How MyMagic+ handles attraction closures with FASTPASS+

[devoy1701]

So don't. Just don't complain when you don't get to play with the cool new toys. So far I have found that the simple My Disney app has saved me tons of time in the parks. I can reserve dining while in line at an attraction and I no longer have to walk halfway across the park to get an attraction wait time. My Magic+ looks like it will be even better.

But I have to Richard. I'm at a stark disadvantage if I do not, and that's the unfortunate side of this FP+/MyMagic NextGen stuff. You have to opt in or your experience is going to be significantly different than it's been. I'm now forced to use my SmartPhone as part of my day of exploring the parks and planning my touring. I hope I can get a FP+ for a wall outlet too or they install some at every CS restaurant so I can be recharging my phone while eating my meal.

 

[Master Yoda]

But what are the 8 options? Obviously we will have to wait and see how this plays out, but the mountains are going to be completely booked 69 days out, so presumably you are going to get a fastpass for whatever is left available, which, if we are being honest, is probably attractions that never should have had fastpass in the first place. In the old system, when you got a fastpass you were entitled to ride that ride without (much) delay and if the ride went down, that artificially inflated the standby line. Now, you are just entitled to "a" fastpass, but not all fastpasses are created equal, and many, particularly those left the day of, are probably substandard and, indeed, rather useless. The flip side is that now the stanby line should be able to maintain a more constant flow, so at least hopefully if you lose your splash mountain fastpass and can't get a new one, the standby line won't be too terrible an option.

You are assuming that they will allow every e-ticket to be booked to capacity in advance. Nothing I have seen so far, both official and under the table, leads me to believe that they will do this. Unlike a restaurant where profit is on the line with every seat, there is no financial incentive to book out an attraction to 100% capacity in advance. If anything, there is incentive not to.

 

[flynnibus]

But what are the 8 options? Obviously we will have to wait and see how this plays out, but the mountains are going to be completely booked 69 days out, so presumably you are going to get a fastpass for whatever is left available, which, if we are being honest, is probably attractions that never should have had fastpass in the first place.

The outcome is largely up to Disney. Like I outlined before... you can devise systems that allows 'new' FP+ reservations to be made for an attraction that previously was all booked up.

People need to come to terms with the idea that what can be booked is completely up to Disney. They can control it and devise lots of ways of making capacity appear or disappear depending on your situation. So these things are not so Black and White as everyone wants to think they are.

It all boils down to what Disney is motivated to do.

 

[devoy1701]

Is it that much different then seeking out a time board to know what is happening with attractions? At least this is if you want it.. delievered to you 'as needed' instead of you having to seek things out.




It's a chicken and the egg problem...

How can I offer you a new time.. when I don't know when the attraction will be back online?
I can't assign times to you blindly.. because it's highly likely you won't like the time I give you. So.. I can't offer reassignment until I know.

Then.. if you were closed for a long time, there could be too many people that are in the same boat as you.. so I can't offer ALL of you new reride times because of limited capacity.

So now what?

I think offering another FP in the meantime as a form of guest recovery would be nice.. but there is only so much capacity.. which much of has already been promised to someone else.

I think what you might see the system evolve to is the idea of 'banking' FP credits. Instead of fixing things as 3 per day, you end up with a rationed amount based on your tickets, that you could use as you see fit. Your account may be boosted with new credits for guest recovery actions (downed attractions, bad Customer Service, special occassion suprises, etc).

So you end up with a variable amount of FP+ actually being available in a day.

It's a simple equation that I'm sure they could have developed with their $2B+ budget. You tell the system when the ride comes back on, and the database would have to look at how many FPs were affected by that window and redistribute them as they can. I get that at times it might be impossible to accommodate everyone and that sometimes the ride doesn't come back from 101, but atleast they're trying to help me out considering I told them 60 days ago that I wanted to ride TestTrack (which btw, isn't worth booking out that far!)

 

[Master Yoda]

But I have to Richard. I'm at a stark disadvantage if I do not, and that's the unfortunate side of this FP+/MyMagic NextGen stuff. You have to opt in or your experience is going to be significantly different than it's been. I'm now forced to use my SmartPhone as part of my day of exploring the parks and planning my touring. I hope I can get a FP+ for a wall outlet too or they install some at every CS restaurant so I can be recharging my phone while eating my meal.

Is looking at your phone a few times a day really putting you out that much? You don't have to answer calls, you can turn off email and facbook, you can just use it for the 1/2 a dozen times you will need it for MyMagic+.

 

[nolatron]

I think it's horse manure. I actually think the dependency on your smartphone is unfortunate in general. I try not to have myself glued to my wireless device when i'm enjoying the parks.

It sounds like it doesn't matter if you have a wireless device or not.

The only advantage of having one is you get alerted ahead of time the ride has closed and you can rebook a new FP+.

