Defunctland deep dive on Fastpass

Notes from Neverland

Notes from Neverland

Well-Known Member
It's a very good video. But, I think the point of adding capacity is completely undersold.

Disney has compounded the problem by destroying old attractions, building new ones in their place and marketing a TON around them. Capacity is lower, awareness is higher and the problem builds. New attractions, ones that can handle massive crowds but aren't E tickets (maybe a MK theatre?), are a big part of the solution. But, Disney can't help itself.
 
ChrisFL

ChrisFL

Premium Member
Notes from Neverland said:
It's a very good video. But, I think the point of adding capacity is completely undersold.

Disney has compounded the problem by destroying old attractions, building new ones in their place and marketing a TON around them. Capacity is lower, awareness is higher and the problem builds. New attractions, ones that can handle massive crowds but aren't E tickets (maybe a MK theatre?), are a big part of the solution. But, Disney can't help itself.
Click to expand...

In the video they mentioned the timing of rolling out one of the FP systems that also increased park attendance at the same time the Fantasyland expansion happened. One of those attractions was The Little Mermaid omnimover which has a huge capacity and I believe is somewhat popular, if not for being really hidden in the back of the park.
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
ChrisFL said:
In the video they mentioned the timing of rolling out one of the FP systems that also increased park attendance at the same time the Fantasyland expansion happened. One of those attractions was The Little Mermaid omnimover which has a huge capacity and I believe is somewhat popular, if not for being really hidden in the back of the park.
Click to expand...

Mermaid can move 2,000 people and hour and Be Our Guest seats over 500, so yeah that extra 5,000 people was mostly likely Fantasyland.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Well Dale Stafford was smart, at least! It seems so obvious to me that implementing a bunch of all out virtual queues would turn the parks into a nightmare, but people still suggest it constantly.

Also interesting that FastPass specifically did cause an increase in standby wait times for some attractions, and how about Jay Rasulo originally making a great decision to remove FP from some attractions?

And it's hilarious that meet & greets, fireworks viewing, parade viewing, etc. were all added to FastPass+ solely because they didn't have enough capacity otherwise. That should have been a gigantic red flag and tell them they needed to add capacity.
 
Last edited:
hopemax

hopemax

Well-Known Member
I also wanted to say that I didn’t consider the role that labeling Rides with tickets had in unbalancing the parks in the 70s and how in the short term, removing those labels improved operations. However, I have always recognized that people look for a proxy for what is “good” in making decisions on what to do. People just moved from A-E to using “wait times.” Long wait = good, even if capacity is poor. No wait = bad, even if it’s a people eater. That’s why I say people actually want long lines… for everyone else… just give them a way to skip it. And that’s part of the problem.
 
Figments Friend

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
I watched this in full last night...for the full hour and 40 minutes.

This is his Magnum Opus.
Great effort.

How he managed to find the time to do this....I don't know, but this is great stuff.
I've enjoyed many of his videos, and he is one of only three YouTube channels related to Disney that I pay attention to.
Lots a great videos...but this one is special.

Absolute must watch in its entirety for any serious Theme Park fan.
Watch it now if you can.

-
 
senor_jorge

senor_jorge

Barbara Eden+? Bring it!!
Premium Member
lentesta said:
Defunctland has released a video that analyzes the effects of Fastpass and FP+ on wait times and the number of rides experienced. They built a theme park simulator (in Python) to see how it all worked out.

It's really well done. Answers a lot of questions. Worth watching.
Click to expand...

I had to FF due to limited time and will watch it in full later. Did he say anything about how he handled the distribution of the various archetypes?
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
It's great they did their simulation... and the history revisit is great... but I think the sourcing on his 'insider' and justification stuff is a bit fast and loose.

The people that argue "it was better for me..." are still gonna do the same.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
flynnibus said:
A great example of the kinds of statements in this piece that are 'fast and loose'.
Click to expand...

Is it, though?

