No fastpasses available today?

[ParentsOf4]

The limit should go down to 2 per day for peak attendance (at DHS, AK, EP), 3 at MK.

IMHO, the FP+ limit for peak season really depends on what WDW intends to offer day guests.

Based on todays Swan & Dolphin announcement, it's a distinct possibility that offsite guests will be unable to make advanced FP+ reservations. For offsite guests, FP+ effectively becomes FP for whatever onsite guests haven't picked through.

If Disney sticks with this, I believe Disney has sufficient capacity to keep the 3 FP+ limit in place for onsite guests at all 4 parks, as long as onsite guests are limited to one major attraction at Epcot, DHS, and DAK.

 

[NearTheEars]

Just got back from spending the afternoon/ evening at DHS.
We got to the park around 3 and left after the 7:30 Fantasmic (my first time!)
We rode TSMM, ToT, RNRC, GMR, Star Tours and a showing of Muppets 3D.
And we did it all standby and lived to talk about it!
It wasn't too busy in the park, but not a ghost town either.
The longest wait was for TSMM (shocker). The posted time was 55 minutes, but in reality we only waited about 35 since the line was moving really well.
ToT was 20 and RNRC was 30. The rest were 10 and under.

What a great way to spend an afternoon, even without access to FP+

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

Don't think so. The testing period is set for the Holiday period, but there is no indication that it will revert back.

Idk, I'm just spreading what I've heard I believe they stated the testig dates end just after new years which is probably why the said it was only for the Holiday season

 

[awoogala]

IMHO, the FP+ limit for peak season really depends on what WDW intends to offer day guests.

Based on todays Swan & Dolphin announcement, it's a distinct possibility that offsite guests will be unable to make advanced FP+ reservations. For offsite guests, FP+ effectively becomes FP for whatever onsite guests haven't picked through.

If Disney sticks with this, I believe Disney has sufficient capacity to keep the 3 FP+ limit in place for onsite guests at all 4 parks, as long as onsite guests are limited to one major attraction at Epcot, DHS, and DAK.

hmm. we just canceled our awesome dolphin accomodations to book at a Disney hotel because we were so afraid of the implications of being shut out of fp+.Oh well, won't feel bad about it, we got the good "sale" on disney hotels and booked poly finally!

 

[ParentsOf4]

hmm. we just canceled our awesome dolphin accomodations to book at a Disney hotel because we were so afraid of the implications of being shut out of fp+.Oh well, won't feel bad about it, we got the good "sale" on disney hotels and booked poly finally!

Today's Swan & Dolphin (S&D) announcement caught me completely off-guard. I knew they were negotiating but was expecting something more favorable to S&D guests, so much so that I didn't even bother to make inquiries. Telling them it's only day-of FP+ is basically telling them they are going to be treated like offsite guests. With all WDW resorts now testing FP+ and booking at 60 days out, S&D are at a significant disadvantage. I'm still a bit shocked.

S&D guests do have access to EMH. With FP+ being distributed for times immediately at rope drop, EMH might become the only way to tour the parks without waiting in long Standby lines. Unfortunately, I've been told the goal is to further reduce EMH.

WDW has too many onsite rooms and not enough ride capacity.

Up till 1990, WDW built 3 theme parks and 5500 rooms. Since then, they've built 1 theme park and over 25,000 rooms (including the S&D which, until today, were treated as onsite resorts).

Disneyland, with its now 2 well-executed theme parks, has 2500 rooms.

Universal has 2400 rooms for its 2 theme parks.

With over 28,000 rooms (excluding S&D and Shades of Green), it's understandable from a business perspective why Disney is refocusing resources on its onsite guests. FP+ is needed to keep those rooms filled.

WDW has changed from being theme parks with hotels to hotels with theme parks.

 

[lentesta]

Just got off a cruise. Give me a couple of days. I seem to recall official documentation that the number was under 2.

Here are the MK numbers, which is what FP+ is based on.

56% of guests used it.
Those who used it averaged just over 2 Fastpasses per guest per day.

The FP+ goals are > 90% utilization and > 3 FP+ guest/day.

 

[lentesta]

IMHO, the FP+ limit for peak season really depends on what WDW intends to offer day guests.

Based on todays Swan & Dolphin announcement, it's a distinct possibility that offsite guests will be unable to make advanced FP+ reservations. For offsite guests, FP+ effectively becomes FP for whatever onsite guests haven't picked through.

