News Tickets with Pre Selected Fast Passes

[MisterPenguin]

Perfect example. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Get in line right before the park closes, so no more Fastpass holders will be entering. Wait through the entire full queue. Lol board in 25 minutes. Same with Frozen. Same with Flight of Passage (okay, 45 minutes instead of 2 hours).

No one. No one... is making the argument that lines wouldn't go faster for Standby if there was no FP.

 

[Gabe1]

I read this new offering. It disappointed me with the 'overall' low offerings and the easiest overall FP to obtain on your own. It rings to me as taking advantage of the unseasoned, first time visitors. If Disney was loading them with more tier one I'd feel differently.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Where did you pull that bogus stat from?

Literally every single cast member who has ever worked a Fastpass attraction. I absolutely promise you that the 75-80% figure is 100% true. The entire system does not work unless the attractions operations teams adhere strictly to this ratio. It is in all the training materials and official operations documents.

Yet another baseless assertion. Lines we're getting long in the late 90s and guest satisfaction was going downhill, all before FP. In fact, the original FP system was designed specifically to combat this increase in lines and dissatisfaction. Try again.

It's well documented that Fastpass, and especially Fastpass Plus, is a crowd control system designed to ensure queues are always full, just as the ADR system is to ensure tables are always occupied. It makes guests happy because of the perceived benefit of its existence. In reality it forces guests to take several extra steps to enjoy the same amount of attractions as they would if the system didn't exist at all. Any time saved by using a Fastpass is offset by the fact that all standby queues are artificially inflated.

No one. No one... is making the argument that lines wouldn't go faster for Standby if there was no FP.

Is that not CaptainAmerica's argument? That it "wouldn't make any difference"?

Also guys, it's useless to pull up wait times from 25 years ago when we have plenty of examples from 2013, pre-Fastpass+. LIVING WITH THE LAND is consistently 30-45 minutes now. Is it because of a sudden newfound interest in hydroponics? Nope, it's because everyone is allotted three Fastpasses and they have to use it on something.

 

[WDWTank]

Where’s Tower of Terror?

 

[mikejs78]

But that’s because capacity wasn’t increased as attendance climbed. If the billions of dollars spent on FP+ were instead spent on attractions, maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But that’s water under the bridge now.

And this is where we agree. The problem with crowds and lines at the parks is solely a capacity issue. Disney has underbuilt over the past decade given the rise of crowds. Had they built attractions at the rate crowds increased, there wouldn't be the wait times we see today. Attacking FP+ is attacking the wrong issue - if anything, it's helped relieve wait times in a resort that's underbuilt to serve it's annual audience.

 

[Biff215]

And this is where we agree. The problem with crowds and lines at the parks is solely a capacity issue. Disney has underbuilt over the past decade given the rise of crowds. Had they built attractions at the rate crowds increased, there wouldn't be the wait times we see today. Attacking FP+ is attacking the wrong issue - if anything, it's helped relieve wait times in a resort that's underbuilt to serve it's annual audience.

I like the idea of FP+. What I don’t like is having to preplan months in advance and the crazy amount of money they spent on it, apparently at the expense of new attractions. I didn’t like running around the park retrieving paper FP, but my trips were still more enjoyable back then, and I don’t think that’s solely an attendance/capacity thing.

This new ticket is likely harmless as others have pointed out given the attractions being offered. But my fear is where it may lead, some form of paid FP doesn’t seem far behind. We’ll see if this is a testing ground or not.

 

[MrPromey]

We’re forntunate in that we go once or twice a year. That means we choose the main rides we want to make sure we get on and then don’t worry about the ones we don’t. I used to be the runner of the family, constantly leaving my wife and kids to go get FPs when the time was right. I love FP+ because I don’t have to do that any more and we no longer have to get up early on our vacations. To me the new system is great.