Otherwise you just find out when you walk up to the Queue and see it closed just like now. At that point hit up a FP+ kiosk and redeem your new FP+

 

[orky8]

You are assuming that they will allow every e-ticket to be booked to capacity in advance. Nothing I have seen so far, both official and under the table, leads me to believe that they will do this. Unlike a restaurant where profit is on the line with every seat, there is no financial incentive to book out an attraction to 100% capacity in advance. If anything, there is incentive not to.

Well, rides don't work that way at all -- instead it is allocation of Fastpass and Standby. That's why we need to see how this plays out, but what they really need to do in this situation is allocate more spots to FP, which will increase the stanby wait time. There is, of course, a limit to which this could be done, but there is no reason to think there will be extra FPs available within the standard allocation.

Let's say a ride can do 1000 people per hour, and Disney allocates 30% FP (i.e., they allow 300 FPs to be booked each hour). If the ride goes down from noon to 1 PM, but reopens from 1-10PM, they could still give those all those people FPs for the ride, causing the allocation to be 33% for those last nine hours. In essence, that is how the current system works -- typically if you return and its closed, you can come back with your FP anytime, essentially bumping the current standby people. BUT, if the 8 options are solely based on the standard allocations, then everything will be already booked. What they should do, as Devoy said, is give you a free one AND try to get you on the ride later when it reopens.

 

[flynnibus]

It's a simple equation that I'm sure they could have developed with their $2B+ budget. You tell the system when the ride comes back on, and the database would have to look at how many FPs were affected by that window and redistribute them as they can. I get that at times it might be impossible to accommodate everyone and that sometimes the ride doesn't come back from 101, but atleast they're trying to help me out considering I told them 60 days ago that I wanted to ride TestTrack (which btw, isn't worth booking out that far!)

1) Disney can't say for sure when an attraction will return to service today... NGE isn't going to change that. Telling you inaccurate information, and then having to correct yourself multiple times is far more frustrating for customers than not telling them the inaccurate info to start with.

2) You assume whatever time you would be given is 'ok' with you. What if you are at DHS in the morning.. TSMM goes down.. and I fire off to you a new FP+ for 9pm tonight. You didn't even plan on being in the park at 9pm.. so getting that message will only you off more and make you curse Disney for giving you such a stupid time.

That's why it's a bad idea to reassign FP reservations without knowing for sure when the attraction is back, and why you can't just blindly reassign FP reservations without user input.

But this leads the question of 'can I rebook the attraction AFTER it comes back online' - and that's what I asked earlier in the thread. Is it the attraction being down preventing you from rebooking, or that they don't let you rebook the same attraction. If it's the former... you get a notice that the attraction is down... and you might have the option to wait to rebook, hoping the attraction comes up later and then you reassign your FP to a new time. Disney could go either way...

 

[devoy1701]

It sounds like it doesn't matter if you have a wireless device or not.

The only advantage of having one is you get alerted ahead of time the ride has closed and you can rebook a new FP+.

Otherwise you just find out when you walk up to the Queue and see it closed just like now. At that point hit up a FP+ kiosk and redeem your new FP+

Again...disadvantage because I would be late to find out that the attraction is down, and then I would have to find a kiosk to get a new FP+ issued....meanwhile, 100 other people have been notified because they're carrying around their iPad and have already made the switch so I'm left with a FP for the WDW Railroad, Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, and who knows what else.

It's just a shame that experience the park now means that I have to use my SmartPhone to help me out. I like to leave that thing in the hotel sometimes, ya know?

I know I'm making hyperboles here...just not excited about the fundamental changes that are coming to how an average guest has to experience the WDW parks. How come Disneyland isn't rolling this stuff out huh?

 

[stevehousse]

What a mess...

 

[orky8]

The outcome is largely up to Disney. Like I outlined before... you can devise systems that allows 'new' FP+ reservations to be made for an attraction that previously was all booked up.

People need to come to terms with the idea that what can be booked is completely up to Disney. They can control it and devise lots of ways of making capacity appear or disappear depending on your situation. So these things are not so Black and White as everyone wants to think they are.

It all boils down to what Disney is motivated to do.

Oh, why didn't you just say so. Now I'm really optimistic about this. (SARCASM)

 

[WDWYankee15]

But just think, before Disney spent $2 Billion (or is it 3 now?), you would have never had all those options!

You had those options...you just would have NEVER gotten a Fasspass for them... "Come right in no wait. There is no one here!"

 

[flynnibus]

Oh, why didn't you just say so. Now I'm really optimistic about this. (SARCASM)

Simple reality that people need to come to terms with. It's not absolutes when you are dealing with virtual tokens, software defined limits, etc. Disney can be very crude with it, Disney can be very advanced. Disney can be motivated to satisfy you as a customer, or they may be motivated to simply try to placate you..

