FastPass+ Most Certainly Not Coming Back As It Was

[pdude81]

Alot of those FP queues could be quickly modified for standby spillover (though I also acknowledge some wouldn't be as easy). However, I don't think they're going that route, so it's a moot point. There will definitively be some variety of priority line. The big question we're all waiting on is whether it will just be a retimed FP+ or something different.

Yeah, I think they could just do an A/B line and switch back and forth in the interim, but if they have to pay employees to manage the flow then they would rather make money on the priority line while building out additional capacity. I was just saying that if they entirely did away with FP/Wish/etc the current line setup would need to be changed to accommodate longer queues.

 

[PirateFrank]

Getting rid of the legacy FP system also reduced the amount of line cutting. I could not stand when people would split up and go to the FP machines while one or more of their group went to the line. You could be within eyesight of the actual ride and suddenly there are ten times as many people in front of you now because people had to "catch up to their group". These days it is not so much of a problem.

That sort of "Oh, Im just trying to catch up to my party" crap happens all the time with the regular old standby lines as well. and yes, that steamed my ears as well.

That being said, and I hate to say it, but any time there has been an advantage - guests have sought to exploite it. Even during FP+, there were people who found ways to cheat the system. Alot of those hacks circulated on message boards like this one. The difference was that those exploits occurred in someone's phone, so you didn't see someone physically cutting the line. Just virtually.

I hope whatever new system comes out, is better equipped to deal with FP fraud. I suspect if there's a paid program, it will incentivize WDW to implement stronger controls. Some of the FP hacks/exploits in the MDE software suggested that the coding behind the system was very amateurish.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

That sort of "Oh, Im just trying to catch up to my party" crap happens all the time with the regular old standby lines as well. and yes, that steamed my ears as well.

That being said, and I hate to say it, but any time there has been an advantage - guests have sought to exploite it. Even during FP+, there were people who found ways to cheat the system. Alot of those hacks circulated on message boards like this one. The difference was that those exploits occurred in someone's phone, so you didn't see someone physically cutting the line. Just virtually.

I hope whatever new system comes out, is better equipped to deal with FP fraud. I suspect if there's a paid program, it will incentivize WDW to implement stronger controls. Some of the FP hacks/exploits in the MDE software suggested that the coding behind the system was very amateurish.

People gaming the system are horrible. That's why the DAS system had to change.

 

[MaximumEd]

That sort of "Oh, Im just trying to catch up to my party" crap happens all the time with the regular old standby lines as well. and yes, that steamed my ears as well.

That being said, and I hate to say it, but any time there has been an advantage - guests have sought to exploite it. Even during FP+, there were people who found ways to cheat the system. Alot of those hacks circulated on message boards like this one. The difference was that those exploits occurred in someone's phone, so you didn't see someone physically cutting the line. Just virtually.

I hope whatever new system comes out, is better equipped to deal with FP fraud. I suspect if there's a paid program, it will incentivize WDW to implement stronger controls. Some of the FP hacks/exploits in the MDE software suggested that the coding behind the system was very amateurish.

Yep. The multiple magic band trick went on for far too long. Disney knew it existed, but they got to sell magic bands.

 

[RobbinsDad]

Grumpy old man alert: the problem for me isn't the need to plan - I love to plan my trips, but now my planning for Disney isn't an interest, it's a requirement. Researching historical park attendance, dining reviews, wait times, etc. to create an awesome itinerary was as much fun for me as actually going to Disney World (ENFPers are squirming right now), but not anymore, it's become a necessary chore that you hope will work out the way you want. With FP+, and now the thing I hate the most, park reservations, it's just too stressful, especially considering the financial outlay. And that's without mentioning the ROTR boarding group reservation bullship.

There's no going back to the days of, "Hey, what are we doing next month? Let's go to Disney!" Not that that was ever me or my family, but God help you if that's your approach.

 

[MrHorse]

I hope whatever new system comes out, is better equipped to deal with FP fraud. I suspect if there's a paid program, it will incentivize WDW to implement stronger controls. Some of the FP hacks/exploits in the MDE software suggested that the coding behind the system was very amateurish.

Fun anecdote for the technical folks:

For a year or so (around 2015?) it was crazy. As you'd imagine, the app/website just runs against a REST API. So it's easy enough to trace things out in Fiddler or whatever. One time, I got curious and spent an afternoon playing with it. As it turned out, all you needed to make an FP was a couple of IDs. There wasn't any validation. Literally NONE. As long as you had an active session, you sent your session ID, the attraction ID, the IDs for the rest of your party, and the timeslot ...and it would just transact it. No questions asked.

I scribbled up a clunky little app on my phone that would automatically-ish pull the ID from your session and book immediate FPs for every ride in the park.

