FastPass+ Most Certainly Not Coming Back As It Was

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G00fyDad

G00fyDad

Well-Known Member
DisneyCane said:
With the right strategy you could do more major rides and with short wait re-rides with paper FP than with FP+. If you rope dropped and headed straight to a FP dispenser then rode rides until your return time but got another FP as soon as you could and so on, you could cram a lot in. There was also the benefit that FP returns didn't start at park opening so there was fast moving standby for at least a half an hour.

With park hopping it was even better. Countless times at Epcot or (then) Disney MGM Studios, we'd rope drop, ride and FP E-tickets and then purposely wait until Test Track (Epcot) or RNRC (Studios) was distributing return times after 6PM and grab one. Then we'd hop to usually MK, be able to make use of several FPs for a few hours, go somewhere for dinner and return to the park we started at for a re-ride of the attraction with the longest waits.

Having people like me figure out the perfect strategy is why I wouldn't support going completely back to a system with the exact rules of paper FP. Simply limiting to one FP per attraction per day would keep capacity from getting gobbled up by passholders while once in a lifetime visitors stand on line for 2 hours.
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Paper FP irritated me because of the abuse. I would regularly see people that you knew only had the two of them at WDW getting 8 to 10 FP's at the machines because the CMs had them open and were just handing them out. I even overheard a guy telling his wife/gf that he scammed the worker for 12 fastpasses. They both had a good laugh about it. :(
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
DisneyCane said:
In the pre-FP days (paper) you could be sure you could do the "must do" things by rope dropping and staying until close. I think you could do it in the paper FP days as well without issue. My wife and I took my sister-in-law on a single day, four park trip (before Pandora was added) and were able to do all the E-tickets at all four parks in one day with a combination of FP and standby.
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There is still a level of uncertainty and stress with that... which is where the comfort of knowing you have it locked in appeases that. Add in the full gambit of dining, meet&greets, attractions, etc... and this is all where Disney's platform is 'here to help...' and make all this easy for the lay to setup and take those uncertainties away. It's not aimed at the park commando or the veteran... it's aimed at the people who have a shopping list of things to do. It's for the mom planning her trip for little suzzie so she gets all the things suzzie wanted, etc.

It's not the formula for everyone - but it had a purpose. The problem is the reality of availability and consequence. The pitch is real though.
 
G00fyDad

G00fyDad

Well-Known Member
Jrb1979 said:
FP+ would have worked had they kept it limited to 3 a day and stopped using for guest recovery as well.
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Exactly. I was fine with the 3 per day. It made me come up with a plan of attack that was more focused but it was fine. I'd get to the park at opening, hit the big attractions that I did not have a FP+ for, then stroll around until my afternoon FP's came up, then hit those attractions and spend the rest of my time strolling around doing whatever.
 
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Purduevian

Well-Known Member
DisneyCane said:
With the right strategy you could do more major rides and with short wait re-rides with paper FP than with FP+. If you rope dropped and headed straight to a FP dispenser then rode rides until your return time but got another FP as soon as you could and so on, you could cram a lot in. There was also the benefit that FP returns didn't start at park opening so there was fast moving standby for at least a half an hour.
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Disagree. With the right strategy you could do much more with FP+. Prebook headliners in the the 2nd,3rd, and 4th hours of a park open. Rope drop the biggest few rides that you don't have FP time. As soon as you scan into the 3rd fastpass, open the app and pick another fastpass. Rinse and repeat. I've hit 16fastpasses in magic kingdom in a day. Only big ride I missed was space mountain because someone in our group didn't want to ride it (had many chance to grab it if I wanted). Left the park with a 17th fastpass I chose not to use after fireworks, so I released it back into the system as I left.

