Disney to increase the number of FastPass+ entitlements per day and include park hopping

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
One of the things people have been clamoring for was to not have to chose 3 attractions per day. At Epcot for example this isn't really needed thanks to the tiers. The change that went into place today (more Fastpasses once the original 3 have been used) creates an interesting dynamic. First, choosing less than 3 attractions wouldn't work under this new system because it would actually give guests an ability to bypass the tiers earlier than those that opted to get the additional Fastpasses.

For example, if a guest makes a 9 AM Soarin' FP+ selection, a 10 AM Spaceship Earth FP+ selection and an 11 AM Living with the Land FP+ selection, they can be eligible for additional Fastpasses as early as 11 AM once they've checked in at Living with the Land. However, as I've said previously, on many days SSE and LwtL don't require Fastpass, so what these reservations are doing is delaying a guest from making an additional selection. It essentially accomplishes the same thing the 2 hour delay did before, regardless of whether or not a guest uses the FP+ that they scheduled. I think a good alternative at Epcot would be to make that 9 AM Soarin' FP, and then as soon as it's redeemed change one of the FP+ selections to the earliest possible tier 2 attraction you can get. Check in there and do the same thing for your 3rd tier 2 attraction. You could in theory get to your 4th Fastpass before 10 AM and have a better shot of getting Soarin' and Test Track.

These are problems that were created as a result of 3 per guest per day. It's another reason why I think a better alternative would be:
  • 1 Advanced reservation
  • 1 additional reservation once you have checked into a park
  • Additional Fastpasses become available as soon as either of the two are used. This also addresses the nighttime show issue as well.
 

BigTxEars

Well-Known Member
Sooner or latter this will all be worked out. I mean right now it's like those horrid word problems in math that used to kick my butt in school!
 

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
I have a friend there today. She said they had choices of everything. They got for toy story. Fantasmic was still available. Not sure past that as it was 3 Florida time and they take breaks.

If they got TSMM at or around 3 pm, as one of their additional FP's after the 3 were done and one was for TSMM either it is a very good sign or HS was very slow today.
 

kylewr86

Active Member
I was at MK today. Used the additional fastpasses to ride Little Mermaid and Space Mountain around 8pm. The space mountain fastpass was made approx 10 minutes before my 1 hour time slot. The parks were pretty busy for this time of year with all the cheerleaders. Ugh... the LM pass was about a 15 min wait. The kiosk were easy to use and there was plenty of CMs asking everyone if they needed help. It will be so much easier after the update to the app so we can do it from there but this was easy. No lines for kiosk either. Its much better than the way it was. Almost forgot, under this system I didnt have to wait for my time slot to expire to get another fastpass. I got another just after I redeemed my space mountain pass. It was right after. I would say I was on the LM in 20 minutes after just exiting SM. So its much better than the old fastpass in my opinion since I can actually get more passes faster.
 
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RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
I was at MK today. Used the additional fastpasses to ride Little Mermaid and Space Mountain around 8pm. The space mountain fastpass was made approx 10 minutes before my 1 hour time slot. The parks were pretty busy for this time of year with all the cheerleaders. Ugh... the LM pass was about a 15 min wait. The kiosk were easy to use and there was plenty of CMs asking everyone if they needed help. It will be so much easier after the update to the app so we can do it from there but this was easy. No lines for kiosk either. Its much better than the way it was. Almost forgot, under this system I didnt have to wait for my time slot to expire to get another fastpass. I got another just after I redeemed my space mountain pass. It was right after. I would say I was on the LM in 20 minutes after just exiting SM. So its much better than the old fastpass in my opinion since I can actually get more passes faster.
Thanks for the update. It definitely sounds like if you know what you're doing you're still going to be at a huge advantage.
 

cw1982

Well-Known Member
It will be so much easier after the update to the app so we can do it from there but this was easy.

So is there information out there to indicate that plans are in the works to update to allow app usage for the extra FP+'s? I haven't seen that, other than speculation here.
 

durangojim

Well-Known Member
One other question. If you manage your family's FPs, can you still do that from a kiosk without them having to be standing there with you ie. Can I make a FP for me and then copy it to my wife and kids at the kiosk?
 

