Next Gen+ for dummies

[DfromATX]

Will somebody please tell me if the regular fast pass still be around in June?

 

[G00fyDad]

Will somebody please tell me if the regular fast pass still be around in June?

No one knows positively.

 

[CP_alum08]

And finally, I can't get past the degree to which NextGen ties me to the same technologies (cell phones, Internet, iDevices) that I want to get away from when I'm on vacation. What's the point of Disney "place making" and immersive experiences when I have to keep logging-in to the real world?

Agreed. I'm all for technology and new things but I want it all integrated in WDW so that I don't know it's there. if FP+ is not simple and quick to use it will fail (actually at this point it's probably too big to fail, they'll just keep trowing money at it, patching it). I think the dinning plan is a prime example of that. A lot of people don't really "get it" and it's never explained properly to them so on the last day of their trip they still have multiple meals left and 20 snacks to use up. Even just the normal FP people have questions about and that's pretty straight forward.

I am excited to see what it REALLY is and how it all plays out, but honestly I think they are trying to incorporate too many aspects into it.

 

[John]

Its interesting the take on NG by some posters. Most really important details are not known. Disney has kept them close to the vest. No one knows when and how it will be rolled out. Some of believe that the systen will end up much like ADR's. Likely some of the most popular rides will be tough to get a FP+. Just as trying to get a "day of" ADR. Also I think it would be a mistake if you believe that FP+ will alow you to get the FP for the ride you want.....when you want. Most believe that you will have to use the FP+ system for the lenth of stay. KTTW cards will have a chip also. It wont make much difference if you choose a wristband or a card as both will have the same capabilities. You just wont have to wear a wristband.

I tend to agree that this makes touring WDW much more complicated. As if it wasnt time consumeing enough. There are some people who still dont know how to use the current system. As fasr as not having to get to the parks at rope drop....that mayb e so if you are happy with the FPs that you have pre-booked but I imagine if you want to get one of those "day of" passes you will have to get there early just as you do now. Another point I thought of...as far as the exclusive seating areas for fireworks, M&Gs etc. How many avaliable spots could there be? A few hundred? 500?....800? When your talking about WDW that is miniscule. I imagine there will be a lot of people left with FP's for the Tiki room, Stitch and and a Buzz Lightyear M&G. How many will get to WDW and then find out you had to reserve your rides in advance? IMO there will be a lot of unhappy guest.

Stand by lines? They are going to get longer IMO. They are putting FP at rides that historically never needed them....why? Just for those people who couldnt score a popular FP. FP has increased wait times at most rides that have them. I was at EPCOT on January 5. Rode Sorin.....they were letting only 6 stand by riders to about every thirty to forty FP riders. I was a FP rider and still had to wait about 20 minutes. The standby wait time was over two hrs. Anytime you hold up the standby line for FP riders it will increase the wait time for standby. So now if you want to ride a ride that you do not have a FP for....you will have to wait longer. If you let a FP expire you lose that FP for the entire day. You also can choose a FP+ for one park for one day. Meaning you cant choose a FP for DHS in the morning and a FP for MK in the evening. They wont stop selling "park hopers" it will just make you curtail your park hopping. NG was also a way to try and stop you from going up !4 to visit UNI's boy wizard.

All in all I dont like this program. It takes a lot of the spur of the moment out of touring. SOme people will enjoy it...me? not so much. I just want to relax. If I feel like sitting on a bench for the next two hours....thats what I want to do. Now Disney wants to schedule everything you can...ADR"s....rides...night time shows etc.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Maybe it's too early for anyone to know this but what I'm not quite understanding about FP+ (and I realize it's actually not in use yet, or is it on a limited basis for certain resorts?), is this: If under the new system you are allotted, for example, 3 FPs per day, then does that guarantee you will get three FPs for the 3 attractions of your choice, although maybe you'll have to take whatever times are still open/available? Or, if there are 6 FP attractions in a particular park, does it mean you'll get 3 FPs, but they might not be for the attractions or the times you prefer?

What seems certain is that the overwhelming majority will not get FP+ for their favorite attractions at their preferred times. I'll use an example to illustrate.

