Lines at the FP+ entrances

[bhg469]

When it comes to planning, I never minded planning dining reservations several months in advance. With the park hopper tickets, even if we decided to start the day somewhere else, getting to the park where we will eat is not hard.

But now, after my March trip, I will not spend the extra 300-400 on park hoppers ever again. That means now planning a dining reservation sucks, because that now locks us into a park in 180 days in advance. So therefore not only will I not buy park hoppers, I will not buy table service dining. I will then save money to just to quick service. Making a 180 day reservation and locking myself into one park is something I will not feel comfortable doing. That is why I am surprised Disney wants to eliminate park hoppers. If people stop buying them and stop buying table service dining, they will lose a lot of extra money. They are foolish to think they will get it back by keeping people in one park.

Like I said before, we are staying on site for 4days and no matter how much money I "save" I'm not buying more than one day tickets. They have to be park hopper for us which leads me back to disney not wanting us there. We can only schedule fast passes for one park, and its not like its impossible to enjoy all 4 in one day. FP+ just makes it more difficult to park hop.

 

[Redhawk]

I'll grant you 100% that the in-park WiFi is lacking, downright pitiful at best but I had no issues using LTE (AT&T on iPhone 5) last summer and during the Christmas holiday. I had a VERY responsive app experience while using wireless data and turned off my WiFi completely.

I often have my phone's WiFi turned off so totally forgot to turn it on until I'd been in the park (HS) for a while back in January. Had no issues using LTE and then no problem with WiFi signal or the responsiveness of the app.

 

[ford91exploder]

Yeah. I'm not thrilled with certain aspects of FP+ (to put it kindly) but the ability to schedule FP+ before I go to the parks is a very big plus in my mind. We are already deciding the parks we go to each day due to dining reservations anyway so getting ride reservations in hand from the comfort of my home without having to have a runner go to individual fastpass machines is a nice perk.

I would love to have a mix where you can reserve a certain number of FP+ per day ahead of time and then also have access to additional "day of" FP+, but I don't want to see them take away the ability to reserve rides in advance.

In this case I had noted that instead of requiring 60 days pre-planning That onsite guests be given a 24 hour window still allows for them to pre-select attractions day before but it does not affect the vast majority of people who WILL NOT use the MM+ systems because of language barriers etc, Maybe the onsite window should be longer like length of stay. But current system is optimized for the hyper-planner who even here is a small portion of the user base.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

Who is it that keeps saying Disney wants to eliminate park hoppers? I have been under the understanding that FP+ will be extended to multi-park at some point in the future just not right now, just like off-site and APs.

A lot of what people are saying, and for the way it looks, it does seem Disney is trying to keep people in one park. Just look at the facts. Why would it be so hard for Disney to allow 3 fast passes a day, 2 to one park 1 for another. It seems that they intentionally overlooked that during testing for it to even becoming an option and if so, Why?

 

[Disneyfamily4]

Understand your reasoning, but a bit of friendly advice--table service restaurants in the resorts (rather than the parks) generally take walk-ups during all but the busiest weeks. Hop a monorail or exit out the back gate of EPCOT. Or if you'll have a car, I can recommend at least a dozen places within a 15-minute drive.

For some they may like that, but for us, we like to be in the parks. For me, I have been to the Ploynesian to eat as well as Animal Kingdom resort. That is good when you want to take a break once in a while, but mostly, the majority of all dining is done inside a park. Paying for table service dining, then have to leave the park to go in 10 different resorts for our 10-day plan to eat isnt really worth it.

 

[Lord_Vader]

A lot of what people are saying, and for the way it looks, it does seem Disney is trying to keep people in one park. Just look at the facts. Why would it be so hard for Disney to allow 3 fast passes a day, 2 to one park 1 for another. It seems that they intentionally overlooked that during testing for it to even becoming an option and if so, Why?

I haven't bought into the idea that it is being done to eliminate park hopping. I know large IT projects, the features typically come in slowly and are tested as much as possible before rollout and the next feature is added. As such, why complicate (and I mean COMPLICATE) something like this that is already behind schedule and over budget by forcing a feature that is not ready. Even features that would make immediate $$$ such as reading MBs on rides for Memory Maker are not fully rolled out yet. I know it seems that they are out of testing phase on much of the project but I don't believe it is, they are still very much in test mode but with live customers.

