Future of FP+ vs Virtual Queues

[JusticeDisney]

Assuming this world returns to normal someday and we can all get back to WDW without any restrictions, why do you think entry on the “big” rides will look like? What I mean is, do you think rides like Tron and Guardians will go to the virtual queue system like Rise? Or do you think that what they have done with Rise is basically a one off and these other coming rides will just use the regular FP+ system like FOP did?

Curious to hear your thoughts!

 

[Trackmaster]

I personally still see FP+ as a virtual queuing system. Even though you can make reservations from home, it does a good job of structuring your day out and making it so that you only have to wait in stand-by lines very minimally if you do it right. I know its highly controversial and has a lot of problems, but I find it superior to stand-by all day. I also think that the original Fast Pass, or what DLR uses just inherently helps people who can rope drop, while FP+ helps people who get to the park later. So as somebody who usually gets to the park late, FP+ is a match made in heaven for me.

 

[DisneyNittany]

I personally still see FP+ as a virtual queuing system. Even though you can make reservations from home, it does a good job of structuring your day out and making it so that you only have to wait in stand-by lines very minimally if you do it right. I know its highly controversial and has a lot of problems, but I find it superior to stand-by all day. I also think that the original Fast Pass, or what DLR uses just inherently helps people who can rope drop, while FP+ helps people who get to the park later. So as somebody who usually gets to the park late, FP+ is a match made in heaven for me.

Hell, we're morning people, and we even love the FP+ system because it allows us to "plan the middle of our day" while leaving the early morning and evening/night to be spontaneous.

By grabbing our favorite and/or most popular attractions via FP+, and stacking them in the 10a-2p timeframe, we can get to the parks early and hit up several attractions first thing. Then, we do our FP+ selections in the middle of the day, and after we're looking for lunch (maybe resort hop) or heading back to our resort for some pool time. That leaves the evening/night to do whatever it is we want. Maybe we'll ride a particular attraction because we like it better at night (looking at you BTMR) or it's simply enjoying the ambiance of the parks.

Like you said, they're very controversial, but we certainly love them because it fits our style better as well.

 

[ppete1975]

Im just hoping they never build another attraction that makes you get on your phone at a certain time and within a minute is sold out for the day. Rides should always have a regular line, and then one with attainable fast pass or virtual queue passes (if they want to go that route). I would hate to go to Disney from far away for lets say 5 days and not be able to ride something my heart is set on. Also with the current process with no park hopper, you pretty much have to go to hollywood that day just for the chance (even if attempting from home). rant over..

 

[Chi84]

I personally still see FP+ as a virtual queuing system. Even though you can make reservations from home, it does a good job of structuring your day out and making it so that you only have to wait in stand-by lines very minimally if you do it right. I know its highly controversial and has a lot of problems, but I find it superior to stand-by all day. I also think that the original Fast Pass, or what DLR uses just inherently helps people who can rope drop, while FP+ helps people who get to the park later. So as somebody who usually gets to the park late, FP+ is a match made in heaven for me.

FP+ works better for my family for this reason too. The tiers don't even present all that much of a problem because we usually hit each park twice per visit.

There are downsides to FP+ in terms of having a limited number of rides, dealing with tiers and tying you to a specific park far in advance when the weather might actually be better for a water park or a different theme park. But the main advantage for us was the guarantee that we could ride the newest, most popular rides at least once. With the Galaxy's Edge rides, that advantage was gone. Millennium Falcon did not have FP+ the first time we were there, and of course RotR is using a system that requires everyone to be in the park first thing. Not being able to get a FP+ for Rise has made the system much less attractive for me.

I don't think Disney was ever thrilled with how FP+ turned out, and now it's not working out so well for even those who love it because we get to the parks later. I think it's going to be replaced with some other type of ride reservation system - what kind remains to be seen. For whatever it's worth, I don't think Disney will ever abandon people who don't want to get to the parks first thing.

