FastPass+ experience group tiers changing for Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios

[docdebbi]

As we entered Living With the Land on our WDW visit a month ago, a young couple walked up to the FP+ queue and proudly scanned their MagicBands to claim their priority access -- only to end up in the same boat (literally) as the entire standby queue (consisting of my party of 6), which "walked on" from the adjacent line. As their look of triumph and excitement turned first to confusion and then to dismay, I didn't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for them.

i feel sorry for them.
disney is planning on newbies making this mistake (with many no FP needed attractions) but at least this way they can say that there are enough FP for everyone to get 3.
however eventually the newbies will catch on and be angry.

 

[cw1982]

Everyone who makes their choices late enough to where Soarin', Test Track, and Illuminations are booked (which is often before noon) will literally be forced to select Living With the Land as one of their choices, at least until Disney gives the option to not be forced to pick three initial Fastpasses.

Well, it's either that or use it for Illuminations, which stinks because then you can't get to a rolling 4th pass.

This made me think: I wish that they would tweak the rules just a tad to allow guests to pick "up to" one tier one attraction and "up to three" tier two attractions, as long as they don't go over three total (not that I like the current rules in general, but if we have to stick with three prebooked and the tier system, why does everyone HAVE to have a tier one?) The tier twos are mostly things that have less of a demand for passes anyway, so what harm would that do?

 

[AndyGator]

Can't stand FP+ . Sick of planning a "vacation" to the minute. Are bathrooms tier 1 or tier 2?

Thank you to all of you survey participants who said they'd be interested in this system.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Well, it's either that or use it for Illuminations, which stinks because then you can't get to a rolling 4th pass.

Illuminations is actually usually the first to be booked since it only holds a few hundred people for the whole day.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Can't stand FP+ . Sick of planning a "vacation" to the minute. Are bathrooms tier 1 or tier 2?

Thank you to all of you survey participants who said they'd be interested in this system.

Depends on your purpose, I would say both.

 

[cw1982]

Can't stand FP+ . Sick of planning a "vacation" to the minute. Are bathrooms tier 1 or tier 2?

Thank you to all of you survey participants who said they'd be interested in this system.

Have you used the system in the parks yet?

I only ask because I actually found it to be much less stressful than I thought it would be. I thought I would be running like a mad woman to get to my passes each time one came up, but I found that I actually had quite a bit of flexibility, both in the ability to change attractions/ times and with the hour long window for each one, which is really an 80-minute window, since you can get in line five minutes early or 15 minutes late. We took advantage of that rule quite a bit, and I never really felt restricted because of the passes. I loved being able to set them up in advance, because it meant I didn't have to rush to the parks as they opened. I already knew I'd get my top priorities in.

 

[cw1982]

Illuminations is actually usually the first to be booked since it only holds a few hundred people for the whole day.

Interesting, but I believe it. I guess at Epcot, there are only so many things that have long wait times anyway, that if you're willing to RD TT and Soarin' (not sure if you can do both right at RD or if just one is a more reasonable goal), it almost wouldn't matter if you didn't get that 4th FP, on most days.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Can't stand FP+ . Sick of planning a "vacation" to the minute. Are bathrooms tier 1 or tier 2?

Thank you to all of you survey participants who said they'd be interested in this system.

And I can't stand this complaint. Nothing at all is forcing you to plan every step of your vacation. You can literally wake up, decide which park you want to go to, and make your Fastpass selections on your way to that park, and then change everything you have not used. You can reschedule Fastpasses you missed. You can now guarantee a slot on the most popular rides before you go by literally spending less than 5 minutes on the app. You are never, ever locked in to any selections you make.

Some of you have it in your heads that the old system was SO MUCH better. Was it easier to learn? Yes, but you were STILL HELD TO SPECIFIC TIMES as to when you could enter the attractions, only with the added frustration of having to walk to the attraction, obtain a Fastpass ticket which would not be valid for usually at least an hour or two, wait usually two hours before being able to get another Fastpass, return to said attraction again to ride. You had to visit an attraction twice to ride once. And if you wanted the highest demand attractions you HAD to get there early and plan your day around obtaining and using those Fastpasses. How is that somehow less restrictive and less planning than FP+?

Yes, its kind of complicated, and yes, they still need to implement some more functionality and stop dragging their feet on doing it, but another great thing about FP+ once every feature is fully functional is that the experienced users will have a far greater advantage out of it than they did with the old system.

