FastPass+ Most Certainly Not Coming Back As It Was

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The high parking fees in Boston are a result of the lawsuits around the Big Dig from Environmentalists. A cap was placed on the number of paid parking spots in the city, which causes the higher prices. The idea was to raise the parking rates, drive the commuters to the MBTA and reduce pollution.

The same can be said for other large cities, like NYC or Chicago.

…indeed.

nyc has done similar things. Tax the hell out of cars to reduce congestion/use mass transit.

it’s an effective strategy. It’s worked on tobacco for areas smart enough to join the 20th century and do it as well.

 

[mikejs78]

Disney has the opportunity to be sneaky here. What if they continue with the current practice of "Fastpass" that's free for everyone, but seriously limit it's supply? For example, you can get one free e ticket but after that, all others show as "Not available" and all that's left is things like the Teacups, Mermaid, and Small World....

But! You can still skip the line by paying for this *other* thing, Premiere access, which will have a lot more allocated to it. Want to pay $10 for a Tron Premiere access? You got it! Want a package with thee premiere access passes? That'll be $50. Want Space, Tron, and Splash? You got it for $50/person.

This would allow them to convince most people that they aren't taking away anything, while at the same time, taking away the majority of things you can do with free FP (with one gimmie to keep guest satisfaction up).

This would also allow them to reallocate to free FP late in the day if needed to manage capacity, if the premiere access passes weren't used up.

I also wonder if there will be an all pass option - as many as you can get subject.to availability (but still have to get the FP, not like express pass, or one per day per attraction or something).

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If Disney would stick to their guns with the park reservation system and keep any day from being over-crowded, then, in effect, the Standby-Pass would hardly ever get initiated. This would lead to some people's preference: No FP system at all, and everyone using the one and only queue of standby.

It would be like it is right now with capped capacity and no FP.

Then, only occasionally, when one ride's queue gets too long, then Standby-Pass would be activated.

It's what people have been clamoring for...... if WDW keeps attendance appropriately capped.

Of course, the downside to this is people in their living rooms at home raging when there are no reservations to any of the parks on the week they're planning to go on vacation. Or, local APers raging when there are no more AP slots available on the day they want to go to WDW on a whim.

No chance…none

 

[FigmentFan82]

View attachment 569923

that gif is basically these forums

 

[havoc315]

If you’re prepared to pay and the paid FPs don’t run out of course. Which they quite possibly will because they’re limited. Otherwise they are worthless. It also depends on how many you can buy at once.

Dynamic pricing can prevent them from ever running out. You just raise the price to the point where demand is reduced.
Let's say you limit it to 1,000 DPAs for the day for Big Thunder Mountain. (Less than 10% of the daily capacity). Let's say the standby line averages about 45 minutes for the day.
How many people are willing to spend $10 per person to skip the 45-minute line? If the answer is over 1,000 people.. then the price goes higher. How many people are willing to spend $20 per person to skip the 45-minute line? How about $30 per person?

With dynamic pricing, you would very rarely (I won't say never) run out of DPA passes. Just like Universal rarely "runs out" of express passes -- As they get to a point where they charge $500 per day for them.

And if there are any left, see above.

True. In fact those arriving in the 30 minutes early entry should be able to ride at least one and get a return time for another.

And may find all paid FPs are gone. Certainly defeats the purpose of park hopping unless you can buy more than one at a time.

Again, with dynamic pricing... A person willing to spend the $$$, shouldn't often face the issue of the paid passes being gone.
They can apportion the ride capacity and control the pricing, so that there are always passes available.
If necessary, they could give 80% of the ride capacity to DPA, and they could charge $100 per access. Would they find 1,000 people per hour willing to pay $100 for front-of-line access at Peter Pan? Probably not.
Controlling the capacity allocation and the pricing, you can make sure there is always availability for those willing to pay.

 

[GhostHost1000]

People will boil everything down to the question "what do I have to do to ride X?"

