New Anna/Elsa standby procedure?

[mikeh]

So did they only hand out the passes up to a certain point in the day?

Yes. Roughly 1pm

 

[Mawg]

I think that you are making it too complicated.

Theoretically, I suppose that you are correct. One way to look at getting a return ticket is that I am in a virtual line for the entire time. That being said, I'm not ACTUALLY in that line. I'm off eating stuff, riding rides, eating stuff, browsing shops, eating stuff, seeing shows, eating stuff, etc. It's only when I come back at my return time do I get in the actual line, which I spend less than thirty minutes in.

A few months ago, we were trying to meet Jasmine in Epcot. We arrived just as the CM closed off the line to additional people. She explained that the line already had as many people as the characters could see, so it was closed. She explained that if we came back a few minutes before the next m&g time, then we would be able to see meet them and are wait would only be fifteen minutes or something like that. So we cam back when she told us and waited probably twenty minutes total. I suppose that I could begin the wait calculation at the time when I started my conversation with the CM who told me to come back, but that doesn't make sense, since I didn't spent that time waiting for the m&g. I spent it eating stuff, browsing countries, eating stuff, playing p&f, eating stuff, not riding Maelstrom, eating stuff, etc.

In my mind, these return tickets for A&E are little different from my experience with Jasmine, with the exception that the ticket holders are guaranteed to see A&E if they return in their window, while I had no such assurance with Jasmine.

I'm pointing out that one of the important attributes of a standby line is it's length. People don't like waiting in lines, the longer it is the less people start to get in it. If you take away this attribute of line length and give out passes so that people can do other things, then there is no deterrent for people to not ride it, everyone will simply grab a pass and maybe get in line to grab another pass. All the passes will be given out quickly in the AM and unless you arrive at the park prior to the passes being distributed you will not experience it. Now imagine if Disney did this for every attraction or at least every major attraction that gets a wait over an hour, you would now be forced to get to the park as early as possible, grab as many standby passes as possible to fill up your day and then finally start experiencing attractions once you have a fist full of standby passes.

My point is, that the physical line length is an important attribute of the standby line that deters people away from experiencing an attraction when the line it too long.

 

[freediverdude]

And then once your standby passes are gone, then what do you do for the rest of the day?? I can shop for a little while and eat a meal, but that's about it. I'm not spending 8 hours shopping and eating if I get there at 1pm and all the fastpass+ AND all the standby fastpasses are gone for most things.

 

[Cesar R M]

Ahhh, no wonder it all went so smoothly - apparently they had a whole slew of guest relations, managers, Park support, and even Phil Holmes himself out front yesterday once all tickets had been handed out. This is just speculation, but I'm sure many extra FPs for other attractions were handed out to placate the masses.

They were also giving out free digital download cards to guests who just wanted a picture of the princesses, from what I heard.

ETA: does anyone know what happens to those who have passes for later in the evening if they've opened up the standby line? The standby line is 60 to 90 minutes long, then they would end up waiting much longer than anyone else who had the pass earlier did. Unless you let them into the fastpass line, but then that would end up making the fast pass line longer… and it's not a fast pass anyways, sooo...

Good grief. This is so confusing.

Also, I can imagine many people giving up their FP+ for A&E to open up another slot for another attraction, and then just joining the rope drop crowd in the morning to get this FP-/Standby+/moderatepass/whatever ticket instead.

freed digital download cards?
you mean the photopass cards?

 

[Mawg]

And then once your standby passes are gone, then what do you do for the rest of the day?? I can shop for a little while and eat a meal, but that's about it. I'm not spending 8 hours shopping and eating if I get there at 1pm and all the fastpass+ AND all the standby fastpasses are gone for most things.

Exactly, and can you imagine the guest relations nightmare they would have when someone shows up and is told you can't do anything because everything is reserved already. They would demand their money back. Or, what about someone who is not familiar with the reservation system for standby and by the time they figure it out they are all gone, Sorry!

Now, this idea of a reservation system for some attractions is not all bad. Disney can't have people waiting in 4+ hr lines. It amounts to lost revenue in sales of merchandise and food and unhappy customers because they had to wait in line so long. Something here had to be done and this seems right in this case. There has to be some kind of formula internally going forward on when it is OK to do this, let say standby waits that are consistently 2 to 3 hrs long turns it into a reservation system. Or better yet, let's address the demand/capacity issues aka, new soar'n theater, expansion to Toy Story, More set's of princesses or more attractions over all.

 

[MikeyK72]

Exactly, and can you imagine the guest relations nightmare they would have when someone shows up and is told you can't do anything because everything is reserved already. They would demand their money back. Or, what about someone who is not familiar with the reservation system for standby and by the time they figure it out they are all gone, Sorry!

Now, this idea of a reservation system for some attractions is not all bad. Disney can't have people waiting in 4+ hr lines. It amounts to lost revenue in sales of merchandise and food and unhappy customers because they had to wait in line so long. Something here had to be done and this seems right in this case. There has to be some kind of formula internally going forward on when it is OK to do this, let say standby waits that are consistently 2 to 3 hrs long turns it into a reservation system. Or better yet, let's address the demand/capacity issues aka, new soar'n theater, expansion to Toy Story, More set's of princesses or more attractions over all.

