This is what a FastPass+ line looks like

[ParentsOf4]

This could also be caused by a ride break-down. We had that happen in September with Test Track where the Fast Pass Line was right out the door because the ride had been broken down for a while

No, no ride break down. Please refer to my previous post here.

Throughout the day, we saw attractions get flooded with FP+ guests at the top of each hour.

FP+ lines were consistently shorter for the last 15 minutes of each hour.

This is the first major holiday period when all onsite guests are using FP+.

Disney needs to learn some lessons about how crowds are using FP+.

I believe Disney needs to distribute FP+ throughout the hour, like they do with FP.

 

[75disney]

I am here this week as well. I have stood I a few of those FP+ lines for no more than a few minutes. Once you get in, the line moves quickly and we have walked on almost every attraction. It looks worse than it really is. Sometimes the bands do not work properly. My DH and one DDs works properly for every other FP+ whereas mine and my other DDs works fine every time. Sometimes, they will just let us through; other times they pull us aside and look up our info. This could be holding up the FP+ as well. For the most part though we have had few problems/ delays and most of the guests and CMs seem to know what they are doing.

 

[GoofGoof]

• I just changed my Fastpass - Guests who just made a change and it hasn't registered with the system so it slows down the line while they talk and figure it out.

This happened to me. I actually changed mine the day before but it still didn't work. We had a FP for Star Tours at 9am that we changed to 3PM. When we arrived at 3PM we got a blue Mickey head (meaning it didn't work). The standby line was only 10 minutes so we just hopped over there. I made an off hand comment to my friend along the lines of "I guess you really can't change your reservations as advertised. Why don't they work out all of the kinks before rolling this out to us?" The CM at the FP computer heard me and asked if we were having problems all trip with the bands. Since this was our first issue I was honest and said no. He told us to go through the FP line anyway and said he would call ahead to let us through. It was a really nice gesture even though there were probably less than a dozen people in standby ahead of us. The lines were super low that day, but I can imagine if this happened to me on TSMM or Soarin I would have made a bigger stink and held up the line.

 

[ParentsOf4]

But shouldn't you design a system for the guests you have, not the ones you wish you had?

The goal of MM+ is to get WDW guests to stay onsite for more days. In other words, over the course of their week-long vacations, get those guests to visit WDW more, visit other Orlando tourist destinations less.

The problem with MM+ is that unlike a brick-and-mortar attraction, MM+ does not add attraction capacity to offset increased crowds.

Thus, if MM+ is successful, everyone will wait in line longer.

MM+ simply redistributes existing ride capacity instead of adding ride capacity.

 

[Rob562]

Today at Big Thunder Mountain, the FP+ line had nothing to do with slow band scanning. The line I photographed stretched from the actual attraction itself, down the walkup path, all the way to the attraction's exit.

The cause of the long line has to do with how FP+ are distributed.

Disproportionally, FP+ are being distributed from hour-to-hour, e.g. 1-to-2 PM, 2-to-3 PM, etc. Inevitably, those with FP+ are rushing to the attraction at the start of each hour. As a result, FP+ lines grow outrageously long from the start of the hour until about 20-to-30 minutes later. By 40-to-50 minutes after each hour, FP+ lines are mostly filled only by those with FP, making them much shorter.

As of now, the way to avoid long FP+ lines is to wait until the last 15 minutes of each hour.

Disney needs to change the way FP+ are distributed to more evenly distribute crowds throughout the hour.

For the heck of it I just logged on to make FP+ reservations for my friend (whom I'm connected to on MDE and has a Band and a AP) in MK for tomorrow. I chose Space, Pan and Enchanted Tales. Of the four combinations it gave, only one time in one combo was actually on the hour.
It gave combos such as 8:15a/10:10a/11:25a, 3:30p/5:15p/6:30p and 5:55p/7:40p/8:55p. The only one with on-the-hour choice was 7:00p/8:55p/11:55p.

