Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<Group 1 (One selection can be made)>> Odd, considering the only attractions at EPCOT that you need a FastPass for are on that list. I never use a FastPass for the Group 2 attractions. I may have missed this, but if you're using FP+, does that mean you can't get regular FastPasses that day?
Originally Posted By sjhym333 Yes, you can only use your FP+. Eventually the FP machines will all go away. FP is tied you entering the park, so only the ticket of MagicBand used can get FP's. So with FP+ you can make FP reservations online or at a Kiosk inside the park
Originally Posted By kennect Found this interesting article and video about the program. It maybe old news but I had never seen it. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://allthingsd.com/20131117/disney-world-characters-arent-greeting-all-the-visiting-kids-by-name-yet/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker">http://allthingsd.com/20131117...o_ticker</a>
Originally Posted By sjhym333 According to the Orlando Sentinel, the rollout of MagicBands and FP+ has been delayed. All of the resorts are now using the system and it was my understanding that AP Holders were to be next. I have asked around about additions to the FP+ system but none of my sources seem to know anything. So it looks like AP Holders and everyone behind them are in a holding pattern. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-disney-mymagic-delayed-20131116,0,3314807.story">http://www.orlandosentinel.com...07.story</a>
Originally Posted By hopemax Not surprised. I never understood how the math on this was supposed to work. You can't put 25 people in a car that only seats 7. And it should have been obvious that for the most popular attractions, the pool of people "who wanted to ride but didn't want to wait in line" far, far, far outnumbered the people who completed a ride. The tests so far have revealed that "resort guests" can easily overwhelm the capacity for the most popular attractions. If there is no room in the system, to service off-site and local guests, how can Disney possibly expect to keep them? And despite not renting a room, off-site guests still have to be spending gobs of money between tickets, parking and food & beverage. I can't imagine Disney would be happy if they stopped coming. Does Disney think people will come even if they can't experience the most popular attractions? The only answer Disney ever had for solving capacity complaints (long lines) was 1. Operate existing rides more efficiently (only gets you so far, FP does address part of this by filling capacity late in the day) 2. Build more capacity. Either through new projects, or renovating old attractions to be more popular with guests. But Disney has had a pretty poor record with ride redos actually "improving" the experience.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 I don't envy anyone working on this project at the moment. Off the top of my head here are some of the things they are probably dealing with. 1)Adding several thousand rooms to the system in the past couple of weeks must have really caused havoc. By adding the Value Resorts recently, which have a lot of rooms, the system must be in shock. Does anyone know if the Fort Wilderness campsites (not the cabins) are on the system yet? If not, that will be another big shock to the system. 2)As more people are added to the system it must be getting harder to get FP+ for the big attractions. Who doesn't want to see Soarin or Test Track? Disney's shifting of categories last week was a first ditch effort to help relieve some of the problems of E ticket type attractions being gone first. 3) I just paid over $800 a night for a deluxe resort room and bought expensive multi-day tickets and I now find out that the FP+ for Toy Story Mania are no longer available even though we are several weeks out from our vacation...that makes for one unhappy guest. 4) I am a Premium AP Holder and my wife and I can't get FP's online for any of the major attractions at all this week. Why am I paying so much for a Premium AP if the system is sold out weeks in advance? Some other interesting thoughts: Kevin Yee has suggested that Extra Magic Hours might go away because of FP+. While he thinks it has to do with $, I agree that EMH may go away but for a different reason. Usually the most crowded park is the park with EMH. Which means that the FP+ for that park will get hit hard. To encourage guests to distribute themselves more evenly, they could take away the EMH and just let guest choose a park for the day. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Originally Posted By LuvsDsnyTrips Please forgive me for my questions...alittle late to this thread but, I have 2 questions. 1. Do you have to participate in this and pre book your rides? 2. Is Disneyland going to start this also?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Does anyone know if the Fort Wilderness campsites (not the cabins) are on the system yet?<< As far as I know, all Disney hotel guests have been in the system for a month or two now. They recently began adding the Swan and Dolphin into the mix, so the pool continues to grow. I can't imagine that the Swan and Dolphin guests would be added before people staying at a Disney property >>Why am I paying so much for a Premium AP if the system is sold out weeks in advance?<< The same could be said to a certain extent about dining. Why pay for the AP when the popular places are booked months in advance. You can always find another restaurant (or attraction in this instance), but it's probably not your first choice. It really brings the value of the AP (or any ticket for that matter) into question >>Kevin Yee has suggested that Extra Magic Hours might go away because of FP+. While he thinks it has to do with $...<< His article that discussed that also went on the assumption that only Disney hotel guests would get access to FP+. Once the system is fully rolled out, it will be available to everybody (as has always been its intention). This puts the on-property guests on a level playing field as the off-property guests, essentially eliminating a huge reason to stay at Disney's overpriced hotels
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>1. Do you have to participate in this and pre book your rides?<< Just like the old paper FP system or the current dining reservation system, you aren't required to participate. However, if you just try to wing it when you're in the parks, you'll be at a huge disadvantage. In-park same-day FP+ stations are available, but no reservation slots are 'saved' for same-day reservations; you have to pick from what's left. Given how the standby queues for certain attractions can be painfully slow (Soarin' and TSMM come to mind as extreme examples), FP+ only makes things worse >>2. Is Disneyland going to start this also?<< Yes. The original plan (when the entire project was expected to roll out in WDW in 24 months) was to have DLR about 18 months behind WDW to work out the bugs. Now that we're about 48 months into the project at WDW and it's still solidly in a "testing" phase, the DLR schedule is a big unknown Some fan sites have indicated that the DLR project is off the tables, but there has been no indication from Disney that this is the case. Mid-range planning CMs that I know say that it's still coming, though they don't know the schedule either. There will obviously be differences between the two programs due to the different demographics, but DLR will get the NextGen project at some point in the next few years
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I never understood how the math on this was supposed to work. You can't put 25 people in a car that only seats 7." Has it ever been confirmed that Disney is allotting every available FP reservation slot to Magic Band holders and not reserving spots for what I call "walk ups"?
