News PHOTO - Guest Experience Teams deployed throughout Magic Kingdom to help with peak crowds

[peter11435]

They said "decent" which I assume means the headliners often left unavailable. You often can't get big headliners day of. Sometimes you can luck out if you check enough. They never said nothing was available, I can usually do fairly well but the 'big ones' are pretty impossible even 30 days out.

Did you read my entire post?

I don’t think anyone should expect to get a FP for the newest attractions day of.

 

[Kman101]

Did you read my entire post?

I did. Did you read all of theirs?

 

[Br’er Rabbit]

What is with people complaining that FP+ has ruined all spontaneity? If anything it has made it easier.

I live in Orlando and some afternoons I’ll decide I want to go to Disney and can easily make 3 fastpasses for later that night. In the past, you would have to be there at rope drop and run to the other side of the park to get your fastpass.

Crazy how some of you guys can turn additional employees to help navigate the busiest time of the year into a bad thing.

 

[peter11435]

I did. Did you read all of theirs?

There are far more decent attractions in the parks than just the newest attactions.

Like I said. I can get every attraction in the Magic Kingdom except Mine Train for two days from now. And that’s two days before Christmas.

 

[Br’er Rabbit]

They said "decent" which I assume means the headliners often left unavailable. You often can't get big headliners day of. Sometimes you can luck out if you check enough. They never said nothing was available, I can usually do fairly well but the 'big ones' are pretty impossible even 30 days out. On a brutally packed day, of course selection will be slim, and that's becoming more of the norm, actually. And I used to defend that you could still get many day of, which is true to an extent.

I only plan my fastpasses 1/2 days out max and never had a problem finding headliners other than Frozen, FoP, and Mine Train. Honestly the 60/30 days out is widely uneccessary.

 

[mikejs78]

I've never understood those who just "show up" anywhere and don't do any research what-so-ever. But to each their own

I still think it's a tad overblown how much you have to plan but they've convinced everyone you just HAVE to get on at 180 days and book everything. Imagine if everyone DIDN'T do that and actually tried to not plan so far ahead? Sure, if you TRULY want to do something, plan ahead and secure it. But they've conditioned people where you "have" to do it. I kind of hate that. With a family on a once in a lifetime trip, sure I get the uber-planning. But they've really overdone it. And many of us have shown that it's possible (though not necessarily the norm) to get day of things. Maybe it's not Frozen or Mine Train, but it's not like you can't choose to wait standby. No one's denying you access to these things.

Anywho ...

Even the 180 day thing is overblown. Many restaurants are available day of or a few days before - maybe not at optimal times, but still available. Even hard to get reservations are doable if you research a little. My wife and I decided to go in Feb of this year well past the 180 day mark. It took a little patience, but we got our pick of times for BOG and Beaches and Creame - both considered must-reserves at the 180 day mark.

You can can get FP for nearly all attractions a day or two before or day of for most days throughout the year.

A quick visit to MDX shows that I can still get FP for my party for every attraction in the MK for tomorrow except Peter Pans Flight, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and meeting Mickey. And that’s three days before Christmas.

Two days from now I can get everything except Mine Train. That’s during one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Yep.

I sometimes go without anything or have some things as backup, but it's very hard 30 days out to get the most coveted ones. I never can. Frozen and River Journey seem to be a little bit better now and even Alien seems to be more available at times, but it's still very very hard if not impossible.

I've gotten day-of FastPasses for pretty much everything in every park except mine train and (go figure) Pan. I've gotten them for FEA, Navi, FoP, TT, Soarin, SM, BTMRR, Everest, ToT, and more. don't know about TSL as I haven't tried yet, but I will in Feb.

 

[Calmdownnow]

I don’t think anyone should expect to get a FP for the newest attractions day of.

But we all know that some first timers (particularly those staying off-site) do arrive expecting to be able to ride the big rides that feature in the tv/youtube promotions and then , at peak times, either have to wait in stand-by for a couple of hours or do not get to ride attractions they were expecting to ride. So I can understand why bright, enthusiastic people might show up at the MK and expect that their $120 daily entrance ticket might give them reasonable access to 7DMT -- which is not a new attraction -- Space Mountain (an even older attraction), or other E-ticket rides, without that stand-by queue eating into a big proportion of their day.

Many of us on this site stay on property and so perhaps lack empathy for those who don't have 60-day access to FPs.

 

[mikejs78]

But we all know that some first timers (particularly those staying off-site) do arrive expecting to be able to ride the big rides that feature in the tv/youtube promotions and then , at peak times, either have to wait in stand-by for a couple of hours or do not get to ride attractions they were expecting to ride. So I can understand why bright, enthusiastic people might show up at the MK and expect that their $120 daily entrance ticket might give them reasonable access to 7DMT -- which is not a new attraction -- Space Mountain (an even older attraction), or other E-ticket rides, without that stand-by queue eating into a big proportion of their day.

Many of us on this site stay on property and so perhaps lack empathy for those who don't have 60-day access to FPs.

Did you read his post? You can get a FP for Space Mountain two days from now.

It's not like waits for SM were much shorter before FP....

 

[fngoofy]

However, as a passholder, I no longer have the ability to decide a day or two before or the same day to go for a quick visit. I'm forced to guess at least a few weeks in advance to get any decent FP+. Because of what FP+ has done to the standby lines, it is pointless to go at all without them reserved.

True point, being a local is a whole other animal, I agree.

 

[fngoofy]

NY tourism is incredibly tiered, as much as any destination on earth.

I also don't get bent out of shape. But my Wookie does.

Not hip to the lingo??

 

[fngoofy]

And the standby lines are still just as long almost anytime you go, barring a lucky circumstance.