A. Pay for Fastpass
B. Is standby pass in operation?
......B1. No, you wait in standby
......B2. Yes, you have to get a standby pass
.....................What if standby passes are sold out or the return time is bad for me
.................................B2.1 Pay for Fastpass
.................................B2.2 Keep your face buried in your phone waiting for more standby passes to drop
.................................B2.3 Don't ride

A: waste half your vacation trying to figure it out, get frustrated, never return

 

[mightynine]

Thinking a little bit more about Premiere Access, I have a concern about how each ride becomes its own little profit maker. Some MBA probably went from six to midnight with the idea you can charge a party of four possibly $80 to ride something like Everest that's in perpetual B mode. Why bother fixing any show issues? Especially if the person looking for a shorter wait would have no idea if something's not working correctly until they get in the ride.

It's an extreme example, but if these attractions are now generating extra revenue individually, you have to wonder how that might come into play.

 

[mattpeto]

Right now, you can get in line for FoP one minute before park closes and ride the attraction long past it's closing time. Just speculating that maybe after a certain time, everything just goes back to physical queues (one hour before park closure).

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

All this talk about what will or won't make things better.

The only thing that will universally improve the guest experience is increased attraction capacity.

Disney can try any way they want to Tetris people into their parks with fancy programs paid or not but the only true way to fix this problem is to add more to do - a lot more.

Had they been doing that all along, at a small scale on a steady pace, their fan base wouldn't be turning on itself over the argument of what is or isn't broken and how it could be fixed/changed/ehnanced when it comes to planning a trip.

At this point, the only real solution is an expensive one because we're talking about fixing a big decade+ mistake. Each park needs way more than they're adding and Disney simply doesn't want to foot the bill for what's needed.

Meanwhile down the road, Universal with a fraction of the attendance, continues to add attractions and is working on a third park...

This is the exact same argument I started on Dis in like 2009 when I saw the way the leaves where turning

I have witnesses!!

 

[MrPromey]

That only works to a certain point. The demand is always going to be strongest for the newest attraction, and usually exceed the capacity of that one singular attraction. Adding more capacity certainly helps in some respects, but when everyone in your park wants to ride TRON and Space Mountain becomes the second tier disappointment, you gain very little in moving people around.

And worst case scenario, now that people are jumping hurdles and spending all their time trying to ride TRON and Space Mountain and Mine Train, you end up with things like Carousel of Progress and Small World that no one cares to see anymore.

Dude, when was the last time you saw a wait that was more than the time it took for the next theater to open in COP?

What were the fashion trends that decade?*

There are still going to be plenty of people waiting in line for all of the mountains after TRON opens - don't you worry.

Peter Pan's Flight will still have an hour+ wait.

Maybe It's a Small World would go back to having a queue that fits inside the building (like it did for decades before FP+ pushed it out into the already now-too-crowded walkway (pre-COVID caps, of course) if they added something new (an addition - not a replacement) to the park every three to four years.

I don't know how that's a bad thing.

As for demand being the strongest for new attractions, that's true but if the "new" attractions weren't the same for the people who all visited that last time a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago like they are these days (because Disney slowed expansion down to a crawl while turing most "new" things into replacements rather than additions) that would still be spread out way more.

Go count the number of attractions per-park at Disneyland and then come back and try to continue this argument with a straight face.

*Don't get me wrong. I love COP but it's a high capacity attraction already waiting for guests most of the time - possibly one of the only ones in the park like that, today.

 

[phillip9698]

Vacation really shouldn't be this complicated.

Walt created these parks so parents and kids could have a place to go to have fun together. This crap has gotten way too convoluted. I just want to walk up to a ride, get in line, and ride. There was already enough to worry about with all the planning before, now they are taking it to another level.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Thinking a little bit more about Premiere Access, I have a concern about how each ride becomes its own little profit maker. Some MBA probably went from six to midnight with the idea you can charge a party of four possibly $80 to ride something like Everest that's in perpetual B mode. Why bother fixing any show issues? Especially if the person looking for a shorter wait would have no idea if something's not working correctly until they get in the ride.

