What a palarver - FP+

[Dimplenose]

Well today is the day.

A bad night's sleep and I didn't get online until after 6am.

I have managed to get the selections I wanted (apart from Maelstrom - but it seems to be shut while we are there.)

I could even have chosen A&E meet and greet if I had wanted it.

But can Disney have made it any more awkward to book?

1. Choose your people (fair enough)
2. choose your date
3. realise that you should also have chosen a park
4. go back - choose park and date this time -
5. select rides
6. choose ride times from 4 different random selections - OK your choice
7. go back and amend each time individually
8. select to do another day
9. start process again
10. scratch head a lot for last day when only have time for 2 FP+ selections
choose 3 anyway then have to cancel one.

I was only booking for a 7 night stay, I can quite see how people on 14 night trips can take an hour to set up their FP+ selections.

I had a rough idea of what to do from reading reports on here - goodness know what I would have done if I hadn't had any info.

But I got what I wanted so that's the main thing.

 

[wilma-bride]

I did mine on Saturday morning and didn't find it too difficult but I suppose to somebody who hasn't used it before, it is a bit clunky. The most difficult bit for me was choosing the right members of our party of (at times) 11 but, in the end, I just booked for all of us and cancelled those I didn't need for each day.

Maelstrom is closing permanently (if the rumours are to be believed) in September (the 25th I believe).

 

[Dimplenose]

Shame about Maelstrom - we didn't get to ride it last time, long queues and 2 stroppy teenagers with us (even promising we'd skip straight through the film afterwards wouldn't persuade them to queue!)

 

[wilma-bride]

Shame about Maelstrom - we didn't get to ride it last time, long queues and 2 stroppy teenagers with us (even promising we'd skip straight through the film afterwards wouldn't persuade them to queue!)

Again, if rumours are to be believed, Disney are expected to announce plans to turn it into a Frozen attraction - surprise, surprise I actually read something yesterday that said that the area needed a huge injection of cash to renovate the attraction and area as it is anyway, so Disney needed to make the decision whether to do something different with it.

 

[wayneg]

My first few attempts at using the FP+ system I felt like just giving up and not using it. It blocked 2 out of 3 of our AP's. After a phone call to sort it out and a few more goes at using it I figured it out. Still don't like some of it but I won't be using it for a year or 2 now so hopefully they will improve it.

 

[weebabes]

We've been in WDW for just over a week and fast pass + has been working brilliantly well for us. We've had 2 days when the ride we had a fast pass for had broken at our fast pass time and we were automatically issued with fast passes for any ride at any time in that park. Couldn't work better so stick with it.
Also, we have had days we hadn't booked fast pass for until the morning and have managed to get passes for whatever we wanted.

 

[darthtatty]

well done on sorting your fastpasses.
I didn't think it was too bad a process. I did find it was just easier to get everyone the same fp to begin with and change everything after.

 

[wilma-bride]

well done on sorting your fastpasses.
I didn't think it was too bad a process. I did find it was just easier to get everyone the same fp to begin with and change everything after.

That's exactly what I did

 

[scoobydooby]

I think this is an issue where research pays off. I had no problems even though it's a bit clunky, but I had done my research in advance. It's not obvious how to use it if you haven't and it does become much more complex if you have a large party wanting different things. There was only two of us so it was easy.

 

[london75]

We've just got back and also went with the book the night before/morning/even on the car park tram approach and generally it was great. We'd used it in April already so knew what to expect, I have to say it was infinitely better on an iPhone than an android phone which was the main reason I went back to iPhone, just a bit more polish on iPhone apps than android.

The one thing that really bugged us was that the big new attractions were impossible to get whereas with old fast pass, if you got there early on any day, you could definitely ride at least one major attraction.

Now for 7dmt and Anna and Elsa meet and greet it's rope drop or forget it. That's if you're offsite that is. It doesn't sound too easy onsite at 60 days either but at least doable. No chance < 60 days for peak season. Also I never saw the standby queue ticketing for Anna and Elsa which was a great idea but despite being widely reported, never saw it happen.

 

[BigMommaMouse]

We've been in WDW for just over a week and fast pass + has been working brilliantly well for us. We've had 2 days when the ride we had a fast pass for had broken at our fast pass time and we were automatically issued with fast passes for any ride at any time in that park. Couldn't work better so stick with it.
Also, we have had days we hadn't booked fast pass for until the morning and have managed to get passes for whatever we wanted.

Great to know, thanks.

 

[disneyholic family]

everything i read is scaring me to death...
i'm not exactly techno challenged.....i work for one of the most advanced high tech companies in the world, where i worked in product development for a number of years...so no...i'm not techno challenged...
but i'm easily bothered by unwieldy technology....
if something takes 20 steps when it should only be two i just want to throw in the towel..
it also makes me nervous that there are untold numbers of potential glitches due to hasty programming and even hastier patches...

and after all, it's a holiday....when i just want to relax and kiss technology goodbye....it's supposed to be fantasy, not reality...(and bad reality at that)..

i'm bothered when systems implemented are on the backs of the users...
rather than perfect them before implementing them, they decide on some (arbitrary) deadline and then implement come hail or high water....
and then spend the next months or years getting it to work right - while the users contend with a user unfriendly system..

oh well....complain complain.....it just doesn't seem all that magical to me from where i'm sitting..

