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[CaptainAmerica]

You could also know days/weeks/months ahead of time also whether you'll need more buses at ASM to/from Epcot on a particular day as oddly many parties from a particular resort will be at the same park that day.

But again, that's not new. If someone has a Park Pass for Epcot on 9/13, you're not getting ANY new information than what you'd have if someone has a FastPass+ for Spaceship Earth on 9/13. It's the exact same data.

I'm not questioning why they like Park Pass, I'm questioning why they like Park Pass *better* than FastPass+. At least FastPass+ gave guests an incentive to use it. Without capacity restrictions, there's absolutely no reason for people to bother with Park Pass ahead of time.

 

[iowamomof4]

But again, that's not new. If someone has a Park Pass for Epcot on 9/13, you're not getting ANY new information than what you'd have if someone has a FastPass+ for Spaceship Earth on 9/13. It's the exact same data.

I'm not questioning why they like Park Pass, I'm questioning why they like Park Pass *better* than FastPass+. At least FastPass+ gave guests an incentive to use it. Without capacity restrictions, there's absolutely no reason for people to bother with Park Pass ahead of time.

Furthermore, as long as park passes remain available, there's nothing stopping a guest from booking DHS to try for ROTR and then switching to a different park if their 7:00 attempt was unsuccessful.

 

[wbostic12]

Question, has anyone any idea of when the boating to Disney Springs will open up again? Got a trip coming up first week of august...

I would expect it to restart once the Port Orleans resorts reopen. It may be possible that they cancel boat service in that area altogether, based on Disney's recent decisions.

 

[Andrew M]

If they’d just move it up to 12 noon, it would be much easier to work with. I never hop before then, personally, but 2 pm feels late.

I agree, especially with parks closing early, MK and Epcot are really the only viable options for an afternoon hop for slow movers/people with kids.

t's always been in a capacity-restricted environment when guests HAD TO use it in advance or risk being locked out. I suspect once things settled in at full capacity and demand stabilizes, they're going to end up with even less information than they used to get with FastPass+.

This definitely was not the case until a few weeks ago. I had a friend travel in mid-June and they wanted to switch their Hollywood Studios day, but there was never any availability.

 

[pdude81]

But again, that's not new. If someone has a Park Pass for Epcot on 9/13, you're not getting ANY new information than what you'd have if someone has a FastPass+ for Spaceship Earth on 9/13. It's the exact same data.

I'm not questioning why they like Park Pass, I'm questioning why they like Park Pass *better* than FastPass+. At least FastPass+ gave guests an incentive to use it. Without capacity restrictions, there's absolutely no reason for people to bother with Park Pass ahead of time.

Let's say person X had fastpasses for Soarin' at 6pm, Spaceship earth at 7pm, and Nemo at 8pm. That doesn't tell you where they are they are going in the morning or before 2pm. Also there were still a sizeable enough chunk of people who didn't have fastpasses set up ahead of time or bought tickets day of, so you'd have no information on them through FP+. Here they know you can't be in any other park before 2.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Furthermore, as long as park passes remain available, there's nothing stopping a guest from booking DHS to try for ROTR and then switching to a different park if their 7:00 attempt was unsuccessful.

This definitely was not the case until a few weeks ago. I had a friend travel in mid-June and they wanted to switch their Hollywood Studios day, but there was never any availability.

Smart money right now is to book every single day of your trip at Hollywood Studios except for one or two Magic Kingdoms, and then change day-of as necessary.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Let's say person X had fastpasses for Soarin' at 6pm, Spaceship earth at 7pm, and Nemo at 8pm. That doesn't tell you where they are they are going in the morning or before 2pm. Also there were still a sizeable enough chunk of people who didn't have fastpasses set up ahead of time or bought tickets day of, so you'd have no information on them through FP+. Here they know you can't be in any other park before 2.

That goes both ways though.

Under FP+, they had information for some guests morning plans, and some guests afternoon plans.

Under PP, they have information for ALL guests morning plans, and ZERO guests afternoon plans.

 

[phillip9698]

Smart money right now is to book every single day of your trip at Hollywood Studios except for one or two Magic Kingdoms, and then change day-of as necessary.

That has to create all sorts of havoc for people making dining reservations. Are people just booking dining for all the parks throughout the day?

 

[iowamomof4]

Smart money right now is to book every single day of your trip at Hollywood Studios except for one or two Magic Kingdoms, and then change day-of as necessary.

That was my plan before park passes became extremely scarce. If things stay as they are, we may do something along those lines.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

That has to create all sorts of havoc for people making dining reservations. Are people just booking dining for all the parks throughout the day?

Dining reservations do not require a park pass to book.

 

[iowamomof4]

That has to create all sorts of havoc for people making dining reservations. Are people just booking dining for all the parks throughout the day?

The system limits that. Also, aside from a few people who know a trick or two to avoid no-show fees, people don't book reservations unless they fully expect to use them.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

But again, that's not new. If someone has a Park Pass for Epcot on 9/13, you're not getting ANY new information than what you'd have if someone has a FastPass+ for Spaceship Earth on 9/13. It's the exact same data.

I'm not questioning why they like Park Pass, I'm questioning why they like Park Pass *better* than FastPass+. At least FastPass+ gave guests an incentive to use it. Without capacity restrictions, there's absolutely no reason for people to bother with Park Pass ahead of time.

People going from a park to another at 10 am greatly changes the scenario than at 4 pm

 

[iowamomof4]

Dining reservations do not require a park pass to book.

