Disney to increase the number of FastPass+ entitlements per day and include park hopping

Pumbas Nakasak

Heading for the great escape.
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flynnibus

Premium Member
I think the roadmap has been extremely fluid. I also don't think that some of these features were originally planned to be implemented. Disney's own research had shown an average FP usage of less than 2 per day. I really feel they felt that offering 3 would seem to be a bonus to people. They then encountered significant pushback from the super-visitors, who were previously running around 8 per day. I believe today's announcement is a change in the roadmap.

Concurr.... part of development is changing based on what you know now, vs what you thought the future would be sometime ago when you made the last plan :) Roadmaps are not static.

What I'm more interested in is how these changes impact their behavior influencing. Before it was easy to say something like "FP can allow up to 9 uses... but most only use 2" - because utilization totally relied upon the guest pursuing things. The total impact was mitigated by the level of work needed. But up till now they've been doing things like forcing 3 FPs on people intentionally... but is that to simplify the User Experience, or is that guest manipulation?? How does that work out now.. do they keep forcing 3 on people, or do they pivot and start returning more to the old model of 'burden on the user'

I imagine those types of behavior shaping changes are far more significant to the long view of the program than simply picking a number like 3 or 4 FP+ to use, etc.
 

djkidkaz

Well-Known Member
Well yep, they could have reworded it that they have heard very loudly from a number of very irate guests at guest relations in the park that they do not like being limited to 3 FPs. I hear the pushback from APers, DVCers, and other big spenders has been pretty bad.

The problem I have is that as a local the wait times on most of the attractions has actually increased. We used to be able to ride HM every time we visited MK but now it's consistently a 40 min wait. I saw another website who actually looked at all the data and wait times from last year without my magic+ and the same time this year with it and it showed the majority of attractions had increased while a lot of the etickets had dropped in wait a little. So an example was HM going from like 20 to 40 min average and Space going from a 70 to 50 min average. So we'll see how things change but cast members still aren't on the system yet. What's that? Like another 50,000 locals who will have early access to FP+ as well? Hmmm...
 

UncleMike101

Well-Known Member
I'm so happy about this! But also need to change my "game plan". right now I have all of our passes spread out through the day, so now I should make them earlier in the day so I can get more :)
There'll likely be a mad rush of future Guests trying to do just that, which should open up quite a few evening FP+ times for the additional FP bookings.
Kinda sounds like that was factored into the plan....;)
Our latest FP+ is at 4:40 PM and the majority are already set in the AM so I guess we'll just keep ours as they are.
 

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
Staggs is saying guests requesting it, or were they hiding behind the fact that the system just wasn't ready at the time of initial rollout to include park hopping and/or additional fastpasses?

What probably happened is the 'park hopper' sales fell off a cliff, Whoopsie who did not see THAT coming and that feature was added back ASAP. I'm not convinced that Disney actually listens to feedback unless it fits their preconceived ideas.
 

orky8

Well-Known Member
This is all great news. As to the people putting down the people complaining about the lack of purple, it is just odd that it was not an option at launch. Yes, it's not a "big deal." But having it as on option should have simply been obvious. How hard can it be to make it in purple, which is many people's favorite color and the only color from the rainbow missing (ok, and indigo).
 

kap91

Well-Known Member
It is true that the lack of official information and the perceived complexity of MyMagic+ has created much of the internet hostility. I am surprised that the official channels, such as the blog have been so quiet on the subject. It would seem they had a great educational resource at their disposal there.
If only they had paid attention to their close friend in the tech space, Apple, and seen the meltdown that occurred when they released FCPx - a completely new software architecture with plans to phase in features over a long time but those plans weren't revealed until much later. Apple ed off a ton of people and now, even with the new software having addressed most concerns, most still ridicule it because of the initial perception. People should know that software is always developed slowly, but they don't and often react to whatever the here and now of the situation is. Companies like Disney and Apple who love secrecy and simultaneously have extremely passionate and vocal fans need to start taking this into account in an age where pr disasters can spread overnight like wildfire and leave years of lasting damage.

However, Disney has also felt the sting of over promising and under delivering (test track 1.0 anyone?). And I can see how this leads them to not wanting to say too much.

There are also accounting rules that prevent you from attributing income to a current version of a product if new features have been announced for the next version. (This is partly why adobe switched to the subscription model). Not sure if those rules would have any bearing on MM+
 

wdwmagic

Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Original Poster
Grey goes with everything..I guess? LoL.

HUGE missed opportunity on offering purple tho. Maybe one day.
Without doubt there will be more colors, and attraction themed bands, and character themed bands etc. The start of retail band sakes this week is significant because it lays all the ground work to really start moving magicband merchandise.
 

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
Well yep, they could have reworded it that they have heard very loudly from a number of very irate guests at guest relations in the park that they do not like being limited to 3 FPs. I hear the pushback from APers, DVCers, and other big spenders has been pretty bad.

Indeed wrote some rather pointed letters to TWDC and also to my DVC guide who indicated that I'm not the only one who sent him a letter like this. It may have been the DVC pushback which triggered this as DVC is a huge cash cow and right now the only thing keeping the hotels full.
 

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
I think the roadmap has been extremely fluid. I also don't think that some of these features were originally planned to be implemented. Disney's own research had shown an average FP usage of less than 2 per day. I really feel they felt that offering 3 would seem to be a bonus to people. They then encountered significant pushback from the super-visitors, who were previously running around 8 per day. I believe today's announcement is a change in the roadmap.

As a first of its kind system, that doesn't seem surprising at all. Until they had real-world data, I imagine everything they had planned was largely theory.*

It's highly possible that they may have needed to see what the usage looked like for the average guest once they rolled out the initial three. If they still had plenty of capacity park-wide (not necessarily for the attractions everyone wants, though) to issue additional fastpasses for those "super users" who will go after more, it only makes sense to offer them but I don't think they even knew for sure that the capacity would be there without knowing how the average guest would use the new system.

*People get all upset because Iger has seemed dodgy about the benefits of the system so far but I really think it's going to take years to see how they fully integrate this in ways we haven't considered... Things like Test Track are just the tip of the iceberg, I think. A lot of the guest benefit to the new system will probably even end up going unnoticed by most which really, is how it should be when it comes to operational things like this.
 

kap91

Well-Known Member
The problem I have is that as a local the wait times on most of the attractions has actually increased. We used to be able to ride HM every time we visited MK but now it's consistently a 40 min wait. I saw another website who actually looked at all the data and wait times from last year without my magic+ and the same time this year with it and it showed the majority of attractions had increased while a lot of the etickets had dropped in wait a little. So an example was HM going from like 20 to 40 min average and Space going from a 70 to 50 min average. So we'll see how things change but cast members still aren't on the system yet. What's that? Like another 50,000 locals who will have early access to FP+ as well? Hmmm...

Well you could always book yourself a fp+ for it.

I'm am/was(until a few months ago) a local and seldom used fp because I knew how to get around without waiting more than 30 minutes for most attractions.

Now most of that strategy hasn't had to change and if the wait for an attraction is longer than I'd usually wait for - fp+ and boom I wait less than I did before.
 

Main Street USA

Well-Known Member
I updated our fast passes for our May trip last week and I wasn't subject to the tier system. I was able to book RnR, ToT, and Toy Story for the same day at Hollywood Studios.
 

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