This works as long as you're successfully able to secure your fastpasses for Frozen, FOP, and 7DMT - for a lot of people, that doesn't end up being an option, either because they didn't stay on property, booked their stay within 60 days of traveling, or didn't know they needed to be ready for the "magic hour" on the day their 60 day fastpass availability opened up for specific attractions that demand it.

Being in the know and understanding which attractions are hard to get fastpasses for, realizing exactly when you need to be online, understanding that you can book day 7 of your trip 60 days before day 1 of your trip and tricks like this makes it easy for a select group of people who know more than the average guest, to lock these things down but I'd argue that this is not the majority of people visiting.

For these people, being able to work the system to their full advantage certainly does make life easier but only because they are the minority. If the majority of guests were all doing this, the people so happy with the system today would be finding themselves quite a bit less so.

... But it was the same with paper fastpases. A lot of people didn't understand that system and just didn't use it which is why those who did understand it, liked it so much. I remember getting fastpasses for some stuff that had return times that worked out to be EARLIER than the wait time in line would have gotten you on a ride.

That's clearly a problem with implementation but I wasn't complaining when I took advantage of it.

Obviously, it works for you in you planned out, non-once-in-a-lifetime trip where you're only after a few specific things and I can certainly appreciate you being happy with that.

 

[MrPromey]

I read this new offering. It disappointed me with the 'overall' low offerings and the easiest overall FP to obtain on your own. It rings to me as taking advantage of the unseasoned, first time visitors. If Disney was loading them with more tier one I'd feel differently.

I don't think they're really taking advantage of anyone. The people these tickets would appeal to (at the same price as regular admission) are most likely the ones who wouldn't have been booking fastpasses on their own, to begin with. If anything, this is opening those first-time visitors' eyes to the system and giving them access to something they might otherwise have not used.

We can only guess on this but I'm sure Disney has the data on the number of single-day guests using fastpass with their tickets.

They wouldn't be able to load these with tier one attractions simply because it would require them to hold back a percentage of the pool of tier one passes available to the people actually booking in advance and that becomes a problem when there already aren't enough of those to go around.

 

[MrPromey]

And this is where we agree. The problem with crowds and lines at the parks is solely a capacity issue. Disney has underbuilt over the past decade given the rise of crowds. Had they built attractions at the rate crowds increased, there wouldn't be the wait times we see today. Attacking FP+ is attacking the wrong issue - if anything, it's helped relieve wait times in a resort that's underbuilt to serve it's annual audience.

Personally, I think the main problem is with capacity but I think FP+ aggravates it. FP+ wreaks havoc on lines in attractions with low capacity and pretty much anything perceived as new in a group of parks that haven't had much new built.

This doesn't mean FP+ in and of itself is the work of the devil. It only means that the implementation of it is grossly flawed today and I'd fully agree that the main problem with that implementation is that it was rolled out to fix something that it can't fix - capacity on the most desirable attractions.

I believe the reasons so many look at the paper system as being better is that a) fewer people utilized it in general b) that it was in use at a time when the parks weren't as busy as they are today and c) FP+ seems to have been implimented as a way to avoid having to build out new attractions by spreading people more evenly across all of the old ones, neglecting to realize that people who want to go on attractions like Frozen do not consdier JIYI a sutable alternative just because it has fastpass, too.

If they wanted it to work in this example, they would have had to actually fix JIYI, first.

Looking strictly at attraction capacity across the parks, spreading people out to more attractions seems like a way to handle extra crowds by sending them to places where you have capacity to spare. The problem with this model is that you assume guests have no agency in all of this and are fine with simply all being shuffled to where there is space you want to fill.

The reason these attractions have space to fill, though, is fewer people are excited about doing them. This problem is only compounded when the demand for certain attractions far outweighs that of others around them. (like my Frozen/JIYI example)

If you were able to secure those coveted Faspasses for FOP, the system worked great for you and you're happy. If you didn't and are standing in the three to four hour line watching that the person who did manage to get them pass you by, you're not.

