I Hate Fastpass+

[roj2323]

I've tried to like it and i've made every effort to deal with its being new glitches but something has to give.

Today Big thunder mountain broke down just as I was going to enter the fastpass+ cue after waiting 25 minutes (Ugh) in the fastpass line (before I got to the Mickey readers). I understand that rides break down, so no big deal we'll come back later. A few hours later we come back and the Fastpass cue is backed up from the loading platform to 150 ft out in front of the attraction. The standby line is reading a 155 minute wait time and yet the standby line is nearly Empty to the point I didn't see the standby line at all until the merge point.

In this case since the Fastpass line was significantly longer than the standby line, cast were forced to push more fastpass riders through the line screwing over the standby line riders which usually get priority. This in my opinion can only be attributed to ride breakdowns and Fastpasses not getting canceled but rather turned into ride when ever you want passes.

In my opinion, Fastpasses need to be canceled in the event of a long breakdown. Give guests an ability to get a fastpass for something else or reschedule for the attraction that broke down. This will ensure that the fastpass cue is never flooded like it was today.

I am also getting really really tired of waiting in a line to get into a line. The mickey readers on both sides of the fastpass+ entrance does not work. Cast are constantly having to say "use both sides". Both mickey readers need to be on the same side with the cast member behind them verses to the side. Making this change alone will speed things up. They also need to point them downward at a 40 degree angle so the Magic bands are more easily read.

Finally If i'm going to be forced to use the system to schedule my attractions at least don't make me wait in a line to use it. Setup kiosks everywhere and let me use the system, the helpers don't make it faster.

.

TLDR: Ugh, the system is not well thought out and it's driving me crazy. Everyone I've talked to Hates it and I can't find one reason to like it.

 

[coachwnh]

I hate the 3 FP+ limit more then anything else!!!!!!!!!

In the event your ride is down, you should receive an email with other options you can use your FP+ for. This happened to us in December.

 

[jlsHouston]

I've tried to like it and i've made every effort to deal with its being new glitches but something has to give.

Today Big thunder mountain broke down just as I was going to enter the fastpass+ cue after waiting 25 minutes (Ugh) in the fastpass line (before I got to the Mickey readers). I understand that rides break down, so no big deal we'll come back later. A few hours later we come back and the Fastpass cue is backed up from the loading platform to 150 ft out in front of the attraction. The standby line is reading a 155 minute wait time and yet the standby line is nearly Empty to the point I didn't see the standby line at all until the merge point.

In this case since the Fastpass line was significantly longer than the standby line, cast were forced to push more fastpass riders through the line screwing over the standby line riders which usually get priority. This in my opinion can only be attributed to ride breakdowns and Fastpasses not getting canceled but rather turned into ride when ever you want passes.

In my opinion, Fastpasses need to be canceled in the event of a long breakdown. Give guests an ability to get a fastpass for something else or reschedule for the attraction that broke down. This will ensure that the fastpass cue is never flooded like it was today.

I am also getting really really tired of waiting in a line to get into a line. The mickey readers on both sides of the fastpass+ entrance does not work. Cast are constantly having to say "use both sides". Both mickey readers need to be on the same side with the cast member behind them verses to the side. Making this change alone will speed things up. They also need to point them downward at a 40 degree angle so the Magic bands are more easily read.

Finally If i'm going to be forced to use the system to schedule my attractions at least don't make me wait in a line to use it. Setup kiosks everywhere and let me use the system, the helpers don't make it faster.

.

TLDR: Ugh, the system is not well thought out and it's driving me crazy. Everyone I've talked to Hates it and I can't find one reason to like it.

And it's not even busy at the parks yet.....

 

[kelknight84]

We were at MK on Saturday when it rained all day. Walked on every ride and character greet, I think we did every single attraction and left by 9pm even had a CRT for breakfast. I think it was probably busy on Sunday because the weather had been so bad all weekend and it was finally sunny yesterday.

 

[roj2323]

We were at MK on Saturday when it rained all day. Walked on every ride and character greet, I think we did every single attraction and left by 9pm even had a CRT for breakfast. I think it was probably busy on Sunday because the weather had been so bad all weekend and it was finally sunny yesterday.

The park was pretty slammed. Partly because of the crappy weather the few previous days, partly because it was an extra magic night and partly because there were Argentinian tour groups and masses of cheerleaders. It wasn't so bad that the ride times should have been more than 45 minutes or so however.

 

[jlsHouston]

The park was pretty slammed. Partly because of the crappy weather the few previous days, partly because it was an extra magic night and partly because there were Argentinian tour groups and masses of cheerleaders. It wasn't so bad that the ride times should have been more than 45 minutes or so however.