 

[Jon81uk]

Im just hoping they never build another attraction that makes you get on your phone at a certain time and within a minute is sold out for the day. Rides should always have a regular line, and then one with attainable fast pass or virtual queue passes (if they want to go that route). I would hate to go to Disney from far away for lets say 5 days and not be able to ride something my heart is set on. Also with the current process with no park hopper, you pretty much have to go to hollywood that day just for the chance (even if attempting from home). rant over..

I would expect they aren't going to be building anything at the technological scale of Rise anytime soon. Its the breakdowns causing low capacity that are the issue. Once it can run reliably then a virtual queue will no longer be needed.

The next rides opening are a copy of a trackless dark ride (Ratatouille), a copy of a coaster (Tron) and a new style coaster (GotG) none of these should have the significant issues Rise have, as the hardware is a lot more tried and tested.
They may need virtual queues to control initial popularity as the space to queue won't hold everyone that wants to ride due to Covid distancing, but they should revert to a "normal" set up once most other things do when covid starts to return things to "normal".

 

[Trackmaster]

FP+ works better for my family for this reason too. The tiers don't even present all that much of a problem because we usually hit each park twice per visit.

There are downsides to FP+ in terms of having a limited number of rides, dealing with tiers and tying you to a specific park far in advance when the weather might actually be better for a water park or a different theme park. But the main advantage for us was the guarantee that we could ride the newest, most popular rides at least once. With the Galaxy's Edge rides, that advantage was gone. Millennium Falcon did not have FP+ the first time we were there, and of course RotR is using a system that requires everyone to be in the park first thing. Not being able to get a FP+ for Rise has made the system much less attractive for me.

I don't think Disney was ever thrilled with how FP+ turned out, and now it's not working out so well for even those who love it because we get to the parks later. I think it's going to be replaced with some other type of ride reservation system - what kind remains to be seen. For whatever it's worth, I don't think Disney will ever abandon people who don't want to get to the parks first thing.

OK, prepare to have your mind blown. If you know what you're doing, FP+ is even more generous to savvy users than you ever could have imagined. So if you're a 60+ day hotel guy, fine, grab the top ride at each park, and you're fine with setting your line-up then.

If you're having any problems with any days, literally wait until the day of. Don't even bother ahead of time. Just go to work pounding for about 10 minutes, and you'll have whatever you want (again, not until the day of).

The tiers are awesome too. They jam people up and keep them off FP+. They mean nothing. Book for them for two joke rides, either ride them or don't... it doesn't matter. And boom, you're back in tier 1. Continuing pounding when you're in line or doing whatever, and you're pretty much able to be on Fast Pass all day.

Most people don't think to use it this way, but in reality, if you know what you're doing its overpowered and amazing. The DLR style of FP doesn't really appeal to me. It seems like it benefits those who can reliably rope drop. I think that it would be harder if I'm going after work like I usually like to do. But I'm sure that eventually I'd figure it out and let it work for my advantage.

 

[Trackmaster]

I would expect they aren't going to be building anything at the technological scale of Rise anytime soon. Its the breakdowns causing low capacity that are the issue. Once it can run reliably then a virtual queue will no longer be needed.

The next rides opening are a copy of a trackless dark ride (Ratatouille), a copy of a coaster (Tron) and a new style coaster (GotG) none of these should have the significant issues Rise have, as the hardware is a lot more tried and tested.
They may need virtual queues to control initial popularity as the space to queue won't hold everyone that wants to ride due to Covid distancing, but they should revert to a "normal" set up once most other things do when covid starts to return things to "normal".

It doesn't matter if the uptime was 100%. When you're dealing with 8 person ride vehicles, and you're loading people 16 in a room before sending them out, it was going to have terrible capacity. Covid just made that capacity even more of a joke where 1 person could take up a whole car (but the plexiglass will help now).

I think that the execs needed to sit down and say "This IP, the story, and the top to bottom experience will sell itself. We don't need a groundbreaking ride system for this. Let's just make it an omnimover and sacrifice some quality for capacity." I think that would have been a fair tradeoff. I did some counting and some math on on a couple of my visits, and based on the crowds that go through the line, I put the capacity without breakdowns at around 300 at most without breakdowns are delays. That's atrocious. The plexiglass will help a lot, but I'm also not sure if the bottle neck may have been the queue experience and not just the pods. I saw tons of empty pods running, so I really fear that they let the queue line itself bottle neck capacity... which is unacceptable. I'd gladly to take seats on empty ride vehicles and skip a queue line. You should not be sending empty pods through due to queue line bottom necks.

