News Eliminating Fastpass and Extra Magic Hours - confirmed as of May 28

[Herdman]

I’m more frustrated about the dining reservations being canceled through the end of the year. Had a great schedule in October, now I have to do it all over again in July. They at least seem to be keeping a record of who had reservations before.

We are going in late October. I thought I read 60 day booking window so I think we'd be in August?

 

[bartholomr4]

They are coming

How about park hopping?

 

[larryz]

Welcome back to the 1990's!!!

 

[Touchdown]

We are going in late October. I thought I read 60 day booking window so I think we'd be in August?

Yes.

 

[WondersOfLife]

Silver lining here. Here's hoping that this means an end to Fastpass+ forever.

Personally, I hope they bring back the paper FP.

 

[spresso81]

Disney's press/communications department has done a bad job so far. First they mess-up the press release about hotels opening to later state that only the DVCs are re-opening. Now, we heard EMHs are canceled. However, the park hours listed on their website still list EMHs. My local Six Flags is doing a better job...

All this talk of FPs going away in the future could further devalue the point of staying at a Disney hotel. Why should I pay $450 a night to stay at the YC if I get no advantage in terms of booking rides, etc...

I have really tried to not be a doom and gloomer but I am questioning Disney management more by the day.

 

[WondersOfLife]

So should I wait for Disney to contact ME regarding my reservation, or should I go ahead and contact THEM?

 

[Herdman]

Disney's press/communications department has done a bad job so far. First they mess-up the press release about hotels opening to later state that only the DVCs are re-opening. Now, we heard EMHs are canceled. However, the park hours listed on their website still list EMHs. My local Six Flags is doing a better job...

All this talk of FPs going away in the future could further devalue the point of staying at a Disney hotel. Why should I pay $450 a night to stay at the YC if I get no advantage in terms of booking rides, etc...

I have really tried to not be a doom and gloomer but I am questioning Disney management more by the day.

There will still be perks of some sort I'm sure. Maybe earlier access to schedule a virtual queue or something along those lines. Disney knows if they don't do something like that to make it worthwhile they will lose a lot of people on property.

 

[Ben_since_1971]

So should I wait for Disney to contact ME regarding my reservation, or should I go ahead and contact THEM?

I am waiting to see what they will do. I don’t want to be on hold for hours.

 

[jpeden]

Personally, I hope they bring back the paper FP.

That wouldn’t happen as it would be a touch point that thousands would have to touch each day. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the elimination of FP is to prevent everyone from having to tap the bands against the tapstiles

 

[Touchdown]

Yup, I see no reason to stay at a Deluxe Resort if I do not get some important perks. I do not expect capacity to only be at 15000 come October. EMH is very important to me, I need something comparable and as they learned after 9/11 so does most of the public.

 

[WDW Pro]

The complexity of what we are seeing now really makes it clear just how convoluted planning a WDW trip had become. I really hope that lessons are learned from all this and going forward things are a little simpler for everyone involved.

And that this is a system which was never meant to be taken down for a long period of time. Simplification is badly needed going forward.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Personally, I hope they bring back the paper FP.

Legacy rules on a digital system.

 

[Thelazer]

That wouldn’t happen as it would be a touch point that thousands would have to touch each day. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the elimination of FP is to prevent everyone from having to tap the bands against the tapstiles

That is SO LOW RISK though, like REALLY LOW LOW RISK..

 

[disneygeek90]

That is SO LOW RISK though, like REALLY LOW LOW RISK..

If you wanna use the old system just use it from the app. It’s basically the Disneyland Maxpass. There’s really no need for paper tickets.

 

[techgeek]

The complexity of what we are seeing now really makes it clear just how convoluted planning a WDW trip had become. I really hope that lessons are learned from all this and going forward things are a little simpler for everyone involved.

It also makes it painfully obvious that there was never a magical ‘reopen in two weeks’ button, even if the desire was there. They are going to need every day between now and July 11th just to dig themselves out of the data avalanche the shutdown has created and handhold every reservation.

 

[thomas998]

How far out is dining being cancelled?

All the dining reservations are cancelled. According to the info Disney has put out they are basically all gone but when you are withing 60 days of your trip you can then try to rebook reservations. The problem they had was that the new social distancing garbage severely limited the capacity of restaurants. So rather than up set some people by randomly cancelling some reservation but not all they decided to upset everyone by cancelling everyone's reservations. Also note they aren't selling any new tickets so unless you are an AP holder or already had tickets purchased you won't be going anytime soon anyways as they have not decided when they will actually be selling new tickets.

 

[doctornick]

Also note they aren't selling any new tickets so unless you are an AP holder or already had tickets purchased you won't be going anytime soon anyways as they have not decided when they will actually be selling new tickets.

Questions about that: can't one still go to (say) Undercover Tourist and buy tickets? They look to still be available. But then I wonder if Disney would block the use of third party purchased tickets or something.

 

[jpeden]

That is SO LOW RISK though, like REALLY LOW LOW RISK..

I agree, but it’s still one less touch point.

 

[thomas998]

Questions about that: can't one still go to (say) Undercover Tourist and buy tickets? They look to still be available. But then I wonder if Disney would block the use of third party purchased tickets or something.

Would you want to risk it knowing that if you planned a trip there and they had been blocked you wouldn't even have the option to buy a ticket at the gate? I don't think I would want to take that risk.