A huge problem of Legacy fastpass and Maxpass is how advantageous it is to rope droppers, and how much of an issue it is for anyone that wants to sleep in a little. Went on a trip with 3 teenagers during Legacy that wanted to sleep in a little on vacation (not till like noon, but 9am instead of 7:15am to make rope drop). One person who was always up early walked to EPCOT for rope drop and bee lined it for the Soarin' Fastpasses with everyone's ticket in hand to bring back to the group, only to find out only his ticket would spit out a fastpass (you had to check into the park). Some people will say, you snooze you loose, but I would much rather wake up early 30 or 60 days out from my vacation to book a noon soarin' fastpass than wake up at 7am the morning after being in magic kingdom till close while I'm on vacation.

There is no perfect system because everyone tours differently.
Being spontaneous, pre-planning, allocation, price, availability, ease of use, ect.
 
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larandtra

Well-Known Member
With fp+ we never waited in standby lines. We pulled 12 fps Christmas day at mk, and not for lower end attractions. We could pull fop everytime we went. We never even prebooked fps. We did them in the parking lot on the walk in and rolled from there. It was easy because the reality. At any time less than 15% of the people in the parks have any idea how to use fp anyway
 
MJM

MJM

Active Member
Jrb1979 said:
I always thought people loved all the planning for their WDW vacation.
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I love planning my WDW trip too. FP+ was awesome. Did it have some flaws? Yeah of course. What technology used by millions doesn’t? It sounds like the majority of people who don’t like FP+ are people who don’t want to plan their trip in advance because everyone who’s posted that they like it or love it says they don’t mind the planning if it means they get to make sure they ride those major attractions without an hour+ wait. I am in total agreement with that. If you don’t want to plan then I guess you should be ok with those long waits because some sort of fast pass system is going to return eventually. No theme park is without one. It’s only a matter of a time. And all signs point to sooner rather than later
 
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larandtra

Well-Known Member
marni1971 said:
???
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The majority of the wdw base on any given day vs the number of passholders is pretty lopsided. Outside of people who go multiple times a year or have aps, the typical wdw guest knows they get 3. Beyond that they know very little. They don't know how to modify or change, don't know you can get more than the 3, don't know drop times, have no clue how to refresh. Even if it becomes paid, the majority still won't know how to use it to its complete ability
 
ImperfectPixie

ImperfectPixie

Well-Known Member
MJM said:
I love planning my WDW trip too. FP+ was awesome. Did it have some flaws? Yeah of course. What technology used by millions doesn’t? It sounds like the majority of people who don’t like FP+ are people who don’t want to plan their trip in advance because everyone who’s posted that they like it or love it says they don’t mind the planning if it means they get to make sure they ride those major attractions without an hour+ wait. I am in total agreement with that. If you don’t want to plan then I guess you should be ok with those long waits because some sort of fast pass system is going to return eventually. No theme park is without one. It’s only a matter of a time. And all signs point to sooner rather than later
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What those of us who hate FP+ want is for Disney to build the parks out to accommodate the crowds they draw without the need for crowd manipulation or advanced planning.
 
ImperfectPixie

ImperfectPixie

Well-Known Member
larandtra said:
The majority of the wdw base on any given day vs the number of passholders is pretty lopsided. Outside of people who go multiple times a year or have aps, the typical wdw guest knows they get 3. Beyond that they know very little. They don't know how to modify or change, don't know you can get more than the 3, don't know drop times, have no clue how to refresh. Even if it becomes paid, the majority still won't know how to use it to its complete ability
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That's not even close to true.
 
MJM

MJM

Active Member
ImperfectPixie said:
What those of us who hate FP+ want is for Disney to build the parks out to accommodate the crowds they draw without the need for crowd manipulation or advanced planning.
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I can agree with that. The need to expand came several years ago. However, Disney needs a short term solution to the crowds and long lines situation right now as crowds are increasing. Advance planning is one of those. I don’t know that I would call FP+ “crowd manipulation” so much as crowd dispersal. It did serve a purpose pre-pandemic and as we slowly return to what that looked like, Disney will have to implement some sort of fast pass system. I’d love to see expansion of the parks at WDW (any true Disney fan would) but that’s a long term solution that doesn’t address the current situation at hand
 
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