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Does Disney think people will come even if they can't experience the most popular attractions?" That is already happening. If you are day visitor you can't spend 30-60 minutes standing in line for all of the major attractions on busy days. Guests have always had to make tough decisions about which rides to do and not do based on current wait times.
Originally Posted By hopemax > Has it ever been confirmed that Disney is allotting every available FP reservation slot to Magic Band holders and not reserving spots for what I call "walk ups"? < There is some walk up capacity. However, with only "resort guests" on the system the walk up Fastpass capacity for Toy Story Mania, Test Track and Soarin has been exhausted for the complete day about 10-30 minutes after park opening. In the slow season. Imagine what will happen to that miniscule walkup capacity if you allow off-site guests to reserve a FP too. Now imagine it's a busy day. Thus, why they have now tiered the system so people can get either Test Track or Soarin but not both. But right now, people aren't really aware of how fast the walkup FPs are disappearing. Just message board people. When that becomes common knowledge, I predict fights at the machines. So I kind of expect Disney to just pull traditional fastpass machines to avoid it. Then people will just have to run to hop in the standby, for their favorite ride, first thing.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "However, with only "resort guests" on the system the walk up Fastpass capacity for Toy Story Mania, Test Track and Soarin has been exhausted for the complete day about 10-30 minutes after park opening" I wonder how that compare to before Magic Bands. I understand that the prior system was more equitable for every visitor present at opening, but it still required some maneuvering to get a pass before they were sold out. I witnessed this phenomenon last summer when RSR opened. A 30 minute wait for FP and then another 30 minute wait in the FP line at the attraction later in the day. "Thus, why they have now tiered the system so people can get either Test Track or Soarin but not both" Wouldn't that be the case anyway, since previously you could only hold one FP at a time? "You mean, just like it used to be?" Maybe I'm too optimistic, but my impression is that most people expect to wait in sizeable lines when visiting Disney theme parks and consider claiming the most coveted FPs a perk. I use FP as much as possible when I visit, but there have been more than a few times when I jumped in a standby line rather taking the available FP and returning later.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 "Thus, why they have now tiered the system so people can get either Test Track or Soarin but not both" Wouldn't that be the case anyway, since previously you could only hold one FP at a time? Actually no. Under the old/current system you could get a new FP after two hours so in actuality you could grab a FP for both Soarin and Test Track in a day. That will now longer be the case once the FP+ system is fully operational. It will be interesting to see how this affects the standby line because of that.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt >>Wouldn't that be the case anyway, since previously you could only hold one FP at a time?<< "Actually no. Under the old/current system you could get a new FP after two hours so in actuality you could grab a FP for both Soarin and Test Track in a day." You could assuming that there were still FPs available after the two hour hold was lifted. Like I said, in the previous system some maneuvering was required in order to collect FPs for the most popular attractions during convenient return times before they were all distributed. "That will now longer be the case once the FP+ system is fully operational. It will be interesting to see how this affects the standby line because of that." Any given attraction has a maximum daily capacity. All that's happening with FP+ is that the accessibility is being (slightly or greatly, who knows?) redistributed in favor of Magic Band guests. With or without FP+ the capacity for each ride is fixed, so general standby waits shouldn't be hugely affected.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 As someone who worked at EPCOT for several years, unless you got to the park later in the day or came during the busiest days of the year, most days you could get a FP for both Test Track and Soarin in the same visit. Plus remember that the FP rule is either 2 hours or after the FP you are holding has become usable or whichever is the shortest. So on a slow day you could FP Test Track or Soarin twice. I also disagree with you about the Standby Line. You are correct that capacity is a fixed number for an attraction but that doesn't affect the wait time on Standby. If 1000 people decide to wait for an attraction on Standby the wait time could be an hour. If 2000 people decide to wait the wait time would then be two hours. If you can only get one FP for either Test Track or Soarin, and you figure that those 2 attractions are must sees for the average guest, it could push the wait time on the Standby line up higher. Case in point is when one of those attractions breaks down. That usually sends the others Standby wait longer.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Has it ever been confirmed that Disney is allotting every available FP reservation slot to Magic Band holders and not reserving spots for what I call "walk ups"?<< Currently both are available, but the plan is to phase out 'regular' FP as the NextGen system rolls out. There will still be capacity for a standby queue, but all FPs are intended to be booked in advance >>So I kind of expect Disney to just pull traditional fastpass machines to avoid it.<< That is the eventual plan. There will be kiosks in the park to manage your MyMagic+ account, where all guests will be able to book/change your FP+ reservations, but the paper ticket FP machines as we know them today will no longer exist
