DHS Millennium Falcon on Fast Pass

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Exactly my point. Wasn't trying to disparage @MisterPenguin and his work...

Nobody thought you were...

I think you were jumping to defend fastpass as “good” because Disney does it and tells us it’s good. But the reality is the new prebook system is not very good. It’s high priced ride rationing that leads to people being pushed to upsells:

Great for Disney, but the customers would be ticked!!
...if they bothered to look at the truth and show some self discipline

 

[mikejs78]

Nobody thought you were...

I think you were jumping to defend fastpass as “good” because Disney does it and tells us it’s good. But the reality is the new prebook system is not very good. It’s high priced ride rationing that leads to people being pushed to upsells:

Great for Disney, but the customers would be ticked!!
...if they bothered to look at the truth and show some self discipline

Disney tells us that the "New Epcot" is good, but I veheminately disagree with that. They told us the new parking fees were good and I strongly disagreed with that. I'm not a Pixie Duster, though I'm also not a person who thinks Disney is the root of all evil and nothing but a soulless corporation. Not my style.

I also don't have an issue with people arguing for/against FP. I have some issues with certain aspects, but I like the system because it works for me. I routinely get 8-12 FPs a day on even the most crowded days. But I understand those that don't like it. I also do think that it's unfortunate that it has been used to justify not building up the parks to meet increased demand.

What I don't like though is assertions made about how it makes wait times longer/shorter that don't match the data. I'm fine if my own hypothesis on how this works (FP doesn't appreciably affect Standby wait times by that much, only marginally) is wrong, but I want to be shown that via data, not people's gut feelings or intuition.

 

[MisterPenguin]

And *all* wait times at Disney are vastly overstated.

If they're all overstated, then we're still comparing apples to apples.

As we go into next week which isn't appended to a three day weekend, we'll see better comparisons.

I have to point out that comparing the first two days of FP to previous Wednesdays is a bit of apples to oranges. Looking at all the dates you mentioned and using TouringPlans historical crowd level numbers for DHS for those days:

Thursday:
2/20: 10
2/6: 7

DHS was a lot more crowded this week (Presidents Week, which is always crowded) so I don't think these wait time comparisons tell much.

So, what's the difference between a crowd 10 day (2/20) and a crowd 7 day (2/6)...

Not much.

But the difference between those two days for MFSR with and without FP was rather significant.

I was there on 2/6... I would have called it a 10. DHS was insane all the first week of February.

 

[mikejs78]

If they're all overstated, then we're still comparing apples to apples.

As we go into next week which isn't appended to a three day weekend, we'll see better comparisons.



So, what's the difference between a crowd 10 day (2/20) and a crowd 7 day (2/6)...

View attachment 451273

Not much.

But the difference between those two days for MFSR with and without FP was rather significant.

I was there on 2/6... I would have called it a 10. DHS was insane all the first week of February.

That actually looks like a fairly big difference to me. 200 min for ToT vs 100?

I'm surprised about the crowds on 2/6... That's usually a slower time, relatively. In any case, TP has very specific criteria (based on wait times) to determine what each crowd level is. They post that criteria on there website.

Besides being a 3 day weekend, this week also was New England/New York winter break, as well as the Princess Half. Next week is Mardi Gras, another crowd bumper. After that it calms down for a week as it's before Spring Break crowds really ramp up.

 

[MisterPenguin]

That actually looks like a fairly big difference to me. 200 min for ToT vs 100?

If you want to cherry pick the data and just look at the spike, sure. And you know full well that such spikes are likely due to a temporary stoppage.

But there were plenty of comparable times that 2/6 (the '7') had higher times than 2/20 (the 10). Why, just look at 8 PM where it was the other day (2/6, the '7') that had a 100 minute greater wait than 2/20 (the '10'). But, that's just cherry picking to get the opposite conclusion.

The point is that overall, the difference is not at all like the difference between FP and no FP.

 

[mikejs78]

If you want to cherry pick the data and just look at the spike, sure. And you know full well that such spikes are likely due to a temporary stoppage.

But there were plenty of comparable times that 2/6 (the '7') had higher times than 2/20 (the 10). Why, just look at 8 PM where it was the other day (2/6, the '7') that had a 100 minute greater wait than 2/20 (the '10'). But, that's just cherry picking to get the opposite conclusion.

The point is that overall, the difference is not at all like the difference between FP and no FP.

Fair point, and agree about the cherry picking. Turns out I may be wrong in my hypothesis. I do want to see more data before I conclusively say that.

 

[MisterPenguin]

First Saturday (2/22) and Sunday (2/23) of MFSR on FP compared to previous Saturdays and Sundays...

How MFSR fared this weekend with FP compared to other DHS rides...

 

[dr_seeker]

See I'm always a bit skeptical of using TouringPlans data because TouringPlans is literally a PR tool FOR Disney and their data is whatever Disney gives them. I have confirmation from operations CM's that they were indeed essentially doubling the posted wait time for Smuggler's, or at least over-posting more than an average amount. Discrepancies could be due to A) fluctuations in line length - for instance, between the last time the wait time was updated and the time a guest was used as a data sample, the line grew, so it was posted at 60 but should have been updated to 80, so they wait 40 minutes out of 60.

or B) Disney was struggling to determine the actual queue times with no Fastpass since it was designed to operate with Fastpass.

or C) downtimes causing guests to wait closer to the posted wait time.

So it may not have always been double, but there was indeed a call to always drastically over-post it, so the data would not show a massive spike once Fastpass was implemented.

If Touring Plans was a PR tool for Disney, I doubt they would be out counting guests coming out of rides and they would surely be invited to all media events.

 

[MisterPenguin]

MFSR this past week compared to previous weeks. Mon & Tue (2/24 & 2/25) were the first Mon & Tue on FP. Wed - Sun (2/26 - 3/1) are the second weeks on FP.

The week of Feb 17 was a holiday weekend. The week of Feb 24 was not.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

This Sunday's wait times are interesting. They're significantly lower than last week's. Although that big spike in last week's could indicate a shut down of one or more turntables. Maybe this Sunday was just very good operationally.

The green line is the holiday weekend. Even without FP inflating wait times, huge crowds can cause standby to explode and find their maximum time that people are willing to endure.

 

[MisterPenguin]

So, how is MFSR on FP doing compared to the other big rides in DHS on FP? [Feb 24 - Mar 1]

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Looks like a few hours of no data.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

 

[Purduevian]

So, how is MFSR on FP doing compared to the other big rides in DHS on FP? [Feb 24 - Mar 1]

 

[Nunu]

When available, could you please post DHS charts post MMRR opening day? Thank you @MisterPenguin.