I think any comparison with universal is irrelevant to this conversation. Completely different number of hotels, number of parks , and concept for that matter. And to indulge this idea for a moment, universal is already at that point (sadly) where you can buy your way up to the level I someone staying at their resort. Disney is of course moving towards that (we think) but the process by which they are getting there is unpleasant and because of its larger scale (note hotels and more parks) I think there will be a huge difference between the way one feels in disney with this and how one feels in universal. Again I am not naive. I know that from disney's end this is about $$$. And maybe people won't have a problem with all this in the long run. But the"magic"....it's missing and I don't think it's coming g back so fast.
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Fastpass Plus Mess
- Thread starter Yobogoya
- Start date
GoofGoof
Premium Member
How is it irrelevant? Universal offers a system which offers only it's deluxe hotel guests front of the line access for rides. Technically they only have deluxe hotel guests now, but when their new value resort opens they will not be given free express pass. Off property guests get nothing with their ticket. Disney has a system where right now the only difference between an on property guest and an off property guest is the ability to pre-book reservations and use magic bands instead of cards. All guests currently get the same 3 reservations. Disney's system as it's currently set up is more fair to all guests and has a much more level playing field. Plus you only get 3 reservations a day vs getting front of the line for all rides. Other than your 3 reservations a day, all Disney guests will be waiting in the same standby lines no matter where they stay so in reality the inequity is much larger at Universal. Due to less guests, more ride capacity and less hotel rooms the front of the line guests may not result in a major impact on the "common" guests who have to wait for each ride, but the inequity is still there. How you feel in each park is your opinion. A feeling can't be right or wrong.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Fair enough. We can agree to disagree on that double standard.
Just for the record I don't think the Universal model is a bad one. I'm fine with the park offering a perk to their guests shelling out big bucks to stay in an expensive room. I've never stayed on property at Universal or considered paying for express pass, but it's a pretty darn good perk that I am hoping to take advantage of some day.
GrumpyFan
Well-Known Member
In general, yes, this would work, but it also depends on the hardware of both devices. Something tells me that the scanners they bought aren't easily able to be upgraded in this manner. I only say this because the POS/payment scanners and the door scanners for rooms work the same way. I did get the room scanner to work a short distance away once or twice, but it wasn't more than a 1/4 inch.
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
but maybe it could cause confusion or cause incorrect readings?
Imagine you have 5 families in line, 2 with them with kids on their side, they get too close to the reader.. and then it gets the data from 2-3-4 or even 5 keys or magicbands at same time?
Dunno why the "touch" to activate was preferred.. this is the only thing I can imagine of why the distance limitation.
I think they want to ensure a bigger division is visible to customers, to make them feel "forced" to stay onsite.
Its like "stay with us disney and dont touch uni, and we will give you extra cookies!"
while uni does the same "stay with us and we give you extra pass! forget disney hotels!"
kinda reminds me; on how many hotels (that went greedy and) moved onto the full "all included" mode. They ended getting most of the money but killed almost all the food business outside of the hotels in cancun Mexico.
It was very sad to see huge blocks of local s that were once restaurants, all boarded up.
I dont think Uni and Disney will be affected particularly.. but the other hotels with no direct access to Disney or Uni will feel the heat.
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RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
But these are choices that we didn't have to make before. Now, in order to get access to a flawed version of the system we've been familiar with for 12 years we have to pay more to get less.
Lord_Vader
Join me, together we can rule the galaxy.
I understand they most likely purchased readers that have either a very limited range of power or no range to keep costs down and to avoid incidental reads as you described. By using the touch very low power system they also greatly increase the security of the system as it is much more difficult to read very low output transmitters from any distance.
GrumpyFan
Well-Known Member
I wondered about the security aspect as well with regards to incidental reads. It might make sense for rooms and POS, but not necessarily for the gates and FP+ scanners. I mean, what's the big danger/risk there? It just slows down access at these points.
morningstar
Well-Known Member
The old system was often flexible. If you were five minutes late, the cast member would likely let you into the line anyway. Maybe even if you were 2 hours late. Also, you would naturally get fastpasses for the part of the park you were in. E.g. you could pick up a fastpass for Space Mountain, ride TTA, shop a little, eat lunch, and it could be time to ride. With Fastpass+ it seems like you might be all the way on the other side of the park when your time approaches, unless you strictly follow a touring plan scheduled around your fastpass times.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Or you could just book fast passes in the same part of the park then you won't have to worry about backtracking across the park. For example book BTMRR, Splash and Pirates all back to back to back. In between each reservation do country bears, Alladin, Jungle Cruise, Treehouse, TSI, Tiki Birds and eat lunch. It's the same thing.