Soarin', Peter Plan's Flight, and Toy Story Mania are three of WDW's most popular attractions. Coincidentally, they all have similar hourly capacities', about 1200-to-1300 guests per hour. Let's stick with Soarin', which is located in Epcot which nearly always has 12-hour operating days. Assuming the higher 1300/hour number, that means Soarin' handles about 15,600 guests per day. Not all guests will ride with FP+. Let's assume about 60% of Soarin's capacity is allocated to FP+. That means there will be 9360 FP+ available for distribution from 9 AM to 9 PM. Epcot's average daily attendance is 30,000. So, on an average day, less than one-in-three will get a FP+ for Soarin'. A lot of those will receive it either early in the morning or late at night.

IMHO, the biggest unanswered FP+ question is: How will FP+ be distributed? Will there be a 60-days-befor-arrival online free-for-all as people try to book the FP+ experiences they want? Will Disney use some criteria to decide who is offered certain FP+? No one outside of Disney knows for sure.

 

[Mawg]

Will somebody please tell me if the regular fast pass still be around in June?

You sound like you are in the same boat I am. I'm going in June and trying to plan a trip for a family reunion. I want to know if I'm planning on using fast passes or fast past plus's in our touring plans as it really does change things. I just hope they release information by March or so. But knowing my luck they go Live the first week in June, they'll tell everyone they need to book online. The application will crash and it will be crazy with everyone arguing with Customer Relations. No information out yet, but good luck and best of wishes to you.

 

[sbkline]

I wonder how long until you have to reserve times to use the restrooms. I can see it now...I have to log in 90 days in advance to secure a "FP" for 9:03 AM at the men's room by Pinochio Village Haus. And if that one is booked up, I may have to settle for the one by Space Mountain. This whole thing is ridiculous.

As I've said before, I am a major planner. I love planning our WDW vacation. But there is such a thing as too much planning and as of right now, I have no intention of logging on at 60 days out to secure a fastpass for a freakin' ride.

 

[dreamfinder]

I'm curious about this part. By this statement, do they mean that once you use FP+, you can never again access regular FP...EVER? Or do they mean for the remainder of that particular stay? Or just the remainder of that day? If I access FP+ today, are they saying I can no longer access regular FP for the rest of the day, but that I can start out fresh tommorrow?

Nope. Well, kinda. Maybe. Basically you will need the new RFID enabled media to partake in FP+. So old non RFID enabled media won't work with FP+. So they will be phasing out the old non RFID media, starting with KTTW and moving outwards from there. But they need to get rid of the old stuff completely, in order to force you to use the new. So during the transition if you want to use FP+, and are eligible to do so, they will let you, but will make you change to the new admission media. (As spelled out in the terms online and in the MDE app) Once you go forward, you cannot go back. Now I imagine that you could buy yourself a new admission media, and continue to use the classic FP until they completely remove it, but most people won't do that.

 

[DfromATX]

You sound like you are in the same boat I am. I'm going in June and trying to plan a trip for a family reunion. I want to know if I'm planning on using fast passes or fast past plus's in our touring plans as it really does change things. I just hope they release information by March or so. But knowing my luck they go Live the first week in June, they'll tell everyone they need to book online. The application will crash and it will be crazy with everyone arguing with Customer Relations. No information out yet, but good luck and best of wishes to you.

I'll try to call them later and find out more about it. Surely for people who were going soon, they would send some kind of notice out - like when you get all your luggage tags. In Disney terms, June is not far away! If I find anything newsworthy I'll let you know.

 

[Mawg]

I'll try to call them later and find out more about it. Surely for people who were going soon, they would send some kind of notice out - like when you get all your luggage tags. In Disney terms, June is not far away! If I find anything newsworthy I'll let you know.

Thanks! I'm doubtful that you will get any information until they are ready to release it to the public but we can try.

 

[DfromATX]

Thanks! I'm doubtful that you will get any information until they are ready to release it to the public but we can try.

The cast member I chatted with said it would most likely go into effect late summer/early fall. Regular fast passes will still be around when we go in June.

 

[DfromATX]

I guess we will have to learn the new system NEXT time we go.