You want a system that can fully reward knowing the ins-and-outs? Fastpass+ is it.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Of course, everything would be easier and less stressful if there was no Fastpass at all, but that isn't going to happen!

 

[AndyGator]

...You can literally wake up, decide which park you want to go to, and make your Fastpass selections on your way to the park....

Is that so? I tried to get a FP+ for the mine train (that will most definitely have 2 hour or more wait times) for June 21-24. Guess what? Not available. This is 2 weeks in advance. How about waking up deciding you want to spend the morning in Epcot and going on Soarin? Nope, you'll have to wait until the afternoon if any FP are even still available. I feel sorry for those unsuspecting offsite hotel visitors that stand in line to get to a kiosk, only to learn that the only 2 attractions that are worth using a fastpass for are unavailable.

I guess if you really wanted to be spontaneous you could get some fastpasses for the morning on your way to the Magic Kingdom. I mean who doesn't want a fastpass for Mickey's Philharmagic or the Swiss Family Treehouse?! That is assuming that the app actually works, and doesn't say, "there was a blip in the network, please try again later." Also, if you change your fastpass, the app doesn't always update. So you have no record of the arrangements you've made.

This is all assuming you successfully link your park admission to your MyDisney Headache account. God forbid my annual pass voucher isn't validated by showing my ID at a ticket kiosk. Why would one of those count as valid park admission?

 

[cw1982]

Is that so? I tried to get a FP+ for the mine train (that will most definitely have 2 hour or more wait times) for June 21-24. Guess what? Not available. This is 2 weeks in advance. How about waking up deciding you want to spend the morning in Epcot and going on Soarin? Nope, you'll have to wait until the afternoon if any FP are even still available. I feel sorry for those unsuspecting offsite hotel visitors that stand in line to get to a kiosk, only to learn that the only 2 attractions that are worth using a fastpass for are unavailable.

I guess if you really wanted to be spontaneous you could get some fastpasses for the morning on your way to the Magic Kingdom. I mean who doesn't want a fastpass for Mickey's Philharmagic or the Swiss Family Treehouse?! That is assuming that the app actually works, and doesn't say, "there was a blip in the network, please try again later." Also, if you change your fastpass, the app doesn't always update. So you have no record of the arrangements you've made.

This is all assuming you successfully link your park admission to your MyDisney Headache account. God forbid my annual pass voucher isn't validated by showing my ID at a ticket kiosk. Why would one of those count as valid park admission?

1. 7DMT is by far the exception here, not the rule. It's a brand new ride, so of course there is extremely high demand for it right now. I actually was able to pull up limited availability three days before I wanted to use a FP for it, but I had to check back a few different times to get it.
2. The app is definitely not as reliable as the website right now, but you can always use the mobile website instead of the app on your phone and get the same results as you would from a computer.
3. I have no idea about AP's, but that sounds like a one-time issue at worst.

Not saying the system is perfect, but like I said before, I enjoyed it once we got to the parks.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Is that so? I tried to get a FP+ for the mine train (that will most definitely have 2 hour or more wait times) for June 21-24. Guess what? Not available. This is 2 weeks in advance. How about waking up deciding you want to spend the morning in Epcot and going on Soarin? Nope, you'll have to wait until the afternoon if any FP are even still available. I feel sorry for those unsuspecting offsite hotel visitors that stand in line to get to a kiosk, only to learn that the only 2 attractions that are worth using a fastpass for are unavailable.

I'll give you the mine train - it would have been much easier to get a Fastpass under the old system - BUT you'd still have to arrive at rope drop and not much later.

You can easily get a morning Soarin' Fastpass in advance that morning or the night before. If you know you're going to Epcot, you know you probably want to ride Soarin'. Its such minimal effort and planning that it negates the previous rush of having to get there at opening and rushing to Soarin' to get a decent paper Fastpass, which, if you didn't arrive before 10 or 11 AM, would still be in the afternoon anyway.

The lines for the kiosks are at most 5 minutes now, and usually non-existent. It has been this way ever since all guests were allowed to book on My Disney Experience.

There are now signs at the front of the (non-existent) queues which tell you which attractions are no longer available (which actually means most likely not available, becuase there's always a chance you could get them if other parties cancelled theirs).