If Disney sticks with this, I believe Disney has sufficient capacity to keep the 3 FP+ limit in place for onsite guests at all 4 parks, as long as onsite guests are limited to one major attraction at Epcot, DHS, and DAK.

Sorry - it was late and I didn't type enough.

According to the docs I've seen, the plan is to limit

IMHO, the FP+ limit for peak season really depends on what WDW intends to offer day guests.

Based on todays Swan & Dolphin announcement, it's a distinct possibility that offsite guests will be unable to make advanced FP+ reservations. For offsite guests, FP+ effectively becomes FP for whatever onsite guests haven't picked through.

If Disney sticks with this, I believe Disney has sufficient capacity to keep the 3 FP+ limit in place for onsite guests at all 4 parks, as long as onsite guests are limited to one major attraction at Epcot, DHS, and DAK.

It's possible they could keep 3. The docs I've seen all mention 2 FP+ limits at EP, DHS and AK, anywhere from 5 to 17% of operating days. There are options to increase FP+ capacity, such as moving resort guests' FP+ times into EMH. And Disney's already done one idea that's mentioned in the roadmap docs as a contingency: adding parade and character greetings to FP+. They could also limit CM and comp ticket FP+ allocations during holidays (maybe they've already done this)?

Now that I think of it, the changes to the GAC may have helped too. So it's possible they could keep 3. I'd heard that at attractions like TSMM, up to 25% of the attraction's capacity was GAC users at peak times. That's probably gone down.

There's nothing in the roadmap about limiting off-site guests from making advance FP+ reservations. What I've seen are limits on the number of popular attractions based on resort status. But I'm sure they're considering a lot of things.

 

[George]

Just got back from spending the afternoon/ evening at DHS.
We got to the park around 3 and left after the 7:30 Fantasmic (my first time!)
We rode TSMM, ToT, RNRC, GMR, Star Tours and a showing of Muppets 3D.
And we did it all standby and lived to talk about it!
It wasn't too busy in the park, but not a ghost town either.
The longest wait was for TSMM (shocker). The posted time was 55 minutes, but in reality we only waited about 35 since the line was moving really well.

We just got back from a WDW trip (10/20-10/25) and we found that all the actual wait times were much less than posted. The most extreme example was Star Tours where it said 20 minutes and we walked on. After exiting, the kids wanted to do it again, the sign had ticked up to 25 minutes and it was still a walk on. I kind of felt like either they didn't know how to estimate wait times yet with the new system (which doesn't entirely make sense considering you get the little lanyard with the red card from time to time whilst waiting in a queue) or they want to discourage people from standby. We did several waits that were in the range of the what you saw posted (45-60 minutes) and they all wound up being 20-40 minutes. Part of our willingness to try standbys is because we're an experienced Disney family and we would quite often look at a line and think "no way is the wait that long".

Query for @ParentsOf4 or anyone else - Has it been confirmed that fastpass plus is for onsite guests only or is that conjecture? It looks like now that my PAPs have been activated I can make reservations for any day I want even though I have no travel plans at the moment and am sitting at my desktop here in central Indiana. Note: I just checked and I can make fp ressies for days I don't have room ressies. I thought the original announcement was that they would be available for anyone with a ticket once the roll out was complete. Has there been an official change in plans that I missed?

It does get referred to from time to time, but I feel like all of our debating about this change to the system obscures the real ride capacity issues at WDW. Further, by making it possible to get a fastpass for anything they even make it feel like there are more super duper experiences than actually exist. After a late summer trip to DLR, my perspective changed a bit. I think a few small scale rides in DHS and DAK would do wonders. Well, enough of my rambling.

 

[ParentsOf4]

There's nothing in the roadmap about limiting off-site guests from making advance FP+ reservations. What I've seen are limits on the number of popular attractions based on resort status. But I'm sure they're considering a lot of things.

From a business perspective, Disney needs to do something to make it clear to potential customers that there is a distinct advantage to staying onsite and an even greater benefit to staying at Deluxe Resorts. WDW's Deluxe Resorts have tremendous margins so it behooves corporate to improve their occupancy rates.

I agree that several plans being considered, with Disney trying to strike the right balance between improving occupancy rates (particularly at Deluxe Resorts) without alienating day guests, especially local AP holders.