In this situation, I think it is fair to say that FP+ makes things better for some people while making them worse for others. In aggregate, it maybe does no real harm when you're talking about millions of visitors taking satisfaction surveys but instead of having huge ups and downs in lines, you end up with huge ups and downs with individual guest satisfaction.

Averaging them out, you're fine but I think when you look at it more closely, you've got a polarizing effect like you're seeing in this discussion.

 

[larryz]

Where’s Tower of Terror?

28°21'35.94" N 81°33'35.46" W

 

[flynnibus]

The Fastpass model allows for more people than could ever physically be in front of you in one single queue to ride before you. Disney distributes enough Fastpasses to account for 75-80% of each attraction's hourly capacity. However, Fastpass holders do not all return at the start of their return window, so you have a constantly rolling return time allotment that creates huge surges of Fastpass holders that have to be accommodated for. In order to insure these guests still have a short wait time, often the ride's hourly capacity is increased to 90 or 95% Fastpass priority.

You can argue that the guests who have Fastpasses would fill up the standby queue and make it longer, but not all of them would be in line physically ahead of you, and that line would move 80% faster.

View attachment 282656

That's a nice story... but isn't really how the queuing theory works. Your advertised standby time already accounts for the green people's impact (minus the extremes). So it's just like the first picture in reality, just you can't focus on how many heads are physically in line. Your wait should still be roughly what the advertised standby time is.

The impact of FP is pyschological (line speed and reducing your tolerance for wait) and in multiplying the impact of an individual person. The system should be able to be tuned to reduce peak wait times by reducing the tolerance someone has for waiting for a single attraction... thus spreading load and demand. But when you move to extremes like Disney has, the model's impact also shifts.

 

[mikejs78]

This works as long as you're successfully able to secure your fastpasses for Frozen, FOP, and 7DMT

I've seen FP availability < 60 days out for every attraction except FoP. They may not be at the most ideal times and you may have to check often to find them, but they are there. I even secured day of FPs recently for both Frozen and TT. The reality is people move their FPs around, and that creates openings. Also Disney seems to hold over some additional FPs for release day of...

 

[MrPromey]

I've seen FP availability < 60 days out for every attraction except FoP. They may not be at the most ideal times and you may have to check often to find them, but they are there. I even secured day of FPs recently for both Frozen and TT. The reality is people move their FPs around, and that creates openings. Also Disney seems to hold over some additional FPs for release day of...

No doubt it is possible but so is winning the lottery.

In Florida, there was once a marketing campaign for the lottery that said something to the effect of "The only way to win is to play!". That's true. You'll never win a $50 million jackpot if you don't buy a ticket but that doesn't mean you stand much of a chance of winning when you buy one.

Obviously, my example isn't fair. I'll fully cop to that.

Your chances of getting on Frozen with a fastpass on late notice are a lot higher than winning the lottery but your chances go down dramatically with the number of people in your group. If you've got four people and you're trying to secure passes the week of your trip, you have to count on a group of 4 canceling within the window of time that you're looking for them and being hopeful that nobody else needing 1, 2, or 3 tickets manages to snag any of those before you can get them all.

This is a lot different than checking in on availability here and there and only looking for 1 person, or even 2.

People do cancel and change plans and this creates a sort of weird effect where the system rewards obsessive-compulsive behavior in a sort of Pavlov's dog kind of way for those who missed out during their initial planning; checking the computer every day from work, checking the phone while on other attractions in the parks (instead of enjoying the attractions).

This behavior may work out for their family but just like buying a lottery ticket, they may also be wasting that effort and attention and get nothing to show for it.

In any event, we aren't going to be seeing FP+ go away anytime in the foreseeable future. Hopefully, in the next half decade as all these big projects that they started, in hindsight, too late, start to come online, we'll see the situation improve and hopefully, management has learned enough to keep the ball rolling on this where things don't fall back to the way they are, today.

I mean, even a day or two in advance, you can usually still get FP+ for things like Test Track and Soarin' so obviously, it's possible for the system to work when they have enough capacity to meet demand on individual attractions or individual classes of attractions.

