Boarding Groups are confusing

[MickeyLuv'r]

Although you could argue at this point that its even more expensive without the ticket books. A single ticket is like $130, and you book three FP+. That's over $40 per crummy ride! I can't imagine why anybody would ever buy a single day ticket, but people do it all the time it seems.

Sorry, I meant ticket books. In that era, attraction admission = buying a ticket book. Each book contained a fixed number of ride tickets. Customers got a few A-ride tickets, some B-rides, some C-rides, D-rides and some E-ride tickets. It was a long time ago, but I remember having to make choices, so I don't think we even had enough ride-tickets to ride everything once. That is why we always opted to skip Dumbo. (If you wanted to do something twice, you could, but it would mean you didn't get to ride something else.)

E-rides were the headliners. You might say, the RotR of that era.

Bringing this back a bit more on topic...I have been going to WDW long enough that I have seen the succession of many top E-rides.
when Mission:SPACE first opened, it was a huge draw. Disney brought in several NASA astronauts to say how great it was, and everyone was positive it was going to be wildly popular for many years.

When M:S was new, the line extended way beyond the ride, as did the Test Track line. Both lines extended so far, that the back end of each was somewhat close together.

I remember the day a CM told me the line for the Frozen sisters was ONLY 6 hours long, instead of the usual 8 hours!

I remember when other posters told me both EE and TSM waits would NEVER get any shorter. Ha!

Eventually, each new ride will be eclipsed by something newer, as long as WDW keeps adding new rides. I am interested to see the impact Tron has on Space Mtn.

Eventually, WDW will probably replace the boarding groups when they aren't needed, but that will take some time

 

[Dad 2 M & M]

Yeah, like I see what they’re trying to do, but IMHO it’s a terrible solution.

I would have divided all BGs into neighborhoods. Each neighborhood would be like early, morning, mid-morning, etc. A BG could be in multiple neighbors. Then, based on registration time, a BG would first be randomly selected for a neighborhood in the appropriate time. No backup boarding groups for early registration! And no simple 1,2,3 round robin assignment that means you could be early and get a late BG.

Mathematically, this is possible and seems to be a fairer way of assigning BGs. (for the mathophiles, you only need a PRNG that produces a uniform distribution. It can be simulated with a qsort routine and a LFSR).

Assumption: only your “early” neighborhood opens at rope drop, then your “morning” neighborhood opens at 9:00, “mid-morning” at 10:30, and so on (the times I assigned were arbitrary)....

Is that what you have in mind? If so, do they post the times neighborhoods “open”? And/or do the neighborhoods “soft-open”?

 

[Trackmaster]

Sorry, I meant ticket books. In that era, attraction admission = buying a ticket book. Each book contained a fixed number of ride tickets. Customers got a few A-ride tickets, some B-rides, some C-rides, D-rides and some E-ride tickets. It was a long time ago, but I remember having to make choices, so I don't think we even had enough ride-tickets to ride everything once. That is why we always opted to skip Dumbo. (If you wanted to do something twice, you could, but it would mean you didn't get to ride something else.)

E-rides were the headliners. You might say, the RotR of that era.

Bringing this back a bit more on topic...I have been going to WDW long enough that I have seen the succession of many top E-rides.
when Mission:SPACE first opened, it was a huge draw. Disney brought in several NASA astronauts to say how great it was, and everyone was positive it was going to be wildly popular for many years.

When M:S was new, the line extended way beyond the ride, as did the Test Track line. Both lines extended so far, that the back end of each was somewhat close together.

I remember the day a CM told me the line for the Frozen sisters was ONLY 6 hours long, instead of the usual 8 hours!

I remember when other posters told me both EE and TSM waits would NEVER get any shorter. Ha!

Eventually, each new ride will be eclipsed by something newer, as long as WDW keeps adding new rides. I am interested to see the impact Tron has on Space Mtn.

Eventually, WDW will probably replace the boarding groups when they aren't needed, but that will take some time

No I understood what you said. Charging per ride is a serious no no these days, and these days parks don't even like to charge for tickets, as season passes are creeping towards single day tickets in terms of costs. I couldn't imagine having to pay out of pocket for rides, but my point is that you so pay so much now if you buy a single day ticket. Most people only get a few rides in, so thats like $30-40 a day for them!

