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

[RSoxNo1]

THIS. As we've discussed on here, the fourth FP needs to be revolving and independent of the other three. This will also solve the issues of FPs for parades/wishes/illuminations etc...

This is why the advanced bookings should be decreased or removed entirely. Reduce the number to 2, have them both revolving and eliminate the tiers and the unnecessary attractions (Shows, Mad Tea Party, Tier 2 Future World attractions)

 

[ScoutN]

It is almost like the suits went "Man, this isn't working, we have to do something. JOHNSON! What haven't we tried?"

Johnson: "we tried everything, sir. "

Suit: "What is left, Johnson, come up with something or you are fired."

Johnson reads WDWm and steals ideas to tell the suits "Let's up the daily per person allotment and allow park hopping."

Suits: "JOHNSON! That is pure genius, you get a promotion."

WDWMagic, saving jobs since 2014.

 

[flynnibus]

I agree that there's a big difference between IT/Ops projects and those meant for public consumption. However, it's worth pointing out that the whole shebang revolves around managing expectations. Customers should buy your product based on its immediate value, not its proposed eventual value further down a roadmap

"customers should..." - yes, but when you are buying into a product or relationship that is not defined by a single slice in time.. like a platform or package that will grow.. the decision is not just about what the widget does today, but what it will do over it's lifecycle. You don't want to buy something that under delivers now and hope the promises come true... but the lifecycle of the product is huge and can be all the difference between something that works great today, but becomes antiquated next month. And in the context here... we are talking about the long running relationship between Disney and it's guests, not just 'one off' uses of Disney's offerings. Disney's clientel is heavily biased towards repeat customers.

So the idea of sharing roadmaps is not selling vaporware, but about assurances that 'this is phase 1, not the end all'.

This is fundamentally different from a corporate software client who is in effect "buying the roadmap" and collaborating on the dev cycle vs. an end-user customer who just wants it to work in every awesome way possible.

If you mean 'corporate software client' to mean customized development... I can see what you are saying, but I don't agree with your conclusion about 'end user customer'. When you buy into a product that has long lifecycles you need to know where it's headed and if it's still going to be maintained, enhanced, etc to stay current to your needs. An example... a call center solution. Yes you need it to work great on day 1, but you also have ideas where you want to take your business and you didn't buy into a vendor's strategy purely based on day 1 with the assumption you will just replace it later if your needs change.

Managing expectations (especially when using Agile development) involves sharing with the project team which user stories are currently fitting within budget, and having the flexibility to let lower priority tasks fall by the wayside if time/budget constraints promote other higher priority items as deserving the most effort. Letting go of a feature you can imagine yourself using is not always easy, and becomes a potential $h!tst0rm to manage once the public & PR get involved.

I'm well aware. My team has been doing development using agile methodology for over 7 years now. Your flexibility to adapt and re prioritize does not negate the ability to roadmap with people.. especially on what your strategy and goals are. roadmap != backlog. It's also why we specifically avoid naming features to a specific release number with customers (it can actually cause revenue recognition problems). But Disney has gone the other extreme.. sharing NOTHING on where the solution is heading.. instead releasing incomplete functionality that alienates many aspects of their customer base.

You don't depreciate and drop functionality 40% of your customer base relies upon without providing them forward visibility of how you are going to manage their needs.

If Disney were to have made all the promises of FP+ configuration options and experimentation paths public from the start, it may have resolved some of the public's anxiety over "what's it gonna be when it's 'done'", but it also creates potentially unreasonable expectations by the public that the product development lifecycle will never reveal higher priority issues that needed time/resources more than something in an earlier roadmap

I didn't advocate Disney should have been promising specific releases of specific features... but at least they could have made general strategic goals public like "Will FP+ be available for all guests?" or "Will FP+ be a tiered solution", etc.

 

[orky8]

This is why the advanced bookings should be decreased or removed entirely. Reduce the number to 2, have them both revolving and eliminate the tiers and the unnecessary attractions (Shows, Mad Tea Party, Tier 2 Future World attractions)

No, I like the idea of prebooking as it currently is, except you should be able to choose 3 across any park of your choice (and while I'd prefer no tiers, those are necessary due to the lack of attractions at EP and DHS, and must stay in place until they build more attractions).

However, the fourth fastpass should offer an additional functionality that essentially mimics what FP used to offer. The way I think they should do this is everyone gets to lock in their top three choices and times ahead of time. Then, once you arrive at the park, your revolving FP becomes active for whatever park you are currently in. This revolving FP is completely separate from the bookable FP. Once used, the revolving FP slot is open again and again, though, as the day goes on the availability will decrease for better attractions. If you park hop, as soon as you enter the new park, the revolving FP can now be used to book attractions in the park you hopped to (assuming availability). To simplify this further, I would make the revolving FP not a bookable time, but rather work like old FP in that you get the next available time, which would be displayed on the app/kiosk. This changed would solve all the current issues -- solves the limit of only 3 FP, and solves the park hopping issue.