Mabe you didn't get to do 7DMT but you got to do TRON and that was cool. Maybe you missed out on the new ride in Paris but got to do Frozen which your daughter really wanted to do and was missed on the last two annual trips, etc.

Being stuck with VOTLM instead of TSMM like may be the case today, doesn't feel quite like it cuts it to me, though...

Then again, if I was buying a one day ticket for tomorrow and knew nothing about any of this and Disney was offering me a front-of-the-line ticket for JIYI which I'd never done before, at no extra charge, I think I'd be grateful so I still see why these fastpass packages make sense.

 

[mikejs78]

So I looked at the TouringPlans data for two dates in April - April 29, 2013, and April 28, 2014. Both Mondays, both crowd level 5 days according to TouringPlans. The 2013 date was pre-FP+, the 2014 date after FP+ had been introduced. Also, the 2014 date was a few weeks before 7DMT soft opened, so that additional capacity/demand isn't there in either case.

Average standby wait times were reduced for the following attractions:

* Ariel's grotto (-7)
* Barnstormer (-6)
* Big Thunder (-4)
* Dumbo (-7)
* Belle (-8)
* Tea Party (-2)
* Pan (-4)
* Space (-9)
* Speedway (-9)
* Under the Sea (-20)
* Pooh (-7)

Average wait time increased for the following attractions:
* Buzz (+10)
* HM (+8)
* IaSW (+3)
* Jungle (+2)
* Magic Carpets (+4)
* Pete's Goofy/Donald: (+5)
* Pete's Minnie/Daisy: (+12)
* Splash (+8)


Average wait time stayed exactly the same for the following attractions:
* Astro Orbiter
* Railroad
* Stitch
* Town Square Mickey

So wait times decreased across the board between similar days in 2013 vs 2014, even if you take out Under the Sea (decrease maybe due to new effect wearing off). It's also worth noting that the decreased wait times in the 2014 date came with Pirates closed that day, so park capacity was reduced overall, yet standby wait times were still, on average, lower.

FP+ does not increase wait times.

 

[MrPromey]

So I looked at the TouringPlans data for two dates in April - April 29, 2013, and April 28, 2014. Both Mondays, both crowd level 5 days according to TouringPlans. The 2013 date was pre-FP+, the 2014 date after FP+ had been introduced.

Average standby wait times were reduced for the following attractions:

* Ariel's grotto (-7)...

Okay, totally off the main subject here (as well as the currently hijacking topic of FP+ in general) but can anyone here tell me if Ariel's Grotto is anything other than a straight-up meet-and-greet? Is it like Story Time With Bell in that there's more to it or is just a take-your-picture-and-move-along kind of thing? We've always assumed the later which is why we've never been compelled to bother trying it.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Attacking FP+ is attacking the wrong issue - if anything, it's helped relieve wait times in a resort that's underbuilt to serve it's annual audience.

No it hasn't! Wait times have increased nearly across the board since the implementation of FP+.

Tower of Terror, for example, used to be a staple of being walk-on or a manageable 20-30 minute queue. Now, even on light days it's always around an hour or more (and yes I'm referring to even before half the park was closed). With the paper ticket system, the majority of guests would arrive and grab their first Fastpass for RnRc or TSMM. Since FP+ allows for three choices, the majority of these guests also have Tower of Terror in addition to TSMM or RnRc.

That's a nice story... but isn't really how the queuing theory works. Your advertised standby time already accounts for the green people's impact (minus the extremes). So it's just like the first picture in reality, just you can't focus on how many heads are physically in line. Your wait should still be roughly what the advertised standby time is.

Yeah, I know the posted wait times account for Fastpass holders. That is not the point at all.

If an attraction can hold 2000 people per hour, and the standby queue has 2000 people in it, and I am number 2001, then I ride in one hour. I am guaranteed to be rider number 2001. With a second queue that 80% of the ride's capacity is devoted to, a minimum of 1600 additional people will also ride before me, most of which arrived after I queued and would not have been able to ride before me if there were only one physical line. The standby line would be physically longer but it's now moving 80% faster.