Eventually, they patched it up of course. Last I looked at it, they stopped letting you actually request an FP explicitly. Instead, you get a list of options and just send back the ID of the option you want.

 

[mhaftman7]

We were just there Mother’s Day weekend and people were utilizing the FastPass lines. I figured it was a test of some feature or the typical P&M until Disney gives me something.

 

[G00fyDad]

I am just hoping to be pleasantly surprised to see Disney re-instate the FP+ system and leave it as is. Maybe that is why they have not announced a new offering yet. There isn't anything new.

 

[orky8]

We were just there Mother’s Day weekend and people were utilizing the FastPass lines. I figured it was a test of some feature or the typical P&M until Disney gives me something.

They are used for rider swap and VIP tours (if those are back).

 

[mikejs78]

I'm going to make a bold prediction based on nothing more than my gut. I have no inside
information here.

• FP+ will return this summer as it was before the pandemic, or a version of it that is more like MaxPass will return. This will be necessitated by the rising capacity over the next few months.
• Disney will introduce more paid options for fast passes as the year goes on, possibly leading up to the 50th.
• Paid options may exist for specific groupings of rides. Publicly, this won't affect the normal fast pass system, people will still be able to get their three rides. However from an inventory perspective, rides for these packages will have reduced inventory for the free tier.
• Unpurchased paid FastPass inventory will revert to the general pool day of.
• Overtime more paid options will be added - a form of unlimited (One time per attraction per day), possibly other things where you can purchase additional reservations prior to your stay, or purchase an option for more than one tier one.

So the net of it will be that free fast pass will look like and hasn't lost any benefits, but in reality the inventory will be reduced in favor of the paid options.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

I think it partly depends on what you consider adequate knowledge of FP+. Disney is pretty good at getting the word out about the need to make ADRs and FP+ selections as well as the time you can do so. I suspect most people know about the first three. After that, awareness starts to decline, and I don’t think many know how to maximize them to the extent talked about here.

Obviously, I don’t know for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of guests never go beyond getting the first three every day. I hope that whatever system Disney chooses to replace FP+ will be fairly easy to understand and use. If it’s a paid system, so be it.

I think this is closer to the truth. Most people seem to know about the 3 and pick those. There are varying degrees of confusion beyond that, but far fewer seem to know about pulling more after the initial three or modding what they have day of.

I think both of these are true, and to some extent what I tried to say earlier in this thread, if not as succinctly.

There are thousands of people that visit WDW every year though, so many also don't fall into either of these two categories.

I'm sure there are even first time visitors who know one of us, talk to one of us, maybe post questions in this forum, and spend hours researching all the insider expert tips via the internet they can find. So they know all about rope drop and refresh when they arrive.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

They are used for rider swap and VIP tours (if those are back).

VIP tours are definitely back. I saw multiple VIP tours in Hollywood Studios a couple weeks ago, including a group large enough to necessitate being split into 2 groups with different guides as I was on line for Slinky on my last day there. I saw 2-3 separate VIP tour groups on my other day in Hollywood Studios, too. I don't recall seeing any in MK or Epcot, but we kept our park days short so we could get some more pool time than usual on this trip (which turned out to be a good plan because it was brutally hot).

 

[mattpeto]

I'm going to make a bold prediction based on nothing more than my gut. I have no inside
information here.

• FP+ will return this summer as it was before the pandemic, or a version of it that is more like MaxPass will return. This will be necessitated by the rising capacity over the next few months.
• Disney will introduce more paid options for fast passes as the year goes on, possibly leading up to the 50th.
• Paid options may exist for specific groupings of rides. Publicly, this won't affect the normal fast pass system, people will still be able to get their three rides. However from an inventory perspective, rides for these packages will have reduced inventory for the free tier.
• Unpurchased paid FastPass inventory will revert to the general pool day of.
• Overtime more paid options will be added - a form of unlimited (One time per attraction per day), possibly other things where you can purchase additional reservations prior to your stay, or purchase an option for more than one tier one.

So the net of it will be that free fast pass will look like and hasn't lost any benefits, but in reality the inventory will be reduced in favor of the paid options.

Yeah I said that a couple of weeks ago. The speedy exodus of the pandemic protocol might save FP+ for now.

 

[Parker in NYC]

We never do parks open to close.

Start at one, take a break and use pool/have afternoon wine back at hotel, then hop to another!

Or afternoon scotch.

 

[WDWTrojan]

• FP+ will return this summer as it was before the pandemic, or a version of it that is more like MaxPass will return. This will be necessitated by the rising capacity over the next few months.

They operated for 30+ years with no FP on most attractions, even on the busiest of days. They don't need it this summer, either, as they won't be at 100% capacity. Nor do they want to be quite as busy as they were pre-pandemic. Chapek said as much the other day - they see higher guest satisfaction and spending when the parks aren't packed to the gills.