They should also make sure they separately name these items, so they aren't confused. When you go into the App/kiosk and click FP+, once you are in a park, you are shown two options: Bookable FP and Revolving FP. If you click bookable FP, its business as usual, you get three selections, can change time/attraction, etc. If you click on Revolving FP, if you have one, it shows your current Revolving Selection FP (if any) with option to select/change, if click that, it shows all the attractions for the park you are currently in and the next available return time, which will be your return time if you select the attraction.

The bookable FP still has merit as things might be booked up later, so if you want to do something at a specific time, these allow you to lock it in. Because the Revolving FP return times are less predictable and based on next time and whatever availability remains, this would incentivize people to still use their bookable selections wisely. That's my vision at least. Tom, you listening?

 

[flynnibus]

Can anyone tell me about current availability of day-of fastpasses? It seems I read early on that off-site guests and those who didn't pre-select were frustrated by lack of availability. Is this still the case. What time in the morning do fps run out for TSM or Soarin? I'm wondering if the best strategy might by to skip pre-selecting all together so I have the whole day open for grabbing fps.

It seems the answer will still vary greatly by your particular day in question. But unlike the old model, the idea of 'they are all gone' is no longer permanent... but you can check back again later and might see different answers.

 

[hiddenmickeys]

Do you think this will be ready by April 15th? That is the start of my trip.

 

[BigTxEars]

It is almost like the suits went "Man, this isn't working, we have to do something. JOHNSON! What haven't we tried?"

Johnson: "we tried everything, sir. "

Suit: "What is left, Johnson, come up with something or you are fired."

Johnson reads WDWm and steals ideas to tell the suits "Let's up the daily per person allotment and allow park hopping."

Suits: "JOHNSON! That is pure genius, you get a promotion."

WDWMagic, saving jobs since 2014.

I think this has been a possible part of the plan all along myself. Let people book 3 per day, see how that works for the guest planning and the system as well as in the parks and then expand it from there. I think more expansions are to come. If Disney could let folks book most of the rides each day at a certain time then they could really control and move crowds around to reduce waits. That is bold but possible one day I think.

 

[flynnibus]

Dude, your desire to be right pays off.....you win, I'm out <mike drop>

Well you want to understand why your topic didn't take off? It was beat to death long ago. You can read it again, or not... I could care less. But if you want to generalize the site, you should do your homework.

 

[doctornick]

This is why the advanced bookings should be decreased or removed entirely. Reduce the number to 2, have them both revolving and eliminate the tiers and the unnecessary attractions (Shows, Mad Tea Party, Tier 2 Future World attractions)

I really like the idea of advance bookings, so I would hope they don't get rid of it or reduce it (I'm not worried about it anyway, since pre-booking seems to be a major driver in the concept of FP+). I like that they are adding the possibility of additional FP+ and park hopping to the process though.

I do wonder how much excess FP+ are really available for that 4th, 5th and beyond each day. I think that capacity issues are really going to limit them on busy days.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I really like the idea of advance bookings, so I would hope they don't get rid of it or reduce it (I'm not worried about it anyway, since pre-booking seems to be a major driver in the concept of FP+). I like that they are adding the possibility of additional FP+ and park hopping to the process though.

I do wonder how much excess FP+ are really available for that 4th, 5th and beyond each day. I think that capacity issues are really going to limit them on busy days.

The problem is, DHS, Epcot and DAK can't support 3 advanced bookings per guest per day. The math doesn't work.

 

[orky8]

The problem is, DHS, Epcot and DAK can't support 3 advanced bookings per guest per day. The math doesn't work.

Yes they can, it just required that they make FP on all sorts of attractions that never otherwise needed it, which they already did. What DHS and Epcot cannot support is 3 attractions with no tiers. DAK is currently ok without tiers, because its two headliners have huge capacities. But, I'm not sure how you can say the math doesn't work on something in which the math is already working.

 

[John]

"customers should..." - yes, but when you are buying into a product or relationship that is not defined by a single slice in time.. like a platform or package that will grow.. the decision is not just about what the widget does today, but what it will do over it's lifecycle. You don't want to buy something that under delivers now and hope the promises come true... but the lifecycle of the product is huge and can be all the difference between something that works great today, but becomes antiquated next month. And in the context here... we are talking about the long running relationship between Disney and it's guests, not just 'one off' uses of Disney's offerings. Disney's clientel is heavily biased towards repeat customers.

So the idea of sharing roadmaps is not selling vaporware, but about assurances that 'this is phase 1, not the end all'.



If you mean 'corporate software client' to mean customized development... I can see what you are saying, but I don't agree with your conclusion about 'end user customer'. When you buy into a product that has long lifecycles you need to know where it's headed and if it's still going to be maintained, enhanced, etc to stay current to your needs. An example... a call center solution. Yes you need it to work great on day 1, but you also have ideas where you want to take your business and you didn't buy into a vendor's strategy purely based on day 1 with the assumption you will just replace it later if your needs change.