Well...I am booked and pretty much paid for spring break...so all I can hope is that the next few weeks they will be addressing some of these bottleneck situations and making some improvements.

I pretty much selected my FP+ for afternoon and early evening. If we make the parks in the morning we will hit stand by lines if they look like short waits. I have to work while I am there and I think it may be only me and the kiddos doing this trip so we will probably only be able to get to the parks after 3pm Mon-Fri.

I don't know what sort of a conclusion to draw from these types of waits in a FP line in February.

 

[kma71677]

I hate the 3 FP+ limit more then anything else!!!!!!!!!

In the event your ride is down, you should receive an email with other options you can use your FP+ for. This happened to us in December.

Exactly- We used our 3 FP's at AK yesterday by 1pm. Rest of the day we were standby. No thanks. We left soon afterwards.

 

[kma71677]

We were at MK on Saturday when it rained all day. Walked on every ride and character greet, I think we did every single attraction and left by 9pm even had a CRT for breakfast. I think it was probably busy on Sunday because the weather had been so bad all weekend and it was finally sunny yesterday.

Yes- it was much busier on Sunday. We went to EPCOT and it was very quiet there too on Sat. Nice that it dried up in time for the fireworks though!

 

[Rob562]

A question for the OP: What was your opinion of how the old FP system handled attraction breakdowns? Because how FP+ handles it now at the broken-down-attraction is *exactly* the same way as the paper FP system used to be. Namely, you can return at any time the rest of the day and use your FP. So if FP+ never existed, you would still have run into the exact same problem as you described.

Now, where the FP+ system gives an added benefit in instances like this is that the FP+ reservation becomes a "wildcard" that can be used at *any* other FP+ attraction in the park (except for the attractions your other two FP+ reservations are for that day) through the end of the day. In fact, if it's within an hour or two of scheduled park closing, the wildcard can be used the following day if you want. This could never have been done under the paper FP system.

I'll give an example of my experience last June under paper FP. We had a mid-afternoon FP for Peter Pan. Very much like your incident, the ride broke down just as we joined the FP Return line. We walked away and were going to return later. The ride never reopened that day, despite the park being open until 11 or 12. Under that system, we were SOL with that paper ticket. Just had to take it on the chin as an "oh well" event. But if it had been FP+, we could've used that FP+ time to just walk into Space Mountain that evening and skip the really long line.

-Rob

 

[NormC]

FP+ worked fine for us last week. There is a learning curve for some people but all in all it went well. When one ride was down for a bit we got a notification and a free FP+ for any other ride that day until 11PM.

 

[coachwnh]

FP+ worked fine for us last week. There is a learning curve for some people but all in all it went well. When one ride was down for a bit we got a notification and a free FP+ for any other ride that day until 11PM.

For the most part, the system worked fine. We have APs and used the FP+ system without any issues in OCT, NOV, and DEC. The major issue I think people will have in the future (especially those who really used the old FP system to their advantage) is the inability to get passes in multiple parks and being limited to 3 a day! I still think the tier system stinks as well. If I went to a park earlier and grabed FPs for RnR and TSMM or Soarin and TT, then great for me. Now I am either standing in a long line for one of them or getting up early to ride the one I don't have the FP+ for. Im not into racing while on vacation. This new system really cuts back what I hope to see/do while in WDW.

 

[Graham9]

There is a special place in hell reserved for the person who thought FP+ was a good idea.

They have taken a 'good' system and replaced it with garbage. Sorry - I strongly believe this is the worst idea Disney have had.

 

[roj2323]

A question for the OP: What was your opinion of how the old FP system handled attraction breakdowns? Because how FP+ handles it now at the broken-down-attraction is *exactly* the same way as the paper FP system used to be. Namely, you can return at any time the rest of the day and use your FP. So if FP+ never existed, you would still have run into the exact same problem as you described.

Now, where the FP+ system gives an added benefit in instances like this is that the FP+ reservation becomes a "wildcard" that can be used at *any* other FP+ attraction in the park (except for the attractions your other two FP+ reservations are for that day) through the end of the day. In fact, if it's within an hour or two of scheduled park closing, the wildcard can be used the following day if you want. This could never have been done under the paper FP system.

I'll give an example of my experience last June under paper FP. We had a mid-afternoon FP for Peter Pan. Very much like your incident, the ride broke down just as we joined the FP Return line. We walked away and were going to return later. The ride never reopened that day, despite the park being open until 11 or 12. Under that system, we were SOL with that paper ticket. Just had to take it on the chin as an "oh well" event. But if it had been FP+, we could've used that FP+ time to just walk into Space Mountain that evening and skip the really long line.