It's not much different from other aspects of the business... just applied in a space people are used to being defined only by people in line and the ride itself. Disney had similar manipulative powers with FP too.. here its just more.

 

[orky8]

The reason why many of us have viceral reactions to every decision Disney makes lately is that they appear to be made by someone who is completely disconnected from what is actually in the parks and what guests want. Yes, attractions go down and there needs to be a way to deal with that. But its as if the decision makers don't understand that a space mountain fastpass is not the same thing as a MILF or even a Pirates FP. If someone who understood their product just spent an hour thinking through these issues, they'd be able to spot and resolve the problems. But instead, every decision seems incredibly short-sighted. That's not to say that this decision was debated for weeks with several meetings convened, just that no one at those meetings seems to have ever been to Disney World.

 

[merry68]

I don't think this will be completely bad, I do not like the dependence on smart phone technology, but that's just me..

I wondered how FP+ would address ride problems. This clears it up and does provide some answers.. my only concern is a lot of this is theory-based and has not been widely practiced, so I do think there will be bumps in the road at first.

I think FP+ will be either a huge success or a huge fail, no inbetween. I think it's the transition period that has a lot of people in an uproar.

 

[SirLink]

By the attraction being closed. Yes. As for FP, how is this any different? Would you have gotten another FP (are there any available) and had the ability to actually use it (when the return time is) before closing?

If anything this has the potential to get you into another FP attraction where the old system would not have because you won't necessarily have the mandatory waits before your return time.

No I would complain and expect exactly like at Disneyland, on July 4th may I add when an attraction broke down and the party I was with got 3 attraction tickets to jump the queue for any attraction for up to 6 people.

Especially if I had tickets reserved for BTMR and all the fools want me to have is M+G.

 

[orky8]

Simple reality that people need to come to terms with. It's not absolutes when you are dealing with virtual tokens, software defined limits, etc. Disney can be very crude with it, Disney can be very advanced. Disney can be motivated to satisfy you as a customer, or they may be motivated to simply try to placate you..

It's not much different from other aspects of the business... just applied in a space people are used to being defined only by people in line and the ride itself. Disney had similar manipulative powers with FP too.. here its just more.

Besides typing to watch your words appear on the screen, what is the point of this post? Disney is motivated to make money. Ticking off your customer, generally, is not how businesses go about this. The issue (and issues) is Disney seems to have lost touch with its own product. They are trying, but instead just end up looking like a dog chasing its tail.

Disney isn't trying to be "crude" or "advanced" its trying to get my money. PERIOD.

 

[devoy1701]

1) Disney can't say for sure when an attraction will return to service today... NGE isn't going to change that. Telling you inaccurate information, and then having to correct yourself multiple times is far more frustrating for customers than not telling them the inaccurate info to start with.

2) You assume whatever time you would be given is 'ok' with you. What if you are at DHS in the morning.. TSMM goes down.. and I fire off to you a new FP+ for 9pm tonight. You didn't even plan on being in the park at 9pm.. so getting that message will only you off more and make you curse Disney for giving you such a stupid time.

That's why it's a bad idea to reassign FP reservations without knowing for sure when the attraction is back, and why you can't just blindly reassign FP reservations without user input.

But this leads the question of 'can I rebook the attraction AFTER it comes back online' - and that's what I asked earlier in the thread. Is it the attraction being down preventing you from rebooking, or that they don't let you rebook the same attraction. If it's the former... you get a notice that the attraction is down... and you might have the option to wait to rebook, hoping the attraction comes up later and then you reassign your FP to a new time. Disney could go either way...

I was not suggesting that they make it a crap shoot. I would never expect them to offer a new FP time before they knew if the ride was coming back online. I would expect a system event to trigger the redistribution of those missed FPs after someone told the system (I would hope that the FP+ and MyMagic app or whatever is integrated with Park Ops so it could be automated) that the attraction was now available again.

I would be less fuming if they did issue me a new FP for a time I couldn't make then if I walked by the attraction later only to find it operational again and I now have to wait in a 70 minute Stand-by line because I was de-FPed...

 

[flynnibus]

Disney isn't trying to be "crude" or "advanced" its trying to get my money. PERIOD.

Yes.. the world can be boiled down to that one thing and that dictates the answer to every decision ever.

 

[flynnibus]

No I would complain and expect exactly like at Disneyland, on July 4th may I add when an attraction broke down and the party I was with got 3 attraction tickets to jump the queue for any attraction for up to 6 people.

Especially if I had tickets reserved for BTMR and all the fools want me to have is M+G.

So you are proposing that because there is a new FP system - your ability to complain/escalate and get comps will disappear? Your example will still hold true if you go and complain... Disney will buy you off as they did last time.