FastPass+ Most Certainly Not Coming Back As It Was

[LittleBuford]

You're missing the point. The ability of a person to get so many FPs is not typical. It's only possible because they continue on.

Anyone can get a succession of new FastPasses after they've gone through their prebooked selection well into the evening. Granted, they probably won't snag the most coveted FastPasses without refreshing, but there are always FastPasses available throughout the day.

Its like the guy who says 'i never have a problem getting great concert tickets...." -- Because he has a bot army spamming the ticket site to ensure he always gets in.

A much fairer analogy would be the guy who never has a problem getting concert tickets because he is clicking away as soon as the online portal opens.

Disney could take away the manual refresh and just have the page cache managed.

The system is designed to allow people to change, cancel, and add FastPasses throughout the day. I don't see how it could possibly work without allowing the user to refresh.

 

[Chi84]

It is a trick - because only the people that manually refresh multiple times and try to land the small window of time when something is available gain from it.

You really think the intended use case is people are supposed to sit there and hit refresh as fast as they can for 2-5mins until something pops up? That was the big 'easy of use' they expected everyone to do to use the system?

Do not confuse 'possible' with 'intended used'. It's a trick to jump on what would otherwise be missed availability.

The point was many people who praise how many FP+ passes do so only because of this gimmick that the vast majority of people do not do. The vast majority of people are not getting 12+ FPs in a day, nor getting their family of 5 FPs for their favorite attraction on a whim day of.

The entire point was to point out that getting so many FPs in the FP+ system without much effort is an EXCEPTION - not the norm. So when you judge the whole system by that... well, you get bad conclusions.

I suspect that the vast majority of people who like FP+ aren’t getting 12 per day and are just fine with the ones they do get - as long as they have the convenience of getting the ones they want at the times they want. The exceptions who are constantly refreshing and getting 12 per day aren’t the ones driving Disney’s decisions and are probably so few as to have no impact on its overall concept. Good for debate here though.

 

[mikejs78]

I'd love to hear how the love for FP+ would change if the refresh 'trick' were to go away.

You really think the intended use case is people are supposed to sit there and hit refresh as fast as they can for 2-5mins until something pops up? That was the big 'easy of use' they expected everyone to do to use the system?

Not 'choice' - it's gaming the system trying to gain an edge over the other guy by making sure you see availability the instant it's there

There's a big difference in using the app and hitting refresh, which is a very common thing and something everybody does when buying any kind of tickets for anything, and writing a bot. They are in no way similar. Hitting refresh is not gaming the system. Gaming the system would be writing an app on my phone that would automatically refresh faster than a human being could, and grabbing the most coveted fast passes as soon as they became available.

Wait, just gave myself an idea. Maybe I should go write some code...

 

[BaconPancakes]

That poster has been in every thread arguing with everyone. I think they get their rocks off that way.

 

[pdude81]

Chapek himself has said that it's not going anywhere. Maybe he lied or maybe he can change his mind later but for right now he said that Park Pass is not going anywhere.

Chapek also said masks weren't going anywhere

 

[flynnibus]

There's a big difference in using the app and hitting refresh, which is a very common thing and something everybody does when buying any kind of tickets for anything, and writing a bot. They are in no way similar. Hitting refresh is not gaming the system. Gaming the system would be writing an app on my phone that would automatically refresh faster than a human being could, and grabbing the most coveted fast passes as soon as they became available.

Wait, just gave myself an idea. Maybe I should go write some code...

Refresh once… yes common… there to fix things

spamming the refresh for several minutes in one spot - not normal nor common behavior.

the only reason anyone does it is because people figured out that using it day of had a higher success then just using the app as intended. And as such these users open the potential to get more fastpasses then the typical user.

its like the days of no networked FP in DLR. its knowledge that enables you to push the system in ways it wasn’t intended to be used to gain an upper hand and maximize the potential benefit of the service .

all i’m saying is i bet a lot of people’s opinion would switch if they were back to getting 3 FPs and then maybe 1 more good one each day

 

[LittleBuford]

There's a big difference in using the app and hitting refresh, which is a very common thing and something everybody does when buying any kind of tickets for anything, and writing a bot. They are in no way similar. Hitting refresh is not gaming the system. Gaming the system would be writing an app on my phone that would automatically refresh faster than a human being could, and grabbing the most coveted fast passes as soon as they became available.

Well said.

I find the claim that hitting refresh is an unfair trick particularly odd given how enthusiastic everyone seems to be about the Reservation Finder from TouringPlans, a tool that is often recommended in this forum and whose sole purpose is to save you the trouble of continually searching for the ADR you want. Don't get me wrong: I love the Reservation Finder and have used it several times with great success. But if we're really going to introduce such loaded concepts as gaming the system, isn't a third-party tool much closer to being a "trick" than the act of simply refreshing one's own device in one's own time?

 

[LittleBuford]

all i’m saying is i bet a lot of people’s opinion would switch if they were back to getting 3 FPs and then maybe 1 more good one each day

Those of us who aren't convinced that FastPass has raised standby wait times to any appreciable degree would still prefer four (or even three) good FastPasses a day to none at all.

 

[Jedijax719]

Those of us who aren't convinced that FastPass has raised standby wait times to any appreciable degree would still prefer four (or even three) good FastPasses a day to none at all.

Agreed. The natural follow-up question to anyone disliking FP for the fear of longer SB times would be why haven't you made more use of the FP system?

Of course everyone has their reasons (the only one I've seen is the desire to be more spontaneous). But, really, what are they?