I guess if you really wanted to be spontaneous you could get some fastpasses for the morning on your way to the Magic Kingdom. I mean who doesn't want a fastpass for Mickey's Philharmagic or the Swiss Family Treehouse?! That is assuming that the app actually works, and doesn't say, "there was a blip in the network, please try again later." Also, if you change your fastpass, the app doesn't always update. So you have no record of the arrangements you've made.

Its extremely easy to book all three mountains for MK on most days, even into the late afternoon.

Yes, the app needs work, I'll give you that, too. The error you experienced of it not updating your changes has been basically fixed.

 

[pug]

LWTL was never more than a 15 minute wait when we were there last week that I noticed. I actually think the line may jump for that one now if Soarin and TT are both out of passes so people start picking that one as their backup option.

We used our tier 2 at HS for ToT and Star Tours. Those were easily the two busiest tier two rides with the longest waits while we were there.

But during December and New Years It was getting to 60-75min!

 

[cw1982]

But during December and New Years It was getting to 60-75min!

Wow. That's insane.

 

[pug]

I know and for that ride! I would just ride it right before the park would closed

 

[BigTxEars]

Count me as a fan of FP+, we used it at our lesuire last week at all the parks and found it very flexible and it made our trip much more enjoyable IMO.

 

[Kuzcotopia]

i feel sorry for them.
disney is planning on newbies making this mistake (with many no FP needed attractions) but at least this way they can say that there are enough FP for everyone to get 3.
however eventually the newbies will catch on and be angry.

I think it's interesting that all the advertizing chooses "reserve a teacup from your couch" or a "reserve a racecar from your recliner."

Do you think, to some extent, Disney wants newbies to burn FP+ on attractions that don't need it, just to even out crowd levels? It's not like they're advertizing Space Mountain's fastpasss: "Reserve a spaceship from your sofa!"

 

[mweier]

Just occurred to me now that I can finally justify a maelstrom fp+, there really isn't a kiosk anywhere near there to pull#4... Have to either go all the way back to FW or all the way to int'l gateway... Can't wait til the app is allowed to manage that.

 

[habuma]

Count me as a fan of FP+, we used it at our lesuire last week at all the parks and found it very flexible and it made our trip much more enjoyable IMO.

Same here. I was a huge skeptic before it was rolled out, but having used it 1.5 times (once in December when we could still double-dip and get paper FP and once again in May), we found it to be very workable. My only complaint is the tiering makes it tricky to enjoy both Soarin' and Test Track (and now Maelstrom) without working out a strategy in advance. Same for TSMM and RnRC. Newbies to the system who haven't done their homework prior to entering the park will have some difficulty.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Is that so? I tried to get a FP+ for the mine train (that will most definitely have 2 hour or more wait times) for June 21-24. Guess what? Not available. This is 2 weeks in advance. How about waking up deciding you want to spend the morning in Epcot and going on Soarin? Nope, you'll have to wait until the afternoon if any FP are even still available. I feel sorry for those unsuspecting offsite hotel visitors that stand in line to get to a kiosk, only to learn that the only 2 attractions that are worth using a fastpass for are unavailable.

I guess if you really wanted to be spontaneous you could get some fastpasses for the morning on your way to the Magic Kingdom. I mean who doesn't want a fastpass for Mickey's Philharmagic or the Swiss Family Treehouse?! That is assuming that the app actually works, and doesn't say, "there was a blip in the network, please try again later." Also, if you change your fastpass, the app doesn't always update. So you have no record of the arrangements you've made.

This is all assuming you successfully link your park admission to your MyDisney Headache account. God forbid my annual pass voucher isn't validated by showing my ID at a ticket kiosk. Why would one of those count as valid park admission?

Off-site guests can make reservations 30 days out now. FP+ reservations should be easy to get at MK for all but a couple attractions like 7DMT & A&E, even at Christmas we were able to change times/attractions so I don't see that summer crowds will be any different. We had no update issues during our Christmas stay at all, during the entire two weeks. I also took screenshots for each days reservations and sent them to both kids and my wife as a backup, I highly suggest everyone do something similar in case your phone is broken or lost.

As far as the "unsuspecting guest", when you go anywhere in the world you should research where you are going, what you want to do. If you choose not to the onus is on you, not the destination. Your vacation dollars are yours and everyone should take responsibility for making sure they have as much information as possible in advance so there are as few surprises as possible.

This does not mean that it is okay for TDO to roll out anything that is not fully tested and ready to go, they really screwed up the roll-out of MDE/MM+ but it is much better now than six months ago and continues to improve.