The problem with complex schemes to limit FP+ selections based on resort status is that they become difficult to present (and therefore to sell) to customers, especially the uninitiated. I can't imagine how Disney is going to explain, "if you stay in a Deluxe Resort, you can make FP+ selections for any 3 attraction but if you are at a Value Resort, you can pick only one of the Magic Kingdom's three mountains." What exactly is a MK mountain? What other attractions do I get? I'm having trouble imagining how this gets presented as a neat package that results in upsells. There always will be those that find this sort of uber planning appealing (which is good for your business ) but at what point do large numbers start throwing their hands up in frustration and simply start booking vacations elsewhere?

MM+ was pushed through due to attitudes in current leadership but with insufficient capacity at 3 of WDW's 4 theme parks, MM+ really should have been deferred until Epcot, DHS, and DAK were ready for it.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Query for @ParentsOf4 or anyone else - Has it been confirmed that fastpass plus is for onsite guests only or is that conjecture? It looks like now that my PAPs have been activated I can make reservations for any day I want even though I have no travel plans at the moment and am sitting at my desktop here in central Indiana. Note: I just checked and I can make fp ressies for days I don't have room ressies. I thought the original announcement was that they would be available for anyone with a ticket once the roll out was complete. Has there been an official change in plans that I missed?

It does get referred to from time to time, but I feel like all of our debating about this change to the system obscures the real ride capacity issues at WDW. Further, by making it possible to get a fastpass for anything they even make it feel like there are more super duper experiences than actually exist. After a late summer trip to DLR, my perspective changed a bit. I think a few small scale rides in DHS and DAK would do wonders. Well, enough of my rambling.

Depending on who I talk to, I get different answers. And some keep changing their answers.

As you suggest, WDW has a capacity problem and is trying to strike the right balance between driving upsells without alienating its fan base.

IMHO, corporate became so obsessed with the MM+ concept that they completely glossed over capacity issues at 3 of their theme parks; a real life example of "go fever".

 

[George]

Sorry - it was late and I didn't type enough.

According to the docs I've seen, the plan is to limit


It's possible they could keep 3. The docs I've seen all mention 2 FP+ limits at EP, DHS and AK, anywhere from 5 to 17% of operating days. There are options to increase FP+ capacity, such as moving resort guests' FP+ times into EMH. And Disney's already done one idea that's mentioned in the roadmap docs as a contingency: adding parade and character greetings to FP+. They could also limit CM and comp ticket FP+ allocations during holidays (maybe they've already done this)?

Now that I think of it, the changes to the GAC may have helped too. So it's possible they could keep 3. I'd heard that at attractions like TSMM, up to 25% of the attraction's capacity was GAC users at peak times. That's probably gone down.

There's nothing in the roadmap about limiting off-site guests from making advance FP+ reservations. What I've seen are limits on the number of popular attractions based on resort status. But I'm sure they're considering a lot of things.

This is very interesting. @ParentsOf4 refers to this above, but at what point does this become just too annoying. "Well, I was thinking of staying at a moderate but if we upgrade we'll got one more tier B choice at EPCOT on the 16th. Should we get the water park upgrade on our mug? I was budgeting 6.5 hours at Blizzard Beach on Tuesday and I'm not sure if it will be worth it. Also, I e-mailed everyone in our party to get an idea of the percentage of meals they have desserts with so I know if we'll get the dining plan, TiW card, or rent a car or drive to Applebee's every night." I think once you've made all your decisions the vacation will be OK, but the before part can be tricky. Never mind if you're doing a family reunion like we're doing next June or October trying to get parental units who are suspicious of the computer to become my Disney friend and so forth and so on. "Dad just type in your 16 digit room reservation. Then, link your ticket and mom's, once again 16 digit codes can found under the bar code, etc. After that don't forget to friend me. No, not on facebook, I know you hate that. By the way, you're staying in a different level resort than the rest of the family so your fastpass plus options at Animal Kingdom will be different." Nuts.

 

[Kman101]

I think it's simply clear they failed to realize they have capacity issues (well, there are a lot of things they don't seem to get but you get my point hopefully).

Rides/improvements should have BEEN happening over the last 5 years, not everything near dormant and dead.

Why DHS stopped after TSMM was stupid. That park frustrates me the most because it has such potential to increase it's selection of rides but .... NOTHING. The Monster's coaster should have been open by now, the Backlot should have been leveled (or improved significantly), they could have even copied Bugs Land, adding some FAMILY rides (I have no kids but totally see why TSMM has insane lines).

They could have even leveled the B&TB theater and added a new attraction there (there's room, right? if the entire area is cleared?).

The premiere theater sits empty. Half of EPCOT sits empty.

Space Mountain gets a crappy refurb. POTC gets boats that fill with water. But let's add FP+!!!

