What's happening with FP+ in November and December?

[Suvadoo]

According to many posters on the Dis Boards, a large block of FP+’s were released by Disney for 3 weeks in November.
Why do you think Disney did this? Do you think it’s another test and SB lines will be eliminated? Do you think the FP+ lines will be longer? What about the Christmas time crowds? How do you think FP+ will be distributed?

 

[mom2rtk]

Well, we know the additional FPs have to be coming from somewhere.

It's possible they under-distributed them before. But why for just this 3 week period? Seems odd.

It's possible that they are going to distribute a greater percentage of the ride's capacity as FP, making it more of a "not quite as slow" pass.

And while it's possible they might go FP+ only, I'm still not buying they have the guts to do that.

I do feel very bad for everyone who stayed up late to schedule FPs, came away empty, and have no idea Disney just dumped more into the system.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I'm curious as to why it's the first three weeks in November.
Why not Thanksgiving week?

 

[Suvadoo]

I'm curious as to why it's the first three weeks in November.
Why not Thanksgiving week?

Do you think they were holding FP's back in the beginning of Nov. since it was a slower time and then realized people were complaining?
Maybe at Thanksgiving, there are lots of onsite guests making their 60 day reservations and Disney will release additional FP's At the 30 day mark.
What do you think? What do you think it wil be like at Thanksgiving?

 

[g-dad66]

Interesting questions.

I think they're probably experimenting with different amounts of FP+ releases for different time periods, based upon forecasts and history of attendance levels at different times of the year.

Also I think that prior to Christmas week, the Halloween and Christmas parties at MK limit the time frame vs. the non-party days, thus affecting FP+ avaiability of the two most notoriously hard to get FP+ (Mine Train and Anna/Elsa).

I think they want onsite guests to have some good general availability at 60-30 days out, but they probably also want offsite guests not to be completely shut out of FP+ for the most popular attractions.

I would guess that some additional FP+ availability for Thanksgiving week will show up in the next couple of weeks. If I were an offsite guest for Thanksgiving week, I would sure keep checking the DISBoards daily for a new thread about sudden Thanksgiving FP+ availability.

All of this is mere speculation. I have no knowledge of anything.

 

[famy27]

I want to know this as well. As I've posted in a few other threads, it seems that people with even short stays have no problem getting A&E for Christmas week, when many of us were shut out in Sept-Nov. Park hours can't explain the discrepancy and if it were the problem that more users booking FPs were taking them all in September, that should be 10 times worse for Christmas.

Something strange is afoot...

 

[Suvadoo]

I want to know this as well. As I've posted in a few other threads, it seems that people with even short stays have no problem getting A&E for Christmas week, when many of us were shut out in Sept-Nov. Park hours can't explain the discrepancy and if it were the problem that more users booking FPs were taking them all in September, that should be 10 times worse for Christmas.

Something strange is afoot...

I just wish I didn't think this was another weird Disney experiment, but it's hard to give them the benfit of the doubt. Their track record isn't so hot. I really hope that I'm wrong.
But maybe the result of this experiment will be positive and everyone will report that they had a wonderful experience!

 

[g-dad66]

I want to know this as well. As I've posted in a few other threads, it seems that people with even short stays have no problem getting A&E for Christmas week, when many of us were shut out in Sept-Nov. Park hours can't explain the discrepancy and if it were the problem that more users booking FPs were taking them all in September, that should be 10 times worse for Christmas.

Something strange is afoot...

Standby waits are always terrible during Christmas week (2-3 hours wait for headliners being common). Maybe Disney figures that 4-5 hour Standby waits won't be that much worse.

 

[BroganMc]

It's 7DMT that has the big FP+ release. Anna & Elsa is tight through New Year's week. (I just booked the last few passes for A&E on 12/30.)

My guess is some experimenting is afoot. Someone in an ivory tower needs to plug in values in their Excel chart to prove their job worth.

We'll know come Monday. That's when the first batch of the 7DMT Windfall happens.

For the record, I don't Disney as far as I can throw 'em on this. They burned me twice with a FP+ Only trial during my supposedly less crowded and relaxing Sep/Oct trip.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Do you think they were holding FP's back in the beginning of Nov. since it was a slower time and then realized people were complaining?
Maybe at Thanksgiving, there are lots of onsite guests making their 60 day reservations and Disney will release additional FP's At the 30 day mark.
What do you think? What do you think it wil be like at Thanksgiving?

Could be.

I don't know what it will be like, but I am SO curious to see what the standby lines are like during the holidays this year, Thanksgiving and between Christmas and New Years.

 

[DebbieB]

I was there last week, both times I did FP+ for 7DMT (different days) I was on within 5 minutes. Maybe they decided it could take more capacity.

 

[kerplop]

All I can hope is they do it again for early December.

 

[lugnut33]

If they are using a larger percentage of ride capacity for FP+ during that time it'll make the picture I posted today of the POTC line look tiny.

 

[Satchmo128]

All I can hope is they do it again for early December.

Me too! We are off-site guests and are almost at the 30-day mark for our arrival day. Who know what will be available, lol!

