Fastpass+, a solution to "overwhelmingly negative" responses from families

[G00fyDad]

I was basing my 3 or 4 number from the tests and not from the latest speculation.

So what is the latest speculation? I like this FP+ idea, but not at the expense of getting more FP's for other rides later in the day or at other parks in the same day. I guess I am greedy but I want to sign up for MK FP's as:

SpaceM
SplashM
BTMRR
JC
PotC
Peter Pan
and
Buzz

Not just be limited to three of those.

 

[RSoxNo1]

So what is the latest speculation? I like this FP+ idea, but not at the expense of getting more FP's for other rides later in the day or at other parks in the same day. I guess I am greedy but I want to sign up for MK FP's as:

SpaceM
SplashM
BTMRR
JC
PotC
Peter Pan
and
Buzz

Not just be limited to three of those.

Right now, if you're aggressive with Fastpass in the Magic Kingdom, you can get up to 8-10 per 12 hour day depending on what attractions you pick. Limiting guests to 3 per day is reasonable at the other parks, but even then, restricting it by attraction is a deviation from what's currently accepted. During testing, the groupings were as follows:

Magic Kingdom
Group 1 (Choose 2):

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
• Space Mountain
• Splash Mountain
• Main Street Electrical Parade
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Town Square Theater Meet and Greet: Princesses
• Enchanted Tales with Belle
• Wishes Nighttime Spectacular

Group 2 (Choose 2):

• Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Haunted Mansion
• Jungle Cruise
• Mickey's PhilharMagic
• The Barnstormer Starring the Great Goofini
• Town Square Theater Meet and Greet: Mickey
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Monster's Inc Laugh Floor
• Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid

Hollywood Studios
Group 1 (Choose 1):

• Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show
• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
• Toy Story Midway Mania

Group 2 (Choose 2):

• Disney Junior - Live on Stage!
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
• Muppet*Vision 3-D
• Star Tours
• The American Idol Experience
• The Great Movie Ride
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• Voyage of the Little Mermaid

 

[flynnibus]

Have you used their optimized touring plans?

I don't know if what they were offering me were 'optimized' or not - I had a choice of touring plans based on adults, kids, 2 day, 3 day, etc. The plans offered for Disneyland are just static plans - no inputs except for deciding which plan style you wanted.

I don't have the account with WDW plans.

Disney kind of does this already with enforced Fastpass distribution, and are attempting to do it with Fastpass+, only they're attempting to do it before the guests set foot in the park. My point is, that even with the ability to manipulate the system (Which Disney is currently doing), TouringPlans is producing a superior product.

FP would be 'crude' in this sense because it's not an integrated dynamic system. It's like old static traffic lights.. vs dynamic, synchronized traffic lights that are looking at real-time inputs. FP+ changes this entirely because they have so much greater control over allotments, distribution, and they've introduced new ways to interface with the guest.

I don't want to get into some 'who is better' argument.. but it still is an issue that TP is reactive to what they see at Disney.. where Disney will be able to be reactive to guests themselves and have a far higher attach rate making any choices far more impactful. With touring plans you're always going to be trying to slip into the holes.. where Disney is going to be the one deciding where the holes are or not. One is a direct influencer (Disney), the other just reacts and tries to adapt (TP).

 

[G00fyDad]

Right now, if you're aggressive with Fastpass in the Magic Kingdom, you can get up to 8-10 per 12 hour day depending on what attractions you pick. Limiting guests to 3 per day is reasonable at the other parks, but even then, restricting it by attraction is a deviation from what's currently accepted. During testing, the groupings were as follows:

Magic Kingdom
Group 1 (Choose 2):

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
• Space Mountain
• Splash Mountain
• Main Street Electrical Parade
• Peter Pan's Flight
• Town Square Theater Meet and Greet: Princesses
• Enchanted Tales with Belle
• Wishes Nighttime Spectacular

Group 2 (Choose 2):

• Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Haunted Mansion
• Jungle Cruise
• Mickey's PhilharMagic
• The Barnstormer Starring the Great Goofini
• Town Square Theater Meet and Greet: Mickey
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Monster's Inc Laugh Floor
• Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid

Hollywood Studios

Group 1 (Choose 1):

• Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show
• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
• Toy Story Midway Mania

Group 2 (Choose 2):

• Disney Junior - Live on Stage!
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
• Muppet*Vision 3-D
• Star Tours
• The American Idol Experience
• The Great Movie Ride
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• Voyage of the Little Mermaid

Thanks for the info.