 

[danyoung56]

When are you going?

2nd week of March.

 

[Dave B]

2nd week of March.

Have fun, a week before spring breaks, you should have a great time

 

[RollerCoaster]

A virtual queue promises nothing, and allowed them to give those that were in a Boarding Group that was not able to ride one day a pass to come back the next day. And they could adjust the BGs the next day to allow for that backlog. If they had 300 with FPs every hour and the ride was down for 4 hours, that’s 1200 people wanting to ride the next day on top of those that had FPs booked that day.

No, it's not 1,200 people wanting or getting to ride the next day. When an attraction is down you get a replacement FP good for that attraction or any other one in the park for the rest of the operating day. Sometimes there are some restrictions on which attractions it can be used for. These FP's cause massive problems.

 

[RollerCoaster]

"and are sacrificing Walt’s vision" ....aint that the truth. Sigh. I remember when amusement parks were just for people to have fun.

Walt didn't face these problems, and thus you don't know how he would've solved them! It's quite possible that the "Boarding Groups" would've been his solution. I'm not a fan of them, but what I do know is that I'm sick of people who constantly harp about Walt's vision. The execution of Galaxy's Edge is amazing and without Walt's vision, it would never have come to be!

 

[RollerCoaster]

No I understood what you said. Charging per ride is a serious no no these days, and these days parks don't even like to charge for tickets, as season passes are creeping towards single day tickets in terms of costs. I couldn't imagine having to pay out of pocket for rides, but my point is that you so pay so much now if you buy a single day ticket. Most people only get a few rides in, so thats like $30-40 a day for them!

Charging per ride is not a serious no-no. Many parks have "upcharge attractions" which is the same as charging per ride. There are parks that still offer the "pay as you go" option, which is where you pay per ride.

One of the solutions for the demand for RotR would be to charge to ride. However, considering the fact that the ride has been so unreliable I don't think a logical operator would charge. If you charge there is an expectation that you must deliver and Disney hasn't been able to consistently deliver that ride to everyone, including some assigned a boarding group.

 

[nickys]

No, it's not 1,200 people wanting or getting to ride the next day. When an attraction is down you get a replacement FP good for that attraction or any other one in the park for the rest of the operating day. Sometimes there are some restrictions on which attractions it can be used for. These FP's cause massive problems.

Yes but a replacement FP is always good for the ride it “replaced”. And that is what they’ve been doing for those whose regular boarding groups aren’t called; an anytime FP that is good for RotR at any time. But they can reduce the number of boarding groups the following day to allow for this (I know the FP in question doesn’t have to be used the next day but I suspect most are).

 

[RollerCoaster]

Yes but a replacement FP is always good for the ride it “replaced”. And that is what they’ve been doing for those whose regular boarding groups aren’t called; an anytime FP that is good for RotR at any time. But they can reduce the number of boarding groups the following day to allow for this (I know the FP in question doesn’t have to be used the next day but I suspect most are).

Ok, so that's what they're doing for those whose boarding group is not called. When I rode RotR on the 6th day of operation, I learned from a few whose boarding group was not called the prior night that they were given a comp ticket to return to DHS, a complimentary another one-day park hopper ticket valid for whenever, and a Disney gift card. However, they were not given anything to guarantee a ride on their return visit.

 

[Djsfantasi]

So under your system, people would be picking a time they want to board then get a BG set for that time "neighborhood"? I was under the impression that a big reason for the BGs was because they don't know what time a BG will be called; it depends on how well the ride is performing that day. I imagine that any system telling people they would be getting on the ride at a certain time, even if that time was as broad as "afternoon", it would result in a lot of people frustrated that their group is being called much earlier or later than they wanted.

Unless I'm still not understanding what your system is. I'm still a little confused by it.

No, that is not what I’m proposing. Think of just 32 people in the park. And imagine Disney has 8 boarding groups. This implies in my example, each boarding group consists of 4 people.

