Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts IV

[ParentsOf4]

It occurs to me that if WDW truly wanted to improve customer satisfaction as well as solve their customers' biggest complaint, they would have completely eliminated FP and used those MM+ billions to turn every queue into real entertainment.

I can't help but be impressed with what Universal did for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. No Express Line and perhaps the most entertaining queue in all of Orlando. Standing in line at WWOHP is part of the show and, best of all, it's a continuous loader with an incredibly impressive capacity, approaching 3000 riders/hour. Despite being wildly popular, lines rarely exceed 1 hour even with peak summer crowds.

Instead of wasting all that money to create a false "guest" benefit with MM+, WDW really should have learned a lesson from Forbidden Journey.

 

[MattM]

I got hit with a fine for the SunPass thing not scanning properly.

Correct, which would imply fault with the communication between the chip and the reader. @flynnibus can explain why that would be.

 

[PeterAlt]

Y'all's implication that MyMagic+ is some sort of secret government plot to track your movement is pretty solid ammunition for TDO to dismiss criticism of MM+ as coming from the lunatic fringe

The very nature of it originating on a fan site BB qualifies it as being from the lunatic fringe. Can't win either way.

 

[MattM]

What every other state on the east coast has adopted for their tolls, but FL sucks.

Please be sure to avoid it at all costs and during all months, especially around the holidays! I am kidding.

 

[dhall]

Okay I'm the most libertarian don't-trust-the-government wacko you'll ever meet but SERIOUSLY? Why on God's green earth would the feds care that I eat a turkey leg once a year or that I tend to buy XL men's t-shirts and S women's ones?

They don't, they're simply interested in the technology

... not specifically the tech -- the government has better tech (although it's likely that Top People are working on it in that warehouse somewhere).

What's unique about this particular installation is that there's really no where else in the US that combines a mid-size municipal wi-fi network and a small city-size population all on private property and nearly universal buy-in buy the subjects of the test. A lot of people are interested in learning what goes wrong when you scale it all up.

 

[PeterAlt]

... not specifically the tech -- the government has better tech (although it's likely that Top People are working on it in that warehouse somewhere).

What's unique about this particular installation is that there's really no where else in the US that combines a mid-size municipal wi-fi network and a small city-size population all on private property and nearly universal buy-in buy the subjects of the test. A lot of people are interested in learning what goes wrong when you scale it all up.

I will now officially retract a statement I made a couple of weeks ago (I've been watching too much Newsroom*). I said Walt Disney founded WDW (and his immediate successors carried through in principle) the idea that WDW would always be a test bed of innovative prototype infrastructure technologies that could also one day be used in real living and working communities. I said current leadership no longer sees it that way and are unwilling to take on the expense and risk, satisfied with all things conventional. That later statement is what I'm retracting.

NextGen is painfully obvious continuation of Walt's vision - just maybe not the way Walt may have envisioned it. It is cutting edge. It is experimental. It is prototypical. It could also serve communities maybe some time in the future.

It's just a type of non-tangible prototype that is easy to confuse with tangible prototypes that I would like to see more of (such as transportation systems).


* Sunday nights on HBO. Watch up to last night's episode to relate to what I was saying.

 

[GoofGoof]

... not specifically the tech -- the government has better tech (although it's likely that Top People are working on it in that warehouse somewhere).

What's unique about this particular installation is that there's really no where else in the US that combines a mid-size municipal wi-fi network and a small city-size population all on private property and nearly universal buy-in buy the subjects of the test. A lot of people are interested in learning what goes wrong when you scale it all up.

Exactly.

 

[Mike730]

You're supposed to be able to use the E-pass in Florida! I have. Worked okay. I don't know which states you had charges in, though, and haven't driven 95 through all the states you did. $32 in tolls is a LOT!

Hope your trip was worth it!

To add more frustration to this, E-Pass is NOT EZ-Pass.

E-PASS, SunPass and LeeWay may be used interchangeably, but they are NOT EZ-Pass.

Who comes up with this crap???

 

[luv]

To add more frustration to this, E-Pass is NOT EZ-Pass.

E-PASS, SunPass and LeeWay may be used interchangeably, but they are NOT EZ-Pass.

Who comes up with this crap???

I don't know. Sorry. I got a new debit card and can't add it to my Sunpass because I can't sign in, so I have to call them. I'll ask why they don't hook up with the EZpass. They won't know, but I'll ask.

 

[wdisney9000]

Y'all's implication that MyMagic+ is some sort of secret government plot to track your movement is pretty solid ammunition for TDO to dismiss criticism of MM+ as coming from the lunatic fringe

Dismissing criticism of any type (lunatic fringe, Consp. theorists) wont matter when the product is released and it is simply not good.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

If we're going to talk Steaks, Shula's would be the best Ive had on property of any theme park in the area.

I know I'm about 100 pages late, but I just wanted to say that The Palm at Hard Rock Hotel gives Shula's a run for it's money. But the best steak in Orlando is at The Bull and Bear in The Waldorf.