That is certainly one way to look at solving the problem...addressing capacity issues via new construction. I would speculate that most folks here would welcome that, including me of course. Unfortunately though, there's another way too...increase admission prices to thin the crowds a little. Then, they don't have to respond to guest complaints about long waits and they don't have to spend any money by adding/expanding attractions. What would the crowds look like if park admission increased by 30% to 50%?

 

[MasonDuo]

Exactly, and can you imagine the guest relations nightmare they would have when someone shows up and is told you can't do anything because everything is reserved already. They would demand their money back. Or, what about someone who is not familiar with the reservation system for standby and by the time they figure it out they are all gone, Sorry!

Now, this idea of a reservation system for some attractions is not all bad. Disney can't have people waiting in 4+ hr lines. It amounts to lost revenue in sales of merchandise and food and unhappy customers because they had to wait in line so long. Something here had to be done and this seems right in this case. There has to be some kind of formula internally going forward on when it is OK to do this, let say standby waits that are consistently 2 to 3 hrs long turns it into a reservation system. Or better yet, let's address the demand/capacity issues aka, new soar'n theater, expansion to Toy Story, More set's of princesses or more attractions over all.

I agree with the addressing the demand/capacity but I think the overall problem at WDW is there isn't enough to do in these parks. Out in California Soarin and TSMM peak around 45 minutes all day (unless exceptionally busy days), even their newest E-ticket Radiator Springs Racers typically stays around 90 minutes - this is due to Disneyland Park and California Adventure have enough attractions to meet demand and therefore keep some of the line times down. There's no excuse for WDW to have lines this long - they need to spend some money on new attractions and make keep people happy.

 

[cw1982]

That is certainly one way to look at solving the problem...addressing capacity issues via new construction. I would speculate that most folks here would welcome that, including me of course. Unfortunately though, there's another way too...increase admission prices to thin the crowds a little. Then, they don't have to respond to guest complaints about long waits and they don't have to spend any money by adding/expanding attractions. What would the crowds look like if park admission increased by 30% to 50%?

Careful. That logic has turned a few threads pretty ugly already... it becomes a debate about whether or not Disney should "price out" the lower class. At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to play mod here, please let's not turn this into one of those threads. It's not necessary and never ends on a good note for anyone.

 

[dadddio]

I'm pointing out that one of the important attributes of a standby line is it's length. People don't like waiting in lines, the longer it is the less people start to get in it. If you take away this attribute of line length and give out passes so that people can do other things, then there is no deterrent for people to not ride it, everyone will simply grab a pass and maybe get in line to grab another pass. All the passes will be given out quickly in the AM and unless you arrive at the park prior to the passes being distributed you will not experience it. Now imagine if Disney did this for every attraction or at least every major attraction that gets a wait over an hour, you would now be forced to get to the park as early as possible, grab as many standby passes as possible to fill up your day and then finally start experiencing attractions once you have a fist full of standby passes.

My point is, that the physical line length is an important attribute of the standby line that deters people away from experiencing an attraction when the line it too long.

I continue to believe that if this test is successful, then they will simply roll it into the FP+ process. In other words, they will simply increase the number of same-day FP+s. I don't at all believe that this represents some massive change to the status quo.

 

[dadddio]

And then once your standby passes are gone, then what do you do for the rest of the day?? I can shop for a little while and eat a meal, but that's about it. I'm not spending 8 hours shopping and eating if I get there at 1pm and all the fastpass+ AND all the standby fastpasses are gone for most things.

You ride other rides and you visit other attractions. They are never going to totally do away with SB for the bulk of the attractions.

 

[wdisney9000]

If they are indeed doing this because guests without smart phones or guests with limited knowledge of using tablets are complaining to guest services, then that is evidence right there that the learning curve of MM+ is either too high for some guests, or they just flat out dont want to learn the systems because........ wait for it...... THEYRE ON VACATION! and dont want the hassle. I know someone will bring up how easy the system is to use and they had no problems but its easy to forget that we, and other people on Disney message boards are a teeny tiny 2 percent of guests who WANT to learn this stuff. Of the other 98% I would bet that less than 25% take the time to learn how to use the system properly, the rest just go online, make FP+ selections and call it a day.

Why not just put another Anna and ELsa M&G in HS to spread out crowds? You could bring up the old "they cant be in two places at once" argument, but that is a rule from the "old-school handbook" which TDO seems to use for toilet paper these days so whats the difference. All of the new experimental systems are rubbish. Its the same pie, but TDO just cuts it into different shapes and tries to tell us there is actually more pie than before. @ParentsOf4 solved this problem long ago. Its simple. Its ATTRACTION CAPACITY, thats all. Theyre playing musical chairs and someones always gonna get left out. Now there are more people playing but its the same number of chairs. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen.

