New Anna/Elsa standby procedure?

[lentesta]

I'm told this new procedure is in response to complaints from guests without smartphones or experience using tablets, who were essentially shut out from short waits at popular attractions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this sticks around and is expanded. Disney's only real FPP option here is to push people to the kiosks. But if they hate the idea of using a tablet, or just don't want to be bothered, it could be in Ops' best interest to serve them.

 

[wsmith1978]

I wonder how many Ana's and Elsa's there are? I can't help but feel bad for these cast members. They must be exhausted!

 

[StringBeanDream]

I wonder how many Ana's and Elsa's there are? I can't help but feel bad for these cast members. They must be exhausted!

2 Sets on stage at a time, but that means there are at least 4 in the park at any time.

 

[HRHPrincessAriel]

I'm told this new procedure is in response to complaints from guests without smartphones or experience using tablets, who were essentially shut out from short waits at popular attractions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this sticks around and is expanded. Disney's only real FPP option here is to push people to the kiosks. But if they hate the idea of using a tablet, or just don't want to be bothered, it could be in Ops' best interest to serve them.

They could free up the tablets by allowing those WITH smart phones to book their 4thFP from their phone. I didn't even touch some of the kiosks. I wasn't going to stand in line for 20-30 minutes to book a FP so I didn't have to stand in line.

 

[Gullywhumper]

It sounds like a good idea, considering the fact that the it stated that the wait times were reaching about 300 minutes. I myself would not wait in a line for that long.

 

[cw1982]

It sounds like a good idea, considering the fact that the it stated that the wait times were reaching about 300 minutes. I myself would not wait in a line for that long.

Wait times had not been anywhere near that long in several weeks. Granted, I wouldn't wait more than 15-20 minutes to meet any character, but things had been improving considerably. Things could have continued to improve if TDO had been willing to add a m&g to go along with the Frozen event at HS. Instead, they are now testing out a system that will further reduce the number of guests who get to see the sisters and increase the number of guests who leave with mad or disappointed kids.

 

[FigmentFreak]

So, should we call this "SlowPass"? Or, resurrect the "FastPass" moniker, just to make things confusing?

We shall call it New Old FastPass - like New Coke and I bet is goes over just as well as new coke did.

 

[Gullywhumper]

Wait times had not been anywhere near that long in several weeks. Granted, I wouldn't wait more than 15-20 minutes to meet any character, but things had been improving considerably. Things could have continued to improve if TDO had been willing to add a m&g to go along with the Frozen event at HS. Instead, they are now testing out a system that will further reduce the number of guests who get to see the sisters and increase the number of guests who leave with mad or disappointed kids.

I guess you are correct about that. At least if there was a 300 minute wait time, the kids would still get to see Anna and Elsa, but now there is a restricted amount that can.

 

[mikeh]

What time did you talk to her? Before or after the tickets ran out? I'm wondering if the feedback was positive from all the guests who couldn't get a ticket for the last 11 hours that the park was open...

I talked to her around 6pm, after the tickets had been handed out for the day. She didn't distinguish between guests who had return times and those who hadn't. I'm going back this afternoon to ask someone else how day two went.

 

[YodaMan]

What time did you talk to her? Before or after the tickets ran out? I'm wondering if the feedback was positive from all the guests who couldn't get a ticket for the last 11 hours that the park was open...

For what it's worth, we got in without a ticket. I don't remember what the posted wait time was, but around 12:15 AM we went up the to Princess Fairytale Hall and asked the cast member if we could still meet Anna and Elsa even though we didn't have a return ticket. They let us in without any hassle and we met them in under 25 minutes.

 

[dadddio]

We shall call it New Old FastPass - like New Coke and I bet is goes over just as well as new coke did.

I'm not sure that you want to follow that analogy all the way to the end since New Coke was a win for the company because it allowed them to change the Coke formula when they went back to 'old' Coke without people complaining about it.

 

[dadddio]

I guess you are correct about that. At least if there was a 300 minute wait time, the kids would still get to see Anna and Elsa, but now there is a restricted amount that can.

Either way, there is a restricted number who can see them. Their capacity didn't get cut because people have return times.

 

[cw1982]

Either way, there is a restricted number who can see them. Their capacity didn't get cut because people have return times.

Not exactly. If we were talking about a ride, I'd agree with this 100%, since capacity is based on an exact number of seats being filled per hour. But with character meet and greets, going by exact numbers of guests isn't exactly a reliable science, since many guests take a group picture (or a few, or whatever) and go on. The amount of time that is spent with each group of guests is supposed to be about the same, within reason, regardless of the number of people in that group. So a group of five and a group of three will get roughly the same amount of time with those characters, but the group of five is taking up more of those passes, which helps to make the number of passes available diminish quicker and leads to fewer families meeting the sisters.

 

[wdwgreek]

This is all so counter intuitive. If someone chooses to wait 3 hours they wait 3 hours, they know what they are getting into. Fastpasses are great; use them when you can, but if every attraction starts giving everyone fastpasses and eliminates the standby line, than fastpass lines would become by default akin to the old stand by lane. This system makes no sense.

 

[Mawg]

This might work for a meet and greet that people only want to experience once a trip or maybe a show but I don't see it working well for a ride type attraction as the standby lines will actually get longer, exponentially longer!

