Not a mystery. Dining capacity needed to catch up.
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News Disney Park Pass System announced for Walt Disney World theme park reservations
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Plus I think had a reduced 90 minute wait (instead of 2 hours) before they could get another one.
I am very anti-pre-booking but it already exists in probably the least offensive form the company would reasonably implement: day of, hotel guest exclusive. The ~2 hour pre booking window for hotel guests everyone thinks kind of stinks because no one likes the idea of paying for the privilege to wake up at 7am to book a 9 PM TRON ILL. There is really no difference between pre-booking at 10-11pm the night before and 7:30am the day of. I think if you are going to have any pre-booking, make it for hotel guests only and open it 1 minute after the last park closes for the night.
Probably won't happen this way.
If you view VQ as something that insures against extremely negative guest experiences through initial main openings, it makes sense why it will never go away. I think the worst possible thing you can do to a guest nowadays is what happened with Hagrid's opening: stick them in a 6 hour line with no guarantee the ride will be operating long enough for you to ride it.
If EPCOT had attractions that demanded a fraction of the interest of CR, it would be gone by now. I imagine there is some research that of entries to EPCOT that ride an attraction there, CR is the number 1 priority for them. It is bad business to directly subject them to downtime over it, and there is capacity in the park to handle the standby line existing in an ethereal way on park promenades.
At MK, I do not know how capacity feels in the general space with TRON open and VQ'd, but I imagine it will go away before TBA opens because significantly lower percentage of people are visiting MK with TRON as priority 1.
So some nights would require staying up until 11 or 12 to book? No thank you. Give me 7 AM over that. And I didn't like that.
jaklgreen
Well-Known Member
That is a mess though. The reason why they started doing VQ is because of what happened with Flight of Passage. 5 hour lines that snaked all the way into Africa is what they are trying to avoid. Wouldn't you rather be doing anything else with your time than waiting in a 4 hour line?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Sure, but you have the option to do that -- and the rest of the park is more pleasant with shorter lines because of it. The VQ actually makes everything else in the park more crowded and increases lines everywhere, and it's especially bad on those early days because so many additional people are headed to the park for the new attraction.
So instead of thousands of people in line for the ride, you have them elsewhere in the park taking up space at other attractions etc.
Exactly VQ hurts park capacity elsewhere. If GotG went normal queue, line lengths at TT would be greatly reduced, and slightly reduced at other rides.
Two options:
1. Guests sign up for that one VQ in the park, and then get to ride one of the new super-popular rides with a minimal wait, but, all the other rides in the park have an extra 10-20 minute wait, OR...
2. Guests wait 3 hours in a standby line for one of the new super-poplar rides, but all the other rides in the park have a shorter wait by 10-20 minutes.
I would think that most guests would chose #1.
Those of you with high constitution scores (and possibly, no children or family members with special physical needs) are obviously going to pick #2. But Disney is going to go with what most guests would want, especially families with children.
And if those two choices are equal in the eyes of most guests, Disney is still going to go with #1 because it's a heck of a lot easier on Ops. No lines snaking into the parks. No fights with people who need to use the bathroom and then fight their way back to their families in line.
Pre-booking for VQ could be just the day before, and as part of a lottery, and not dished out months before.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Free paper FP worked well for users because of the sheer volume of guests who didn’t realize it was included or didn’t know how to use the system. It was an advantage for those “in the know” relative to non users. I was often amazed at hearing people in lines complaining about the folks getting the “paid” service to get on quicker even after FP had been out for years.
If they reverted back to free FP, I would imagine there would be a larger percentage of users and it would be less valuable than previously. But I also think that some people wouldn’t use it (or use it to max value) as there is less motivation than something like G+ that a person actively pays for and wants to get full value from.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Also “once in a lifetime” or infrequent guests are stuck with a horrible choice - waste a huge chunk of your day on a new ride limiting your ability to do other stuff. Thus potentially missing out on stuff you want to fit in. Or don’t get to do the new hyped thing which might have been the motivation to book your trip. And if that ride breaks down after you have waiting 3 hours and line dumps….
It’s a lot easier for frequent visitors (especially local APers) to be cool with a four hour wait when it just means they just skip POTC that day instead of riding it for the two hundredth time.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
How long was that an issue? Days? Weeks? Months?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
This is flawed in various ways. First of all, it's not that every attraction has an extra 10 minutes -- the other headliners will have longer waits because people don't distribute equally. It also affects non-attractions.
More importantly, it's operating on the assumption that every single person wants to ride the new attraction. That's not true. Some people won't be interested, and some people won't ride even if they are interested because they won't wait 4 hours (I am one of these people -- I'd never wait that long for a ride). There are a lot of people who take a VQ spot because they can but don't actually care that much about the attraction, which is bad for nearly everyone.
I agree that it's much easier for Disney and that's why they do it, but it's also worse overall for the average guest (it's not worse for people who are desperate to ride the new attraction, unless they miss out on a VQ spot).
Also “once in a lifetime” or infrequent guests are stuck with a horrible choice - waste a huge chunk of your day on a new ride limiting your ability to do other stuff. Thus potentially missing out on stuff you want to fit in. Or don’t get to do the new hyped thing which might have been the motivation to book your trip. And if that ride breaks down after you have waiting 3 hours and line dumps….
It’s a lot easier for frequent visitors (especially local APers) to be cool with a four hour wait when it just means they just skip POTC that day instead of riding it for the two hundredth time.
I am neither a frequent visitor nor cool with a four hour wait -- and if you booked a trip specifically for the new hyped thing, you're probably okay with waiting in a four hour line since that's the whole reason you're going. Otherwise just wait a year or two when the hype has gone.
If they're going to do VQs, though, it needs to be a lottery. The current system is bad.
Option 3:
Rope Drop or Ride in the last hour, >30 min wait, or watch temp closes like a hawk and sneak in at opening. Not everyone has to wait in a 2+ hour line (let’s be serious, the thing is a capacity machine.). It also allows WDW to sell more ILL for people who want to wait less.
So... *everyone* who wants to get on the new super ride with little wait should all wait until the last half hour of the park?
Or *everyone* who want to get on the new super ride should all rope-drop the park?
Do you see a possible flaw in this system?
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
No matter the system there will always be people who lose out.
I didnt say everyone could do this, just that there was ways to avoid the long wait, including rope drop/close or ILL.
My understanding is that this was a severe problem from its Summer 2019 opening until the onset of COVID, but I am not an expert there.
Right.
We need a system that will inherently be imperfect, but, spreads the benefits and the pain around as equitably as possible.