Right, but I can't hold simultaneous reservations in MK, AK, and Disney Springs. Plus, you have to cancel ADR's the night before in order to avoid the no-show fee unless you use a work-around or call and beg.

 

[pdude81]

That goes both ways though.

Under FP+, they had information for some guests morning plans, and some guests afternoon plans.

Under PP, they have information for ALL guests morning plans, and ZERO guests afternoon plans.

Absolutely, they had more fine grained details about periods of time. But you could also change your fastpasses at any time, whereas park passes have to be dropped and reset based on availability. Also if you were in park Y on a given day and it felt too crowded, you could just leave and go to park Z and move fastpasses there if you hadn't used one yet.

I'm not saying FP+ didn't give them useful information. It gave them the power to not spend billions of dollars without a lot of complaints. But it's off right now, so they would have to turn off park pass and turn that back on to get the same information. And all indications are that they are looking to get away from pre-planning. They want to lock you into a park through the busy period and your only options to reduce line your waiting times before 2pm would be to pay the ransom or leave.

 

[ppete1975]

I would expect it to restart once the Port Orleans resorts reopen. It may be possible that they cancel boat service in that area altogether, based on Disney's recent decisions.

no real reason to have it without port orleans.. i assume it reopen with or soon after.. unlike other things the boat is a money maker. While the boat is free it is an easy way to get to the springs and spend your money, if the boats would stop that would cost them alot of money as peoples trips to the springs would change from spur of the moment to a major hassle where they might go a few times or even every night to not at all.

 

[mattpeto]

I'm sure the FP+ allocations gave them some data on foot traffic, but Park reservations allows them to distribute labor resources more accurately. In a post-pandemic world (and we still are at least 2-3 years away from that), it might have no place again...

But there are two significant entanglements for Reservations and Boarding Groups to consider:

• Allowing Park Reservations to tie directly into Boarding Groups opportunities. Without a reservation system, everybody would be trying to get Rise every day. Fast forward about 20 months from now and there likely will be 3 BG's: Rise, Tron and GoTG.
• The mandatory touch point at the original park is silly, but it's necessary. It all funnels back to the controlling the entries for the BG's.

I think they should tweak that park hopping does not require a mandatory touch point after 6 pm. (The current 2 pm PH touch point system is in effect before 6 pm). This way if you want to try to get a BG for Tron and fail, you don't have touch point at MK for an Epcot dinner.

 

[iowamomof4]

Absolutely, they had more fine grained details about periods of time. But you could also change your fastpasses at any time, whereas park passes have to be dropped and reset based on availability. Also if you were in park Y on a given day and it felt too crowded, you could just leave and go to park Z and move fastpasses there if you hadn't used one yet.

I'm not saying FP+ didn't give them useful information. It gave them the power to not spend billions of dollars without a lot of complaints. But it's off right now, so they would have to turn off park pass and turn that back on to get the same information. And all indications are that they are looking to get away from pre-planning. They want to lock you into a park through the busy period and your only options to reduce line your waiting times before 2pm would be to pay the ransom or leave.

The point is, however, that you aren't truly "locked in" until you've entered a park for the day. So if we have selected AK for the day, but then we accidentally sleep in and miss rope drop, there's nothing that currently would stop us from cancelling the pass for AK and rebooking for MK. Will they have staffed MK for that possibility?

 

[pdude81]

The point is, however, that you aren't truly "locked in" until you've entered a park for the day. So if we have selected AK for the day, but then we accidentally sleep in and miss rope drop, there's nothing that currently would stop us from cancelling the pass for AK and rebooking for MK. Will they have staffed MK for that possibility?

I don't expect they make staffing decisions based on fringe cases. They get the data for the vast majority of people who don't make those type of changes on the morning-of, or normally even week-of. I assume the most common situation is people having multiple DHS days to make sure they get on rise, and then planning to switch to a different park for another day. Honestly even when I do that it's a pain to go change the park reservations and I just end up back at DHS and hop for the evening somewhere else.

Also I think the only realistic day-of hopping option if you slept in would be Epcot. MK and DHS often both are showing as full for same day and next day tickets unless just after a refresh.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I don't expect they make staffing decisions based on fringe cases. They get the data for the vast majority of people who don't make those type of changes on the morning-of, or normally even week-of. I assume the most common situation is people having multiple DHS days to make sure they get on rise, and then planning to switch to a different park for another day. Honestly even when I do that it's a pain to go change the park reservations and I just end up back at DHS and hop for the evening somewhere else.

Also I think the only realistic day-of hopping option if you slept in would be Epcot. MK and DHS often both are showing as full for same day and next day tickets unless just after a refresh.

Everyone is talking about this as if FP+ or PP are the only data points they have. They also have historical data on ACTUAL clicks. So maybe there are 9,547 FP+ reservations for Winnie the Pooh on a given day, they know that 7% of people will be no shows, MK attendance is usually 4.39x the number of pre-booked Winnie the Pooh FPs as of 15 days out, crowds peak in Fantasyland at 1:30 PM, with guests thinning out throughout the day until park hoppers start to arrive from Animal Kingdom around 6:30, etc. etc. etc.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

This gives them information about all the people who didn't bother with FP+, whether that's because they have no intention of riding anything, weren't aware or were disinclined to try pre-reserving, or had some FP+ in a park they're not in that they decided to let go because it just felt like an Epcot day instead.

There are going to be waaaaaaaaay fewer people using Park Pass than used FP+. FP+, you got a neat little benefit. Park Pass, you get absolutely nothing. So why bother?