Magic Kingdom going FP+ only on 1/14/14

[stevehousse]

They can support it.

For the last 15 years I have gone to Magic Kingdom and used 5 or more fast passes there, then park hopped to Epcot and used two more there. On the monorail to park hop over, was my family, plus thousands of other people who were park hopping too.

And now you actually believe that if any more than 3 fast passes were given out, the entire system would be depleted. Absolutely not.

I think you are correct, a lot of people used more than 3 FP's per day on the rides that offered them over two parks. My daughter with two small children in tow always used at least 4 per day at the main park she claims and if she switched parks she would grab whatever FP left there. At MK I think she said she never used less than 4 in a day kind of implying it was in excess of 4.

I think u both have to realize that this is not possible. Yes in the past it was easily doable to get so many legacy fast passes because more than half of the guests in the parks didn't know how to use or didnt use at all! Now you have every single guest entering the park getting a pamphlet telling them to go to these kiosks and pick out rides in advance! It's not possible under the new system to do what we all once have been able to do before now that "every single guest is in the know"

 

[Disneyfamily4]

I think u both have to realize that this is not possible. Yes in the past it was easily doable to get so many legacy fast passes because more than half of the guests in the parks didn't know how to use or didnt use at all! Now you have every single guest entering the park getting a pamphlet telling them to go to these kiosks and pick out rides in advance! It's not possible under the new system to do what we all once have been able to do before now that "every single guest is in the know"

Unless you tell me you work for Disney, or that you designed the policy and the new fast pass machines, all you are doing is assuming that more passes cant be given out. As I mentioned before your post, the Cast members are already doing it in place of the new disability cards.

 

[seafoodbuffet]

I think u both have to realize that this is not possible. Yes in the past it was easily doable to get so many legacy fast passes because more than half of the guests in the parks didn't know how to use or didnt use at all! Now you have every single guest entering the park getting a pamphlet telling them to go to these kiosks and pick out rides in advance! It's not possible under the new system to do what we all once have been able to do before now that "every single guest is in the know"

Yeah, but given how easy legacy fastpasses were and how much MORE complicated it is to navigate FP+, I can't imagine that people are going to "just figure it out" no matter how many pamphlets they hand out.

At WORST, it's a wash but honestly, I'm convinced that 3 FP+ per day means shorter waiting times in the FP line (assuming they hand out the same number of FP+ slots per hour). That means the system has more capacity left to expand FP+.

 

[muteki]

They can support it.

For the last 15 years I have gone to Magic Kingdom and used 5 or more fast passes there, then park hopped to Epcot and used two more there. On the monorail to park hop over, was my family, plus thousands of other people who were park hopping too.

And now you actually believe that if any more than 3 fast passes were given out, the entire system would be depleted. Absolutely not.

I think the gap in the amount of people that knew and worked the old FP system well and those that didn't is larger than you think.

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

They can support it.

For the last 15 years I have gone to Magic Kingdom and used 5 or more fast passes there, then park hopped to Epcot and used two more there. On the monorail to park hop over, was my family, plus thousands of other people who were park hopping too.

And now you actually believe that if any more than 3 fast passes were given out, the entire system would be depleted. Absolutely not.

I think you are correct, a lot of people used more than 3 FP's per day on the rides that offered them over two parks. My daughter with two small children in tow always used at least 4 per day at the main park she claims and if she switched parks she would grab whatever FP left there. At MK I think she said she never used less than 4 in a day kind of implying it was in excess of 4.

Personally, I have never used more than 2 per day. So when people like myself don't use 5+ fastpasses, it may balance out the system. But now that everyone will get 3 fp selection, some tiered at that, they don't have room to provide that many fastpasses.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

Remember everyone, it is not like the legacy fast pass was just invented now, and after two short seasons, the system collapsed and screwed up everything. People have been utilizing this system, some even abusing it, for over 20 years.

There is no way that now, if a person is allowed to get 3 more passes if they decide to park hop, that then system crashes.

 

[Disneyfamily4]

I think the gap in the amount of people that knew and worked the old FP system well and those that didn't is larger than you think.

What about the gap now, between people who are computer savvy and the people who dont even know how to use a mouse. Plus not to mention, not everyone has a smart phone and for the ones who dont, they will be unable to change reservations on the fly.

And as I mentioned, wait til March-August. That is when the real reviews will be out.