 

[wilma-bride]

everything i read is scaring me to death...
i'm not exactly techno challenged.....i work for one of the most advanced high tech companies in the world, where i worked in product development for a number of years...so no...i'm not techno challenged...
but i'm easily bothered by unwieldy technology....
if something takes 20 steps when it should only be two i just want to throw in the towel..
it also makes me nervous that there are untold numbers of potential glitches due to hasty programming and even hastier patches...

and after all, it's a holiday....when i just want to relax and kiss technology goodbye....it's supposed to be fantasy, not reality...(and bad reality at that)..

i'm bothered when systems implemented are on the backs of the users...
rather than perfect them before implementing them, they decide on some (arbitrary) deadline and then implement come hell or high water....
and then spend the next months or years getting it to work right - while the users contend with a user unfriendly system..

oh well....complain complain.....it just doesn't seem all that magical to me from where i'm sitting..

There are not 20 steps, it is not difficult, I had not read anything about it (other than to do with the tiering system) before I used it for the first time in Jan and I managed fine.

Yes, it can be a little bit cumbersome but I made 10 days worth of FPs on Saturday morning, for varying numbers of people in our group (from 3 up to 9). It took me all of about 40 minutes from start to finish, including going back into each day and changing the people who the FP was for and changing times to suit.

 

[disneyholic family]

There are not 20 steps, it is not difficult, I had not read anything about it (other than to do with the tiering system) before I used it for the first time in Jan and I managed fine.

Yes, it can be a little bit cumbersome but I made 10 days worth of FPs on Saturday morning, for varying numbers of people in our group (from 3 up to 9). It took me all of about 40 minutes from start to finish, including going back into each day and changing the people who the FP was for and changing times to suit.

40 minutes?
that's a LOT of time....

and that was when everything worked for you...

 

[Dimplenose]

I didn't find it difficult but frustratingly cumbersome; sometimes having to backtrack because I'd missed something.

I did manage to book everything I wanted and change the times to more suitable ones for me.

I only had 7 days to book and it took over 30 minutes.

 

[wilma-bride]

40 minutes?
that's a LOT of time....

and that was when everything worked for you...

I disagree, it is far less time than I would have previously spent running all over the park to get my FPs. And I suspect it only took 40 minutes because of the size and make-up of our party and the number of days we are all doing different things. If I had straight booked 10 days of FPs for the whole party it would have taken 10 minutes tops and another 10 maybe to change times to more suitable.

I think the trouble is, people generally don't like change (I'm one of them) and are determined they won't like it before they have even tried it. For me, 40 minutes spent being able to GUARANTEE 3 FPs a day for the things we want to ride without having to be at a park at rope drop to try and get those same FPs is well worth it I was wary of the system too but loved it when we used it in March and found it pretty easy to use, despite the many people who didn't like it and said it was difficult.

 

[wayneg]

I would agree its more cumbersome than anything. I just feel it could be more user friendly. I wasn't as lucky only spending 40 mins though. I was about 2 hours before I even got to booking a FP, trying to work out the system then it blocking 2 tickets and having to eventually ring them to unblock. Then each day going on spending about 15-20 mins for each day of 3 I did. All in for 7 days of FP so total around 4 hours.
We do most our days at opening and found many of the FP's were not needed, rather annoying walking on BTM with no line and you have a FP but others were required.
All in we probably just about saved the 4 hours I spent online booking them, which means 4 hours of holiday time saved. It must be better spending time in advance than stood in line in the heat.

It is an improvement on the old system but I think they can do far better, hopefully they will tweak and improve.

 

[Elise79]

FP+ has it's positives and negatives.

I don't find the time spent before travelling too bad and we had a larger group that had different passes in July plus I have done 2 trips with just the 3 of us.

I don't like planning everyday so will book some FPs and leave some to the night before or morning of.

The plus side is that I know on our Epcot day I will be able to book us FPs for TT, MS and Maelstrom (if it's open again) and if we want to do Soarin we can go for rope drop or book a FP on another day. We have a CP package for lunch so it will be a open to close day for certain and Chloe will do her world showcase passport in the afternoon too.

Also in our arrival day our flight lands at MCO at 12 noon so I can book afternoon FPs for a park of our choice and we will know we will still get to ride our favourites!

The negative is some things are gone at the 60 day mark and there is no chance of getting them later. They were holding back more on the day availability but that seemed to be gone in July.

 

[scoobydooby]

40 minutes? that's a LOT of time.... and that was when everything worked for you...

Much less time that a full holiday of getting FP from machines in the park though

 

[Wills Mom]

I disagree, it is far less time than I would have previously spent running all over the park to get my FPs. And I suspect it only took 40 minutes because of the size and make-up of our party and the number of days we are all doing different things. If I had straight booked 10 days of FPs for the whole party it would have taken 10 minutes tops and another 10 maybe to change times to more suitable.

I think the trouble is, people generally don't like change (I'm one of them) and are determined they won't like it before they have even tried it. For me, 40 minutes spent being able to GUARANTEE 3 FPs a day for the things we want to ride without having to be at a park at rope drop to try and get those same FPs is well worth it I was wary of the system too but loved it when we used it in March and found it pretty easy to use, despite the many people who didn't like it and said it was difficult.

Sorry for my silly question but when you made FPs did you make them for the attraction you wanted for the number of people you wanted and then went back in after the fact to adjust the time to a more suitable time on the same day? I am only starting to look into FP+ so if this is possible it makes it seem much more appealing.