Big changes coming to FASTPASS in March

[WDW1974]

This debate is going in circles and accomplishing nothing...

sounds just like our government ... so really FP isn't quite so important.

~South of France Sounds Great too!~

 

[draybook]

Well of course debates go in circles. Do you know how boring life would be if all 6+ billion people on the planet thought the same way? Ever seen the Borg episodes of Star Trek? Yeah, kind of like that....

 

[RSoxNo1]

sounds just like our government ... so really FP isn't quite so important.

~South of France Sounds Great too!~

Nah, the change to the Fastpass system effects me more than the Republican Primaries.

 

[lebeau]

Nah, the change to the Fastpass system effects me more than the Republican Primaries.

I don't know. The primaries have made for some pretty hysterical episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

You are making an assumption that the introduction of a next-gen system would mean the destruction of the current system. Anything I've read has pointed towards it being an addition not a replacement.

Am I being naive? Are you being cynical?

Destruction wouldn't be the right word, to me. It's more like degradation.

To put it simply, I don't see any way they can do this next gen XPass stuff without negatively impacting the regular guest. You'll either have to spend more money to be one of the "haves", or you'll be on the sidelines (or in a longer line, or getting less FP's each day) being one of the "have nots".

 

[monorail_silver]

When I do snack in my After-School Program, I sometimes do categories like, "Everyone whose favorite color is green, may line up for snack." Sometimes kids complain that they know so and so's favorite color is blue, not green, or whatever, and I have to remind them that I have to trust; if a student wants to break my trust in them and sell out their own integrity for an apple or a few cookies, then so be it.

I feel the same about these guest assistance frauds. Some folks really need it, some folks are gaming the system. At some point, that kind of bad juju catches up with you.

No bad juju here - unlimited fastpass ftw! :sohappy:

 

[Buried20KLeague]

I was definitely one of those people that returned late on Fastpasses. It was far more convenient to tour as efficiently as possible for as long as possible, all the while building up a stockpile of Fastpasses throughout the day.

Having said that, I doubt that late returns were that much of a drain on the system, nor do I think it would be too problematic to continue the old policy after the introduction of xPass. When you add in the additional Fastpass attractions coming on line (Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Spaceship Earth, The Great Movie Ride), there will be more Fastpasses distributed across more attractions on any given day.

The reason I think they're doing this is because the xPass excuse is an easy explanation for the need to start enforcing the end time. It's not likely that this was necessary, but it's a reason that can be stated publicly. If it is justified, I would speculate that they will be specifying a short time period as the selling point for xPass in any associated literature.

Or maybe one of the perks of XPass will be no end time to your FP windows, so they have to start enforcing it on the "regular" folks to get them used to it now.

You may be right, I don't know. But it just seems alot more logical to me that the only reason they would rock this boat NOW (of all times) would be because there was a reason for it. The idea of coming back late for your FP doesn't jive with whatever they've got up their sleeves.

 

[flynnibus]

To put it simply, I don't see any way they can do this next gen XPass stuff without negatively impacting the regular guest. You'll either have to spend more money to be one of the "haves", or you'll be on the sidelines (or in a longer line, or getting less FP's each day) being one of the "have nots".

So you consider anytime they build something like a Deluxe resort.. it negatively impacts regular guests who can't afford or won't pay to stay there?

Or how about when Disney offers tours into places normal guests can't go.. but you gotta pay to play?

Where does this everything must be a commune mentality come from?

 

[lebeau]

So you consider anytime they build something like a Deluxe resort.. it negatively impacts regular guests who can't afford or won't pay to stay there?

Or how about when Disney offers tours into places normal guests can't go.. but you gotta pay to play?

Where does this everything must be a commune mentality come from?

Not to answer for 20K, but the things you listed don't have any impact on the general population. Xpass will. It will put people who paid more in front of me in line.

Previously, different guests received different experiences depending on how much they paid. But since we got away from actual E-tickets, the ride experience has been pretty much the same for everyone regardless of what they spent. There were extras that could be bought, but the impact on the rest of the population was minimal.

XPass appears to be creating a different kind of class structure than we have seen in a long time.

 

[flynnibus]

Not to answer for 20K, but the things you listed don't have any impact on the general population. Xpass will. It will put people who paid more in front of me in line.

But the concern was over being forced to pay or be 'left on the sidelines'. You're not being forced to pay, and you aren't getting any lesser of an experience.

People already cut in line on you all the time. Wheelchairs, VIPs, re-rides, etc. I think people are trying to dream up equalities that have never existed in the first place. Now I agree if Disney starts to significantly squeeze out the general population's capacity - that is an issue. But that's an issue with how Disney allocates capacity, not that there is some shift in the universe because Disney isn't giving everything away for the same price.