Again, I'm not saying the wait times would all be super short if the system didn't exist. It would just balance everything out and you would experience the same number of attractions as you would by utilizing the system if it's in place, so the whole thing just makes you jump through extra hoops to get the same value as you would have pre-system.

 

[mikejs78]

Okay, totally off the main subject here (as well as the currently hijacking topic of FP+ in general) but can anyone here tell me if Ariel's Grotto is anything other than a straight-up meet-and-greet? Is it like Story Time With Bell in that there's more to it or is just a take-your-picture-and-move-along kind of thing? We've always assumed the later which is why we've never been compelled to bother trying it.

It's a pure M&G....

No it hasn't! Wait times have increased nearly across the board since the implementation of FP+.

Tower of Terror, for example, used to be a staple of being walk-on or a manageable 20-30 minute queue. Now, even on light days it's always around an hour or more (and yes I'm referring to even before half the park was closed). With the paper ticket system, the majority of guests would arrive and grab their first Fastpass for RnRc or TSMM. Since FP+ allows for three choices, the majority of these guests also have Tower of Terror in addition to TSMM or RnRc.

Yeah, I know the posted wait times account for Fastpass holders. That is not the point at all.

If an attraction can hold 2000 people per hour, and the standby queue has 2000 people in it, and I am number 2001, then I ride in one hour. I am guaranteed to be rider number 2001. With a second queue that 80% of the ride's capacity is devoted to, a minimum of 1600 additional people will also ride before me, most of which arrived after I queued and would not have been able to ride before me if there were only one physical line. The standby line would be physically longer but it's now moving 80% faster.

Again, I'm not saying the wait times would all be super short if the system didn't exist. It would just balance everything out and you would experience the same number of attractions as you would by utilizing the system if it's in place, so the whole thing just makes you jump through extra hoops to get the same value as you would have pre-system.

Sorry, the data shows otherwise. See my comparison above. Wait times have gone up since then as a result of more visitors. That's driving increased waits.. Comparing two similar dates before and after FP+ show average wait times decreased even as attendance increased.

Data is a funny thing - it tells the true story absent of anyone's personal opinions, biases or unscientific intuiton.

 

[Tom Morrow]

It's a pure M&G....

Sorry, the data shows otherwise. See my comparison above. Wait times have gone up since then as a result of more visitors. That's driving increased waits.. Comparing two similar dates before and after FP+ show average wait times decreased even as attendance increased.

Data is a funny thing - it tells the true story absent of anyone's personal opinions, biases or unscientific intuiton.

You picked two dates. Very scientific and thorough.

TouringPlans is also fed data via Disney's PR department.

 

[mikejs78]

You picked two dates. Very scientific and thorough.

Two similar dates, not two random ones. Statistically they should be very similar, although further research is warranted.

TouringPlans is also fed data via Disney's PR department.

That's an absolute lie. TP does their own research and data analysis and are independent of Disney. I've consistently found them to be pretty accurate over the years. From the TP website.
.

The crowd levels listed in our "historical" section are actual measurements using data collected from Walt Disney World Lines or from our own research team. Since Lines launched in November 2009, we've been able to record the crowd levels for each park every day since.

I suggest you either provide evidence for that outlandish accusation, or you retract it.

If you have alternative hard data, I'll be happy to look. Otherwise simply making up falsehoods about the source of data doesn't do anything to bolster your argument, in fact, it makes you look like a troll so desperate to prove his point that he will make up lies that slander others. Despicable.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Everyone who has ever dealt with managing Fastpass firsthand: "It is a virtual queuing system that you must use to experience the number of attractions you would if it didn't exist."

You: "Disney created a magic system that defies logic and physics and allows you to experience more attractions than are theoretically possible, here, look at this data sample from a site that gets their data directly from what Disney publicly releases."