-Rob

The issue is, with the old system people would understand a breakdown and it wouldn't be a big deal. Riders would still need to visit the attraction during their allotted time to get a return pass. With the old system, yes they would honor the FP if it had a time during a breakdown but most people didn't know. With FP+ they actively encourage you to use the wildcard and if there is another attraction breakdown in the park the wildcard can be used on another potentially more popular attraction like Big Thunder Mountain which would compound the problem if that attraction too had issues during the day. Basically they are trying to make everyone happy and the changes the new system implemented makes the system less efficient thus causing more frustration than the original system.

Also the FP+ reservation system did go down for a while on sunday so potentially there was a computer system failure that also compounded the problem.

Never the less the computer tech has made a fairly simple system extremely complex and overly expensive. I simply can not comprehend why they would take something that worked extremely well and replace it with the catastrophe that is FP+.

 

[roj2323]

There is a special place in hell reserved for the person who thought FP+ was a good idea.

They have taken a 'good' system and replaced it with garbage. Sorry - I strongly believe this is the worst idea Disney have had.

It's certainly the most expensive mistake. 1.3 Billion is the number being floated around by cast.

 

[roj2323]

When one ride was down for a bit we got a notification and a free FP+ for any other ride that day until 11PM.

I think this is a major source of some of the issues.

If the ride goes down sure the guest should be able to choose another attraction if they choose but they shouldn't be given a wildcard good for any other attraction. Limit the wildcard to the attraction they originally had a FP for or allow them to swap the wildcard for an available FP time for another attraction. No extra fast passes should be given out for any attraction ever.

Translation: If a ride is allotted 1000 FP for the day that's all that should be allowed to go through the FP line no matter if it's FastPasses with set times or FastPass wildcards.

 

[NormC]

I think this is a major source of some of the issues.

If the ride goes down sure the guest should be able to choose another attraction if they choose but they shouldn't be given a wildcard good for any other attraction. Limit the wildcard to the attraction they originally had a FP for or allow them to swap the wildcard for an available FP time for another attraction. No extra fast passes should be given out for any attraction ever.

That is all well and good but it is no different than legacy FP. They would hand out Legacy wildcard FPs like candy sometimes.

 

[kondjott]

If the ride goes down sure the guest should be able to choose another attraction if they choose but they shouldn't be given a wildcard good for any other attraction. Limit the wildcard to the attraction they originally had a FP for or allow them to swap the wildcard for an available FP time for another attraction. No extra fast passes should be given out for any attraction ever.

This happened to us a couple times last week, and I can tell you they don't hand out "wildcard" fastpasses. We had FP's for Great Movie Ride, and when it went down we were given a window of time where we could use a FP on a "Choice of Experiences". However, these experiences were obviously limited to what had extra FP availability- TSMM, ToT, and RnR were not options. It wasn't just a Tier thing either, because Beauty and the Beast (a Tier 1) was an option, while ToT (a Tier 2) was not.

The more illustrative example came a couple days later at MK- we had FP's for Little Mermaid, but when it went down we again were given a "Choice of Experiences" that included a seemingly random assortment of rides. A castmember explained to us that they group the rides by type, so the options we were given were "character-centric, animatronic-type rides", which included Peter Pan, Mermaid, Dumbo, iasw, and Winnie the Pooh. Presumably, if you had a FP for Space Mountain when it went down, you'd be given a choice of the three Mountains.

 

[Rob562]

This happened to us a couple times last week, and I can tell you they don't hand out "wildcard" fastpasses. We had FP's for Great Movie Ride, and when it went down we were given a window of time where we could use a FP on a "Choice of Experiences". However, these experiences were obviously limited to what had extra FP availability- TSMM, ToT, and RnR were not options. It wasn't just a Tier thing either, because Beauty and the Beast (a Tier 1) was an option, while ToT (a Tier 2) was not.

The more illustrative example came a couple days later at MK- we had FP's for Little Mermaid, but when it went down we again were given a "Choice of Experiences" that included a seemingly random assortment of rides. A castmember explained to us that they group the rides by type, so the options we were given were "character-centric, animatronic-type rides", which included Peter Pan, Mermaid, Dumbo, iasw, and Winnie the Pooh. Presumably, if you had a FP for Space Mountain when it went down, you'd be given a choice of the three Mountains.

There is also a restriction that the wildcard/replacement FP+ cannot be used at attractions for which you have (or had and already used) a FP+ for already. So if your three choices were Space Mountain, Peter Pan and Big Thunder, if Big Thunder went down during your FP+ window you would not be given Peter Pan as an option to use your wildcard/replacement FP+.

-Rob