We just went 11/24-12/01.
We did the following as Standby at least once (many twice) during the week:
Tiki Rm, Swiss Family, Pirates, Country Bears, HM, Philharmagic, Ariel, Sm Wrld, Tea Cups, People Mover, Space Mountain, Carousel of Progress, Spaceship Earth, Nemo, Figment, 3 Cab, Agent P, Safari, Africa Nature Walk, Everest, ToughtobeaBug, Dino, Muppets, Midway, ToT, Star Tours, and got our pictures taken with Santa.

The longest waits we had were for Midway Mania and the Safari. They were each 45 min, all the rest were about 20min.

 

[fngoofy]

Comparing a Broadway show to FastPasses...

Dude,

1) I'm comparing a Broadway Show to E tic Attractions

2) The point is planning, don't expect to show up to your local cinema for a popular movie right before showtime and expect to be guaranteed a seat.

3) Those longing for spontaneity are looking at the past through rose colored glasses. The biggest change to WDW crowds over the last 20 years is that there are far fewer "down times" of the year. That was the only time you could be spontaneous.
So it isn't FP that has spoiled the carefree, "do what you want when you want" days of WDW, it's that there is little down time crowd wise in the year.

 

[smile]

seal teams, deep within enemy lines, persuading folks they're not having nearly as bad of a time as they think they are
... they'll be far more active during the first half of the day, i can assure you

 

[disney4life2008]

What is with people complaining that FP+ has ruined all spontaneity? If anything it has made it easier.

I live in Orlando and some afternoons I’ll decide I want to go to Disney and can easily make 3 fastpasses for later that night. In the past, you would have to be there at rope drop and run to the other side of the park to get your fastpass.

Crazy how some of you guys can turn additional employees to help navigate the busiest time of the year into a bad thing.

Are you going solo? I live minutes away and go to Disney and can usually get what I want, solo. When I go with a group, not at all

 

[tissandtully]

Yep.

I sometimes go without anything or have some things as backup, but it's very hard 30 days out to get the most coveted ones. I never can. Frozen and River Journey seem to be a little bit better now and even Alien seems to be more available at times, but it's still very very hard if not impossible.

I’ve lately been able to get same day FP for Frozen and Mine Train, takes a little bit of refreshing, but they usually show up. This has worked for other high demand attractions as well, except for maybe SDD.

 

[peter11435]

But we all know that some first timers (particularly those staying off-site) do arrive expecting to be able to ride the big rides that feature in the tv/youtube promotions and then , at peak times, either have to wait in stand-by for a couple of hours or do not get to ride attractions they were expecting to ride. So I can understand why bright, enthusiastic people might show up at the MK and expect that their $120 daily entrance ticket might give them reasonable access to 7DMT -- which is not a new attraction -- Space Mountain (an even older attraction), or other E-ticket rides, without that stand-by queue eating into a big proportion of their day.

Many of us on this site stay on property and so perhaps lack empathy for those who don't have 60-day access to FPs.

But, that’s no different than it was pre FP+. When Toy story Mania was new FP would generally run out within the first few hours of operation. If you showed up unaware you were stuck with standby unless you were lucky to get there within the first couple hours to get a FP.

I don’t think anyone should be shocked to wait 1-2 hours to ride a brand new attraction.

FoP is obviosuly an outlier and generally not consistent with any other attraction.

 

[MaryJaneP]

"I can't figure out how to use FP+" but we let those same people drive cars. Wow!

 

[Missing20K]

Not hip to the lingo??

 

[Almac97]

It's not like waits for SM were much shorter before FP....

I apologize for the minor thread drift, but it does tie to peak crowds.

When I went to MK twice last week, my 10yr old pretty much wanted to ride SM over an over again. We were able to snag a few FP's for it, and other times I said we could wait if and only if the line was under 35min (averaged 40min throughout the day). Longer than that and we'd join up with the rest of the family.

One thing I noticed, though I'm somewhat new to this forum (long time lurker) and I'm sure has been discussed ad nauseam, is that proper operations greatly has an impact on capacity.

There are Youtube videos on it at various parks. While in line for standby SM (left side), I decided to clock two different CMs on two different days while dispatching trains, once when I just got up through the tunnel (where you can see dispatch), and again once I was approaching boarding, so I'd have better sampling. Time sample was constant of 3 minutes, and I made sure there were no major variables such as disability loading, someone dropping an item down into the track...etc.

One girl was absolutely FANTASTIC. She was doing restraint checks and dispatching trains at a rate of about 17 seconds, which is about 3.5 trains/minute, or 1,260 people/hour on the left side, and you could see the skip in her step. The 35 min wait didn't even take that long. She was in "go mode".

Meanwhile the other day, the other CM was visibly more sluggish, dispatching at about every 30 seconds, which is obviously 2 trains/minute, or 720 people/hour. You could also see this CM wasn't as peppy. The 35min wait time on the sign and on my app actually took 45min to board.

That extra 540 people per hour from the first sampling makes a HUGE difference! If CM #1 was working at all the major attractions, perhaps standby lines would be shorter and there wouldn't be the need for this influx of Guest Experience Teams to deal with frustrated patrons. I feel WDW is now just a FP+ scramble, and if you're SOL it's Philharmagic and Muppets 3D for you. But optimzed operations could also alleviate a lot of the stresses felt by many.

 

[Joebradley62]

I have been constantly going to all parks since 1980. Wait times in MK varied wildly in those days but on busiest days were very similar to now. Same for EPCOT. I will say FP has not changed that at all. The times of the year that were "slow" are just no longer there for the most part. Way more people going at all times now. Parents no longer wait for school vacations and just pull their kids out.