 

[luv]

Dismissing criticism of any type (lunatic fringe, Consp. theorists) wont matter when the product is released and it is simply not good.

But the only people who will know it sucks will be the few Disney geeks. Most people won't know that they're waiting longer for SSE, PotC or Haunted Mansion. They'll just know they waited less time for Space.

They will have an overall impression of long lines, except for FP, but they won't know why. So they will not care about the whole FPP.

It's like the people who swear the dining plans are such a great deal. They don't remember the days before the dining plans, so, to them, the dining plan SAVES money.

Same deal.

 

[WDW1974]

Yeah but when you see your favorite princess in a local bar smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, it makes you think you've got a chance of making your dreams come true!

In o-Town most of the Disney princesses are fanbois who simply grow up to be mean old queens.

 

[WDW1974]

I know I'm about 100 pages late, but I just wanted to say that The Palm at Hard Rock Hotel gives Shula's a run for it's money. But the best steak in Orlando is at The Bull and Bear in The Waldorf.

Don't waste your time attempting to catch up ... But I do believe you having dined at the original in NYC. One of the best steakhouses on the planet.

 

[WDW1974]

Anyone catch the segment on 60 Minutes last night?

I am far from a "Big Brother" is gonna' getcha' type of person
but I found this www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50153673n a bit unnerving.

It outlines just how far advanced facial recognition has become.

yes, and I am sure they aren't installing that tech at WDW ...

 

[ford91exploder]

If this is all that matters.. why on earth does the secret entities need to be involved in the front-end of this with partners/vendors/etc as you have inferred? Sit back and learn from their experiences... not be a contractor paid to figure it out. Your postulations do not line up. If the government is to 'learn' from the NGE experiment... why would they be the entities HIRED to make it work?

Who is the cart and who is the horse? Your posts infer the government is BOTH.

in most cases especially when something is illegal or borderline illegal the government is both, CIA is not allowed to spy on americans, They are however allowed to set up companies they do so, IN-Q-TEL is one of them IQT develops tech and does commercial spying using commercial databases, CIA then purchases IQT's work product and the CIA can say with 'plausible deniability' that they did not 'Spy' on americans they just purchased data from a data broker.

Same deal with 'Air America' in the Vietnam days, US military not allowed by congress to be in a variety of other southeast asian countries, They are however allowed to get on 'a commercial airline', So CIA sets up 'Air America' and soldiers and miltary supplies are delivered to places they are not officially allowed to be but they are simply PAX and Cargo on a airline so its all 'legal'

 

[WDW1974]

If this is all that matters.. why on earth does the secret entities need to be involved in the front-end of this with partners/vendors/etc as you have inferred? Sit back and learn from their experiences... not be a contractor paid to figure it out. Your postulations do not line up. If the government is to 'learn' from the NGE experiment... why would they be the entities HIRED to make it work?

Who is the cart and who is the horse? Your posts infer the government is BOTH.

I do NOT know ... It is answers that I seek. I do know that Disney isn't being open and honest. I'd like to think there was no relationship at all. But I know better.

 

[WDW1974]

in most cases especially when something is illegal or borderline illegal the government is both, CIA is not allowed to spy on americans, They are however allowed to set up companies they do so, IN-Q-TEL is one of them IQT develops tech and does commercial spying using commercial databases, CIA then purchases IQT's work product and the CIA can say with 'plausible deniability' that they did not 'Spy' on americans they just purchased data from a data broker.

Same deal with 'Air America' in the Vietnam days, US military not allowed by congress to be in a variety of other southeast asian countries, They are however allowed to get on 'a commercial airline', So CIA sets up 'Air America' and soldiers and miltary supplies are delivered to places they are not officially allowed to be but they are simply PAX and Cargo on a airline so its all 'legal'

Just wanted to state that when an associate of mine was interested in getting to the bottom of what IQT is and how they are connected to Disney that their computer started acting 'wonky' soon after (it had all the updated protections that a normal person would have) and now is largely a black screen.

it does make you wonder ....but I also had a hard drive sucked clean (no trace it even existed or had any OS) remotely when I ed off a billionaire (something that normal techies told me for years couldn't be done), so I am paranoid about these things.

 

[WDW1974]

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

I live by that.

I've also, sadly, found it to be true more often than not.

 

[1023]

Never ask a question in a forum that you don't already know the answer too....

Because FP+ is more about letting people make reservations for any of the key attractions, rather than those that have large waits.

They are load balancing. If you look at a ride as a processing activity and the guest as material to be processed, WDW is trying to evenly spread out the material load across all available processing units. It's classic business process management.

Crowd dispersement and management. If you can book people into other attractions you can make an attempt to send people from one part of the park to another. You can also allow guests to pre plan every ride which allows you in time the ability to within a margin of error predict crowd sizes and staffing needs on a more micro managed level.

Casting a line for the second time...

So, setting FastPassMinus aside, what was the purpose of the original FastPass system? Was it the same?

I am gauging how much chum is required....

*1023*