 

[flynnibus]

Much of their data isn't based on the user reports, but on paid staff whose job it is to go around and collect wait times, daily

Its still much more about limited samples.. then actual categorical logging. Unless he's paying like 4-6 people concurrently in the big parks.. you're not going to capture the type of detail with great resolution. You can't realistically measure 'actual wait time' by checking a wait board periodically.

It will be interesting for them because FP+ stands to invalidate all the existing modeling of attraction wait behavior they've done previously.

Maybe someday I'll dig up these old podcasts.. but I doubt I could tolerate listening. I have yet to find a Disney podcast that isn't like nails on a chaulkboard to listen to with any frequency.

 

[TalkingHead]

Is it any wonder so many people want to work for Disney?

They employ people to create solutions to problems that don't exist, people to create problems where nothing is broken, and people to create solutions for the things they've broken through their so-called improvements.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I don't know if what they were offering me were 'optimized' or not - I had a choice of touring plans based on adults, kids, 2 day, 3 day, etc. The plans offered for Disneyland are just static plans - no inputs except for deciding which plan style you wanted.

I don't have the account with WDW plans.



FP would be 'crude' in this sense because it's not an integrated dynamic system. It's like old static traffic lights.. vs dynamic, synchronized traffic lights that are looking at real-time inputs. FP+ changes this entirely because they have so much greater control over allotments, distribution, and they've introduced new ways to interface with the guest.

I don't want to get into some 'who is better' argument.. but it still is an issue that TP is reactive to what they see at Disney.. where Disney will be able to be reactive to guests themselves and have a far higher attach rate making any choices far more impactful. With touring plans you're always going to be trying to slip into the holes.. where Disney is going to be the one deciding where the holes are or not. One is a direct influencer (Disney), the other just reacts and tries to adapt (TP).

Let me describe the optimized touring plan system. You put in 20 attractions you want to do in a park on any given day. You arrive at that park at 9 AM and hit the optimize button and it puts those attractions in order, and will add in things like acquiring Fastpasses as needed. Then say you get a phone call from the office and you have to sit on a bench and talk to your boss for 45 minutes. You go back into the app and hit the optimize button again and it will re-optimize the order of the attractions based on what you've already done and your 45 minute delay.

This isn't even a debate - Touring Plans' Lines app has superior functionality than Disney's app right now.

You don't want to get into the "who is better" argument, because you're not willing to listen to another opinion because you assume you are the smartest person in the room. You assume you have all of the information, yet you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don't have all of the information.

 

[billDozer]

i think fastpass+ wont be as intrusive to locals or repeat visitors as most are afraid most rides will have fastpass+ so people will be making reservations for pirates and small world while more knowledgeable of us will be hoping in the stand bys for the now shorter splash and thunder. the implementation of fastpass+ will hopefully spread out the crowds by suggesting a less popular ride if there's a long line or if all the fastpasses are gone my only concern is if its going to be like dining where you have to make reservation 3 months ahead of schedule, but i doubt that cause disney is aware that wdw has a growing "local" population of guests and that implementing a system where someone cant just pick and choose would seriously hurt their experience

 

[flynnibus]

Let me describe the optimized touring plan system. You put in 20 attractions you want to do in a park on any given day. You arrive at that park at 9 AM and hit the optimize button and it puts those attractions in order, and will add in things like acquiring Fastpasses as needed. Then say you get a phone call from the office and you have to sit on a bench and talk to your boss for 45 minutes. You go back into the app and hit the optimize button again and it will re-optimize the order of the attractions based on what you've already done and your 45 minute delay.

I get the concept - but its an entirely different use case than the 'hands free, care free' concept of a pre-scheduled, no hassle model. The latter is not designed to be the most EFFICIENT, it's designed to cater to the low stress, little to know/care concept. The touringplan concept is about 'dynamically updating to add continuous optimization to your plan'. These are different design goals from the start.. serving different purposes. Ultimately these differences lead to divergence and compromising things differently to align to their end goals.

The important thing to understand is not everyone is out to get the 100% most efficient trip

This isn't even a debate - Touring Plans' Lines app has superior functionality than Disney's app right now.

You don't want to get into the "who is better" argument, because you're not willing to listen to another opinion because you assume you are the smartest person in the room

No Jackass.. it's I have no interest in debating 'what is the best app...' - because honestly I don't care. It's not a discussion I'm interested in. Contrary to your swipe.. there are times simply when I have no interest in a discussion and I'll say it outright so you don't think I'm avoiding your points, etc.

And since some of my family will be in the parks next week, I just added WDW to my subscription to see if they do things differently for WDW and see what you are talking about are the 'personalized plans' (the term Optimized Touring Plans is what they call all their static plans). And while they are technically very neat and offer very specific controls... I think it drills the point even further that this is not for the 'turn-key, low interest' planner.. this is for the ultra planner. Touringplans.com's plans are by design are about maximum return.. not necessarily 'care free'. They are different use cases.

Touringplans may have the best models and tools.. but they are still based around reacting to Disney and the parks.. which is a different core concept from shaping the parks directly.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I get the concept - but its an entirely different use case than the 'hands free, care free' concept of a pre-scheduled, no hassle model. The latter is not designed to be the most EFFICIENT, it's designed to cater to the low stress, little to know/care concept. The touringplan concept is about 'dynamically updating to add continuous optimization to your plan'. These are different design goals from the start.. serving different purposes. Ultimately these differences lead to divergence and compromising things differently to align to their end goals.

The important thing to understand is not everyone is out to get the 100% most efficient trip

No Jackass.. it's I have no interest in debating 'what is the best app...' - because honestly I don't care. It's not a discussion I'm interested in. Contrary to your swipe.. there are times simply when I have no interest in a discussion and I'll say it outright so you don't think I'm avoiding your points, etc.

And since some of my family will be in the parks next week, I just added WDW to my subscription to see if they do things differently for WDW and see what you are talking about are the 'personalized plans' (the term Optimized Touring Plans is what they call all their static plans). And while they are technically very neat and offer very specific controls... I think it drills the point even further that this is not for the 'turn-key, low interest' planner.. this is for the ultra planner. Touringplans.com's plans are by design are about maximum return.. not necessarily 'care free'. They are different use cases.

Touringplans may have the best models and tools.. but they are still based around reacting to Disney and the parks.. which is a different core concept from shaping the parks directly.

You've changed the discussion to one that you can better defend. Your argument went from "Touringplans' weakness is that it doesn't work when a substantial amount of people are doing the same plan." to "There's no way they have this much data for this to work." to "OK, maybe they do have the data and these plans can be flexible, but that's for people that want to plan their trip to be super efficient."

I don't know why I keep responding to your posts, but I find you wildly infuriating. It's hard to tell if you're trolling sometimes or not. But the latest argument is that the goal of My Magic + is the no-hassle, hands free, care free model. This model where the stress of your 3 Fastpass+ reservations are per-determined and you now have to schedule your day around these reservations? Sure, you can switch them up day of, but that's no longer hands free and you probably won't get the same choices (there goes care free as well).

Or, you can put in every attraction you want to see on any given day into your Touring Plans app and take a look at the first few steps and tour the park accordingly. Then, you grab a snack or go to the bathroom, or decide that you want to ride Tower of Terror 3 more times in a row. You can then go back to your Touring Plans app, check off the attractions that you've done, remove some you don't want to do anymore or add things that you do want to do and re-optimize. It will identify your location in the park and tell you the best course of action for the rest of your touring.

It's been my experience that the Touring Plans app has had more accurate wait time information than Disney's app. That's inexcusable, and it's a sign of Disney not doing their job correctly.

 

[flynnibus]

You've changed the discussion to one that you can better defend. Your argument went from "Touringplans' weakness is that it doesn't work when a substantial amount of people are doing the same plan."

Which is entirely accurate - because I was talking about their published touring plans. What you then added was their 'pesonalized touring plans' - which is NOT putting everyone on the 'same plan' but rather generating a personalized plan per requester. When everyone has their own plan how is that 'the same plan'?

to "There's no way they have this much data for this to work." to "OK, maybe they do have the data and these plans can be flexible, but that's for people that want to plan their trip to be super efficient."

Also a load of crap.. I never said 'maybe they do have the data..' nor did I infer anything different about their collection in my follow-on posts. Go back and read the posts.

I don't know why I keep responding to your posts, but I find you wildly infuriating. It's hard to tell if you're trolling sometimes or not.

(Irony since you said I 'took the bait' - whos trolling here??)

But the latest argument is that the goal of My Magic + is the no-hassle, hands free, care free model. This model where the stress of your 3 Fastpass+ reservations are per-determined and you now have to schedule your day around these reservations? Sure, you can switch them up day of, but that's no longer hands free and you probably won't get the same choices (there goes care free as well).

Because you have your mind pre-wired into thinking what people should all be trying to do. You are not stepping back and realizing some people aren't interested in 'maximum return' .. they just want someone to say 'do this and you'll have a good time'. By having Disney spit out a plan based on their interests.. that's what they are getting. It has low number of inputs.. low number of constraints.. and is simple to grasp. You keep trying to add in how hard its going to be to schedule all around this because you have it in your mind again about trying to get the most out of everything else in addition to this 'plan'... forgetting that many people want the simplicity.. and won't be trying to squeeze as much as they can AROUND the plan given to them.

Or, you can put in every attraction you want to see on any given day into your Touring Plans app and take a look at the first few steps and tour the park accordingly.

Yes.. put in 'every attraction' and follow a plan to a tee for 12+hrs.. perfectly stress free and laid back! It's hysterical how people are complaining about how FP+ and ADRs cause people to over plan and stress.. and here you are advocating to plan EVEN MORE... even tho the plan can be updated.. you're still talking about making every action ahead of you pre-determined. This is not adhoc.. this is not 'stop and smell the roses' - that is a tool to try to optimize your wait times by giving up your individual destiny in return for the least possible wait times.

The personalized plans from touring plans gives an interesting array of planning choices - but its not aimed at the 'grandma remote' crowd at all.

It's been my experience that the Touring Plans app has had more accurate wait time information than Disney's app. That's inexcusable, and it's a sign of Disney not doing their job correctly.

The two are playing with a different set of customer expectations too. If touringplans is off.. do you call them up and ? What about if Disney advertises a time and fails to meet it.. do you think guests onsite give Disney the same leeway you give TP? I've only used TP's wait times once.. at DL in January.. and while I found the level of detail more interesting.. I'm not sure I would say it was more accurate. Single rider times was an area the TP estimates were WILDLY wrong on the entire stay. That is an area that is harder to predict than normal lines.. but the estimates were so bad I would have said it would have been better to just not show them at all.

 

[PhotoDave219]

The question is still valid. What time of the year are you going? Or do you mean that you go all year and have this issue?

I go all year and have this issue. There is not any downtime. The slowest Ive seen MK was in the 20k range and that was for 2 days in Mid January.

 

[Longhairbear]

That is what I was thinking he meant, but I still wasn't sure if he was referring to a specific time of the year. I have not met anyone that has trouble getting a table. Not saying it doesn't happen to him. Not at all. Just really bad luck on his part or really good luck on everyone I know. Of course I have had ADR's for 50's Prime Time and still waited 45 minutes before I had enough sense to tell them to stick it and left for Sci-Fi. So I guess waits can happen either way.

In the last annual trips to WDW, and that was 3 years ago, we could never get a walk up table for 2 at whatever park we happened to be at. It was maddening at best. It never used to be like that before.

 

[G00fyDad]

In the last annual trips to WDW, and that was 3 years ago, we could never get a walk up table for 2 at whatever park we happened to be at. It was maddening at best. It never used to be like that before.

I suppose we've all been very lucky then. Thank God. I'd be irritated if that happened to me at one place, and irate if it happened at every place we tried.

 

[G00fyDad]

Which is entirely accurate - because I was talking about their published .......................

You've changed the discussion to one that you can .................................

Girls, girls...... you both look pretty. Can we move on?

 

[TRONorail10]

In the last annual trips to WDW, and that was 3 years ago, we could never get a walk up table for 2 at whatever park we happened to be at. It was maddening at best. It never used to be like that before.

It's all a matter of what restaurant you went to, and what time. Some restaurants are busier than others and have more ADR's booked, hence the number of walk-ins drastically decreases. Other restaurants will have peak dining times and non-peak dining times. If you don't have an ADR, your best chance is a non-peak time. Also, if a restaurant only has a set number of walk-ins available then they fill those on a first come, first serve basis. If they take 20 parties and you are the 21st party, then they will tell you there is nothing available.

 

[lentesta]

Ehh... you do realize if everyone used the same plan.. it would no longer be useful right?

And yes, this type of model is competition for the touringplan models in many ways.



Yes - which is basically what I said this model pushes people towards.. through FP allotments and times Disney is distributing up front.. Disney is shaping the crowd movements.

We've got a mechanism for taking into account how many people the touring plans have already sent to each ride and when. And we've tested the software by simulating 40,000 families using it in WDW. I'm comfortable with the app's scalability.

I don't think FP+ is competition for us. Our products are based on practical consumer advice, such as which rides and restaurants are worth your time and money. Even with FP+, people will still want to know which attractions are worth their 3 choices.

We've already written FP+ support into touring plan optimizer. It should be released in a couple of weeks in beta form. It has 2 new options. In the first, you tell it which FP+ experiences you've already signed up for, and the software ensures you get to those experiences within your return window. This is pretty simple - it's essentially the same as scheduling a regular FASTPASS on the day of your visit.

The second mode makes suggestions on which attractions in your touring plan most benefit from using FP+, and when. So if you give us a list of 20 attractions you want to visit, and tell us how many FP+ experiences you can choose, we'll return an ordered list telling you which attractions to request your FP+ for, to save the most time in line.

You can mix and match the options, too. So if you have 3 experiences available and you've already scheduled 1, we can accommodate that and rank your remaining attractions to tell you where to use the other 2.

The software already knows about FP+ "groups" and their limits, such as limits which might be placed on day guests who want to use FP+ on the Magic Kingdom's mountains. So all of the suggestions we make should be valid within FP+.

I'm sure it'll need tweaking, but the basics are ready to go. And the thing we're anticipating from the initial rollout of FP+ is that it's going to be confusing to a lot of people. That's why we're building tools.

Len

 

[lentesta]

Oh, and on the point of Disney using FP+ to shape crowds - yeah, that's clearly true. Heck, the integration of dining into their app is meant to smooth out the 12:30 lunch peak, too.

But none of this is new - all theme parks, including Disney use posted wait times to smooth crowd levels as well. There's a pretty decent paper in the journal Operations Research, from this guy, about how Six Flags Magic Mountain did dynamic crowd control. Change the names of attractions and it pretty much applies to Disney too.

ETA: Here's the paper: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/171921?uid=3739776&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101917632921

 

[spaceghost]

Its still much more about limited samples.. then actual categorical logging. Unless he's paying like 4-6 people concurrently in the big parks.. you're not going to capture the type of detail with great resolution. You can't realistically measure 'actual wait time' by checking a wait board periodically.

It will be interesting for them because FP+ stands to invalidate all the existing modeling of attraction wait behavior they've done previously.

Maybe someday I'll dig up these old podcasts.. but I doubt I could tolerate listening. I have yet to find a Disney podcast that isn't like nails on a chaulkboard to listen to with any frequency.

Just to one of your points, they do measure actual wait times by going through the line. That's part of how they estimate actual wait times vs. posted wait times. Oftentimes Disney seems to overestimate wait times.

 

[Susan Savia]

What ever happened to walking into a park to see what lies beyond the turnstyle.... Our lives are so scheduled as it is.