I know there are a lot of negatives to the new system (limit of 3 seeming to be the biggest complaint), but I don't see how people felt the old system was more flexible. There were hard return times of 1 hour just like the new system. If a CM let you slide before they have the same power to do that now too. The only difference is now you don't have to go to the machine to get the paper ticket which is one of the few advantages.
rct247
Well-Known Member
^This! If you grabbed a paper FP for Soarin for 3pm and you were already in World Showcase by then, you'd also have to backtrack as well. Now, you have more choices with your times so you can see that ok, morning isn't available but there are plenty of times in the late afternoon and evening. Let's aim for earlier so that in the evening we can just focus on World Showcase. Magic Kingdom can be the same way. Let's start with our 3 FP picks: Space Mountain, Peter Pan, and Jungle Cruise for instance. Space around 11:30am, Peter Pan around 2pm, and Jungle around 4:30pm. Looks like a nice complete circut around the park to me.
With them starting to enforce FP Return Times in March of 2012, the rules have always been the same. The computer is following those same rules it is just helping take the human error out of the equation to provide consistency. With paper, a CM might easily overlook or ignore an early or late return, now the computer alerts them and then they find out if there is a legit reason or not. If they then choose to ignore it, they could be making a magical moment or just not caring, but either way, if you get used to that happening, that's your fault. If you get pulled over for speeding while driving but tell the officer that you always speed and no one has stopped you before, do you think they are going to buy it or let it slide?
By the way, on a side note, here are reasons that people use all the time that almost never work:
EARLY
-We have a plane to catch/we're leaving the park/this was the last thing we wanted to do before we left
-We have dinner reservations we're trying to make/we have another FP time to make/we have to make it to the show/fireworks/parade
-C'mon, it's only XX Minutes/they let us in early at XXXX attraction
-We thought it would take us longer to get through this line.
LATE
-C'mon, it's only XX Minutes/they let us in late at XXXX attraction
-We were at the parade/fireworks/on the other side of the park/in a different park/at our hotel.
-It was raining.
-"They" said we can use it whenever we wanted/we used to be able to
-My child was sleeping.
-We were a dinner reservation from over 3 hours ago.
-I didn't know.
-The Fastpass line was too long.
Remember, now with this new system, you have more control on what times you pick and you also have the ability to modify times if something comes up.
jlsHouston
Well-Known Member
Your thread title summarizes it completely IMHO..it really is a mess. I used it at Thanksgiving when we still had paper FP's and there were aspects about the program I liked. In general though I hated the tiers, I hated only able to select 3, and I was offended by the aspect that only on site guests were going to have access to FP+ online. Waiting in line at a kiosk to make a FP+ reservation with a person and their IPAD ? Another stupid idea...
kittybubbles
Active Member
There is a little more to what UNI does (if trying to compare to Disney). If you by a package deal with UNI at one of their partner (or maybe it is neighbor) hotels, it includes the early entry they give their Deluxe resorts. I believe their new hotel will include early entry as well.
Forbidden Journey does not offer front of line access, but it is opened an hour before the park for guest with early entry. When Transformers opened, they offered early entry to the Studios with Transformers opened early (the whole park does not open though).
So UNI does offer a little more. For pass holders, there have been times where pass holders are given early entry as well. UNI also gives their highest level AP express access after 4 PM.
No biggie, just wanted to point out that UNI tends to open their most popular ride an hour early to more folks than just their on property deluxe guest.
morningstar
Well-Known Member
TSMM sells out of Fastpasses, but it's not like people are missing their chance to ride it, right? You just get in the standby line (even if it's a two hour wait, if you really want to ride). I think they limit the Fastpasses to less than the ride capacity, so that some space is left for standby riders. But if they issued more Fastpasses, fewer people would need to use the standby line. If they issued Fastpasses to full capacity, then they shouldn't run out. If they do, they should maintain a policy (for that ride at least) of no more than one Fastpass for that ride per guest per day. If still everyone can't get a Fastpass, that means the ride does not have enough capacity for everyone in the park to ride it once, and some people just won't be able to ride it, no matter what the Fastpass policy. The only reason to reserve capacity for standby is for guests who don't know about the Fastpass program, and in cases where there is no space left for standby riders it would be easy to have a CM walk the line and recommend and explain Fastpasses.
Looking at it another way, I seem to recall that in the days before Fastpass I could ride Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Tomorrowland Speedway, etc., all in one day. So why couldn't I get a Fastpass+ for all of these? The basic idea of Fastpass is like taking a number at the DMV (but not quite as strictly bureaucratic). I get to ride when and how often I would have had I waited in line, but I don't have to actually march between rails in a serpentine path.
The only fallacy of that analogy is that I could be taking up space on another ride while holding a Fastpass. As long as that ride is one that was operating under full capacity, that won't increase standby wait times. Some people will want to ride E-tickets more than once, and they might do both Fastpass and standby on the same ride, thus lengthening the standby queue for those rides. However, that doesn't hamper anyone who only wants to ride it once on Fastpass and won't use the standby queue anyway.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
As a side note, there are very few attractions in all of WDW that actually *do* have the capacity to allow every single person in the park to ride it once on a given day... (Heck, there may not be any. To handle a moderate 50,000 people in a 14-hour operating day (9a-11p), you'd need a 3500-per-hour capacity. I don't think even Mansion or the other Omnimovers can hit that.)