 

[Clamman73]

Hmmmm...after my experience from this past week, I would want to go back to the fastpass+ way (and of course park hopping). But this assumes back to normal filling up the vehicles (even though I wouldn’t mind to continue to have my own TT car).

I used to do well with getting the 4th, 5th, 6th fastpass as the day went on.

This past trip I never even went on small world or Buzz over two days at MK b/c my time was spent more on waiting for other rides.

 

[DisneyTransport]

I am not a fan of the new FP+... as an AP, I found it impossible to get a FP for rides I wanted to do. And it can be geared to give preference to hotel guess as well (I don't know if it actually is set up that way). Also, they can manipulate it for them to say "oh you can get on Thunder at 8AM, this other ride you like at noon, and this last ride at 9PM. looks like you have to spend the whole day here!"
I've often times wasted my FP+ reservations as well if I had to leave early, where as with the old FP system, I could just give it to very happy bystanders!

As for the OP's question... I think, in the future, WDW will require you to plan out your entire day moment by moment and eventually they will be able to create "tracks" (aka reserve a ride at site A then right after set a reservation at attraction B) so they can plant more stores/carts along those paths. Just a thought to maximize profits from a business perspective. the more predictability, the higher profits you can make.

But I also think that RoR will have to change how it does boarding groups. I dont think its functional and creates tension amongst guests (IMO). I can see it being one of those rides, in the future, that you have to plan to go on days in advance with hotel guests being able to request the ride weeks in advance.

 

[DisneyNittany]

Just go to work pounding for about 10 minutes

Marathon Man over here...

 

[Chi84]

OK, prepare to have your mind blown. If you know what you're doing, FP+ is even more generous to savvy users than you ever could have imagined. So if you're a 60+ day hotel guy, fine, grab the top ride at each park, and you're fine with setting your line-up then.

If you're having any problems with any days, literally wait until the day of. Don't even bother ahead of time. Just go to work pounding for about 10 minutes, and you'll have whatever you want (again, not until the day of).

The tiers are awesome too. They jam people up and keep them off FP+. They mean nothing. Book for them for two joke rides, either ride them or don't... it doesn't matter. And boom, you're back in tier 1. Continuing pounding when you're in line or doing whatever, and you're pretty much able to be on Fast Pass all day.

Most people don't think to use it this way, but in reality, if you know what you're doing its overpowered and amazing. The DLR style of FP doesn't really appeal to me. It seems like it benefits those who can reliably rope drop. I think that it would be harder if I'm going after work like I usually like to do. But I'm sure that eventually I'd figure it out and let it work for my advantage.

We're actually aware of that, and if our son is with us he's willing to do it. I'm less anxious to "pound" the phone to get rides, and I really don't care that much about riding more than one tier 1 per day. We're more about the advance planning so we can guarantee getting FOP or TT in the evenings and work around our dinner reservations. We visit often (or at least we used to) so the number of rides isn't so much of an issue.

The thing I've never liked about the system is that it ties you to a park on a specific day - this may not be true of every ride but FOP or SDD is not a guarantee if you decide to change parks at the last minute, even if you are willing to spend your vacation time pounding the phone. I was willing to accept that as a trade-off for being guaranteed a ride on the headliners. Now, with RotR, it's no longer possible to use the current reservation system to get the newest, most popular ride and no one knows what will happen with the other new rides. FP+ would still work better for us than other, previous systems, but if the newest rides are not included, that may not always be true.

I seriously doubt that FP+ will be continued in its current form, but no one knows except Disney.

 

[DisneyNittany]

The tiers are awesome too. They jam people up and keep them off FP+. They mean nothing. Book for them for two joke rides, either ride them or don't... it doesn't matter. And boom, you're back in tier 1. Continuing pounding when you're in line or doing whatever, and you're pretty much able to be on Fast Pass all day.