They are just now including AP holders in the testing which should tell everyone just how far behind they really are.

 

[Master Yoda]

A lot of what people are saying, and for the way it looks, it does seem Disney is trying to keep people in one park. Just look at the facts. Why would it be so hard for Disney to allow 3 fast passes a day, 2 to one park 1 for another. It seems that they intentionally overlooked that during testing for it to even becoming an option and if so, Why?

MM+ is still not 100% up for all ticket media types. It just went live to all guests in DHS 2 weeks ago and AP testing just started. One would think that everything must be working in the individual parks before they can start doing parkhopping. You can't put up a roof before the foundation is built.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

I haven't bought into the idea that it is being done to eliminate park hopping. I know large IT projects, the features typically come in slowly and are tested as much as possible before rollout and the next feature is added. As such, why complicate (and I mean COMPLICATE) something like this that is already behind schedule and over budget by forcing a feature that is not ready. Even features that would make immediate $$$ such as reading MBs on rides for Memory Maker are not fully rolled out yet. I know it seems that they are out of testing phase on much of the project but I don't believe it is, they are still very much in test mode but with live customers.

They are just now including AP holders in the testing which should tell everyone just how far behind they really are.

I love park hopping and hope it is not being eliminated. But like I said, Disney did not allow the computer system to let people mix up their 3 fast passes to any park they want. It would not be a hard thing for them to do. And lets face it, Park Hopping is not a small over looked detail that Disney did not think would be a big deal.

When the testing phase begun, Park hopping should have been at the first level of testing.

I know some people think park hopping will be an add on later, but I doubt it. Being park hoppers cost 3-400 more per family ticket package, Disney should have wanted to keep getting that money and like I said, park hopping should have been the first stage of the initial testing, so they can keep getting that money. But it wasnt. It makes you think why?

 

[bhg469]

MM+ is still not 100% up for all ticket media types. It just went live to all guests in DHS 2 weeks ago and AP testing just started. One would think that everything must be working in the individual parks before they can start doing parkhopping. You can't put up a roof before the foundation is built.

Let's say that is true, are fast passes still limited to 3 per day even with ability to park hop? If so...... Come on!

 

[Disneyfamily4]

MM+ is still not 100% up for all ticket media types. It just went live to all guests in DHS 2 weeks ago and AP testing just started. One would think that everything must be working in the individual parks before they can start doing parkhopping. You can't put up a roof before the foundation is built.

Testing has been going on for over a year. I was at boardwalk last March and I was chosen to participate and had the band last year. Last year we park hopped. This year, testing is coming to an end and guess what? park hopping has been eliminated form the initial test done last year. Will it come back? I hope so. But first we see it and now we dont, kinda makes you think it is gone.

So in the end, you are hearing from someone who had the bands last year and that park hopping was available. Now it is gone and pretty much you are only guessing, crossing your fingers and hoping it comes back. The Facts proves differently.

 

[Master Yoda]

I love park hopping and hope it is not being eliminated. But like I said, Disney did not allow the computer system to let people mix up their 3 fast passes to any park they want. It would not be a hard thing for them to do. And lets face it, Park Hopping is not a small over looked detail that Disney did not think would be a big deal.

When the testing phase begun, Park hopping should have been at the first level of testing.

I know some people think park hopping will be an add on later, but I doubt it. Being park hoppers cost 3-400 more per family ticket package, Disney should have wanted to keep getting that money and like I said, park hopping should have been the first stage of the initial testing, so they can keep getting that money. But it wasnt. It makes you think why?

How could park hopping work if even one park did not have MM+ fully up and running?

 

[Lord_Vader]

I love park hopping and hope it is not being eliminated. But like I said, Disney did not allow the computer system to let people mix up their 3 fast passes to any park they want. It would not be a hard thing for them to do. And lets face it, Park Hopping is not a small over looked detail that Disney did not think would be a big deal.

When the testing phase begun, Park hopping should have been at the first level of testing.

I know some people think park hopping will be an add on later, but I doubt it. Being park hoppers cost 3-400 more per family ticket package, Disney should have wanted to keep getting that money and like I said, park hopping should have been the first stage of the initial testing, so they can keep getting that money. But it wasnt. It makes you think why?