-Rob
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MrPromey
Well-Known Member
Not only taking up space in the ride but waiting in the line. Even if you're only waiting 15 minutes, that's 15 minutes that you aren't currently taking up space on the current attraction or on another attraction or in a line for another attraction. For Disney, you being in line is almost like falling into an invisible black hole. You aren't clogging up pathways or making lines for food longer or overcrowding shops. Skipping the standby line with a fastpass causes two things to happen - it increases the wait for people in standby for that attraction and decreases the amount of time you are being "held" from adding to another standby line or creating more congestion in another part of the park.
For as basic as it was, getting the old system optimized was obviously tricky. I can't even begin to imagine the hurdles of trying to optimize the new one... Not that this should be a problem for the guests but I don't think they had any other way to fully test it without some form of a complete roll-out.
As some of you posting seem to be very technically savvy in your discussions on this thrread...... I have gone to Disney with my family every other year since 2000 and since my oldest is graduating college this year it is probably our last vacation as a family before he goes job hunting (he is in a major with little career options in our area). I would have preferred that Disney kept the old system we were familiar with one more year, but alas. We have never staid in a Disney resort. However I do understand that Disney guest should get some perks for their shelling out of big bucks and the ability to do fast pass plus 60 days out is a nice one, and as I will note below it may drive me to stay at Disney this time. My suspicion is that the three ride limit as discussed above, is probably based on the amount of ride space a day they want to reserve for fast pass plus users, as posts of those citing the issues with the fast plus line adding wait time for those in the stand by line. It would be nice if they would allow off site Disney people to use this system, so my question is how could it be managed? I guess as a Disney guest they have your resort reservation and your ticket length and can use that info to allow access to the FP+ system for that specific time, limiting the data the system would have to deal with. How would they do that for a non resort guest? How could they enforce any kind of 60 day rule? Could a system handle a year or more of fast pass access and change? How about changes a year out on a 8 day ticket that is good for 15 days? Would those of us off site guests accept a rule in that once we set a fast pass plus date and time with a ticket it would be locked and unable to be changed, while resort guests due to their reservation period would be allowed changes? Is there another way to control off site guests access to a level that the fast pass plus computer system could handle? During the summer I have seen estimates that 120,000 people could be in the 4 theme parks each day, will their system (especially as it I assume communicates thru those Micky readers for all those bands and RFID tickets filled with data) be able to handle that amount of changing data? If we assume a smaller period and a daily attendance of 80,000 a day, times 60 days out assuming you enforce that limit, times three fast passes per day, times numerous fast pass time changes by individuals, equals numbers of data transactions beyond my brain!
I will be at Disney during prime time this summer and at this point I am considering staying at a Disney resort for the first time just for the fast pass access. As it is our last family vacation and I am willing to spend the extra bucks to make it a memorable one, so I guess I am lucky in that I have time to see where this goes.
I look forward to reading some of your insights.
I will be at Disney during prime time this summer and at this point I am considering staying at a Disney resort for the first time just for the fast pass access. As it is our last family vacation and I am willing to spend the extra bucks to make it a memorable one, so I guess I am lucky in that I have time to see where this goes.
I look forward to reading some of your insights.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
IMHO this is a big part of the way they plan to monetize the new system. Increase resort occupancy by making advance reservations a resort only benefit.
If they were to offer the advance reservations to off property guests the only way I see it working is if they charge an additional fee for it and they make you lock into a fixed day. How I think it could work is you link a single day ticket or multi-day pass to your my magic account. If the ticket is not linked to a hotel reservation there would be an option to buy into the advance FP+ system. After charging you the fee (likely $10 to $20 a day per person???) you would be asked to select a date and book FP reservations assuming you are within the 60 day window. From this point forward you would have the ability to change which rides you reserved and times, but not the date. If you decided not to go on that day a park day would not be taken from your ticket, but you would also lose the advance reservation fee. Think of it as the park ticket equivalent to the new fee charged for people that don't show up for an ADR. This system would prevent the system being overwhelmed with people constantly moving in and out of reservations and it would also ensure them extra profits. Not unlike the Universal system there would come a breakeven point where it would be more worth staying on property. Let's say for example the fee is $20. For a family of 4 they would have to pay an extra $80 plus $15 to park at MK once they get there. At an extra $95 a day it's probably worth it to just stay on property. Either way Disney makes more money which is the name of this game.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
My guess on the end-game with FP+ is that FP+ reservations will eventually be free for everyone, but that on-site guests will have a 60-day window to reserve, but off-site won't have access until a closer period (30 days? 7 days? 1 day? Perhaps they'll also get 60 days but the on-site perk will be the same 60+10 window they have now).
Like on-site Guests, you'll only be limited to the number of reservations as you have days on your ticket.
Yes, there would be some fake bookings made by people with no intention of actually going to a park that day, but given enough historical data I'm sure Disney can come up with a percentage that they can safely "overbook" their FP+ windows like airlines do and still be able to handle it.
-Rob
Like on-site Guests, you'll only be limited to the number of reservations as you have days on your ticket.
Yes, there would be some fake bookings made by people with no intention of actually going to a park that day, but given enough historical data I'm sure Disney can come up with a percentage that they can safely "overbook" their FP+ windows like airlines do and still be able to handle it.
-Rob