Epcot Fastpass Re-Tiering

I'm going to be really blunt here.

This is stupid. :mic: There's no way that ANY character meet & greet should ever be considered a Tier 1 FP. I'm sorry, but a meet & greet is not even on the same playing field as Soarin' or Test Track. I see the benefit of having FP available for meeting characters (we're Disneyland veterans and Disneyland doesn't do FP for meet & greets), especially for younger children.

We have FP for next Monday at Epcot for Test Track, Spaceship Earth, and the character spot. Looks like I'm not going to be changing around THOSE FP! You know why we picked the character spot FP at Epcot? We did it as a filler FP. For example, we didn't select FP for any of the following....
  • Mission: Space - not interested in a puke fest
  • Living with the Land - based on ride through videos I've seen on Youtube, this honestly looks like the most boring thing around and there is no way I would waste a FP on it.
  • Pixar Short Film Festival - watching a video isn't FP worthy
  • Figment - not FP worthy
  • Turtle Talk w/Crush - we've done this at California Adventure and it's always a 'walk on' there. The only waiting you do is for the next "show."
  • The Seas w/Nemo & Friends - meh
Why don't they just skip the FP tiering at Epcot altogether and put it all in 1 tier?

I disagree on Living with the Land being boring. I really enjoy this ride and will get a FP for it. I was originally planning on getting character spot as a Tier 2, but will replace it with Living with the Land. I’ll get Character Spot as my Tier 1. I’m not thrilled, but it’s what will work best with our plans.
 
I disagree on Living with the Land being boring. I really enjoy this ride and will get a FP for it. I was originally planning on getting character spot as a Tier 2, but will replace it with Living with the Land. I’ll get Character Spot as my Tier 1. I’m not thrilled, but it’s what will work best with our plans.
Me too. It's one of the few rides at Disney that is never the same twice (because you are looking at living things). Safari being one of the others
Though 10 yo DGD will agree that LwtL is not very exciting. Granted, she's 10 and doesn't find plants all that exciting. At least DH does.
 
I'm so glad that this wasn't changed before I did our FPs. This is DD's first trip being tall enough to ride Soarin' & Test Track but she also still loves all the characters. We're already doing 2 Epcot days with FP so we have FAE on 1 and Soarin on the other. We'll see what she thinks about TT before deciding on it. I would have been screwed if the Character Spot had changed before hand. I'm actually surprised they didn't move Mission Space before moving Character Spot.
 
I'm so glad that this wasn't changed before I did our FPs. This is DD's first trip being tall enough to ride Soarin' & Test Track but she also still loves all the characters. We're already doing 2 Epcot days with FP so we have FAE on 1 and Soarin on the other. We'll see what she thinks about TT before deciding on it. I would have been screwed if the Character Spot had changed before hand. I'm actually surprised they didn't move Mission Space before moving Character Spot.
I assume they wanted something with no height requirement whatsoever.
 


Obviously it's not the same characters and setup, but isn't the Chase character meet adjacent? We have a Chase checking account, guess we'll have to look into getting the Disney debit card...
I don't know when you visited last, but they did move the Chase Disney Visa meet and greet as of my last visit in March. It was in the same building as Figment, and the Pixar film fest, but all the way over to the left, in an area that hasn't been used by the public in years. It's nicer in there though.
 
So, this is my opinion and experience. We only visit during summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas week, and Easter. So the busiest times. I can't even think of a time that I had more than a few minutes wait at Living with the land, Turtle Talk, Nemo & friends, or Pixar Movie Fest. I don't do Mission Space, but DH and DD15 do, and I rarely have to wait very long for them to be done. 30 minutes tops. So Space Ship Earth is really the only tier 2 worthy of a fastpass. Figment either has a long line or no line. It's a toss up. I think that if you only ride Frozen Ever After with a Fastpass, you're short changing yourself because the queue really is extremely detailed and an integral scene setter and part of the story. If Disney did what they did with the Anna & Elsa meet and greet (shh the are 3 sets of sisters behind those cabin doors), they could alleviate the line.

At this point, I usually just make a fastpass for either Soarin or Test Track, and SSE. I skip the others. I also wish they'd just go back to normal paper day of fastpasses. Oh, and I have never had a fastpass for Illuminations. There's plenty of good places to watch.
 