It's an extreme example, but if these attractions are now generating extra revenue individually, you have to wonder how that might come into play.

Correct

and Everest is never getting Fixed
Because people line up/gush over it…

“even without the yeti…it’s an amazing ride!!!”

no…it’s “mediumville”. Hagrids is a great ride…flight of passage is a great ride.

I hear the new Dino coaster is coming in above expectations as well…

 

[havoc315]

Ultimately I think this is the ideal version of what Disney hopes to achieve here. Who knows if it will actually work in practice. Since we don't know how popular the DPA pass will be, it throws a wrench into how well this could work. I do think it's fair to say it will be used it less than FP+. I think a lot of uproar in this thread is due to:

As I said, much till turn on the implementation. Certainly, far fewer people will use something if there is an extra charge, as opposed to it being "included."

A. Perceived price-gouging by Disney (follows some trends of having added costs to the resorts, increased prices, benefits being taken away);

Yes, it will be perceived that way. But in honesty, it likely accrues to the benefits of all guests. Like airlines charging outrageous prices for first class tickets -- But those charges ultimately subsidize the price of coach.

I can see many guests laughing at those who purchase DPA, for "wasting their money." "those idiots, paying $10 per person to skip a 15 minute line! What a waste!"

B. Not optimized to how they plan their vacation/want their Disney vacation to be. Totally valid concern.

I think it's more, "not what they are used to" and fear of change.

And this is really only a concern for the fanatics on message boards like this.

Most visitors to WDW at any given time, are first time visitors, or people who haven't been there in years. Everyone on this board is familiar with FP+, but this isn't representative of the average guest.

FP+ clearly helped many have a more relaxing vacation. Change is always difficult to deal with and go into the unknown,

Again, depends on implementation. But DPA sounds MUCH more relaxing than FP+. Being able to plan your itinerary the same day instead of 60 days in advance.

 

[Disstevefan1]

From Disney's perspective, this meant that Fastpass+ was working as intended, distributing guests more evenly throughout the park. Disney doesn't want some rides to have 2 hr waits while others are walk-ons.

If FastPass+ convinces someone to head over to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh rather than standing in line for Space Mountain, that's a success from Disney's perspective.

I think Disney’s master plan is eliminate free Fastpasses completely. You want to skip the lines. You must pay. Hey, it’s working for Universal and DLR has the max pass too.

 

[jinx8402]

I’d much rather wait for 3 hours, but only 30 minutes physically in line, then wait 2 hours in a physical line.

Hold on. One of your gripes with FP+ was that people would be in multiple lines at once. Why are you OK with this?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Walt created these parks to parents and kids could have a place to go to have fun together. This crap has gotten way too convoluted. I just want to walk up to a ride, get in line, and ride. There was already enough to worry about with all the planning before, now they are taking it to another level.

They haven’t built enough since 1999 with the crowd increases/dispersal patterns.

we can debate it for 77 pages…but I just saved you the trouble.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think Disney’s master plan is eliminate free Fastpasses completely. You want to skip the lines. You must pay. Hey, it’s working for Universal and DLR has the max pass too.

The difference is very few relatively pay for that…

if they adopted the same in wdw…two things would happen:
1. More people would pay
2. Lines would be longer for those that didn’t

That’s a daily disaster on the ground

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Hold on. One of your gripes with FP+ was that people would be in multiple lines at once. Why are you OK with this?

Que?

was ist das?

 

[havoc315]

Hold on. One of your gripes with FP+ was that people would be in multiple lines at once. Why are you OK with this?

Depends on implementation. But it's only 1 standby pass at a time and it gives the option of over-riding the line by purchasing DPA.
And it's not a pass in addition to standby -- it would replace most of the regular standby line during busy times.

But much till turn on implementation -- Are you truly limited to 1 standby access. What can you do while you're waiting for your access?
If all the E-tickets are operating as standby pass -- Then you can't get on multiple e-ticket lines at once. You can go grab quick service while waiting for your standby time, but you can't go get on another e-ticket line.

 

[threvester]

das time