MasterJedi

Active Member
I know Im a day late and a dollar short, but this new FP+ annoys me. Now you have to plan your "Disney Side" around all the FPs you set up. It makes planning a family vacation more difficult. I think that they should all be PH so you arent so RESTRICTED to one park. Sorry Mickey but this is my first beef with you.
 

cw1982

Well-Known Member
I know Im a day late and a dollar short, but this new FP+ annoys me. Now you have to plan your "Disney Side" around all the FPs you set up. It makes planning a family vacation more difficult. I think that they should all be PH so you arent so RESTRICTED to one park. Sorry Mickey but this is my first beef with you.

Techinically, now that you can PH after using your first round of passes (or wait for their time to expire), this puts the new system in about the same playing field as the old system, in that regard.

Honestly, everyone is acting like FP+ requires oh so much planning, but I can't say I agree with this. I already had an idea of which park I wanted to do on which day, and I know what my favorites and my goals are for each day, so deciding which attractions should be my first three FP's wasn't that big of a deal. I understand that this may feel more restrictive at first, but frankly, I enjoy the fact that DH and I don't have to be at the park at RD to know that we will be able to get the rides we want the most.

I do have other gripes with the new system, but the addition of park hopping is definitely an improvement IMO.
 

durangojim

Well-Known Member
Techinically, now that you can PH after using your first round of passes (or wait for their time to expire), this puts the new system in about the same playing field as the old system, in that regard.

Honestly, everyone is acting like FP+ requires oh so much planning, but I can't say I agree with this. I already had an idea of which park I wanted to do on which day, and I know what my favorites and my goals are for each day, so deciding which attractions should be my first three FP's wasn't that big of a deal. I understand that this may feel more restrictive at first, but frankly, I enjoy the fact that DH and I don't have to be at the park at RD to know that we will be able to get the rides we want the most.

I do have other gripes with the new system, but the addition of park hopping is definitely an improvement IMO.
I found it actually allowed me to have less planning and get to the parks later than I have in the past (especially DHS when I got to go on Toy Story with a FP in the afternoon, something that hasn't happened in years!)
 

kylewr86

Active Member
To answer the above questions. You can add your while family to the new fadtpass from one wristband. The kiosk shows your entire party on it and u can select any one person or all of them. I used it again today for just me. Waited for 15 min to ride rockin roller coaster. I rode tower of terror while I waited. I rode by myself since my wife is 8 months preggo. I like this system.

Answering the last questions I would believe they would allow you to make the additional selections from the app but they will have to update the software first and issue an update to the system.
 

cw1982

Well-Known Member
To answer the above questions. You can add your while family to the new fadtpass from one wristband. The kiosk shows your entire party on it and u can select any one person or all of them. I used it again today for just me. Waited for 15 min to ride rockin roller coaster. I rode tower of terror while I waited. I rode by myself since my wife is 8 months preggo. I like this system.

Answering the last questions I would believe they would allow you to make the additional selections from the app but they will have to update the software first and issue an update to the system.

I agree that they "should" eventually update the system to allow the extra FP's to be booked through the app; I was moreso curious if you had been told that this was coming. Thanks for clarifying.

I'm excited about the changes! It sounds like this is going to mean I'll be able to get more in during our trip in early June; I might actually only need one day at HS if things go that well! *fingers crossed*
 

kylewr86

Active Member
No problem. It will be busier in June but if you fastpass things "smartly" you should be fine and see that this is better than the paper fastpass system. I saw people using fastpass all week for rides like Imagination that had a 5 min or less wait. If that were me I would have done standby and changed my pass to another attraction since its easy to do now and thats what I did a few times. Think it was for Everest. It was down and when it started running I ran to it and there was only a 10 min wait so I changed it to Dino which was busy all day long strangly. Its usually not that busy on my previous visits at this same time of year.
 

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
Another one for @lentesta... We've always assumed that the number of Fastpasses in a given hour window was fixed. I have no reason to believe that isn't still the case, but I think that could and should change under the new system.

Under the old system if a family of 4 wanted Fastpasses and there were only 2 left in the interval it would just go into the next interval and there would be 55 minutes of overlap (often times this would be overlooked as well). Under the new system with Fastpasses being scheduled instead of next available this is a much more difficult process and sometimes not available at all. My recommendation is to create a range of Fastpasses per interval instead of a set number. So if each 5 minute interval of a particular attraction is locked to 50 Fastpass+ reservations, have that modified so that it's 48-52. Once the number of reserved spots is in that range then the range is no longer available. In theory, this will create a bit more flexibility.
 

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