Just back from WDW...my reflections on FP+

[Mad Hattered]

Buahahaha I would never have thought so ....

Cool. I didn't want you to think I had slipped off the deep end. I wouldn't want people to misunderstand me or anything.

 

[practicallyperfect77]

This would be fine if they did not have tiering at Epcot. You can only get a FP for one ride on the first tier, and the first tier includes Soarin', Test Track, and Maelstrom.

I do think this is the best strategy under the current system- RD at a park, then hop to another and use FP. I didn't want the other poster to expect to get all of the top rides at Epcot with FP in one day.

Those darn tiers. Honestly thinking I will start at RD and ride TT and Soarin' standby and then hop to MK where I can use my FP+ on rides that need it. If I only get 3, I'll get 3 good ones. Hopefully they will change rules soon and allow use in more than one park.

 

[jodeeb]

Today is my official 60 day mark and I am dreading the thought of trying to figure out my ride times. We have been going every year the past 8 years some years 2 and three trips. It's bad enough to plan dinning times for the few nights we are doing sit down dining let alone plan out my whole day. We do not enjoy having our days planned out down to the minutes like this.

I'm a month out from this, but I agree... what a dread. Yes.. dining times are one thing.. but now I have to try to figure out the FP stuff. I did try to plan our park according to Crowd Calendars, that was hard enough. Now I have to know within a 1 hour window what we will want to ride. We always did walk by and see what we needed or were in the mood for. Now I have to figure out what I want to ride and when and if it will work with my ADR that I will be charged for if I miss it. We were always good about canceling when we didn't think we could make it. Just don't like the fact that we could be charged if it is 23 hours out and not 24.

I'm a IT person and cant believe that they rolled out so many implementations at one time. They should have staged this out. now they have many intermittent problems and they can not focus on just one, fix it, and move on.

This is one of the reasons there are so many people who have had so many different experiences.

Its hard enough to debug one thing(such as room key access) when it is not consistently working for every guest, but to add all the aspects of magic band and its working and not working... just makes it hard to narrow down and fix.

Okay we still have the mix of people that say the Magic is gone/ or still there. But I think we also have a mix of people that have had the intermittent "things went well" vs "things went good".

I don't know where the scales tip on that but I think a lot of it depends of what "glitches" each person experiences. We were last there Thanksgiving of 2012, but got to experience a soft opening for both ETWB and BOG on my daughters birthday. This is the magic. Unexpected experiences. But we could still get FP- on the fly.

We are going this June and I have to admit I am really nervous. Although I am a planner, I don't want to have to know what the dynamics of rides are on a date 60 days in the future and decide what I need to get a FP for.

 

[Arsenal1982]

This would be fine if they did not have tiering at Epcot. You can only get a FP for one ride on the first tier, and the first tier includes Soarin', Test Track, and Maelstrom.

I do think this is the best strategy under the current system- RD at a park, then hop to another and use FP. I didn't want the other poster to expect to get all of the top rides at Epcot with FP in one day.

I understand that there is tiering. I was just telling you what I consider to be the ideal plan. You go to one park in the morning (ideally not Epcot which has the fewest E-Ticket rides). Then book FP+ for another park. If its Epcot (which it usually is for me b/c I almost always have a dinner ressie there), take your pick of Soarin/Test Track and then maybe book a FP+ for Spaceship Earth and maybe Maelstrom. You can still do TT and Soarin but you'll have to wait it out for one of them. I would suggest waiting for Soarin.. waiting an hour+ for TT scares the living crap out of me b/c you could get up to the front and the ride could break down. This has happened to me before and the last time, I nearly murdered someone.

 

[Arsenal1982]

Arsenal1982,

Sounds like it is doable without any issues what you are saying.

My son said there is a limit of Three FP all day, is that correct?


Thanks

Yes correct.

 

[2Tiggies]

I'm a IT person and cant believe that they rolled out so many implementations at one time. They should have staged this out. now they have many intermittent problems and they can not focus on just one, fix it, and move on.

This is one of the reasons there are so many people who have had so many different experiences.

Its hard enough to debug one thing(such as room key access) when it is not consistently working for every guest, but to add all the aspects of magic band and its working and not working... just makes it hard to narrow down and fix.


We are going this June and I have to admit I am really nervous. Although I am a planner, I don't want to have to know what the dynamics of rides are on a date 60 days in the future and decide what I need to get a FP for.

I feel pretty much the same way as you do, but the text which I have bolded above is what I have been saying for a good while now. And in my opinion, therein lies the key to the vast majority of the problems. It took 4 phone calls, two of which were over an hour long, over the course of a couple of months, to get my MDE account sorted out and all that was before I even had the option to make any ADR's or add anything to it.

