TSM standby-less test Oct. 6-9

[momof2n2]

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!

How is getting only one tier one better?
I used two get two-three rides on more than one E ticket ride.

 

[kmarie99]

How is getting only one tier one better?
I used two get two-three rides on more than one E ticket ride.

We found that we only got 2 or 3 OLD FP if we were there at rope drop. If you were not you were waiting standby. I do agree with you that it would be better without Tiering but I would not say it is worse (unless you were a rope dropper).

 

[gwb]

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.

great point!!! I remember when they first came out too. There was a lot of complaining using almost the exact same arguments. And as you pointed out there wasn't the web as is now for people to vent

 

[lugnut33]

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!

Just make sure you stay up late 60 days before your trip. Any time between 12 and 1 a.m. you should be able to get in to make your FP+

From another thread

Got SDMT and A&E for my second MK day. Horrible times, but I'll take what I can get. At 1:01 am, SDMT and A&E were booked for Dec 12. This whole system is crazy. I have been up nearly 4 hours past my usual bedtime, and now I'm going to be only slightly pleased. The whole 1 a.m. opening might have been nice to know ahead of time instead of waiting at the computer from midnight to 1:00 a.m.

 

[cakebaker]

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.....for you.

Not so much for others.

 

[momof2n2]

We found that we only got 2 or 3 OLD FP if we were there at rope drop. If you were not you were waiting standby. I do agree with you that it would be better without Tiering but I would not say it is worse (unless you were a rope dropper).

Yeah. I'm a rope dropper. I'm also a commando, ride-monger. Just being transparent. .

FP was love at first sight for my family. There is much we skip at MK. (Don't do HM, PP, POTC, JCP, and more.). We prefer to do the three (old) mountains, & BLSRS multiple times though. It evened out. FP made it possible.

ETA : LOL. Apple changed JC to JCP. Now you know where I shop.

 

[minnie-apple-mouse]

Just make sure you stay up late 60 days before your trip. Any time between 12 and 1 a.m. you should be able to get in to make your FP+

From another thread

Or 9PM last night for today's Holiday, but was only the 2 of them.

DD had to work this morning but worked out great for later, much better than before FP+ anyway.

Maybe all 3 in 1 hour?

 

[momof2n2]

There already was a way. FP. Worked fantastically.....for you. Not so much for others.

But you've said you had fantastic trips over the years.

 

[Angel Ariel]

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!

We were never in the mad rush of people and still managed to make fp work for us. I understand it didn't for many, but that doesn't mean it was impossible to do without getting there at RD.

 

[cakebaker]

But you've said you had fantastic trips over the years.

Yes, we didn't let the problems fp caused ruin out trips. We worked around it. We would've preferred not to join the crush getting fp's, but we preferred that over not riding at all. We would've preferred to be able to ride fp rides in the evening without using standby, but we chose to ride less popular rides, then hit the popular rides on another morning. And it's not that we hated fp - we didn't. It was better than having no way to manage lines- but fp+ works infinitely better, for us.

Because we like park hopping, alternating an evening park to a morning park allowed us to get the fp's for that park-but it does take 2 days to do that. We don't mind that, but it's a major complaint from those who don't like fp+ that they have to stay longer to get all the rides in or ride more than once.

From your description of your touring style, you have to be in a tiny minority of people who tour the way you do, skipping almost everything except 3-4 rides and then riding those over and over again. You can't expect WDW to maintain a system that suits that style the best. I have to believe the vast majority of guests do not skip all those rides.

 

[ArwenMarie]

From your description of your touring style, you have to be in a tiny minority of people who tour the way you do, skipping almost everything except 3-4 rides and then riding those over and over again. You can't expect WDW to maintain a system that suits that style the best. I have to believe the vast majority of guests do not skip all those rides.

I think that is more common than you think, especially at MK. People with little kids will be focused on certain rides, there are the people who just want to ride the mountains but won't be going on PP or Mermaid, etc. This is because there are actually a lot of rides at MK, so it's easy to have a group that you like. This is exactly why they haven't had to tier MK. Unlike at DHS or Epcot, where there are so few rides everyone ends up wanting to ride them.

 

[momof2n2]

Yes, we didn't let the problems fp caused ruin out trips. We worked around it. We would've preferred not to join the crush getting fp's, but we preferred that over not riding at all. We would've preferred to be able to ride fp rides in the evening without using standby, but we chose to ride less popular rides, then hit the popular rides on another morning. And it's not that we hated fp - we didn't. It was better than having no way to manage lines- but fp+ works infinitely better, for us. Because we like park hopping, alternating an evening park to a morning park allowed us to get the fp's for that park-but it does take 2 days to do that. We don't mind that, but it's a major complaint from those who don't like fp+ that they have to stay longer to get all the rides in or ride more than once. From your description of your touring style, you have to be in a tiny minority of people who tour the way you do, skipping almost everything except 3-4 rides and then riding those over and over again. You can't expect WDW to maintain a system that suits that style the best. I have to believe the vast majority of guests do not skip all those rides.