 

[Lord_Vader]

I think the gap in the amount of people that knew and worked the old FP system well and those that didn't is larger than you think.

I would like to concur. I have several friends that took their small children and never once planned enough to use FP or looked at the return times and wanted to be somewhere else around that time based on their schedule and simply found it too complicated.

MDE website while a bit clunkly does do a reasonable job of walking you through the process for a standard vacation with MYW packages. It "reminds" you to add your dining and make your FP+ selections every time you log-in when you are within your 60 day window. My best guess is that many new guests staying on property will use the FP+ features as they are reminded via email, mail and anytime they are on the phone. Guests staying off-property and purchasing park tickets will be blindsided and possibly confused at first but hopefully did some research before they made the trip. I have told every person I know going to WDW to sign up for MDE and register their park tickets even if they are staying off-property as it can also track their ADRs and be used for park maps, schedules and more.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with today's rollout?

 

[jlsHouston]

I don't know...one of the number guys had a spiel about a year ago on how the FP+ numbers are crunched when we were still saying nextgen about what was happening. It was almost like an actuarial power point deal how he was explaining it and it was way over my head.
My opinion is I think the FP system can support more than 3 per day per person and I think it should be over all the parks and whoever is doing the programming they should make that happen.
I don't think any of us know for sure how this is going to improve or worsen standby times once the crowds appear and all we have is 3 FP+ at one park per day.
If the current system keeps standby times under 60 minutes for the E ticket attractions then I think families like mine will be okay. If this system doesn't help standby times then they really need to increase number of FP+ available per day per person and make it available across parks or I think they will have subtracted from my magical experiences and opportunities inside the parks.
Which then I will conclude with if MM+ is lowering my satisfaction at my happy place I really am disappointed Disney spent a billion dollars on this crap.

 

[jlsHouston]

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with today's rollout?

There is some live posting going on. Today and tomorrow are the slowest days of the year supposedly at the parks. MK is like a ghost town and it's raining in Orlando. I think WDW picked a great day to rollout FP+ only at MK. It can't hardly created problems today because the overall park census is so low...

More what I am talking about is how FP+ 3 per day, tiered at certain parks, no legacy FP, and one park per day is going to affect wait times at the parks during high season. A lot of us go during high season....and you get the tour groups then too in the summer months.

I'm really grateful for this board and people who are headed to the parks over the next 90 days, especially March people when there will be some very crowded days because of school breaks. I want to hear how the FP+ only affects their number of rides and attractions per day at the parks.

 

[Brian Noble]

Unless you tell me you work for Disney, or that you designed the policy and the new fast pass machines, all you are doing is assuming that more passes cant be given out.

People have done the math---more than once. Given the average daily attendance, and the total capacity of FP+-enabled attractions, there definitely isn't room for four per person in any park not named Magic Kingdom, and even there it's pretty dicey.

 

[Lord_Vader]

There is some live posting going on. Today and tomorrow are the slowest days of the year supposedly at the parks. MK is like a ghost town and it's raining in Orlando. I think WDW picked a great day to rollout FP+ only at MK. It can't hardly created problems today because the overall park census is so low...

More what I am talking about is how FP+ 3 per day, tiered at certain parks, no legacy FP, and one park per day is going to affect wait times at the parks during high season. A lot of us go during high season....and you get the tour groups then too in the summer months.

I'm really grateful for this board and people who are headed to the parks over the next 90 days, especially March people when there will be some very crowded days because of school breaks. I want to hear how the FP+ only affects their number of rides and attractions per day at the parks.

We typically go the week before Christmas through New Years and the 3/day part of FP+ really bit, especially the tiered parks. We did not ride as much as we had in years past but did do a lot over the two weeks and planned all our FP+ for mid-day or evening times so we could choose what park to go to in the morning and park hop to the second park in the afternoon.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

Unless you tell me you work for Disney, or that you designed the policy and the new fast pass machines, all you are doing is assuming that more passes cant be given out. As I mentioned before your post, the Cast members are already doing it in place of the new disability cards.

This has been discussed over and over with numbers to back up what has been said. I suggest you do a bit more homework on the topic before speaking in such absolutes. I'll help you even further... Use the search feature to read @ParentsOf4 's posts. You'll find the information you need there.