Oh, let's not forget how they cheaped out with AK for the most part (Dinorama? Yes, I get it has a 'theme' and a 'story' but it was CHEAP). Which in a lot of ways could be a truly AMAZING park. The environment itself is wonderful, if you give it a chance and not see it as "just a park with animals." It's obvious when they cheap out. I can tell just from comparing ride videos.

It boggles my mind at the way Disney runs business. I totally understand as a business they want to make money. But to blow how many billions when all of that could have improved the parks that sorely need it? They have THREE parks in near desperate need of updates, additions, etc.

 

[Nubs70]

From a business perspective, Disney needs to do something to make it clear to potential customers that there is a distinct advantage to staying onsite and an even greater benefit to staying at Deluxe Resorts. WDW's Deluxe Resorts have tremendous margins so it behooves corporate to improve their occupancy rates.

Here are a few marketing slogans:

Stay off-site? No rides for you.
Disney - Pay more, Ride more.

An idea for resort specific MM+ clothing.
Value resorts - "I'm with the band"
Moderates - " I've got back stage passes"
Deluxe - " I'm a groupie"

 

[novawildcat18]

I was surprised to see MagicBand themed merchandise. Not the little accessories to add onto the MagicBand (because I think that's smart) but the "I'm with the band" t-shirts and so on. I can't really imagine too many people would buy them...then again this is Disney World and people will buy anything.

 

[Kman101]

I can't really imagine too many people would buy them...then again this is Disney World and people will buy anything.

You hit that nail right on the head. Disney execs know that. Like I've said before, and I admit I love saying it lol, but they could but crap on a stick and it would sell. Even when we know they can do better, it's still a hit or sells ridiculously.

 

[msteel]

We just got back from a WDW trip (10/20-10/25) and we found that all the actual wait times were much less than posted. The most extreme example was Star Tours where it said 20 minutes and we walked on. After exiting, the kids wanted to do it again, the sign had ticked up to 25 minutes and it was still a walk on. I kind of felt like either they didn't know how to estimated wait times yet with the new system (which doesn't entirely make sense considering you get the little lanyard with the red card from time to time whilst waiting in a queue) or they want to discourage people from standby. We did several waits that were in the range of the what you saw posted (45-60 minutes) and they all wound up being 20-40 minutes. Part of our willingness to try standbys is because we're an experienced Disney family and we would quite often look at a line and think "no way is the wait that long".
...

I have personally forgotten the little red card until after I got OFF the ride...I wondered if they scanned it in that case.

I thoroughly expect them to use the wait times as a tool to move crowds around too - I can especially see it near closing time when they really don't want the queues to be full. That is one reason that I rely on people like @lentesta to tell me the truth about the real wait times (and hope his models get it right, especially during these transitions which I expect are very hard to model).

 

[novawildcat18]

I know for a fact that the wait times are all unbelievably inaccurate around closing time in order to dissuade people from filling the queues. But they are also sometimes quite inaccurate during the day as well. It may be because of FP+, I'm not sure. The worst offender is Star Tours. It is consistently posted at about a 20 minute wait and it is consistently a walk on every single time.

 

[flynnibus]

If guests only averaged 2 fp previously... And almost 50% didn't use it at all... Maybe you should consider the perspective that Disney may not care that you don't get a fp.... And they move to the theory that a fp+ is an exclusive way to experience something.

Everyone is talking here like if I don't have a fp.... I might As well go home. Maybe your theory of how you visit the park is no longer how Disney envisions it..

 

[RSoxNo1]

Maybe your theory of how you visit the park is no longer how Disney envisions it..

I think this is very clearly the case. However, it doesn't mean we have to go. The choices that they make will affect the choices that we as guests will make.

 

[Grumps]

If guests only averaged 2 fp previously... And almost 50% didn't use it at all... Maybe you should consider the perspective that Disney may not care that you don't get a fp.... And they move to the theory that a fp+ is an exclusive way to experience something.

Everyone is talking here like if I don't have a fp.... I might As well go home. Maybe your theory of how you visit the park is no longer how Disney envisions it..

I think you are very probably right. The problem is that having experienced the parks with FP, it is hard to imagine going through it without. I am not saying that waiting in standby is wrong or unreasonable in a park, but it isn't for me and just isn't my idea of a vacation. I just can't see paying more for, in my opinion anyways, less. So if this is the end goal to Disney then I will have to look somewhere different for vacations. It is sad though because we have had some great times and wonderful memories.