My wife is very persistent, so this is our strategy too. When we "discovered" that you could book the "joke rides", let them expire, it was an absolute game changer.

We really only ever are in stand-by in the early morning, then it's just FP+ for the remainder of the day.

 

[DisneyTransport]

We're actually aware of that, and if our son is with us he's willing to do it. I'm less anxious to "pound" the phone to get rides, and I really don't care that much about riding more than one tier 1 per day. We're more about the advance planning so we can guarantee getting FOP or TT in the evenings and work around our dinner reservations. We visit often (or at least we used to) so the number of rides isn't so much of an issue.

The thing I've never liked about the system is that it ties you to a park on a specific day - this may not be true of every ride but FOP or SDD is not a guarantee if you decide to change parks at the last minute, even if you are willing to spend your vacation time pounding the phone. I was willing to accept that as a trade-off for being guaranteed a ride on the headliners. Now, with RotR, it's no longer possible to use the current reservation system to get the newest, most popular ride and no one knows what will happen with the other new rides. FP+ would still work better for us than other, previous systems, but if the newest rides are not included, that may not always be true.

I seriously doubt that FP+ will be continued in its current form, but no one knows except Disney.

Eh, see that's one of my issues with FP+... I feel like it creates an attitude of having superiority over other guests and (I'm trying to figure out how to explain this...) it places the guests against each other? if that makes sense?... "HAHA I BEAT THE SYSTEM!" and I really think, since this is a family theme park, the reservation system needs to be fair to all, which FP+ is not. Whereas the old FP system was. hey, you got their first and was able to grab a ticket! nothing complicated about that IMO

 

[Jon81uk]

Eh, see that's one of my issues with FP+... I feel like it creates an attitude of having superiority over other guests and (I'm trying to figure out how to explain this...) it places the guests against each other? if that makes sense?... "HAHA I BEAT THE SYSTEM!" and I really think, since this is a family theme park, the reservation system needs to be fair to all, which FP+ is not. Whereas the old FP system was. hey, you got their first and was able to grab a ticket! nothing complicated about that IMO

But then people "beat the system" in other ways on old FP. Most forums and blog readers knew that the end of the window didn't matter for years and would turn up late and ride, so saved up FPs for later in the day. Many people had one person run ahead to collect an FP. Some attractions were fully distributed in minutes of opening so you had to know to get to the park for rope drop.

 

[DisneyTransport]

But then people "beat the system" in other ways on old FP. Most forums and blog readers knew that the end of the window didn't matter for years and would turn up late and ride, so saved up FPs for later in the day. Many people had one person run ahead to collect an FP. Some attractions were fully distributed in minutes of opening so you had to know to get to the park for rope drop.

I see that view point, but at least it was more in the hands of the guests. where as this FP+ can be created to place guests on a designated "track."

Also, I always remember CMs following the times listed? I know there are probably times when they didn't, but I also thought those were rare?

 

[JIMINYCR]

I see Tron especially and Guardians building lines early in the day, with Tron being more so one attraction everyone is racing for as CM's allow guests in. I think because the virtual queue has been used favorably at DHS, they will roll with that at first, then Disney will eventually utilize FP+. Virtual queue has had issues with guests being displeased with how its done, but it did create some manner of order so Disney will see it as a solution to chaos over the much anticipated Tron and Guardian.

 

[Trackmaster]

I see Tron especially and Guardians building lines early in the day, with Tron being more so one attraction everyone is racing for as CM's allow guests in. I think because the virtual queue has been used favorably at DHS, they will roll with that at first, then Disney will eventually utilize FP+. Virtual queue has had issues with guests being displeased with how its done, but it did create some manner of order so Disney will see it as a solution to chaos over the much anticipated Tron and Guardian.

I mean, I personally think that Virtual Queue is highly controversial at the moment. I wouldn't say that there's a positive attitude towards it at all. When one system causes the lines for guest services to wrap around the park on a regular basis, its an abject total failure. But in fairness, a lot of the anger is misplaced. The problem is the atrocious capacity and the overwhelming demand, ANY system would have met me pitchforks and torches. The BG/VQ system are just a convenient whipping boy.