Perhaps they've realized the errors and are working to fix them. (But without wiping out old reservations, they have to wait until the already-reserved times flush out of the system over the next month or two, however long ago the change was made)

-Rob

 

[GoofGoof]

For the heck of it I just logged on to make FP+ reservations for my friend (whom I'm connected to on MDE and has a Band and a AP) in MK for tomorrow. I chose Space, Pan and Enchanted Tales. Of the four combinations it gave, only one time in one combo was actually on the hour.
It gave combos such as 8:15a/10:10a/11:25a, 3:30p/5:15p/6:30p and 5:55p/7:40p/8:55p. The only one with on-the-hour choice was 7:00p/8:55p/11:55p.

Perhaps they've realized the errors and are working to fix them. (But without wiping out old reservations, they have to wait until the already-reserved times flush out of the system over the next month or two, however long ago the change was made)

-Rob

My original combinations offered were all at off times not on the hour, but when I changed the times I exclusively booked reservations on the hour.

 

[ParentsOf4]

For the heck of it I just logged on to make FP+ reservations for my friend (whom I'm connected to on MDE and has a Band and a AP) in MK for tomorrow. I chose Space, Pan and Enchanted Tales. Of the four combinations it gave, only one time in one combo was actually on the hour.
It gave combos such as 8:15a/10:10a/11:25a, 3:30p/5:15p/6:30p and 5:55p/7:40p/8:55p. The only one with on-the-hour choice was 7:00p/8:55p/11:55p.

Perhaps they've realized the errors and are working to fix them. (But without wiping out old reservations, they have to wait until the already-reserved times flush out of the system over the next month or two, however long ago the change was made)

-Rob

That's great that Disney is distributing FP+ more evenly now.

Perhaps Disney has been doing this for a while but from what I observed today, FP+ guests were overwhelming attractions at the top of each hour. In the second half of each hour FP+ lines were much shorter.

These guest might have made their FP+ selections weeks ago and, at that time, picked return times that started at the top of each hour.

FP+ very much is a work in progress.

 

[GoofGoof]

That's great that Disney is distributing FP+ more evenly now.

Perhaps Disney has been doing this for a while but from what I observed today, FP+ guests were overwhelming attractions at the top of each hour. In the second half of each hour FP+ lines were much shorter.

These guest might have made their FP+ selections weeks ago and, at that time, picked return times that started at the top of each hour.

FP+ very much is a work in progress.

Wasn't this thing billed as a way to improve crowd control? Seems to be having the opposite impact. Christmas this year could be a train wreck.

 

[FettFan]

We were at the Magic Kingdom today, the day before Thanksgiving. As expected, holiday crowds were in full swing.

I was a bit stunned to see the below FP+ line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at about 2:10 PM.

Mind you, this was the line outside the FP+ entry, which continued all the way up the path to the attraction itself.

Seems to me Disney needs to reevaluate its FP+ distribution algorithm.

View attachment 39850

Still more efficient than the HealthCare.gov website.

 

[Bairstow]

Before we blame everything on the bands, does anyone have some pictures of this queue from last Thanksgiving holiday during peak hours in nice weather?

 

[flynnibus]

Before we blame everything on the bands, does anyone have some pictures of this queue from last Thanksgiving holiday during peak hours in nice weather?

how often do you see the FP RETURN line snaking down the path? Forget matching a day/week of the year.. in general? You're trying to nitpick to debunk things and missing the obvious.

 

[Bairstow]

how often do you see the FP RETURN line snaking down the path? Forget matching a day/week of the year.. in general? You're trying to nitpick to debunk things and missing the obvious.

I'm genuinely interested in what kind of impact the bands are having on these lines.
If we are going to draw conclusions about what's happening in the parks and why, it would be nice to have some frame of reference.

We used to go down to the parks every year for Thanksgiving, before and after the old FastPass system was implemented and the lines were always miserably long during peak hours. I really wish I had taken some pictures of this. According to TouringPlans, it is still a horribly busy time to go.

As for how many times I've seen a long Fastpass return line? Plenty, especially at the top of an hour.

 

[crispy]

We had the exact same experience in October, and I have pictures of huge FP+ lines at Safari, Splash, and Test Track. The MagicBands slow everything down for various reasons. There was some user error for sure, but it takes longer to scan those than to have a CM glance at a paper FP and wave a party through. While I agree that once we actually got in the queue the wait seemed a bit shorter for some rides, it was still a very long in other (Splash being an excellent example). I think it also made the stand-by lines longer.