The precise reason I believe they will add PH to FP+ is because of the revenue from tickets that they will lose without it. Park hopping is a major part of most guests plan, they know this very well and I cannot see them eliminating any incentive in the long run. My best guess is that the UI for MDE with PH must have been a complete mess to deal with. The algorithm to not allow overlap, allow for travel time between parks would be fairly complex when comparing to a simple do not allow overlap check.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Testing has been going on for over a year. I was at boardwalk last March and I was chosen to participate and had the band last year. Last year we park hopped. This year, testing is coming to an end and guess what? park hopping has been eliminated form the initial test done last year. Will it come back? I hope so. But first we see it and now we dont, kinda makes you think it is gone.

It was a mess, that is why they dropped the feature for the time being.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

It was a mess, that is why they dropped the feature for the time being.

Whats funny is, In March, they offered absolutely no quickness to getting into the park over the old tickets. But in September it seemed quicker, but only because Disney took out the turn styles and added several more magic band readers. So it gives you the illusion it is quicker, but compared to the tickets. maybe a nanosecond in savings.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Whats funny is, In March, they offered absolutely no quickness to getting into the park over the old tickets. But in September it seemed quicker, but only because Disney took out the turn styles and added several more magic band readers. So it gives you the illusion it is quicker, but compared to the tickets. maybe a nanosecond in savings.

There are nearly twice as many readers as there were turnstyles so there should be close to twice as many guests able to get through them as they used to. If guests would pay attention to the people in front of them and use both front and rear it would be much faster than it used to be.

The readers at the front gates are fast, with our bands over Christmas I tapped then placed my finger without waiting for the light up, it always read and turned green quickly. If guests hold their bands and wait for the light to change, then place their finger it seems to take a long time and shouldn't. I wonder if they are doing it on purpose to allow the CMs time to watch each mickeyhead and to slow the number of guests flooding the park.

 

[ford91exploder]

Testing has been going on for over a year. I was at boardwalk last March and I was chosen to participate and had the band last year. Last year we park hopped. This year, testing is coming to an end and guess what? park hopping has been eliminated form the initial test done last year. Will it come back? I hope so. But first we see it and now we dont, kinda makes you think it is gone.

So in the end, you are hearing from someone who had the bands last year and that park hopping was available. Now it is gone and pretty much you are only guessing, crossing your fingers and hoping it comes back. The Facts proves differently.

We ALL know Disney IT is completely incompetent,

They are one of the only organizations who could mess up the 'hello world' program every student writes as part of CS-101

This is why Park Hopping is not working they probably hit a bug and could not solve it, I expect its the same bug which keeps biting when 'John Smith Sr' enters the park John Smith Jr cannot enter the park because MM+ shows he's already been admitted.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

How could park hopping work if even one park did not have MM+ fully up and running?

In March we got the bands for initial testing on our trip. We paid for the bounce back weekend to see Star wars Weekend in May and it was rolled out then.

 

[Lord_Vader]

In March we got the bands for initial testing on our trip. We paid for the bounce back weekend to see Star wars Weekend in May and it was rolled out then.

From what I had read at the time guests complained very loudly about the interface taking way too much effort and was very confusing. My best guess is that they went back to the drawing board with the feature.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

We ALL know Disney IT is completely incompetent,

They are one of the only organizations who could mess up the 'hello world' program every student writes as part of CS-101

This is why Park Hopping is not working they probably hit a bug and could not solve it, I expect its the same bug which keeps biting when 'John Smith Sr' enters the park John Smith Jr cannot enter the park because MM+ shows he's already been admitted.

Over 1.5 Billion spent. OUCH. I could have thought of 1000 better ways to have spent the money in Disney. Legacy fast passes were not causing such a problem that 1.5 billion needed to be spent to solve the problem.

 

[Lord_Vader]

We ALL know Disney IT is completely incompetent,

They are one of the only organizations who could mess up the 'hello world' program every student writes as part of CS-101

This is why Park Hopping is not working they probably hit a bug and could not solve it, I expect its the same bug which keeps biting when 'John Smith Sr' enters the park John Smith Jr cannot enter the park because MM+ shows he's already been admitted.

I agree, and whatever team decided that they did not need printers for the day-of guest kiosks should be... I digress. There should be a quick and easy method for guests without smartphones to have a ticket type printout with their reservations.