I'm not sure sourcing is even needed for that statement. That could be figured out with simple mathematical analysis of attendance vs. capacity for three advanced booking FastPasses.

Claiming it was the official/definitive reason for the change would require sourcing, but it wouldn't be much of a logical leap to draw that conclusion.
 
Last edited:
Tom Morrow

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
Sandurz said:
I think his one miss is the brief comments about the ROTR virtual queue. The extraordinary and unpredictable downtime would have made a pure standby experience absolutely miserable. Sure, the groups would fill up quickly but you would know one way or the other (generally speaking, really late groups excluded) if you had a shot at riding that day, without having to stand in a brutal line. It was the best solution to the problem of unknown capacity. It made sure there was a minimal amount of wasted throughput in a given day, without requiring physical presence in a line that doesn't even guarantee a ride on the attraction. The process could be brutal, sure, but given the alternative it was the right choice.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't think the move for boarding passes was only to save face and had a lot to do with the attraction not being ready. For example, Hagrid's was also not ready, and while those "10 hour waits" were really only the first day, the attraction was a massive headache to get on for several months.

That said, Rise could have easily eliminated the boarding pass system for Rise much sooner than they did.

Notes from Neverland said:
It's a very good video. But, I think the point of adding capacity is completely undersold.

Disney has compounded the problem by destroying old attractions, building new ones in their place and marketing a TON around them. Capacity is lower, awareness is higher and the problem builds. New attractions, ones that can handle massive crowds but aren't E tickets (maybe a MK theatre?), are a big part of the solution. But, Disney can't help itself.
Click to expand...

To be fair, they've wanted to move away from slow moving boat rides and omnimover attractions. To create modern, engaging attractions that physically do stuff, you pretty much have to have a lower capacity compared to slow moving capacity machines. That said, Disney's "thrill" rides are still much higher capacity than the competition outside of Universal. Disclaimer: I'm not knocking slow moving rides! A bigger issue is that these newer rides replaced higher capacity ones when there was definitely room for both.
 
carlpocket

carlpocket

New Member
flynnibus said:
It's great they did their simulation... and the history revisit is great... but I think the sourcing on his 'insider' and justification stuff is a bit fast and loose.

The people that argue "it was better for me..." are still gonna do the same.
Click to expand...

It basically for me became get to the park with 1 FP for a top ride at rope drop and burn through the other 2 in the first hour (so muppet vision/tough to be a bug, scan through, exit, get one for anything else that was instant) so the tier system was eliminated and pound the ap as soon as I scanned my MB to get an instant one for something else.

Also if something like 7 dwarfs or FoP popped up way later in the day could keep hitting modify until a close time popped up.

Once you figured that out you pretty much could just get a FP+ to every ride.

I dont mind the end of FP+ as I am not walking from one end of a park to the other cause I got a FP.

I havent been since March 2021 though and did 4 trips in 2020 when the attendance was limited so I cant make an opinion yet how it will be now with attendance back to old norms.

Ill find out in a week when I finally go back.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Tom Morrow said:
To be fair, they've wanted to move away from slow moving boat rides and omnimover attractions. To create modern, engaging attractions that physically do stuff, you pretty much have to have a lower capacity compared to slow moving capacity machines.
Click to expand...

Which sucks, because those older rides are generally more engaging than the more "modern" attractions they've built.
 
Tom Morrow

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
flynnibus said:
A great example of the kinds of statements in this piece that are 'fast and loose'.
Click to expand...

Not really. When Fastpass+ rolled out, a common complaint was that all the "good" Fastpasses were gone too soon. Stuff like IllumiNations Fastpass viewing was added literally only so there were more options to pick from since they were initially gung-ho on forcing you to have 3 advance selections. Others were also mad because attractions that used to typically have Fastpasses available until the late evening were now suddenly out of Fastpasses by noon or earlier, so those who arrived without making selections in advance would often not even have 3 selections available at Epcot, DAK, or DHS.
 
Last edited:

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom