FastPass+ Chaos at MK today

[freediverdude]

Well Pirates is a unique case, because they have generally been running one side fastpass+ and one side standby, so the fastpass side has no wait and the standby side gets a long wait. This probably isn't optimal for utilizing the humongous ride capacity of Pirates.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Well Pirates is a unique case, because they have generally been running one side fastpass+ and one side standby, so the fastpass side has no wait and the standby side gets a long wait. This probably isn't optimal for utilizing the humongous ride capacity of Pirates.

Right, take away FP and wait times go down for Pirates.

 

[Cesar R M]

I posted this in another thread but it's relevant here. The following Fastpasses are available tomorrow (one day in advance) at the Magic Kingdom: all of them.

Im surprised peter pan is available.
that thing disappeared ALWAYS every day I was there.

 

[Cesar R M]

But wait, just get to the park at opening. Ride TT and FP Soaring. BOOM!!!! Problem solved. But only, defenders were saying you no longer have to do this with FP+. No need to get to the park at opening. You can now sleep in and book FP for later in the day. Except, with Epcot. Cause, you know, you have to get to TT first thing upon opening or else wait an hour or more. Oh wait, single rider I forgot. Yep, that works perfect if you are adults without young children. If you have young children, single rider is out of the question. So now what? Wait an hour or not ride TT.

Yep, FP+ solved every issue ever!!!!

I feel guilty, I went alone to WDW and used the single rider when I could.
I felt like a rare alien VIP.

 

[Captain Chaos]

I feel guilty, I went alone to WDW and used the single rider when I could.
I felt like a rare alien VIP.

Heck, I used the single rider line despite traveling with a friend. We didn't care about having to sit together. But when you are a family with young ones, single ride line isn't an option. And I'd use it again.

 

[pax_65]

It just takes a long time to get through that short standby queue because they're taking 1 standby person for every 10 fastpass+ people. All this makes it seem like the parks are bustling, when in fact the attendance is about the same as it has always been.

^This. To put it another way, the parks don't handle the crowds as well as they used to. The most popular attractions have always been crowded, now maybe they're a little worse (especially early in the morning). But the second tier attractions are much more crowded now then they used to be. I'm astounded seeing long waits for attractions that traditionally handled the crowds very well, like POTC or HM. I think this is because people are getting FPs assigned to them for these attractions, and they feel obliged to do them.

So instead of building exciting new attractions, Disney is now pushing more crowds to the teacups and Pooh. Awesome.

 

[Cesar R M]

Brilliant summary of the intellectual capacity of this forum. I like FP+ therefore I must be an employee of The Walt Disney Company. Way to flex those deductive muscles, buddy.

 

[Wrangler-Rick]

No wait! It's all becoming clear to me now! The Fastpass+'s are the best thing to come to the Parks! We did not truly understand how to enjoy a Disney vacation before their creation. Now, I just can't wait for my next trip cause I'll be Rockin' the "Lock In"...

 

[Cesar R M]

I think all this talk of the parks being packed is a bunch of BS. It SEEMS like it's packed because there's a lot of people in the walkways instead of being in line, because of fastpass+ and people not wanting to wait 60-90 minutes for a ride. This was my experience when I was at MK yesterday. The standby wait times posted were fairly long, but the queues were not as full as one might expect. It just takes a long time to get through that short standby queue because they're taking 1 standby person for every 10 fastpass+ people. All this makes it seem like the parks are bustling, when in fact the attendance is about the same as it has always been.

Thats what I seen on the majority of the attractions I went on standby.
peter pan was ridiculous
almost 25 fp+ for every 5 on standby.

 

[Mike S]

Heck, I used the single rider line despite traveling with a friend. We didn't care about having to sit together. But when you are a family with young ones, single ride line isn't an option. And I'd use it again.

I was with two other people on my trip to Disneyland and we used single rider for our second ride on Radiator Springs Racers because all FP's were gone by then. Didn't bother me one bit to not sit together. 20 minutes versus over an hour. Pretty easy choice to make

 

[pax_65]

Thats what I seen on the majority of the attractions I went on standby. peter pan was ridiculous almost 25 fp+ for every 5 on standby.

Peter Pan is terrible. It's almost to the point where it should become "FastPass Only", which I suppose is the next step for some attractions. There are many attractions that would be completely full with FP alone.

 

[lincolnryan]

According to TouringPlans, I went to MK during a predicted 2/10 day and it ended up being a 1/10 day. To me, it didn't really feel like a 1/10 day and if I had to take a guess, I would've said it was a 4/10 or 5/10 day. That said, I haven't been to the parks since between Christmas-NY during 2008 so maybe the overall crowd numbers are just way way up. I don't know, Astro Orbitor at 30 minutes by noon, barnstormer at 25 minutes by noon, Peter Pan 90 minutes by noon, and Space Mountain at 45 minutes. Is that a typical level 1 day?

It would be interesting to see if a non-FP version of myself was roaming the parks and how he would've fared.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Peter Pan is terrible. It's almost to the point where it should become "FastPass Only", which I suppose is the next step for some attractions. There are many attractions that would be completely full with FP alone.

If a ride were fastpass only, then wouldn't that technically make it standby? cause then 1000 riders an hour would be standing in the FP line, waiting like standby would without FP

 

[Kman101]

How about we get rid of ALL fast pass and just wait in line? LOL. No one gets an advantage (unless you get there early) and we all wait in the same line. They really should have just charged for it like Universal did, TBH.

I just looked for FP's on Wednesday at the MK (were I will likely be, unless the ring is gone from Hollywood Studios, but I may swing by there anyway) ... Festival of Fantasy, Anna and Elsa, Pirates and Dwarfs are all unavailable. To be fair though, I'd never get a FP for the first two and I'm sure if I get to the park at rope drop, I can do Pirates (if it's running, LOL) quickly and then I can CHOOSE to wait for Dwarfs or skip it. I've ridden it enough this last year (since it opened last May, was very happy to have rode it during the 24 hour party) so I'd probably skip it.

 

[bhg469]

How about we get rid of ALL fast pass and just wait in line? LOL. No one gets an advantage (unless you get there early) and we all wait in the same line. They really should have just charged for it like Universal did, TBH.

I just looked for FP's on Wednesday at the MK (were I will likely be, unless the ring is gone from Hollywood Studios, but I may swing by there anyway) ... Festival of Fantasy, Anna and Elsa, Pirates and Dwarfs are all unavailable. To be fair though, I'd never get a FP for the first two and I'm sure if I get to the park at rope drop, I can do Pirates (if it's running, LOL) quickly and then I can CHOOSE to wait for Dwarfs or skip it. I've ridden it enough this last year (since it opened last May, was very happy to have rode it during the 24 hour party) so I'd probably skip it.

It would fix so many problems.

 

[bhg469]

According to TouringPlans, I went to MK during a predicted 2/10 day and it ended up being a 1/10 day. To me, it didn't really feel like a 1/10 day and if I had to take a guess, I would've said it was a 4/10 or 5/10 day. That said, I haven't been to the parks since between Christmas-NY during 2008 so maybe the overall crowd numbers are just way way up. I don't know, Astro Orbitor at 30 minutes by noon, barnstormer at 25 minutes by noon, Peter Pan 90 minutes by noon, and Space Mountain at 45 minutes. Is that a typical level 1 day?

It would be interesting to see if a non-FP version of myself was roaming the parks and how he would've fared.

I'm not familiar with the ratings but small crowds are more and more rare these days.

 

[lincolnryan]

How about we get rid of ALL fast pass and just wait in line? LOL. No one gets an advantage (unless you get there early) and we all wait in the same line. They really should have just charged for it like Universal did, TBH.

I just looked for FP's on Wednesday at the MK (were I will likely be, unless the ring is gone from Hollywood Studios, but I may swing by there anyway) ... Festival of Fantasy, Anna and Elsa, Pirates and Dwarfs are all unavailable. To be fair though, I'd never get a FP for the first two and I'm sure if I get to the park at rope drop, I can do Pirates (if it's running, LOL) quickly and then I can CHOOSE to wait for Dwarfs or skip it. I've ridden it enough this last year (since it opened last May, was very happy to have rode it during the 24 hour party) so I'd probably skip it.

Seriously, they should just eliminate FP+ totally and just switch to charging extra for going to the front of the line. I would gladly pay for it to cut the wait times and eliminate all this planning. I did the whole stay up till midnight 60 days in advance, messed around with touring plans on the lines app, and dragged my family out of bed extra early for RD....it just all sucks.

I'm not being sarcastic when I say this, but they really need to cater to people that don't want to putz around with all this planning. I'm willing to DO the planning, I just don't like to and it makes me less likely to come back any time soon.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I would love for that to happen, so people could see that they aren't actually riding more with Fastpass, and standby lines will no longer be dreadfully slow. Waiting in line isn't really that bad when, you know, the line actually moves.

Next time you're stuck in a standby line: pay attention to how fast the Fastpass line flows. That's because 80% of the ride's capacity is devoted to that line. If there were only one line, you would be moving even faster than that.

 

[bhg469]

I would love for that to happen, so people could see that they aren't actually riding more with Fastpass, and standby lines will no longer be dreadfully slow. Waiting in line isn't really that bad when, you know, the line actually moves.

Next time you're stuck in a standby line: pay attention to how fast the Fastpass line flows. That's because 80% of the ride's capacity is devoted to that line. If there were only one line, you would be moving even faster than that.

But it has fast in the name! It must be better for everyone!!

I truly believe tiered system will come back for all parks and once they get the stem working it will be a pay to play system for the better rides.

 

[lincolnryan]

I'm not familiar with the ratings but small crowds are more and more rare these days.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would think that Disney purposely planted crowd calendars to all these bloggers in order to fill in the low attendance days. I heard many variations of "I thought this was supposed to be the slowest week of the year" by several people when I was there.

TP's scale is useless because it's adjusted every year and trying to look at their data is a total waste of time with all these lines criss-crossing all over the place. I think they do this to provide themselves some cover when someone like me says "THAT WAS A 1/10 DAY?" and they say "Well, a 1/10 in 2015 is vastly different than a 1/10 in 2008 according to our models" ("Models" code word for "guesses")

Just out of curiosity, these are selected wait times taken at around 4:00 according to an old easyWDW post from 2011 during the late Jan/early Feb time period.

Magic Kingdom:

Haunted Mansion: 5 minutes

Peter Pan’s Flight: 15 minutes

Space Mountain: 10 minutes

Splash Mountain: 15 minutes