The worst part to me was trying to actually get in the parks. Magic Kingdom and AK were fine, but it took over 20 minutes for us just to get into Epcot and DHS after opening even though we arrived well before opening.

 

[Tom Morrow]

From what I have seen, yes, there are hold ups at the FP queue entry point, but unlike this past summer where the FP lines were frequently almost completely full, once past that entry check point, the FP line inside is significantly shorter. Believe it or not, less people are actually using the FP queue and the attraction merge points are not having to adjust to higher ratios as frequently. Of course, a lot of this is from eliminating the GACs, though I'm sure many of you won't believe that.

 

[stevehousse]

A lot of the times when I was there a few weeks ago, the main reason for the backup was because of people not going at the proper time or teu had to check their phones! The CMs need to be trained to ask those doing this to step aside! So others can still get through. Just think, honestly if u even have 20 people in front of you, with both scanners u can be in in about 2-3 minutes, but someone having to go in teir phone, load the app, explain away, etc., it really holds up that line! Isaw this happen several times, I even aske the people in front of us at AK to step aside if they've loading their phone up to check so others could get through! This was in Kali Rapids...

 

[stevehousse]

I also want to add in a comment about Test Track. It the que design that makes the wait bad for anyone who rides it wether its FP or standby! I went on this during our vacation, experiencing the "new" version. I was shocked how early on they merge the FP line and the stand by, shocked! They should not have you merge that early! That merger point after you build your car should not exist and it should be a seperate line all the way to the actual ride before merging like all the other rides do on property. Me and my wife both taking turns riding with our son, both experienced a wait of 40 min total in the FP line...and this was once at 10am, and then again at 3pm...

 

[gwhb75]

No, no ride break down. Please refer to my previous post here.

Throughout the day, we saw attractions get flooded with FP+ guests at the top of each hour.

FP+ lines were consistently shorter for the last 15 minutes of each hour.

This is the first major holiday period when all onsite guests are using FP+.

Disney needs to learn some lessons about how crowds are using FP+.

I believe Disney needs to distribute FP+ throughout the hour, like they do with FP.

Sounds like they need to shorten the windows from 1 hour to 20-30 minutes.

 

[Lucky]

It'll be interesting to see how they solve this problem. FP queues are designed to be inside the attractions, not creating congestion outside of them. Some of the causes may be fixable (bands mid-programmed). With experience guests may scan their bands more quickly. But there will always be some inexperienced guests, and some crowding around the entrance before their return time. When they were holding paper FPs I could often see their return times and just walk by them up to the entrance. Now all you see is people with bands, and it's harder to tell who really should be in line. For CMs too. Paper had its advantages.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Before we blame everything on the bands, does anyone have some pictures of this queue from last Thanksgiving holiday during peak hours in nice weather?

I visit WDW every Thanksgiving. FP lines were never like this.

What I observed wasn't particularly a MagicBand problem. Sure, occasionally some fumbled around with their MagicBands for a few seconds. However, the lines often stretched continuously for great distances from the attraction itself to well past the FP+ return entrance.

What I observed yesterday was a phenomenon that happened at the start of each hour. Guests would flood attractions at what I assume was the start of their return windows. By the second half of each hour, FP/FP+ lines were back to normal.

It appears to me that, disproportionately, guests are being allowed to pick FP+ return times at the start of each hour (i.e. 10 AM, 11 AM, noon, 1 PM, etc.). Maybe guests want this because it's easier to remember but with holiday crowds, it is causing a mess in the FP/FP+ lines.

This is a problem that is easily fixed with better FP+ distribution algorithms. Disney's FP distribution algorithms already address this problem. In my opinion, they need to apply their FP distribution algorithms to FP+.

 

[The Magical Genie 123]

We were at the Magic Kingdom today, the day before Thanksgiving. As expected, holiday crowds were in full swing.

I was a bit stunned to see the below FP+ line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at about 2:10 PM.

Mind you, this was the line outside the FP+ entry, which continued all the way up the path to the attraction itself.

Seems to me Disney needs to reevaluate its FP+ distribution algorithm.

View attachment 39850

CURSE THIS FASTPASS+ SYSTEM!