Obviously it's not the same characters and setup, but isn't the Chase character meet adjacent? We have a Chase checking account, guess we'll have to look into getting the Disney debit card...
The other thing to consider with Visa M&G is while there are less people in line, the times are also more limited. I think most days it doesn’t open until after 1pm(at least that’s the case when we are there) so it doesn’t work well into our touring plan because of naptime. I try to do any characters early in the day because my kids’ moods are so unpredictable after lunch. Cranky, tired toddlers + giant furry characters = horrific PhotoPass pictures!! We are planning to FP Frozen so I guess we’ll be waiting in standby line for character spot...
 


I have to wonder what problem they were solving with this change? Too many Tier 2's that people wanted? Um. No. As much as I don't like it, Tiering works at Epcot for the goal of spreading around access to the popular rides. TT and Soarin are available day of so it's not like there aren't enough Tier 1 FPs available. I don't get it. Unless they think that the fact that FEA is the only Tier 1 without a height restriction is contributing to it being still rather hard to get.
 
I have to wonder what problem they were solving with this change? Too many Tier 2's that people wanted? Um. No. As much as I don't like it, Tiering works at Epcot for the goal of spreading around access to the popular rides. TT and Soarin are available day of so it's not like there aren't enough Tier 1 FPs available. I don't get it. Unless they think that the fact that FEA is the only Tier 1 without a height restriction is contributing to it being still rather hard to get.
This is what I can't figure out either. FP at Epcot have been easy to get for everything mostly all day. There's just not really much of any reason to make this change that is apparent. At least to me. Other than to give another FP in Tier 1 with no height requirement. But even that makes little sense and isn't really needed.
 
This is what I can't figure out either. FP at Epcot have been easy to get for everything mostly all day. There's just not really much of any reason to make this change that is apparent. At least to me. Other than to give another FP in Tier 1 with no height requirement. But even that makes little sense and isn't really needed.

Josh has some numbers that give some ideas.
 
I actually gave the similar synopsis to someone elsewhere earlier today, that moving it will probably make it easier to get as a 4th FP. Since it's been pretty much impossible as a Tier 2
I think you're right. For example. I'm not going to take this as my tier 1. My daughter is 16. She wants the "exciting" rides for her tier 1. So we will pick one of Test Track or Soarin'. We always take Space Ship Earth as a tier 2 with Character Spot. Since CS won't be in that tier, the only thing left to pick is.... Figment, which is a nostalgic favorite for my daughter. I've never needed a fastpass for Nemo, the Pixar film fest, Living with the Land, and we only do Turtle Talk on occasion. A 4th, I want CS, my DD and DH want Mission Space! :sick: .

Truth be told, I'm getting tired of the new Soarin'. I don't care for the fact that if you're not dead center of the middle apparatus, you're going to see some distortion. Its a poor show experience. We were lucky last time, we got center or center. The new Test Track I'm also done with. I don't want to design my car..I want the Belgian blocks and the hot and cold room back. The old queue was also endlessly interesting to look at. The new queue is a snoozefest :faint:. But, as you can see by my signature, my next trip is sans parks, so unless we cave, it won't effect us. ::yes::
 
that's a fair point.

I really hate having to schedule rides before I even get there. I wish that WDW would just go back to the rule of you can't get a FP until you've gone through a turnstile at a park...and then no 2nd, 3rd FP until you've used the 1st FP.
That would be Disneyland. Not Disney World ;-) lol We kick it old school over here.
 
Josh has some numbers that give some ideas.

That is a super interesting article! I wonder if it really boils down to so many people used it as a throw away FP because of its location, and it was impossible for people who actually wanted a FP to get one day of. I can see how this would help to fix that problem big time. That factored into my decision to get one when I booked ours. I saw that SD availability was slim to none (on Touring Plans)
 
Hi all, I had been planning on getting a FP for the Epcot Character Spot until this change happened. Now, I'm thinking that maybe it's not so big a deal for us because I originally thought that the Fast Pass was for Baymax and/or Joy/Sadness. I now realize that I was mistaken and that the ECS is Mickey/Minnie. There is no fast pass for Baymax/Joy/Sadness correct? How long are the waits for those characters usually?
 
Hi all, I had been planning on getting a FP for the Epcot Character Spot until this change happened. Now, I'm thinking that maybe it's not so big a deal for us because I originally thought that the Fast Pass was for Baymax and/or Joy/Sadness. I now realize that I was mistaken and that the ECS is Mickey/Minnie. There is no fast pass for Baymax/Joy/Sadness correct? How long are the waits for those characters usually?

No FP+ for Joy/Sadness or Baymax. The waits are usually 30-45 mins, but I have seen them at 20 mins. And it's two separate lines / waits for (a) Joy/Sadness and (b) Baymax.
 

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