 

[G00fyDad]

Chapek also said masks weren't going anywhere

Good point.

 

[matt9112]

Sorry, going to disagree with you. The only scenario where this might be the case is a not very crowded park with a low FP saturation rate. If the park is just marginally busy, the standby line is *severely* impacted by the existence of fastpass by virtue of the 70-80% prioritization of FP riders over standby riders. It's not an extra 2-3 minutes. It can turn a 20 min standby into a 45min one, or worse.

I think he dosen't understand that prioritization aspect. If it was 1/1 ratio i dont think this would be a discussion but fp+ also would just be a second stand by line.

Maybe its easier to grasp if you think about it like capacity your moving capacity from one bucket to another. Thus lowering capacity of the original bucket.

 

[oogie boogie man]

I heard a rumor that people with have to pit fight each other for "Fastpasses". And it will be renamed "Pitpasses".

 

[matt9112]

Agreed. The natural follow-up question to anyone disliking FP for the fear of longer SB times would be why haven't you made more use of the FP system?

Of course everyone has their reasons (the only one I've seen is the desire to be more spontaneous). But, really, what are they?

Not everyone wants to visit a theme park and hit refresh constantly all day long to commando the system. If you casually use the system (for lack of a better term) and use the 3 and than the rest of your day is standby its pretty meh. I think the issue isn't even on E tickets its on high capacity c tickets. The haunted mansion and pirates of the Caribbean come to mind. These waits shouldn't be what they are. 90 minutes for that? No thanks.

To be fair park attendance has done nothing but go up and disney has NOT increased MK capacity in any way shape or form. All they have done is make the exsisting capacity more popular thus actually worsening the problem. (Replacing less popular things with more popular things that dont actually move any more people)

I can rope drop mk and walk on everything of value if i do a smart FP and rope drop combo using all the data we have access to. However i stand by my statement that this is really silly. The park shouldn't be so underbuilt.

in conclusion yes fastpass is great if you optimize and commando it but thats at a direct detriment to anyone not doing the same thing. IE most guests. So yes i cant say something that negatively affects most guests for the benefit of the few is good.

I know i know they should just plan better or be as smart as everyone else right? Silly guests.

 

[matt9112]

But it's still less time than it would be if you were on the FP line. Fast moving 60 minutes takes every bit as much time as a slow moving 60 minutes.

They can't make all lines like Wizarding World of Harry Potter where the lines for rides are as much of an attraction as the line itself.

Why cant they? Thats the new standard. These companies have all the means to do it. Anything less these days is pretty meh. For example slinky dogs line is probably the worst modern attraction que i have seen. A massive amount of the que has absolutely no reprive from the sun...the sun that surely imagineering knew exsisted and frequented florida.... than when you do get to some shade its a giant open air structure that legitimately could be at any six flags or cedar fair park. But than you remember your at disney world.

 

[matt9112]

They were filling every doombuggie and the queue was flowing right through the stretching room.

Bad show.....shame.

 

[brettf22]

I heard a rumor that people with have to pit fight each other for "Fastpasses". And it will be renamed "Pitpasses".

 

[G00fyDad]

I heard a rumor that people with have to pit fight each other for "Fastpasses". And it will be renamed "Pitpasses".

 

[StaceyH_SD]

Why cant they? Thats the new standard. These companies have all the means to do it. Anything less these days is pretty meh. For example slinky dogs line is probably the worst modern attraction que i have seen. A massive amount of the que has absolutely no reprive from the sun...the sun that surely imagineering knew exsisted and frequented florida.... than when you do get to some shade its a giant open air structure that legitimately could be at any six flags or cedar fair park. But than you remember your at disney world.

So a lot of these queue issues (theming, no shade etc) are more of an Ops problem, apparently. What I have heard is that Imagineering creates the ride, plans for a certain queue experience (themed, shaded, etc) then the budget inevitably gets cut somewhere along the way so the queue gets downgraded to cut costs then Ops just…doesn’t do anything to improve the line experience until the line is open and people drop from heat exhaustion or whatever.

 

[flynnibus]

Anyone can get a succession of new FastPasses after they've gone through their prebooked selection well into the evening.

now you are using possible but generally less desirable scenarios to make it all sound possible- when it is not. Sure you can get philharmagic FPs… or FPs for a group of two… but the vast majority can’t get what they actually want.

Granted, they probably won't snag the most coveted FastPasses without refreshing, but there are always FastPasses available throughout the day.

which is kinda the point. Non desirable FP are worthless FP. They are there so disney can make the sales pitch you are doing now and duping customers into going to attractions so disney increases utilization.

A much fairer analogy would be the guy who never has a problem getting concert tickets because he is clicking away as soon as the online portal opens.

No again you skip over the critical points. Its not getting just any ticket… it’s getting the desirable stuff and acting like its no big deal… where everyone else struggles to get similar results. The bot guys experience is not typical nor is it the intended way.

The system is designed to allow people to change, cancel, and add FastPasses throughout the day. I don't see how it could possibly work without allowing the user to refresh.

I don’t think you understand software design.

 

[matt9112]

So a lot of these queue issues (theming, no shade etc) are more of an Ops problem, apparently. What I have heard is that magineering creates the ride, plans for a certain queue experience (themed, shaded, etc) then the budget inevitably gets cut somewhere along the way so the queue gets downgraded to cut costs then Ops just…doesn’t do anything to improve the line experience until the line is open and people drop from heat exhaustion or whatever.

Your correct. However the way the budgets are allocated needs to change certain things should be in stone and not even allowed to be cut OR just dont built the ride.