We have a split stay this year and I have so much faith in Disney's IT that I have set up a second MDE account and put each reservation separately.

We are also there in the summer. We sure picked our year to return to busy seasons I'm not sure if this is going to work for or against us. There is a part of me that thinks we might have been more shocked by long standby lines in our quieter season than we will be heading out in mid summer when at least we are mentally prepared for it to be extremely busy.

 

[Iris]

We just got back recently from the PHM weekend and it was my first experience with the whole system since our last stay in October didn't have them yet at OKW.

Let me say that I agree with most of what has been said...day guests, non-resort guests, CM tickets or any other type of special tickets not purchased in advance are at a distinct disadvantage to this system. Also the uninformed or first time visitors.

I am lucky enough to have been to the parks often enough over these many years that even with the old FP system, I rarely used it. But what I liked about it before was the fact that if I happened to enter the park around noon...let's say Studios...I still had the chance of getting a FP for either TOT or RR. Those days are long gone now. The other thing I really enjoyed about the old system was the Pay It Forward that took place....people giving random strangers FPs they had decided not to use. We did this all the time and loved seeing the joy in a family's faces when we would randomly give them FPs that we decided not to use....this can never happen again!!

So during our stay we did NOT purchase any tickets in advance and were subject to selecting whatever was left over for that day. We did not get any FPs. The wait for TOT was more than 30 minutes and everything else was longer....and this was after the race when it should have been slow. We ended up going to Muppets, SW and returning to TOT when the line died down. I felt bad for the unfortunate people using their FP on attractions that had no wait.

We are not ones to wake up early for RD....and we like to park hop as well. We never purchase tickets in advance because we either purchase tickets upon arrival at SOG or we have our daughter let us in. So this system won't work for us. To us it really doesn't matter that much but I can see some of the flaws in it, especially for non-resort guests!!

I will miss the old system but doubt I will ever really use the new system ever. Just my thoughts.

 

[Hoodie]

We returned on Saturday from a week stay. We actually didn't use all of our FP at DHS, AK or EPCOT, mainly due to the tiering and lack of wait at the secondary rides. What is obvious is that they are still in a "testing" phase. We received the red timing passes at several FP entrances so they must be hearing the complaints that FP lines are taking longer than before and are testing it. We also had several surveys to fill out on FPs.

We had no real issues, however I came away thinking that those staying offsite are better off delaying their trip until after FP+ is fully implemented or hitting every rope drop and hoping for the best. If an offsite guest doesn't hit rope drop at DHS and go directly to TSM, they are pretty much out of luck. We tried to change our FP Tuesday night for Thursday (DS decided he wanted to go back there instead of EPCOT) and only received 1 option for TSM and it was late afternoon. We had our choice of RR slots. This was last week, one of the slower weeks of the year.

Two big hints for offsite guests - arrive at rope drop and go to your top choice attraction and THEN schedule your FPs for the rest of the day. TSM was at a 45 minute wait 10 minutes after rope drop. Stopping for FP selections would put you an hour out, minimum. At MK, get there for rope drop and the show. Because of the MK layout where you are waiting for rope drop already through the tapstiles, they have cast members walking around so you can schedule your FPs. May as well get them booked while you are waiting.

Another item of note for everyone: apparently character meet and greets are very hot FPs. I was talking to a woman while we were waiting for Mickey and she said she tried to book only character greetings and didn't get a single one. All FPs for Princesses, Mickey, Ariel, etc. were gone by early morning.

 

[nugov2]

We returned on Saturday from a week stay. We actually didn't use all of our FP at DHS, AK or EPCOT, mainly due to the tiering and lack of wait at the secondary rides. What is obvious is that they are still in a "testing" phase. We received the red timing passes at several FP entrances so they must be hearing the complaints that FP lines are taking longer than before and are testing it. We also had several surveys to fill out on FPs.

We had no real issues, however I came away thinking that those staying offsite are better off delaying their trip until after FP+ is fully implemented or hitting every rope drop and hoping for the best. If an offsite guest doesn't hit rope drop at DHS and go directly to TSM, they are pretty much out of luck. We tried to change our FP Tuesday night for Thursday (DS decided he wanted to go back there instead of EPCOT) and only received 1 option for TSM and it was late afternoon. We had our choice of RR slots. This was last week, one of the slower weeks of the year.

