Were the lines really shorter back in the day or do we imagine this?

[Minnie1976]

I don't think there's much they can do at this point about the Magic Kingdom's density and popularity. The first is an irreversible characteristic of that park, while the second is not a problem from Disney's perspective.

I wasn’t talking about density but the lay out and attractions are easier to get to than the other parks without walking forever.

 

[LittleBuford]

I wasn’t talking about density but the lay out and attractions are easier to get to than the other parks without walking forever.

That's what I'm referring to--the density of the layout (how densely packed the attractions are).

 

[larryz]

FassPass works great for people who only want to ride a few rides a day, and have the time to come back multiple days(or visit multiple times a year) I do not have that luxury. A typical vist for me would be 2 days at magic kindom and one at each of the others, with partial days on arrival and departure to maybe squeeze something in. I also only visit about once every 2-3 years. Last visit we had to skip a couple of rides because we couldn't get fasspasses and simply didn't have the time to wait 100+ min in standby. It was busy but not overly crowded, By contrast I went in 2009 during spring break when they still had the paper fasspasses, which you could only get day of visit. MK was at capacity they were starting to limit who could get into the park and yet we had no problem ridding every ride in the park. most waits were between 30-45 min.

FassPass is working great for Disney, its getting people to plan longer trips. They spend less time in the parks each day and just come back multiple days so they can use fasspasses instead of waiting in standby. Once the fasspass are used many guest will leave to spend more time at the resort (and spend more money) or do other activities around WDW (again more money). The longer they can keep you on property the more money they make, this has always been the goal of WDW. People are stretching a 1 day visit to a park out to 2,3,4 days so they can use their fasspass then leave and do something else (aka spend more money some place else). Fasspass isn't about making things better for the guest its about making money for Disney. Oringally it was about getting people out of lines and into stores (to spend more money), which I don't think ever really worked. Now I feel its more about getting people to plan longer trips so they can uses fasspasses on more attractions and avoid ridiculous standby lines which the fasspasses have created. Longer vacations = more money.

When you had shorter standby lines on capacity days before the current fasspass system then you do now on non cpacity days with the current fasspass system you can't say the only reason lines are longer is because more people are going to the parks.

They have also started to experiment with selling extra fasspass, if that ever becomes wide spread I will start planning more trips to DisneyLand instead or maybe one of the parks over seas......

If only WDW actually had a "fasspass" system... sigh...

 

[chriskbrown]

Been going now for 40 years, before EPCOT. Use to only go in the summer and remember waiting 2 plus hours for Space Mountain easily. But that was also when we had tickets so you had to be more strategic on what you rode. I had a trip when through the military we stayed onsite and had a land yard where I could ride anything over and over which is like gold. So comparing then to now is practically useless. When they went away from the ticket books, things changed. I personally liked the older FP system more than new system if only I could ride the same thing over and over. The parks are more crowded period. More hotels locally (the local Marriott is just huge) with more on the way. I am amazed at the sheer number of hotels already being built by Disney in the next few years. Disney had a 30,000 IT conference last week and did not faze them.