And even if you don't want to do that... Look no further than the attractions they've added FP+ to. Why do you think they added it to small world? Fireworks? Parades? HM? Pirates? Etc? It's not because anyone believes those attractions NEED it. It's because they needed the FP capacity to offset the demand. A demand that is being overly inflated in order to show value.

TDO/WDW is ACTIVELY trying to force onsite guests to use and book through the system before they arrive. They're doing that because they're pushing this as a "free benefit" to staying onsite. And consumers jump at "free"... Even though it never really is.

I'm quite certain that before long we'll see automatically assigned attractions and times for those on site guests that STILL don't use the system and go online to book. They'll show up to check into their hotel, and receive a print out that WDW has given them for a few rides a day that they don't have to wait in line for. Why not? It's COMPLIMENTARY!

Anyway. The point is that 3FP per day per guests WILL tax the system. It's been proven. I'm like you. I used FAR more than 3 a day. But that was when you and I controlled how the system was exploited. Those days are over. Now DISNEY will choose who benefits more and how. You'll have no say in it.

 

[jlsHouston]

We typically go the week before Christmas through New Years and the 3/day part of FP+ really bit, especially the tiered parks. We did not ride as much as we had in years past but did do a lot over the two weeks and planned all our FP+ for mid-day or evening times so we could choose what park to go to in the morning and park hop to the second park in the afternoon.

My brother was there the week before the weekend before Christmas. He said it was not too busy at all. They did their FP+ thing and pulled a couple of paper FP's and they rode everything they wanted. It was the same for us over Thanksgiving, but I imagine we had more people the week of Thanksgiving than he dealt with the week prior to Christmas. I know that @coachwnh was also there during Christmas and it was busy but still again he had FP+ and legacy FP to offset standby times and do the rides and attractions and park hopping the way they wanted.
In a way we are all just guessing, I am sure some more knowledgeable guessing than others about what the new FP+ system can actually accommodate for guests at each park depending on crowd level.
Which is why I am really curious to see how it goes beginning in March....that will give us all a better idea about this summer.
The way you planned your park time over Christmas and New Years, a very high crowd time, is how I have read people do it who are trying to do as much as possible with the least amount of wait times for rides.

 

[asianway]

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with today's rollout?

Did all the lifestylers get jobs over the weekend?

 

[jlsHouston]

What about the gap now, between people who are computer savvy and the people who dont even know how to use a mouse. Plus not to mention, not everyone has a smart phone and for the ones who dont, they will be unable to change reservations on the fly.

And as I mentioned, wait til March-August. That is when the real reviews will be out.

yep that is what I think too...the proof of how 3 FP+ per day in one park will affect our park experiences is going to happen starting spring break....

 

[jlsHouston]

We were at the Magic Kingdom today, the day before Thanksgiving. As expected, holiday crowds were in full swing.

I was a bit stunned to see the below FP+ line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at about 2:10 PM.

Mind you, this was the line outside the FP+ entry, which continued all the way up the path to the attraction itself.

Seems to me Disney needs to reevaluate its FP+ distribution algorithm.

This is a post from @ParentsOf4 from Thanksgiving week 2013. Sorry I am really bad about doing the link thing and even copy and paste doesn't work really well for me...duh can see why even armed with an android and a netbook at WDW this MM+ has me tense??

 

[jlsHouston]

I guess I am not arguing whether 3FP+ per day will tax the system as much as I am arguing 3 FP+ will limit the guest...therefore I feel like with the assets and brains of WDW they should tweak the system where those of us who want 5-6 FP per day get them, that is what we had with legacy FP if we so chose.

And @Buried20KLeague is correct that @ParentsOf4 has actually crunched some numbers in earlier threads of 2013 and it's too much for my grey cells to keep up with but I posted one of his comments about what a FP+ line can look like during high crowds.

 

[fillerup]

I think u both have to realize that this is not possible. Yes in the past it was easily doable to get so many legacy fast passes because more than half of the guests in the parks didn't know how to use or didnt use at all! Now you have every single guest entering the park getting a pamphlet telling them to go to these kiosks and pick out rides in advance! It's not possible under the new system to do what we all once have been able to do before now that "every single guest is in the know"

We just made our third visit to AK since closure of legacy FP. We were given a FP+ pamphlet on our first visit on 12/14 or 12/15 but haven't received one since.

I have a theory from my personal observations that FP+ (at present) is not being widely utilized, at least not by off-siters and locals.