The standby line acts as a deterrent when it gets too long and makes people make a decision if it is worth over an hour wait to get in it, everyone has their own cut of point. At 15 minutes maybe 2% less people get in line at 30 mins 20% less, at 1 hr 50% less, at 2hr 90% less. The longer the line is the slower it grows, eventually it comes to a point where it just does not get any longer as it is not worth it to the greater majority. If this system is introduced for a ride and people do not have to wait in line for more than 30 minutes ever it will be less of a deterrent. People will get their standby pass do other things and come back. Essentially, this will make the standby line even longer you just won't see it because people are in line but scattered all over the park doing other things until their time comes up. I could see the standby line reaching 8 to 10 hours very quickly with people not being deterred and getting more than one pass why not I can do other things while I wait. Get a pass at 10 am and it says come back at 10 pm means the standby line is actually 12 hrs long. Anyone coming into the park at 4 pm may be very limited in what they can do. If they were to do this for many attractions in a park, this would eliminate park hopping as people would need to arrive at a park early use their fast passes so they can get more and start collecting standby passes and line them up for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Hopping to another park would mean all the good fast pass pluses are gone and all the standby passes are gone for the day. Nothing to do but watch some fireworks, parades, do low demand attractions, shop and eat.

I see some who would like this and others that would not. But one thing is for certain it would take a lot of planning to tour correctly and it defeats what they have done with Fast Pass Plus as now once again people will be running around gathering up standby passes.

For meet and greets I do like the idea though, just not anything else.

 

[fillerup]

For what it's worth, we got in without a ticket. I don't remember what the posted wait time was, but around 12:15 AM we went up the to Princess Fairytale Hall and asked the cast member if we could still meet Anna and Elsa even though we didn't have a return ticket. They let us in without any hassle and we met them in under 25 minutes.

This should make the guests who were turned away over the previous ten hours pretty happy if they hear about this.

This seems like a lot of other things at Disney - "this is the rule until it isn't".

 

[CDavid]

I actually think its a good idea as well (the snack thing as you wait in long lines)
specially if its under the heavy sun.
themed karts everywhere!

as for the reverting back to the old way.. You think they would do that? they earn more money in the "aggregate" type admission ticket than a part by part ticket.
plus if they sell the aggregate and the park is filled to the seams, the guests are encouraged forced to visit more days.

This will never happen: both Disneyland and WDW have overcrowding charging the current gate prices.

Disney would potentially make more money with a smaller gate charge and ticket books (individual ride charges) than they do at present, assuming there is an abundance of big ticket attractions which guests want to experience. At three of the four parks, right now, there is a notable lack of such compelling rides (at the Studios, in particular, it's just embarrassing), and indeed Disney does better there with only a gate admission. Guests are paying the same price whether there are five or 25 major attractions in the park. At the Magic Kingdom, though, with five or so E-tickets and another 5-10 D's (depending on what you count - an endless debate too often rooted in personal opinion) you potentially make far more money by selling extra ride coupons.

The only way such a plan works (financially, for Disney) at the other three parks is with a greatly expanded attraction roster - which is why it could, in theory, work to the advantage of us, the park guests (even though we'd generally end up paying more). More practical, perhaps, would be to initially offer a few extra-charge attractions at a nominal charge - such as the Anna & Elsa meet & greet which started this off-topic tangent (as an approach to manage demand and an unworkable queue length).

 

[natatomic]

This might work for a meet and greet that people only want to experience once a trip or maybe a show but I don't see it working well for a ride type attraction as the standby lines will actually get longer, exponentially longer!

The standby line acts as a deterrent when it gets too long and makes people make a decision if it is worth over an hour wait to get in it, everyone has their own cut of point. At 15 minutes maybe 2% less people get in line at 30 mins 20% less, at 1 hr 50% less, at 2hr 90% less. The longer the line is the slower it grows, eventually it comes to a point where it just does not get any longer as it is not worth it to the greater majority. If this system is introduced for a ride and people do not have to wait in line for more than 30 minutes ever it will be less of a deterrent. People will get their standby pass do other things and come back. Essentially, this will make the standby line even longer you just won't see it because people are in line but scattered all over the park doing other things until their time comes up. I could see the standby line reaching 8 to 10 hours very quickly with people not being deterred and getting more than one pass why not I can do other things while I wait. Get a pass at 10 am and it says come back at 10 pm means the standby line is actually 12 hrs long. Anyone coming into the park at 4 pm may be very limited in what they can do. If they were to do this for many attractions in a park, this would eliminate park hopping as people would need to arrive at a park early use their fast passes so they can get more and start collecting standby passes and line them up for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Hopping to another park would mean all the good fast pass pluses are gone and all the standby passes are gone for the day. Nothing to do but watch some fireworks, parades, do low demand attractions, shop and eat.

I see some who would like this and others that would not. But one thing is for certain it would take a lot of planning to tour correctly and it defeats what they have done with Fast Pass Plus as now once again people will be running around gathering up standby passes.

For meet and greets I do like the idea though, just not anything else.

THIS.

I tried to say something along these lines a couple of pages back, but you explained it far better than I did. But yes, I agree 110%

 

[xdan0920]

I'm told this new procedure is in response to complaints from guests without smartphones or experience using tablets, who were essentially shut out from short waits at popular attractions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this sticks around and is expanded. Disney's only real FPP option here is to push people to the kiosks. But if they hate the idea of using a tablet, or just don't want to be bothered, it could be in Ops' best interest to serve them.

But, everyone has a smart phone. Or at least that's what we were led to believe.

 

[pumpkin7]

Sod taking away Standby, take away FP+!

But, everyone has a smart phone. Or at least that's what we were led to believe.

I have a smart phone, but I don't like using it abroad out of fear of being charged a gazillion pound in roaming charges!