 

[cw1982]

If they are indeed doing this because guests without smart phones or guests with limited knowledge of using tablets are complaining to guest services, then that is evidence right there that the learning curve of MM+ is either too high for some guests, or they just flat out dont want to learn the systems because........ wait for it...... THEYRE ON VACATION! and dont want the hassle. I know someone will bring up how easy the system is to use and they had no problems but its easy to forget that we, and other people on Disney message boards are a teeny tiny 2 percent of guests who WANT to learn this stuff. Of the other 98% I would bet that less than 25% take the time to learn how to use the system properly, the rest just go online, make FP+ selections and call it a day.

Why not just put another Anna and ELsa M&G in HS to spread out crowds? You could bring up the old "they cant be in two places at once" argument, but that is a rule from the "old-school handbook" which TDO seems to use for toilet paper these days so whats the difference. All of the new experimental systems are rubbish. Its the same pie, but TDO just cuts it into different shapes and tries to tell us there is actually more pie than before. @ParentsOf4 solved this problem long ago. Its simple. Its ATTRACTION CAPACITY, thats all. Theyre playing musical chairs and someones always gonna get left out. Now there are more people playing but its the same number of chairs. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen.

You're being too logical, friend. You should know better by now

 

[wdisney9000]

You're being too logical, friend. You should know better by now

Your right, I forgot that learning is "boring" for some people unless there is a cartoon character telling the story or involved in some way.

 

[wdisney9000]

I continue to believe that if this test is successful, then they will simply roll it into the FP+ process. In other words, they will simply increase the number of same-day FP+s. I don't at all believe that this represents some massive change to the status quo.

But doesnt that ultimately just move people around differently and in the end they dont experience more (or less for that matter) than before? I would also bet that some yahoo in corporate sold them on the idea that this will keep people in the parks longer, which it could, but how long can they keep up this shell game? Until Avatar opens and for all we know it will have 2 new attractions which may turn AK into a 2/3's day park instead of a 1/2 day park? They could very well go all out and build 5 new attractions, but I doubt it.

 

[wdrive]

How long are lines for Cindy and Rapunzel? Would it be worth knocking them down to 1 room and upping Frozen to 3? Or even kicking Cinderella and Rapunzel out into the streets like Snow White and Aurora and turning the Princess meet and greet into a Frozen one?

 

[cw1982]

How long are lines for Cindy and Rapunzel? Would it be worth knocking them down to 1 room and upping Frozen to 3? Or even kicking Cinderella and Rapunzel out into the streets like Snow White and Aurora and turning the Princess meet and greet into a Frozen one?

Exactly. Or, they could easily have found some space at HS to add a meet and greet so that the demand is spread across other parks. After all, people are already there for the Frozen event anyway, right?

But again, that's too logical. Don't you know it makes much more sense to spend more in office supplies like the paper and toner to print those tickets than it does to invest in costumes that can be used for other things later, like upcharge events?

 

[note2001]

I laugh at all of us, backseat driving Disney decisions (not just on this thread). In addition to entertainment, it makes me feel like we, as a group are the unwelcome mother in law on the Jetsons, or was that the Flintstones, or both?

 

[wdisney9000]

How long are lines for Cindy and Rapunzel? Would it be worth knocking them down to 1 room and upping Frozen to 3? Or even kicking Cinderella and Rapunzel out into the streets like Snow White and Aurora and turning the Princess meet and greet into a Frozen one?

Might as well. With each passing day, WDW becomes more of an "Ulitmate Resort/Time share company with theme parks on the side", and less of, "the worlds Ultimate Theme Park with nice resorts on the side". The overall experience and immersion that once exited is quickly being replaced with attraction wait time algorithms and budget cuts, but they they sell it as "enhancements" and "making memories". Gotta love those buzzwords, and the suckers who fall for them.

 

[Mawg]

That is certainly one way to look at solving the problem...addressing capacity issues via new construction. I would speculate that most folks here would welcome that, including me of course. Unfortunately though, there's another way too...increase admission prices to thin the crowds a little. Then, they don't have to respond to guest complaints about long waits and they don't have to spend any money by adding/expanding attractions. What would the crowds look like if park admission increased by 30% to 50%?

Yes, price point is one way to handle it. But you also have to be careful, if you can have less people in your parks but make more money then it is fine to raise the price. If you raise the price too high and have less people there is a chance in losing money in merchandise and food sales within the park. A single person can only eat so much, more people equals more food sales. There are very smart people who have ways to calculate the correct price points for maximum gains. I'm not one of them. But I do believe that a 30% raise in ticket price would send enough people down the street and too much revenue would be lost on resorts, food and merchandise that it would not make up for the increased revenue in ticket prices. If you are filling every room of your resorts, filling every seat in your restaurants, and merchandise can't be kept on the shelves then it is time to raise the price. They really don't care about ride capacity in the equation. As long as the rides are doing their job and attracting the people to spend more money they could care less as soon as the rides start preventing them from collecting revenue then it is a problem.

 

[natatomic]

freed digital download cards?
you mean the photopass cards?

I don't know first hand, but from what it sounds like it was probably a digital photo of A&E that was scanned onto their photopass cards (or magicbands or whatever) that they could then go home and print themselves. I guess. Maybe someone here will eventually have the opportunity to get one and they can explain it themselves.