I could ultimately see VQ succeeding if they committed to it, put every ride on it, you reserved the rides on a "one and one" basis (tap in the Fast Pass line, you're free to book another, but you can't hold more than one at a time), and offered parallel stand-by lines. I mean honestly that's no different than the MaxPass system really. That's one of the reasons I was so taken aback and shocked by the inception of the BGs. I was like "we already have FP+, why do we need FP Classic too?"

I think that the failure of the VQ/BGs system from day 1 is that there was no balance to it. If you were one of the lucky ones who got it, woo-hoo you had a great day. You get your FP+'s, you get a quick line for the hot ride, and your stand-by's too. If you didn't get it, well tough toenails, you still fought for FP+s and suffered in stand-by lines. At least they should have swung a balance where you got extra FP+'s for other rides or something if you struck out with RotR. Or they should have put Mickey and Minnie on Boarding Groups and you were ineligible if you got one for RotR. There was just no middle ground with this system.

 

[JIMINYCR]

I mean, I personally think that Virtual Queue is highly controversial at the moment. I wouldn't say that there's a positive attitude towards it at all. When one system causes the lines for guest services to wrap around the park on a regular basis, its an abject total failure. But in fairness, a lot of the anger is misplaced. The problem is the atrocious capacity and the overwhelming demand, ANY system would have met me pitchforks and torches. The BG/VQ system are just a convenient whipping boy.

I could ultimately see VQ succeeding if they committed to it, put every ride on it, you reserved the rides on a "one and one" basis (tap in the Fast Pass line, you're free to book another, but you can't hold more than one at a time), and offered parallel stand-by lines. I mean honestly that's no different than the MaxPass system really. That's one of the reasons I was so taken aback and shocked by the inception of the BGs. I was like "we already have FP+, why do we need FP Classic too?"

I think that the failure of the VQ/BGs system from day 1 is that there was no balance to it. If you were one of the lucky ones who got it, woo-hoo you had a great day. You get your FP+'s, you get a quick line for the hot ride, and your stand-by's too. If you didn't get it, well tough toenails, you still fought for FP+s and suffered in stand-by lines. At least they should have swung a balance where you got extra FP+'s for other rides or something if you struck out with RotR. Or they should have put Mickey and Minnie on Boarding Groups and you were ineligible if you got one for RotR. There was just no middle ground with this system.

I did say it wasnt liked by everyone. It was controversial to guests who got to the parks early, tapped on their devices and missed out. It also failed due to the inconsistent ride ability to function. But for Disney it created some manner of order they were seeking. Because of that it will be relied upon again. FP+ also has been less than favorable with many people who believe it creates more problems and line building, but again Disney sees it as a solution to avoid chaos.

 

[Trackmaster]

Hell, we're morning people, and we even love the FP+ system because it allows us to "plan the middle of our day" while leaving the early morning and evening/night to be spontaneous.

By grabbing our favorite and/or most popular attractions via FP+, and stacking them in the 10a-2p timeframe, we can get to the parks early and hit up several attractions first thing. Then, we do our FP+ selections in the middle of the day, and after we're looking for lunch (maybe resort hop) or heading back to our resort for some pool time. That leaves the evening/night to do whatever it is we want. Maybe we'll ride a particular attraction because we like it better at night (looking at you BTMR) or it's simply enjoying the ambiance of the parks.

Like you said, they're very controversial, but we certainly love them because it fits our style better as well.

Yeah, I'm kind of a walking contradiction in terms of how I do my theme parks. I'm a total early bird... and its getting worse. I can hop out of bed at 5 AM and be ready to go, but I'm at the point where I'm really dozing off at 9 PM. But I just really love parks at night. Crowds are better, weather is better, things are better under the lights, outdoor rides are better at night, etc. And obviously you want to go for the elusive night rides on coasters in the woods with no lights. I used to love how Disney really committed to evening hours. Since I'm a local, my MO is usually just to literally go straight from work. I don't even really bother with the weekends.