 

[kerplop]

Me too! We are off-site guests and are almost at the 30-day mark for our arrival day. Who know what will be available, lol!

Same with us. I got to do our first round last night and now I get to stay up til 11pm CST every night for the next 7 days! No 7DMT on 11/28, but I didn't expect it at all even though someone in the Nov cancellation thread said there were two. Way too late I guess! I just keep hoping they do it again otherwise we probably won't get on it, since neither of us want it that badly.

 

[Suvadoo]

Standby waits are always terrible during Christmas week (2-3 hours wait for headliners being common). Maybe Disney figures that 4-5 hour Standby waits won't be that much worse.

I cannot imagine waiting in a 2-3 hour line for a 5 minute attraction! That would be a total waste of time. 4-5 hour standby, I would need a major infusion of alcohol! But I'm not saying it's impossible, just ridiculous. Much like the FP+ crowd management sytem is ridiculous. Before implementing FP+ maybe Disney should've tried herding cats!

 

[mggeary]

I want to know this as well. As I've posted in a few other threads, it seems that people with even short stays have no problem getting A&E for Christmas week, when many of us were shut out in Sept-Nov. Park hours can't explain the discrepancy and if it were the problem that more users booking FPs were taking them all in September, that should be 10 times worse for Christmas.

Something strange is afoot...

FP+ availability for A&E 60 days out depends on several factors
1) Resort occupancy (fairly stable across busy and non busy times of year)
2) % of onsite guests willing/knowledgable enough to stay up to midnight at 60 days out (I would guess much higher in low crowd Oct-Nov weeks than Xmas, Thxgv, school breaks)
3) avg length of resort guest stay (likely fairly stable over the year)
4) check in day (probably marginally harder for those checking in on Sat vs Tue)
5). # FPs distributed and park hours

My guess is that #2 is the driving factor folks. More crazy DISer types on low crowd weeks willing to grab FPs at midnight on 60 day mark than lemmings on Xmas week.

 

[Suvadoo]

Well, we know the additional FPs have to be coming from somewhere.

It's possible they under-distributed them before. But why for just this 3 week period? Seems odd.

It's possible that they are going to distribute a greater percentage of the ride's capacity as FP, making it more of a "not quite as slow" pass.

And while it's possible they might go FP+ only, I'm still not buying they have the guts to do that.

I do feel very bad for everyone who stayed up late to schedule FPs, came away empty, and have no idea Disney just dumped more into the system.

To me, this seems like the most likely explanation. So they'll slow the Fp+ line and the SB will become even slower than it already is. Great. If I were going to the parks, I'd ride my 3 FP+ rides and then leave since the odds of getting on another ride without a long wait will be nil. I hope this isn't the plan, but if this is the new norm for WDW I will not be visiting again.

 

[cobright]

Well, we know the additional FPs have to be coming from somewhere.

...

It's possible that they are going to distribute a greater percentage of the ride's capacity as FP, making it more of a "not quite as slow" pass.

This is one of those cases where 'common sense' lies to us.

Common sense tells us that an attraction can handle a certain number of people each hour and that number determines the average wait time for those wishing to ride it. So the intuitive conclusion is that a FP system decreases the wait time for a few at the expense of the rest. I swear to god I had someone tells me this, adding "that's just math".

The common sense error, then, is that moving everyone to FP would have the same effect more or less as removing FP. Or that it would dilute the effect. In reality, having a system where every attraction attended was scheduled up to two months in advance would shorten everyone's wait across the board.

Nothing in que management is a zero sum uni-variant problem. Before anything else, the purpose of FP is traffic shaping. This means spreading guests out in such a way that you have fewer and less severe spikes in demand for a particular ride. The more people who are scheduling their day with FP the more rides will be running at their most efficient wait times.

Think about it next time you walk right onto a ride that you would have happily waited 15 minutes for. FP's job is to get more people into that line and out of the 160 minute wait for peter pan.

 

[famy27]

FP+ availability for A&E 60 days out depends on several factors
1) Resort occupancy (fairly stable across busy and non busy times of year)
2) % of onsite guests willing/knowledgable enough to stay up to midnight at 60 days out (I would guess much higher in low crowd Oct-Nov weeks than Xmas, Thxgv, school breaks)
3) avg length of resort guest stay (likely fairly stable over the year)
4) check in day (probably marginally harder for those checking in on Sat vs Tue)
5). # FPs distributed and park hours

My guess is that #2 is the driving factor folks. More crazy DISer types on low crowd weeks willing to grab FPs at midnight on 60 day mark than lemmings on Xmas week.

I don't know. There are still quite a few DIS'er types traveling at the holidays. Lots of people have no choice because of school schedules and/or really love the holiday decorations. Also, it seems that there is now even more capacity for the super-headliners as there was in the summer.

The other strange thing in the fall was that only people with really long trips (longer than a week) were consistently having success with A&E. I really think Disney was holding back FP capacity during the late Aug-Nov timeframe.

My question is now whether they merely returned capacity to the summer levels or if they've upped the number of FPs per timeslot over what was available in the summer.