FP+ won't be back as it was ever. They are using this opportunity to hit "reset." They fully believe that now is the time to reset their operations, rather than trying to revert back to March 2020 and piecemeal changes from there.

 

[MisterPenguin]

They operated for 30+ years with no FP on most attractions, even on the busiest of days.

MK had 4 million extra guests per year in 2019 than it did 10 years earlier in 2009. Comparing how thing are now to just 10 years ago, let alone 30, is literally incomparable.

Without any sort of FP, the park reached a tipping point in which there were more people than all the rides and attractions together could handle. MK was a victim of its own success.

FP+ was developed to deal with that excess demand, it didn't create it. People can argue with how well it did or didn't deal with that mess.

But one thing's for certain, without FP, there'd still by hours long waits at many of the attractions because there's more people in the parks than that attractions can process.

Variations of FP won't fix the overcrowding. Adding capacity, or making the other underutilized parks more attractive, or capping attendance with a hard limit (park reservation) or with carrot/stick (higher prices) are the only solutions to long lines.

 

[drizgirl]

They operated for 30+ years with no FP on most attractions, even on the busiest of days. They don't need it this summer, either, as they won't be at 100% capacity. Nor do they want to be quite as busy as they were pre-pandemic. Chapek said as much the other day - they see higher guest satisfaction and spending when the parks aren't packed to the gills.

FP+ won't be back as it was ever. They are using this opportunity to hit "reset." They fully believe that now is the time to reset their operations, rather than trying to revert back to March 2020 and piecemeal changes from there.

It’s hard to compare even 30 years ago with today given that there are no shows, parades, character meets or fireworks. Now all there is to do is rides.

 

[JD80]

I use a spreadsheet, too...but that doesn't mean I enjoy having to decide 6 months out what we're going to do and where we're going to eat or trying to juggle FP and ADRs and avoid having to spend more time on transportation and walking than necessary. Planning a vacation shouldn't be akin to assembling an intricate puzzle.

It wasn't that hard. All FPs and ADRs (used to be) placeholders for the most part for the vast majority of things. I was changing all of these weeks leading up to the trip as well as during the trip.

 

[mattpeto]

MK had 40 million extra guests per year in 2019 than it did 10 years earlier in 2009. Comparing how thing are now to just 10 years ago, let alone 30, is literally incomparable.

Without any sort of FP, the park reached a tipping point in which there were more people than all the rides and attractions together could handle. MK was a victim of its own success.

FP+ was developed to deal with that excess demand, it didn't create it. People can argue with how well it did or didn't deal with that mess.

But one thing's for certain, without FP, there'd still by hours long waits at many of the attractions because there's more people in the parks than that attractions can process.

Variations of FP won't fix the overcrowding. Adding capacity, or making the other underutilized parks more attractive, or capping attendance with a hard limit (park reservation) or with carrot/stick (higher prices) are the only solutions to long lines.

They can buy more time if they add some of the people eaters: Typhoon Lagoon, attractions (Monsters/Turtle Talk), shows (Nemo/Indy, etc), meet & greets and add more park hours. I think those things will start to roll back soon but they all have lead time.

Honestly, it would just be easier to increase capacity and put in some sort of modified FP+ distribution:

Just hand out less and everyone wins (even those without them):

Deluxes = 2
Moderates/Value = 1
Offsite: maybe next time

 

[WDWTrojan]

It’s hard to compare even 30 years ago with today given that there are no shows, parades, character meets or fireworks. Now all there is to do is rides.

Yes, but these things will be coming back as capacity increases.

MK had 40 million extra guests per year in 2019 than it did 10 years earlier in 2009. Comparing how thing are now to just 10 years ago, let alone 30, is literally incomparable.

Without any sort of FP, the park reached a tipping point in which there were more people than all the rides and attractions together could handle. MK was a victim of its own success.

FP+ was developed to deal with that excess demand, it didn't create it. People can argue with how well it did or didn't deal with that mess.

But one thing's for certain, without FP, there'd still by hours long waits at many of the attractions because there's more people in the parks than that attractions can process.

Variations of FP won't fix the overcrowding. Adding capacity, or making the other underutilized parks more attractive, or capping attendance with a hard limit (park reservation) or with carrot/stick (higher prices) are the only solutions to long lines.

40 million extra guests? What? According to the Travel Industry Association, MK had 20,963,000 guests in 2019. By comparison in 2009 they had 17.2M. So yes there is an increase in attendance overall, but Chapek has made it clear they don't want the parks maxed out. It doesn't help their bottom line after a certain threshold.

There will be some kind of FP-type product. There won't be FP+ as it existed. They feel comfortable it is not a necessity for them and can make due with a more limited option which will serve their needs and help the bottom line.