibility.

Damn Disney and their trying to figure out a way to reduce line waits at their parks!

Shorten one line and increase the length of another. People have to be somewhere and I firmly believe that they will head to another queue.

 

[Jennasis]

I went back as far as several weeks ago and there are plenty of negative comments and reviews. So no vacation, no suddenly telling them to knock if off and I seriously doubt they are being so overwhelmed with negative comment that they are wore out from clicking delete and can't keep up any more.

So who knows, but there's no indication it's happening or has been happening for quite some time.

I've had posts deleted. Polite, concise posts that indicated my displeasure with one facet or another.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

I went back as far as several weeks ago and there are plenty of negative comments and reviews. So no vacation, no suddenly telling them to knock if off and I seriously doubt they are being so overwhelmed with negative comment that they are wore out from clicking delete and can't keep up any more.

So who knows, but there's no indication it's happening or has been happening for quite some time.

Again, they aren't deleting everything. They would have to be very careful about doing that. But I had 2 post deleted last week. One was a post of the pic of the sign outside TSMM that said they had reached capacity for the day. The other was a link to the DIS DAS board trying to help someone looking for info about the new DAS system. No one from Disney came along to help them out but they took the time to delete my post.

 

[momof2n2]

Damn Disney and their trying to figure out a way to reduce line waits at their parks!

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.

 

[SColling007]

I think that some of the fuss is coming from worry that Disney will implement some form of this. Maybe they won't but until their motives are clear, some of us will likely fret.

I agree, I worry that this would become permanent too! But like I said benefit of the doubt.

Also, I can understand how annoying this test would be for a visitor. Depending on desire to plan every detail, a surprise test like this can really throw off a schedule. Plus some feel that they are paying for a service and should receive that service and not some version of a test. Some people seem to see the ability to wait for a ride as a part of that service too.

Once again I agree, but Disney didn't remove all of the ability of the service, just one ride. To my understanding they still allowed people to reserve FastPasses on the the spot if they were still available for that day (same as the legacy system) and I am sure that Guest Services was reinforced to deal with the remainder of the complaints from guests.

 

[grimley1968]

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.

Or, even better, add attractions to meet demand.

 

[AmyB2006]

That may be the case for TSMM...but A&E and Soarin?

It very well could be what they are doing it at TSMM for, but I don't believe that's the only place they are looking to implement something similar.

Well they're talking about building a new theater for Soarin' as well. A&E I don't know. But they could very well have the same situation with Soarin' where one theater is strictly standby and the other two are FP+ or vice versa.

A&E, I simply don't understand why they don't have multiple M&Gs I just don't get it. You could have them in multiple parks in multiple places and that would alleviate the problem.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

Once again I agree, but Disney didn't remove all of the ability of the service, just one ride. To my understanding they still allowed people to reserve FastPasses on the the spot if they were still available for that day (same as the legacy system) and I am sure that Guest Services was reinforced to deal with the remainder of the complaints from guests.

The problem with this that I read about was that if you had a FP+ for F!, you would have had to cancel that TSMM FP+ as one of your 3. They were not allowing guest to just add another FP+. It had to be one of your 3. Meaning you had to rework your FP+s if you had them set up with no FP+ for TSMM. Or add it after you used your first 3. If anyone showed up at 10 a.m. planning to ride SB and had FP+s set for MK for the evening, they were out of luck and were not allowed to ride unless they wanted to give up there MK FP+s. If anyone showed up at 10 a.m. with a F! FP+ that they didn't want to change and didn't already have a TSMM FP+, you were out of luck and not allowed to ride. And since they had no idea that Disney had changed this rule on them, I think it kind of sucked.

 

[SColling007]

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.

Not in the beginning it didn't, I was in WDW during its "Testing" phase and people hated it... There just wasn't a global presence for people to write about their displeasures.

 

[momof2n2]

Or, even better, add attractions to meet demand.

Oh -- but that would have been tooooooo easy!

(I completely concur, BTW.)

 

[kmarie99]

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.

Unless you did not like to be there at rope drop and run the that side of the park. If you don't want to be in the mad rush of people and sleep in a little this way is much better!