 

[Florida_is_hot]

Crowd management should not be my problem.
It is Disney's problem.

 

[Redhawk]

I think Disney will attempt to use FP+ technology to better manage crowds and attraction lines. With the new technology, if a park is overcrowded one morning they may increase the number of available FPs for some attractions for later in the afternoon. If at 11:00 a.m. I was standing in an attraction line (or at a kiosk) and discovered that instead of the 2-hour wait I was facing I could use an app to snag a newly opened 3:30 to 4:00 FP, I'd grab it and head to another, less-crowded area of the park.

Some have said it would be annoying to walk up to an attraction (ToT, for example, or some rides that don't really need the FP system) for which you had reserved a FP slot weeks out only to find that the standby line wasn't long at all. (That can happen now of course, with the paper FPs.) Wouldn't you prefer to switch that FP to a later hour and have the chance to ride once using the short standby line and again later (when the line may be long) using the FP line? This assumes that there would still be at least a few options for changing your already reserved FPs. I imagine just as now the FP+ system will work more smoothly and give more people a chance to get FPs when there are smaller crowds in the parks and all the passes aren't "out" by 10 a.m.

There's a lot we don't know about how this will work, and maybe Disney still has a lot to figure out as well.We always go at low-crowd times and often can walk onto ToT with maybe a 5-minute wait. We still grab a FP for later (usually plenty are available even in the early afternoon) because there are times when suddenly a long line develops even on the slower days. Yes, this new system will probably be hard for first-timers or casual visitors to understand as many don't even understand FP today. But I have a feeling it will be designed to give more people a chance to get a FP or two even if they don't reserve 60-days (or whatever) out or run behind a rope drop every morning.

 

[DVC4bestvacations]

Thank you all for posting

As a DVC member my fear is that we will be the last group brought into the loop. Unlike a cash customer we (as far as I know) don't have our park passes built into our room keys. We personally have annual passes.

We were at WDW last week and all the fast pass rides were set up for the new system. They had covers over all of the newly installed FP equipment. I see testing to roll out very soon.

I believe that FP+ is just the tip of the iceburg. I can't see Disney spending all this money to link FP to our "room key" just to control crowds. They have to have a larger agenda. Only time will tell if this agenda will make us happy or drive us hard core Disney fans away.

 

[Alexis]

I try my best to avoid technology while I'm vacation. Although technology is great, it does have its hiccups which can sometimes create problems. What happens if the band does scan one of those days or won't work at times. It's going to take longer than usually just to arrive into the park, buy items, etc.

 

[BigRedDad]

All this NexGen stuff is giving me a headache. All I want to do is go to Disneyworld and enjoy myself, and I don't want to have to get a MBA in Tech to figure it out. Am I over-reacting?

I have an engineering degree and MBA. I can't figure it out because it so backasswards that someone with a law degree designed it (joking all you lawyers). The problem is they are not releasing details. This is needed in order to make any natural assessment of the the system.

For me, I leave in less than 4-weeks. I do not want to get there to find out there are no FPs available and because I did not know about some site going to reserve them that I am SOL.

 

[wbtc]

For all visitors from other countries the requirement to use our phones is a disaster. It would force us to use our data on roaming on our phone plan and this could be an $800 expense.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Reading this I have to wonder, is a happy side effect of this NextGen stuff the elimination of massive Fastpass usage? Is it a way to have what looks like a special perk to on-siters really be a way to reduce the overall use of FP, confining it only to the higher priced crowd and limiting the when and where they it can be used?

If my constant ravings over the past years about FP making Standby longer is true, then we should see shorter wait times in stand-by leading eventually to no FP line at all. I mean, how is setting up a FP time 6 months in advance going to be workable at all? Mechanical breakdowns, weather, conflicts in scheduling, not even thought about during the time that FP+ is booked, will make those line really small, I'd think. That is especially true if they maintain the strict window return time the way they presently do.

 

[DVC4bestvacations]

For all visitors from other countries the requirement to use our phones is a disaster. It would force us to use our data on roaming on our phone plan and this could be an $800 expense.

There is wifi in the parks I would imagine you could use a kindle ipod or other wifi compatable.