I'm well aware. My team has been doing development using agile methodology for over 7 years now. Your flexibility to adapt and re prioritize does not negate the ability to roadmap with people.. especially on what your strategy and goals are. roadmap != backlog. It's also why we specifically avoid naming features to a specific release number with customers (it can actually cause revenue recognition problems). But Disney has gone the other extreme.. sharing NOTHING on where the solution is heading.. instead releasing incomplete functionality that alienates many aspects of their customer base.

You don't depreciate and drop functionality 40% of your customer base relies upon without providing them forward visibility of how you are going to manage their needs.



I didn't advocate Disney should have been promising specific releases of specific features... but at least they could have made general strategic goals public like "Will FP+ be available for all guests?" or "Will FP+ be a tiered solution", etc.

Judge Flynni, thanks for having the ability to explain this so that even I can understand.....well done.

 

[Lord_Vader]

You don't depreciate and drop functionality 40% of your customer base relies upon without providing them forward visibility of how you are going to manage their needs.

First, did TDO depreciate functionality for 40% of their base at any time? While I would agree to a point that limiting FP+ to one park is slightly limiting and the 3FP+ limitation is a reduction that affects some park guests I don't believe at all that 40% of WDW guests without any benefit in return. Where did this 40% figure come from?

TDO added features, whether some use them or not they are features, including PP+, advance reservations, rescheduling and updates to name a few. MBs in general are simply the interface so I don't consider them a feature but many, many guests seem to.

I agree completely with other posts, it is not and will not be in TDO's best interest to layout a plan for future feature rollouts until they are ready to roll out. This is by design, they don't want anyone delaying their trips to WDW for a feature built on MM+, MDE, MB, PP+, FP+, etc. TDO will continue to roll out features on MM as they deem ready based on internal timetables, this is a long term project with very real long term financial implications for TDO, I believe they have taken a page from the old 'under promise and over deliver' schoolbook.

 

[BigTxEars]

First, did TDO depreciate functionality for 40% of their base at any time? While I would agree to a point that limiting FP+ to one park is slightly limiting and the 3FP+ limitation is a reduction that affects some park guests I don't believe at all that 40% of WDW guests without any benefit in return. Where did this 40% figure come from?

TDO added features, whether some use them or not they are features, including PP+, advance reservations, rescheduling and updates to name a few. MBs in general are simply the interface so I don't consider them a feature but many, many guests seem to.

I agree completely with other posts, it is not and will not be in TDO's best interest to layout a plan for future feature rollouts until they are ready to roll out. This is by design, they don't want anyone delaying their trips to WDW for a feature built on MM+, MDE, MB, PP+, FP+, etc. TDO will continue to roll out features on MM as they deem ready based on internal timetables, this is a long term project with very real long term financial implications for TDO, I believe they have taken a page from the old 'under promise and over deliver' schoolbook.

Agree, plus if they advertise what's coming how many zillions of calls are they going to get about "will X be ready when we go" ?

 

[RSoxNo1]

Yes they can, it just required that they make FP on all sorts of attractions that never otherwise needed it, which they already did. What DHS and Epcot cannot support is 3 attractions with no tiers. DAK is currently ok without tiers, because its two headliners have huge capacities. But, I'm not sure how you can say the math doesn't work on something in which the math is already working.

You just made the point for me. These are attractions that don't necessitate Fastpass usage, they should not have Fastpass. Disney already went down this road with many of these attractions and Fastpass was removed. The math is only "working" because people are making Fastpass reservations for shows where it actually costs them time, or they're making Fastpass reservations for attractions where they're saving 5-10 minutes tops and that's only relative to the inflated Standby time.

The distribution rules and attraction lineup on the old Fastpass system was superior that what's available now. I can certainly see putting Fastpass+ on attractions like The Great Movie Ride or Spaceship Earth on a seasonal basis, but on 300+ days a year it's unnecessary.

 

[LAKid53]

For everyone that stated that Disney will never add park hopping to FP+

I like.

 

[LAKid53]

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.

And I was one of them. Every resort survey I completed, I mentioned the limitation of FP+, especially for parkhoppers.

 

[LAKid53]

It's a really popular color, Never understood why Disney chose grey as the 'default' band color.

Well, for those who make their reservations too soon for them to be customized and shipped (so why not have the customized MB available at the resort? If they can give you a grey one at the resort, deliver packages to your resort/room, then why not the band?) or don't confirm shipping address/customize. Or like me, don't need a gazzillion more, so I just ignore the request and tell them to put the grey waiting for me at the resort back on the shelf. My suggestion to a CM was have a little check box when you make your reservation "no thank you, I have a band, I don't need another" (unless you finally get purple). Her response was, "But we want you to have one in every color!" To which I replied, "Then get one in purple!"

So 6 of the bands I currently possess have been deactivated.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, be vocal about the system it's the only chance us as fans have at helping to shape it.

 

[LAKid53]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, be vocal about the system it's the only chance us as fans have at helping to shape it.

Yes, because just handing money over to the Mouse, alone, doesn't work.