The presence of a market doesn’t mean it is the dominant market nor does it mean it is desired. Walt Disney World was geared to favor the fewer who planned so people sought to understand the system. Something like Touring Plans couldn’t function if the vast majority of people were using it because it would completely screw up the patterns that are measured.
You constantly conflate things and can't tell the difference in what is being talked about. Planning with travel guides in the 80s is nothing like the 'planning' people are talking about where people are locked into parks, dining, and rides months in advance.
Seems like they do know what to do: extremely high priced hard ticket events.
I've always planned and used FP+ but never had the type of negative experiences you're describing. It wasn't necessary to plan every single minute and lock yourself into parks - we often changed parks, dining reservations and even FP+ if rain was a problem or the day was just too hot to go to a theme park rather than a water park. Of course, not everything could be changed last minute, but on our last trip with Genie+ Safari was down during our window and we weren't able to get back to it that day. I can't help but think that people who were having experiences like the ones you describe just weren't using the system correctly. In any event, I think we just have to accept that different people prefer different things. It's okay that enough people disliked FP+ in order for Disney to change the system; it's not necessary to "prove" that the system didn't work for anyone or that the people who did like it were wrong or edge cases.
Or perhaps you’re drawing overly stark contrasts that don’t reflect how many of us actually used and experienced FP+.
We were on the mixed planning. First 3 FP was of course scheduled, and other than those and ADR dinner or lunch we did what we felt like at the time. Many times DH wanted a resort break (nap) and it wasn't a big deal. Sometimes that meant he'd ride transport back himself while DD and I did our own thing, then meet back up. Other times he napped while we went to the pool.
blogmickey.com
I think you might be looking at this a bit too much as an assault on personal preferences when it's not intended as such. Some people are planners. Others aren't. That's totally cool. There's nothing wrong with you enjoying the structure FP+ gave you or even finding it to be helpful in planning your vacation. The point is that the way Disney has to actually handle attraction reservations that span the entire day is operationally/logistically problematic, antithetical to their own goals for the service, and incongruous with the design of the parks. You should be able to plan to your heart's content, but you shouldn't need FastPass to do it. If you do, something is really, really wrong (and not with you; with the parks).
From your lips to Mickey’s ears.
Steve, I am still waiting and not as patiently as I hoped so. Any inside info yet to share?
Because Disneyland Resort has better capacity than Walt Disney World.
I agree that part of it could be the persona or style of the visitors at DL. However, at DL there are so many rides not even taking part in LL that you could ignore it entirely. WDW is set up differently and has much lower capacity per guest.
Why do you assume that it's not best for the guests to have some level of planning rather than waking up every morning at 7:00 a.m. to try to book a fast pass while on vacation?
Leaving aside conflating issues, I am not sure there is any value, or ability to compare what was taking place or the business model in the 1980's and now. I mean we are talking about a time difference of 40 years. Would you really compare a business's operations and offerings from the 1940's to the 1980's? Times change, trends change, and business operations change. I don't know of any company that offers comparable services, for comparable costs, over the course of a 40 year period. So while I think its fair to say you may like the way it was done better in the 80's I don't think that there can be a reasonable expectation that any company would go back to how things were done (and I mean both from a perspective of implementation/technology and theme/mission statement.)
