Just got back from the World, staying 14 nights at POFQ with my wife (13th visit).. HATED the whole FP+ experience - Will not be in any rush to go back unless major changes are made to this Billion Dollar Lemon.
We set up our account 60 days out and booked our 3 FP's per day (which was insane, but thought we should at least have something in-place). Customisation of Bands etc worked fine and we did the online check-in - everything was ready at the desk when we got there.
Hated FP+, as stated before - this mainly highlighted how little there actually is to do at Hollywood Studios and Future World. I have not seen this mentioned so far but one thing we did notice is that Standby times posted outside several rides were FAR higher than they actually were in reality - we think this is to make guests think that the FP+ has more value than it really has.
For example -
We were walking past Spaceship Earth one evening - the standby queue had a wait time listed as 20 minutes, however, we could see straight up into the loading area - there was no queue at all on the slope and nobody in the doorway. I asked the CM at the FP+ if the wait time was correct and was told it was.. we walked through the standby entrance and onto the ride within 1 minute! However the 20 minute wait stated outside would give someone holding a FP+ the impression that they are getting a (false) value over the regular queue.
Example
We had a FP+ for the Little Mermaid ride - we passed Peter Pan's Flight with a posted 40 minute wait (which was accurate as you can see the amount of people in the queue), we looked at the App and saw that we could change our LM FP+ and discussed changing it to PPF, but decided against it as we had not rode LM that day. When we got to LM the standby time was stated as 40 minutes, so decided to use our FP+ - what a waste, when we got to the loading area, we realised that it was a walk-on, so we wasted a FP.. could have used standby. The standby queue is hidden, so there is no real way of seeing how busy the ride actually is. Again we think the 40 minute wait stated at the entrance was to give false value to guests holding a FP+ The CM at the FP/Standby merge inside even allowed 3 people who walked straight through the standby line to ride before us!
Another day, I visited the front desk of POFQ with the intention of booking a Carriage Ride for my Wife and myself. After arranging the time and date for this experience, the CM asked me for a Credit Card to complete the reservation.. no problem I said - we have a Credit Card linked to our Magic Bands, use that. "Sorry" said the CM, cant do that - It's on a seperate system!... Didnt bother booking after hearing that.. thats a $45 loss to Disney..
We had a Credit Card linked to our Magic Band, but did not spend even 1 Cent on it... HA HA
Another day we had FP+ for Animal Kingdom (all 3 before 1PM), we saw that it was Extra Magic Hours Morning at DHS so decided to set the FP's for Animal Kingdom back to later in the day - we managed to put all 3 back to later in the afternoon, so headed to DHS for about 8:15. We headed straight to TSMM and saw that the standby queue was already outside the door and was a 45 minute wait - this is 15 minutes after the park openend to resort guests only. Didn't bother waiting, so rode TOT and Star Tours.. Headed over to Muppetvission to find out that it had broken down. As FP+ does not allow park hopping FP's we headed over to Animal Kingdom, which we should have just done in the first place. That's 1.5 hours wasted..
One day we had a FP+ for the Safari at AK - the queue to get into the FP+ entrance was crazy! At least 80 people infront of us. There were several CM's and managers hanging around the queue looking highly embarrased - one of the CM's said to a manager that it was always like this - next minute the manager got on his walkie-talkie and suddenly we were told that only one member of each party with a FP+ reservation had to scan their MB/ticket - the queue suddenly moved at lightning speed - if this is more effective, why can't this be the standard policy?? It just seemed that the manager didn't want to see that the whole FP+ system is a train wreck and was in denial. lol
Imagineers perfected the theming of the Haunted Mansion, so it seems crazy to have that flat screen monitor on the wall as the 2 queues merge.. i'm sure they had access to that tech more that 100 years ago...
FP+ was supposed to allow guests to have a few extra hours in bed in the morning and still manage to get FP's (which is stupid in our opinion, we are spending 9 hours on a plane and thousands of dollars to get there, so we are certainly not wasting valuable holiday time in bed) but now you have to be there for rope drop if you want to ride everything at the MK).
Like I said, we will not be any hurry to return. We booked January for the first time (usualy September or May) as it was over £1000 cheaper, what you would pay now 2 weeks at POFQ would have got us 2 weeks at the Grand Floridan 5+ years ago. Anyone who thinks this whole FP+/MM+ system is a good value over new attractions or maintainance needs to lay off the Disney Cool-Aid..
Seeing 2 Female CM's freezing cold and soaking wet trying to shelter from the rain under the Monorail beam infront of the land pavillion at Epcot holding a FP+ sign really adds to the experience. Billions spent, maybe a few umbrellas would have taken FP+ over budget???"
Over ONE THOUSAND MILLION dollars for this nonsence...
Bring back Eisner
oh well ... I'm still at Disney so I'll take it !