Originally Posted By hopemax > Any given attraction has a maximum daily capacity. ... With or without FP+ the capacity for each ride is fixed, so general standby waits shouldn't be hugely affected. < There are 3 elements to why lines grow. 1. Ride capacity, which you correctly state, does not change. 2. Daily park attendance (we can see this effect in off season vs peak season attendance and its effect on lines) but there is a 3rd factor - what goes on between the guests ears. The length of the line gets determined based on "number of people willing to wait" (determined by 2 and 3) - load capacity (1). It's not that 1 is affected, it's that 3 will. You can see this with the addition of a new attraction. Take Radiator Springs Racers. Did something happen to radically affect capacity or park attendance in order for the line to drop from 3-4 hours right after opening, down to 1-2 hours now? Not really. What changed is that many guests are willing to wait 3 or 4 hours for something they haven't seen, and once they saw it they were only willing to wait 1 hour or 90 minutes. The same thing will happen here. If guests arrive at a park and weren't able to pre-arrange a FP (or if they were but want a 2nd ride), and if the FP's are all distributed, they will be forced to re-evaluate how long they are willing to wait. Many will enter a longer line because they will recognize that it's this or don't ride at all. At least with traditional FP, if you mess up and arrive at a park too late, you can "try again tomorrow" if your schedule allows. But with this there is no beating the system, so coming back tomorrow won't really lead to better results. The interesting case study for this seems to be Buzz Lightyear. It's not a ride that we would equate with TSMM, or Soarin or TT. I've never, even during Christmas run into a situation where I could't get a FP (except late at night), or where the FP return time would be 4 or 5 hours away from the time I pulled it. But that's what is starting to happen. It is turning Buzz into one of those other rides, and the standby line is growing because a 4-5 hour return time doesn't work for some people. So instead of the standard 30 minute line, it's starting to creep up to 45 min or an hour. Every ride is going to have a new "equilibrium" and we haven't really seen where those points are going to end up at, because people are learning the system. The scary thing would be if while all Resorts are on the system, resort guests aren't utilizing their options at full effect. If their utilization is only 60% of what they could utilize, if that bumps up to 80 or 90 as people learn how critical it is to use their FP+ booking opportunities, that would mean even less available for "walk ups." Also, standby is affected because people are re-evaluating their dates to travel. Much like original FP re-allocated capacity to the empty periods, FP+ is reallocating people to traditionally slow periods. Worse case scenario, (best for Disney) is that people can be perfectly reallocated and everyday attendance will be like a busy summer day. But for a specific date, like January 21st lines will be longer.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt ou are correct that capacity is a fixed number for an attraction but that doesn't affect the wait time on Standby. If 1000 people decide to wait for an attraction on Standby the wait time could be an hour. If 2000 people decide to wait the wait time would then be two hours. If you can only get one FP for either Test Track or Soarin, and you figure that those 2 attractions are must sees for the average guest, it could push the wait time on the Standby line up higher." It could, but by how much? Are we talking 2 minutes or 20? There seems to be a lot of guessing going on here as to exactly how the new system will affect the ebb and flow of traffic, or if it will at all. >>Has it ever been confirmed that Disney is allotting every available FP reservation slot to Magic Band holders and not reserving spots for what I call "walk ups"?<< "Currently both are available, but the plan is to phase out 'regular' FP as the NextGen system rolls out. There will still be capacity for a standby queue, but all FPs are intended to be booked in advance" Interesting. So no FPs at all to people who don't have Magic Bands?? This is the first time I've heard this. If this is true, then I can see why people are alarmed. "The interesting case study for this seems to be Buzz Lightyear..... So instead of the standard 30 minute line, it's starting to creep up to 45 min or an hour. Every ride is going to have a new "equilibrium" and we haven't really seen where those points are going to end up at, because people are learning the system" If what Ferret says is true then the outcome may be even worse than anyone could have imagined. On the other hand, if FP+ is efficiently distributing guests throughout the day and filling ride slots that might normally be slow periods, then wouldn't that be considered a good thing?
