A Redistribution of [Wealth] Fastpass+

[wdisney9000]

take the time to relax at the pool or rent a boat or go for a carriage ride or go mini golfing or watch a movie outside. The type of relaxing stuff is still there and should be enjoyed.

That sounds like an add you might see at Disney World, circa 1980's, about how to enjoy your trip. Not exactly Igers type of sales pitch though.

 

[Thrill]

Is there a way to get more than just 3 FPs a day now? If I use up all of my FPs and I see that an attraction still has some available for later in the day, can I snag some? I tried this 2 weeks ago when I was at EPCOT, but I had 19 people attached to my account since I was at an office outing and gave up rather quickly because I kept getting error messages.

You can get more FastPasses. The catch is that you have to go to a kiosk, unless things have changed in the last month.

 

[doctornick]

That sounds like an add you might see at Disney World, circa 1980's, about how to enjoy your trip. Not exactly Igers type of sales pitch though.

Oddly with the recent advertising focusing on how wonder it is to stay on property, you would think this stuff would get flaunted. "Look at everything you can do -- and you don't even need to leave WDW to do it!"

 

[ABQ]

Oh, I don't disagree. I'm just saying that by and large all those things are still there. Disney doesn't promote them so much, but they exist. If one doesn't want to focus on running from one ride to the next, there are great opportunities to relax and do a whole bunch of varied activities without even leaving the WDW property.

I just bring it up because we do see people bemoaning that they hate having their vacations so overscheduled and hate having to feel like it is rushing from place to place but there is no reason for that. If FP+ blues are getting you down, take the time to relax at the pool or rent a boat or go for a carriage ride or go mini golfing or watch a movie outside. The type of relaxing stuff is still there and should be enjoyed.

That sounds like an add you might see at Disney World, circa 1980's, about how to enjoy your trip. Not exactly Igers type of sales pitch though.

I think they do advertise these sort of activities, but it's disguised as a documentary. That one hour infomertial that ran recently on Destination America on WDW's resorts.

 

[WDWLover#1]

I'm just curious, does anybody remember a time when families would do other things at WDW besides trying to jam in as many rides as they could in one day? I remember it quite well and I dont recall ever waiting 4 hours for Splash. Not saying that didnt happen, but we never waited that long because there was sooooo much more to do back then OUTISDE of the parks.

From 1989 to 1997 I lost count how many times my parents took us to WDW. 3-4 times a year at least. My Mom would use the Birnbaum guide as our planning tool which had the basics for park touring such as 'arrive early and hit the big rides' or 'the left queue is usually quicker'. There was no FP, no MB, no dining plan, and no ADR's. It may seem impossible to believe, but we actually had an amazing time each an every trip without all these technological tools. (i prefer to not call them 'advancements').

I remember doing things on our trip that would seem silly or a waste of time by todays "Disney experience" standards. We would spend a entire day on the beach at Poly and then rent sprite boats to explore the lake. We would go mini golfing every trip. Discover Island was awesome, we would spend hours there. We would go see a movie at the theater at night. We went fishing, I think my sisters did the horseback riding a few times. We loved Pleasure Island and going to Superstar Studios to make a music video (that was extremely fun and watching the videos we made is hilarious).

One of my favorite memories from those trips was when the whole family went to see Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country. When Spock and McCoys 'doctored' missile blew up the Klingon ship, the whole theater stood up and cheered and my brother, mom, dad and I were high fiving each other and cheering, even my sisters who were not Start Trek fans got into it. (sorry for the spolier, @PhotoDave219). A great memory (of many) that has nothing to do with the parks or attractions or character M&G's. It was just different back then. Of course Disney was still all about the benjamins, but you were not force fed images of making memories strictly by little johnny hugging Mickey or dear old grandpa joe swirling around Dumbo with the "my life is complete" expression. They didnt need FP+ to disperse the crowds because families would actually vacation and do other things besides plan every nano second of their trip to maximize riding, eating, and parades. But yes, I do remember the days before FP and MM+ and NGE and those years were some of my favorite trips and the memories are about family, not about wishing I could move through the queue more quickly or thoughts of "when will they build the next E ticket". Not to mention the parks were immaculate back then, and CM's still had pride in their jobs and wanted to make your day magical. (theres still a few of them today though). Dont mistake this as trip down memory lane either, and Im not conjuring up artificial memories strictly for my love of "the golden era", its not, I still have a blast at WDW, I just have to use my smart phone more than I would like to.

I think they do still advertise other experiences besides the parks. It's by every resort page in brochures and is listed by every hotel on the Disney website. I received a brochure from the Walt Disney Travel Company and there's a full page dedicated to them. I think the problem is that times have changed. People want to do stuff quicker and not leisure about anymore. It doesn't help with advertising just showing nowadays a castle with mickey but people's attitudes are changing and personally I think that's a continuing trend. Castmembers sometimes I think get the slack a bit too often and I think on these boards as a whole we've exaggerated the problem too much. Sure some aren't how they should be and traditions should come back to fix. But there's loads of really good trip reports on the forums with multiple mentions in each of great castmember service. One that was recent was of housekeeping decorating the rooms with stickers. The great service is still there; I think though there's roughly 10% who couldn't give a damn. In a video that was uploaded last week there's a band in frontierland really engaging with guests, calling them by names and having a laugh. It was wonderful to watch.

 

[worldfanatic]

I'm a massive Walt Disney World geek, and pay attention to almost every detail (large & small) within it.
But worrying about how it's advertised to other people isn't something I give the slightest thought to.

Maybe I'm just selfish,
But those who aren't able to figure out on their own the immense & awesome non-park opportunities within the "World" certainly aren't my type of people.
And if Disney wants to milk their wallets, I have zero problem with it.

 

[DManRightHere]

I'm not 100% what all of these unadvertised activities are everyone is mentioning, but maybe it's on purpose.

It's one of those magical feelings when a family is in the park and happens across this activity. They can have that "wow, i didn't know they have this!".

This is why I am trying to know as little as possible about diagon alley. I like to be surprised.