Your Ticket Book reference drives home the same point. It wasn't always equal and people survived then too.

XPass appears to be creating a different kind of class structure than we have seen in a long time.

I don't think so... you could make the same point about guests that stay onsite vs offsite and the perks Disney gives to the one group.

I think its more a psychological reaction to simply seeing things that are likely going to be paid upgrades in a space where in recent memory there were none. So people try to get all philosophical to defend why this scenario should be completely uniform.. where those same standards do not apply virtually everywhere else in the ecosystem and it's not seen as a problem at all.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

So you consider anytime they build something like a Deluxe resort.. it negatively impacts regular guests who can't afford or won't pay to stay there?

Or how about when Disney offers tours into places normal guests can't go.. but you gotta pay to play?

Where does this everything must be a commune mentality come from?

Lebeau's response pretty well summed up what I think.

I maybe should have used some other term besides "left on the sidelines", but honestly I couldn't think of a term that really fit.

A new resort or tour or what have you doesn't impact guests whether they like it or not. XPass will. And you'll either pay to play, or your experience in the parks will suffer.

You bring up wheelchairs, VIP's, etc... But I think you're splitting hairs. Those situations are minimal... Not a massive impact to your wait for attractions, etc. It happens, but it's not mainstream. This XPass will be mainstream. BIG TIME, I think.

I believe the impact will be huge. You seem to believe the impact will be minimal. There's nothing wrong with either view... We'll just have to wait to see who was right.

But the reason I think the impact will be huge is that they wouldn't be sinking the kind of money into this that they are if they didn't intend for it to be HUGE. Like, monsterous huge. I get the impression that this will very much be a bandwagon that you'll either have to jump on, or get run over by.

If they're sinking a billion or more dollars into next gen, what do you think they're projecting a Return of Investment of? It's GOT to be an insanely scary number. INSANELY.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

But the concern was over being forced to pay or be 'left on the sidelines'. You're not being forced to pay, and you aren't getting any lesser of an experience.

But you don't know that to be true. We don't even know what all this is about.

We just seem to be reading the (warning!!!!) signs differently.

I do agree that you won't be forced to pay, though. There will be the option of just showing up with your park ticket and spending the day riding rides. But we disagree that you won't get any lesser an experience.

I believe your experience WILL suffer because they've got to get capacity somewhere. It's going to have to be cut from someplace. WDW attractions (especially FP ones) are always operating at close to max all day long. Where is the capacity for the XPasses going to come from? Even if they simply add XPass folks to the current FP count, it's capacity that comes at a price to someone.

 

[lebeau]

I do agree that you won't be forced to pay, though. There will be the option of just showing up with your park ticket and spending the day riding rides. But we disagree that you won't get any lesser an experience.

Since capacity can't be increased by XPass, XPass will have to steal capacity from somewhere. Either the FP line or the standby line or both.

The question seems to be to what degree XPass will exist. If it is priced so high that only the super rich can afford it, it probably won't have much of a noticeable impact on the rest of us. And, I'm cool with that. It's one more perk I'll never experience. But maybe the extra money will get Splash Mountain fixed.

However, if XPass is priced within reach of a lot of visitors, it creates a situation where you will likely have to buy in or suffer the consequences of longer waits than we are used to.

Time will tell. I don't really see an upside for lowly old me. Hopefully the downside won't be so bad.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

Since capacity can't be increased by XPass, XPass will have to steal capacity from somewhere. Either the FP line or the standby line or both.

The question seems to be to what degree XPass will exist. If it is priced so high that only the super rich can afford it, it probably won't have much of a noticeable impact on the rest of us. And, I'm cool with that. It's one more perk I'll never experience. But maybe the extra money will get Splash Mountain fixed.

However, if XPass is priced within reach of a lot of visitors, it creates a situation where you will likely have to buy in or suffer the consequences of longer waits than we are used to.

Time will tell. I don't really see an upside for lowly old me. Hopefully the downside won't be so bad.

DANGIT!!!! I was editing my post to say exactly this same thing, WHILE you were typing it, apparently. You beat me to it.

Great minds think alike.

But to your point... It's going to be in a reachable price range. All of this nextgen junk will be. Why? Because they want everyone to want to buy it. They want to get a massive ROI on their billion they're spending to develop it.

 

[lebeau]

But to your point... It's going to be in a reachable price range. All of this nextgen junk will be. Why? Because they want everyone to want to buy it. They want to get a massive ROI on their billion they're spending to develop it.