The 8th person would get the 8th BG. And the 9th would get BG number 1. What? Doesn’t seem fair.

In my system, imagine there are 2 BGs in a time neighborhood (for a total of 4 neighborhoods). The first 8 guests would get BG 1 or 2. If I’m there early, I get an early BG. The 9th guest would get BG 3. Much fairer. You get a boarding group time much closer to the time you arrived.

 

[Djsfantasi]

Assumption: only your “early” neighborhood opens at rope drop, then your “morning” neighborhood opens at 9:00, “mid-morning” at 10:30, and so on (the times I assigned were arbitrary)....

Is that what you have in mind? If so, do they post the times neighborhoods “open”? And/or do the neighborhoods “soft-open”?

Soft open. Guests can not select a neighborhood in my system. That would create a new set of problems. It is but a mathematical way to simply reward early risers.

 

[nickys]

No, that is not what I’m proposing. Think of just 32 people in the park. And imagine Disney has 8 boarding groups. This implies in my example, each boarding group consists of 4 people.

The 8th person would get the 8th BG. And the 9th would get BG number 1. What? Doesn’t seem fair.

In my system, imagine there are 2 BGs in a time neighborhood (for a total of 4 neighborhoods). The first 8 guests would get BG 1 or 2. If I’m there early, I get an early BG. The 9th guest would get BG 3. Much fairer. You get a boarding group time much closer to the time you arrived.

But under the current system any of the 32 people could be first to register. The first 4 to register will be in BG1.

Except of course, those 32 people could be in 14 “families” (to distinguish from BGs) varying from a solo person to a group of 7 people.

The first person to register has a party of 6, so they would get BG1. The next person might have 3 people in their party, so they get BG2.

The apparent randomness comes from over a thousand people fighting to register and being separated by milliseconds.

Soft open. Guests can not select a neighborhood in my system. That would create a new set of problems. It is but a mathematical way to simply reward early risers.

No one gets to select a BG currently. A soft open simply encourages a race to get to the park earlier and earlier. Which means they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

 

[Corgi]

When do you think they'll get rid of this "boarding groups" thing and switch to fastpass?

 

[Djsfantasi]

But under the current system any of the 32 people could be first to register. The first 4 to register will be in BG1.

Except of course, those 32 people could be in 14 “families” (to distinguish from BGs) varying from a solo person to a group of 7 people.

The first person to register has a party of 6, so they would get BG1. The next person might have 3 people in their party, so they get BG2.

The apparent randomness comes from over a thousand people fighting to register and being separated by milliseconds.

No one gets to select a BG currently. A soft open simply encourages a race to get to the park earlier and earlier. Which means they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

Yes, in order to simplify my explanation, I used people instead of requests. The process works as well when you substitute “groups” for people in my description. In no way did I intentionally state an equivalence between “groups” and individuals. I guess don’t understand your comment? It makes no sense to me.

Secondly, I did not state, imply or intend to suggest people get to select a boarding group. I intended to weight the BG process to not penalize early risers. Again, my simple example used sizeof(neighborhood)=2. This is in reality a variable and should be adjustable in real-time to encourage desired behavior while not penalizing guests.

And once again I don’t understand your comments that they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

I’m here and HS opens at 7am. Two hours before any other park. And guests are getting up at 5-6am to get in line. That also means Transportation no starts at 6am. I think THAT is ridiculous.

 

[Dad 2 M & M]

No one gets to select a BG currently. A soft open simply encourages a race to get to the park earlier and earlier. Which means they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

Yes, in order to simplify my explanation, I used people instead of requests. The process works as well when you substitute “groups” for people in my description. In no way did I intentionally state an equivalence between “groups” and individuals. I guess don’t understand your comment? It makes no sense to me.

Secondly, I did not state, imply or intend to suggest people get to select a boarding group. I intended to weight the BG process to not penalize early risers. Again, my simple example used sizeof(neighborhood)=2. This is in reality a variable and should be adjustable in real-time to encourage desired behavior while not penalizing guests.

