The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

Mac Tonight

Well-Known Member
I don't know if there will ever be a day when this meme ISN'T insanely relevant...

Chapek_idiot.jpg
 

DrAlice

Well-Known Member
We only went once per year, but this new plan might put us on a once every 3-4 year kind of rotation. Seriously. I love Disneyland, but hyper planning every second of the day, forcing me to be on my phone constantly while on vacation and paying per ride at the current ticket prices is insane. It sucks the fun out of the trip. In fact, the hyper planning of FastPass+ is what has kept me from booking a trip to WDW. I don't want to have to plan which ride I want to ride at 3pm on a Tuesday, six months in advance. Ugh....

I don't mind paying for a Premier access pass for the whole day (that's what LegoLand does... different price points depending on how much you want to shorten your wait time). But forcing me to pay per ride through my phone all day long is bloody annoying and sounds more like work than vacation.

Congratulations Disney. Tipping point achieved. Buh-bye.
 

DavidDL

Well-Known Member
In all seriousness, though.. I thought doing away with Fastpass was something folks were looking forward to? Because no Fastpass means no people cutting in front of the stand-by line means the stand-by lines move more quickly and become shorter waits? -and while this change doesn't totally do away with it, perhaps it greatly reduces it?

So to play Devil's advocate for a moment; by making Fastpass paid, per ride, wouldn't that sort of incentivize less people to utilize it? Because nearly $10 per ride is a bit outrageous? Right now, Fastpass is free which means everyone and their mother goes for it. At $10 per ride, only a smaller pool of crazies or super rich go for it. Or a select group of people in hyper specific scenarios.

Which means.. folks who want shorter standby waits via less Fastpass intrusion win, right? Just trying to understand. It's not like this decision removes the standby option for each attraction, if I understand the changes correctly?

Folks who want nothing to do with it at all are still free to use the standby lines but now, those same folks don't have literally every person in the park trying to cut in front of them with the Fastpass the entire day because it was free to everyone. So unless you were just a really big fan of using the handful of free Fastpasses per day in an effort to extend standby lines for everyone else.. does this announcement or change really hurt or benefit you?

Edit: To add something further, I'd bet this change is $10 more PER PERSON. Which is an extra $40 out of pocket for a family of 4, PER RIDE. If this system does come to the park, I can't imagine it being as widely utilized as the current free Fastpass system. If anything, the number of people cutting in front of you drops considerably and with it, the wait time for rides. The only reason attractions like Indy, Splash, etc. jump as high as they do on the wait boards is because folks waiting in the standard queue are given less priority than those who are jumping ahead.
 
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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
In all seriousness, though.. I thought doing away with Fastpass was something folks were looking forward to? Because no Fastpass means no people cutting in front of the stand-by line means the stand-by lines move more quickly and become shorter waits? -and while this change doesn't totally do away with it, perhaps it greatly reduces it?

So to play Devil's advocate for a moment; by making Fastpass paid, per ride, wouldn't that sort of incentivize less people to utilize it? Because nearly $10 per ride is a bit outrageous? Right now, Fastpass is free which means everyone and their mother goes for it. At $10 per ride, only a smaller pool of crazies or super rich go for it. Or a select group of people in hyper specific scenarios.

Which means.. folks who want shorter standby waits via less Fastpass intrusion win, right? Just trying to understand. It's not like this decision removes the standby option for each attraction, if I understand the changes correctly?

Folks who want nothing to do with it at all are still free to use the standby lines but now, those same folks don't have literally every person in the park trying to cut in front of them with the Fastpass the entire day because it was free to everyone. So unless you were just a really big fan of using the handful of free Fastpasses per day in an effort to extend standby lines for everyone else.. does this announcement or change really hurt or benefit you?

Edit: To add something further, I'd bet this change is $10 more PER PERSON. Which is an extra $40 out of pocket for a family of 4, PER RIDE. If this system does come to the park, I can't imagine it being as widely utilized as the current free Fastpass system. If anything, the number of people cutting in front of you drops considerably and with it, the wait time for rides. The only reason attractions like Indy, Splash, etc. jump as high as they do on the wait boards is because folks waiting in the standard queue are given less priority than those who are jumping ahead.

I was on this wave length until someone mentioned standby might go away too. None of us really know anything. If they were to introduce this new premier pass and leave standby alone I can see the sliver lining. If they start doing standby pass and adding premier pass to different memberships/ APs not so much.
 
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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Allow this song as to tell you why Disney would do such a thing:


Haha I get it but I just can’t imagine the parks being functional and not ruining guest experience without a standby line which in the end will effect bottom line. To your point through they probably don’t care about that far into future. It’s always about this quarter or this year.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
If there is no standby then effectively isn’t a standby pass a fastpass? Except you are waiting in the full line and May not have an option to ride a given ride without it. Lol
 

Mac Tonight

Well-Known Member
Haha I get it but I just can’t imagine the parks being functional and not ruining guest experience without a standby line which in the end will effect bottom line. To your point through they probably don’t care about that far into future. It’s always about this quarter or this year.
Yeah, I can't see them doing away with Standby completely, but like when social distancing was in place, they would "cap" the Standby lines once they hit a certain point. It was annoying, but it only affected us one time trying to get in line for Pirates.

At the end of the day, this just feels like another feeble attempt for Chapek to bilk more money from people, while adding literally NOTHING to the overall experience.
 

DrAlice

Well-Known Member
I was on this wave length until someone mentioned standby might go away too. None of us really know anything. If they were to introduce this new premier pass and leave standby alone I can see the sliver lining. If they start doing standby pass and adding premier pass to different memberships/ APs not so much.
My thoughts also. I will reserve final judgement until if/when this is implemented and we see what happens to the park experience. But this rumor leaves me seriously concerned. Well... not concerned (I can find other things to do with my time and money - Maui was lovely), but bummed that an era might be over.
 

Curious Constance

Well-Known Member
I can’t understand this new thing fully. So you have to pay per ride to skip lines after already paying full price to get in, and then once you’re in the stand by lines might be gone unless you agree to pay more but you’d have to wait in line behind every one else that paid more so you don’t actually get to skip lines?
 

BuzzedPotatoHead89

Well-Known Member
I can’t understand this new thing fully. So you have to pay per ride to skip lines after already paying full price to get in, and then once you’re in the stand by lines might be gone unless you agree to pay more but you’d have to wait in line behind every one else that paid more so you don’t actually get to skip lines?
It’s a surge pricing system for the most popular rides. Once a ride hits it’s desired “cap” for standby, the ops folks can shut off the regular queue and move to “Premiere Access only” which acts as a “per ride, per person” de facto up charge during peak hours. I imagine for newer rides and low capacity rides this is likely a dream.

If some form of “AP” or loyalty program does come back it would encourage those folks to either 1) stay for the full day and this spend more money or 2) buy the per-ride access passes at a hefty up charge if they want guaranteed access (and thus also spend money lol).

Conceivably under this plan you could also still keep the parks at lower capacity too as it’s a new way (outside of restaraunts and shopping) to generate revenue from attractions themselves.
 

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