There are lots of thing we do once in between those extremes. Tea cups once, Pooh, Liberty Belle, Tree house, etc. Plus shows, parades, fireworks. But we do skip some popular ones in order to do other popular ones frequently.

 

[lugnut33]

Or 9PM last night for today's Holiday, but was only the 2 of them.

DD had to work this morning but worked out great for later, much better than before FP+ anyway.

Maybe all 3 in 1 hour?

you need to buy lottery tickets

 

[cakebaker]

I think that is more common than you think, especially at MK. People with little kids will be focused on certain rides, there are the people who just want to ride the mountains but won't be going on PP or Mermaid, etc. This is because there are actually a lot of rides at MK, so it's easy to have a group that you like. This is exactly why they haven't had to tier MK. Unlike at DHS or Epcot, where there are so few rides everyone ends up wanting to ride them.

She listed 4 rides when I responded- I don't think very many people go to the MK and only ride 4 rides. If you do, we'll just have to disagree. We didn't have little kids until 2 years ago, we never skipped a majority of the rides.

 

[minnie-apple-mouse]

you need to buy lottery tickets

HaHa-well she does anyway.

She really was impressed, she thinks arriving at 4PM today would normally take about 6 hours to get these 3 done as FP's would have been gone, but also has heard all the horror stories so knows something like this result will only be possible often, if they start building more attractions. But geez if they do-there is some nice potential there depending on how you want to tour etc of course.

 

[cakebaker]

you need to buy lottery tickets

nah- we didn't schedule our first of two trips this summer until about 40 days out.

We got what we wanted and that included the popular ones at every park- in fact since we park hop, we got everything we needed either in morning or evening hours for each park.We did not try for A&E, but did have it pop up as available when we were making selections.

As time went by, we adjusted our choices to get times that worked better as we changed our schedule around, but not a single ride did we have to do standby due to not being able to secure a fp+.

Hopping fixes the tiering issue as well, btw.

I'll grant you that some rides can be difficult to obtain, but it really is just sdmt and A&E. The others are readily available without staying up till midnight.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Because we like park hopping, alternating an evening park to a morning park allowed us to get the fp's for that park-but it does take 2 days to do that. We don't mind that, but it's a major complaint from those who don't like fp+ that they have to stay longer to get all the rides in or ride more than once.

Some of us don't have the option of staying longer (going on Armed Forces Saute tx which cannot be upgraded), so there's a reason that it's part of why we dislike FP+.

 

[robpa]

I am a long time viewer of the DIS Unplugged podcasts, but this is my first post to the boards. I watched and listened to Pete's comments about the FastPass + testing at Toy Story Mainia! last week, and have been reading some of the comments since testing has ended, and I have to say that I believe the criticism is a little unwarranted.

I am in full agreement that if this is fully implemented it would be a bad thing. But coming from the technology testing industry I sort of understand the process. Disney has a responsibility to fully test to capacity the nearly 1.5 billion that it has cost to implement FastPass + and the technology that comes with it.

Everyone has to remember that this is a test. In order to do their due diligence they have to test every aspect of the technology, both to see what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately the only way to really test if something like this would work is to test it on one of the most popular rides during normal business hours, for more than just one day. Disney doesn't have a test environment for this so it means that it WILL impact the guest experience. A test at a less popular ride, or even during slower times, will not give a true benchmark of the metrics that they are trying to capture. Once Disney has concluded the test, they will gather all of the data including wait times, ride capacity, and guest experience and will be able to tell what aspects worked, what didn't, and if it is a viable solution. For all we know from the outside, Disney had to rule this out in order to be able to request funds to add or change something else (say and additional TSM track).

I tend to give Disney the benefit of the doubt when they are just testing things. I am old enough to remember the tests for the Legacy FastPass system, and I remember that people hated that too.

Maybe Disney should have comped the patrons in the park that helped them compile this data. That would have been a great gesture on their part and everyone would be all warm and fuzzy.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I'll grant you that some rides can be difficult to obtain, but it really is just sdmt and A&E. The others are readily available without staying up till midnight.

I am 25 days out, and have been trying since 60 days to get A&E for my trip. Still no availability. My friends are 32 days out, and yesterday I managed to get them 1 A&E (which does them no good, as their DD is 5 and needs an adult to go with her..so I need to pray I score another one for the same time between now and then). Again - I've been trying for them since 60 days out.

It's incredibly frustrating.

 

[cakebaker]

Some of us don't have the option of staying longer (going on Armed Forces Saute tx which cannot be upgraded), so there's a reason that it's part of why we dislike FP+.

Well as I said, that's what we had to do with legacy fp. I'm sure there were lots of people who couldn't stay longer then either.