And once again I don’t understand your comments that they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

I’m here and HS opens at 7am. Two hours before any other park. And guests are getting up at 5-6am to get in line. That also means Transportation no starts at 6am. I think THAT is ridiculous.

Do you mean the BGs are in neighborhoods and the neighborhoods "soft open" throughout the day? 1st Neighborhood would fill in the morning, and those who didn't get in the initial BGs would have to wait until the next neighborhood to "soft open"? In this scenario, what would drive the "soft open"? Elapsed time? Or filling of the previous neighborhood?

And I understand there is no selecting of a BG.....

 

[SourcererMark79]

When do you think they'll get rid of this "boarding groups" thing and switch to fastpass?

Not anytime soon. And when they do stop the BG process, it will be SB. I doubt FP+ will be for awhile. What could be a compromise is the old FP, where you need to be in the park to reserve it, similar to MaxPass.

 

[Djsfantasi]

Do you mean the BGs are in neighborhoods and the neighborhoods "soft open" throughout the day? 1st Neighborhood would fill in the morning, and those who didn't get in the initial BGs would have to wait until the next neighborhood to "soft open"? In this scenario, what would drive the "soft open"? Elapsed time? Or filling of the previous neighborhood?

And I understand there is no selecting of a BG.....

Filling of the previous neighborhood. Soft opening might be the wrong term. I foresee all neighborhoods being “open”, but no one could select them; an algorithm would assign guest requests to then.

 

[nickys]

Yes, in order to simplify my explanation, I used people instead of requests. The process works as well when you substitute “groups” for people in my description. In no way did I intentionally state an equivalence between “groups” and individuals. I guess don’t understand your comment? It makes no sense to me.

Secondly, I did not state, imply or intend to suggest people get to select a boarding group. I intended to weight the BG process to not penalize early risers. Again, my simple example used sizeof(neighborhood)=2. This is in reality a variable and should be adjustable in real-time to encourage desired behavior while not penalizing guests.

And once again I don’t understand your comments that they have to fully staff it from a ridiculous hour. That was what they wanted to prevent.

I’m here and HS opens at 7am. Two hours before any other park. And guests are getting up at 5-6am to get in line. That also means Transportation no starts at 6am. I think THAT is ridiculous.

When they first opened RotR, there were people at DHS at 4am. They started letting people into the park way before the stated opening time, and randomly opened the registration process well before park opening. Thus it truly was first come, first served when it came to booking BGs.

The problems were that more people started trying to arrive earlier, and resort guests were frustrated by there not being transport early enough to “compete”.

WDW realised that was just creating a situation where there could have been people arriving at 3am and causing unsafe crowding at the gates. The only way to ensure safety would have been to let people in at that time, therefore needing staff in for 3am, then 2:45am etc. So they then announced that BGs would only open at the stated park opening time, to discourage the very early arrival of guests. They open the gates just early enough to get people through the gates in time for the stated park opening.


My other points were also to show you there is no linear progression in booking BGs. Your simplification couldn’t even cope with groups of more than 4, that’s all. In your scenario, in order to have strict first-come, first-served, you would have effectively a stand-by line of hours long to get into the park, so as to ensure the first to enter got registered first, then the next party, then the 3rd party and so on. There are so many variables - WiFi access, access to a smartphone even, speed on a mobile device. I cannot understand how you could achieve what you are hoping for, a strict first-come, first-served booking of BGs.

The current process is no different from legacy FP, except you do not need to have a literal runner to the scan point. Quickest finger wins, instead of quickest legs.

 

[Djsfantasi]

Filling of the previous neighborhood. Soft opening might be the wrong term. I foresee all neighborhoods being “open”, but no one could select them; an algorithm would assign guest requests to then.

I understand. Thank you for your clear explanation.

My approach was only to minimize guests having to get to the park early (7:00-9:00), and getting a boarding group at 9:00pm.

Since I don’t have actual numbers, my examples may be confusing. In practice, the sizeof(BG) doesn’t necessarily change. The sizeof(neighborhoods) can change. Note that if that variable sizeof(neighborhood) is 1, my proposal is the same as today’s policy.