The only thing that gives me some hope is Jim Hill's article in which he said it would be rolled out exclusively to the deluxe resorts at first and that it would cost "top dollar". That sounds relatively exclusive and something that would have minimum impact.

The question is, where does it go from there? If it's eventually available as an upgrade at the Value resorts, that would put it within reach of people who decide to downgrade from a Moderate just to afford XPass. And if that happens, I think it is potentially disasterous.

(On the other hand, it would likely mean I could stay at the Pop Century and still live like a "have" rather than a "have not".) :drevil:

It's all just speculation until Disney rolls it out. I'm trying to take a wait and see approach. But the cynic in me can't really see XPass working out in my favor. But I definitely see the potential for it to work against me.

 

[flynnibus]

You guys have basically talked yourself back to where I was trying to get at.

We don't know what the impact will be - so lets keep the pitchforks and torches in the closet for now

And even if there is an impact.. there is this common defense of how dare Disney charge for something and create these different tiers of service. It's something they already do all over the property, I don't know why people get all socialist when it comes to the rides. Be it FP, xpass, or whatever... people act like there is total uniformity today and disrupting that is like crossing the streams or something. Yet they forget the ticket books did exactly that.. the more you can pay, the more you can play. And back then it wasn't just 'wait in line longer' it was 'no soup for you!!' if you didn't have the resources.

 

[Rasvar]

When talking about xPass, when it comes around I really can't see it coming to the value resorts. Maybe the moderates. One of the biggest problem that Disney has is that it actually cannibalized some of its demand through the expansion of the value resorts. One reason I have not really stayed at the deluxe resorts in a long time, even when I can afford it, is that there has not been the extra value draw for me to justify the cost. I am not in my hotel room enough for me to really need more than a shower, toilet and bed. I can see xPass being offered at a deluxe resort at a much lower price than at a moderate. But it would not surprise me if the xPass was never offered to moderate value and lower.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

You guys have basically talked yourself back to where I was trying to get at.

We don't know what the impact will be - so lets keep the pitchforks and torches in the closet for now

And even if there is an impact.. there is this common defense of how dare Disney charge for something and create these different tiers of service. It's something they already do all over the property, I don't know why people get all socialist when it comes to the rides. Be it FP, xpass, or whatever... people act like there is total uniformity today and disrupting that is like crossing the streams or something. Yet they forget the ticket books did exactly that.. the more you can pay, the more you can play. And back then it wasn't just 'wait in line longer' it was 'no soup for you!!' if you didn't have the resources.

I don't really understand how that validates your point though. They did away with the books because they decided that method didn't work/wasn't as profitable.

And I don't have a socialist view of the parks, I promise. I get that there are some ways to put yourself at a different level. I occasionally take part in some of them myself. But like I said earlier, they're not "mainstream". It's a very small percentage of people. It's hardly noticeable as you stand in a stand by line, basically. I don't mind when an exclusive benefit is exactly that... Exclusive.

I fear that XPass (and all the nextgen stuff) will be horribly mainstream. And that's when everything will change for the average joe.

 

[Brian Noble]

I fear that XPass (and all the nextgen stuff) will be horribly mainstream. And that's when everything will change for the average joe.

But if it is horribly mainstream, doesn't that mean that the average joe has access too?

 

[Buried20KLeague]

When talking about xPass, when it comes around I really can't see it coming to the value resorts. Maybe the moderates. One of the biggest problem that Disney has is that it actually cannibalized some of its demand through the expansion of the value resorts. One reason I have not really stayed at the deluxe resorts in a long time, even when I can afford it, is that there has not been the extra value draw for me to justify the cost. I am not in my hotel room enough for me to really need more than a shower, toilet and bed. I can see xPass being offered at a deluxe resort at a much lower price than at a moderate. But it would not surprise me if the xPass was never offered to moderate value and lower.

Maybe I'm missing something... Does the money in the pockets of value resort guests not have the same value as those at POR or Poly? Does Disney not value their dollars as much?

I think everyone's latching onto the whole "deluxe and DVC" rollout and reading WAY too much into it. I believe it's starting with those groups in order to test the system and put it in real-time operation before a full roll out to everyone. I don't at all believe it's starting with deluxe and DVC and staying there.

This stuff is going to be equivalent to the DDP. When you book a Disney resort, you'll get to add it on if you want. Everybody will. Eventually.

There's no way Disney would spend a billion (or more) dollars in R&D and development of nextgen with the intent of only offering it to what amounts to a sliver of their guests. It might start that way to work out the bugs... But it's coming full bore at some point.