Two big hints for offsite guests - arrive at rope drop and go to your top choice attraction and THEN schedule your FPs for the rest of the day. TSM was at a 45 minute wait 10 minutes after rope drop. Stopping for FP selections would put you an hour out, minimum. At MK, get there for rope drop and the show. Because of the MK layout where you are waiting for rope drop already through the tapstiles, they have cast members walking around so you can schedule your FPs. May as well get them booked while you are waiting.

Another item of note for everyone: apparently character meet and greets are very hot FPs. I was talking to a woman while we were waiting for Mickey and she said she tried to book only character greetings and didn't get a single one. All FPs for Princesses, Mickey, Ariel, etc. were gone by early morning.

So weird and I guess another thing FP+ messes that was working just fine. We were there mid June. We did get a FP for Mickey/Princesses(but in reality the line wasn't that long, but we also went back a second time and there was no wait and we saw Ariel twice. Neither time was there any line(both were mid afternoon).

 

[surferdave]

We received the red timing passes at several FP entrances so they must be hearing the complaints that FP lines are taking longer than before and are testing it.

Where were they starting the timing with the red timing passes? Are they going to the far back of the line, or to the first Mickey Orb?

 

[2Tiggies]

Where were they starting the timing with the red timing passes? Are they going to the far back of the line, or to the first Mickey Orb?

Yes, this could be hopeful, but pretty pointless if they are timing it from the orb, as that's not where the issue lies.

 

[morethananyonex]

Where were they starting the timing with the red timing passes? Are they going to the far back of the line, or to the first Mickey Orb?

When we were there they were giving out the red cards once you scanned the first time.

 

[edk35]

you can schedule fp+ 60 days out, if you have tickets linked in the app. The fp+ option will become available once you link the tickets. You pick your park, then your 3 attractions and you get options a,b,c, &d to pick from which have all different times and order. You can then change your times to get different times or order of attractions. I think there is a block out window around adrs from what i read on these boards, i didn't actually make any.

If you plan on park hopping, i would make my reservations at my 2nd or 3rd park for the day and use rope drop it the am. I would fp, tsmm as soon as you know your dhs day, if you want a prime day slot. I booked it for 2 days, about 20 days early and got 12 and 1pm. (i booked my dhs fast passes for morning/afternoon, even though we park hop sine we always start at dhs and don't go late. Ds3 favorite ride ended up being tsmm, so i tried to add a 3rd day there and they were not available at all; app said stand by only.)

dhs and epcot are difficult because of the tie ring. I booked soarin', ds3 ended up being intimidated by the loud noise that is tt, so older ds and i used single rider line. You will see crazy things with fp+ usage. We waited sb for disney junior on stage and saw people scanning their fp+ bands for entry with no stand by line. I was not successful in changing my fp+ ressies on the fly(maybe our android is too old?). Tbh, i didn't use any fp+ at all the day we met our florida friends at ak, we just waited in safari line and we let multiple expire because we weren't able to get to our times. For example, dh and ds13 left tsi at 2:15 for a ride on the haunted mansion standby(posted 20 minutes) and we had 3:20-4:20 fp+ at buzz. They finally made it to tomorrowland at 4:35 due to line not being 20 minutes, but closer to 60 then, ride shut down multiple times. Ds3and i almost missed because tta took us almost 35 minutes to make our round trip. We ended up trying (and was no problem) or bands about 4:30. We couldn't reschedule the 2 we didn't use. Epcot is tough because of soarin, tt, and maelstrom all being tier 1, choose 1: So what to pick and use for other 2 captain eo and figment? Just annoyed us, because you want those other 2 later at mk when pp is 70 minutes, kwim?

Happy planning and have a great trip!

thanks

 

[edk35]

Well for the first time in LIKE FOREVER...we are ONLY doing 4 park days in Aug. and splitting with Vero beach. We usually get miltary discount tickets for a week or we get AP's. This year with all this controversy over FP+ we have decided to get the FUN AND MORE option and only get 4 days park hoppers and will enjoy the two water parks too this trip in Aug.

Our plan will be to be at rope drop for all parks and use our FP+ for afternoon/evenings. We never spend a full day at HS or AK so we will just do what we can at rope drop and either skip Toy Story if we have to....have done it in the past... then park hop to another park that evening. I would rather use FP+ at MK since there is more attractions there or at EC to do either TT or Soarin.

I don't want to invest in AP's this year.

 

[mom2rtk]

Yes, this could be hopeful, but pretty pointless if they are timing it from the orb, as that's not where the issue lies.

Surely they have seen the lines backed up out into the parks. The only thing timing from the Mickey orb would accomplish is sweeping a problem under the rug.

 

[Hoodie]

Where were they starting the timing with the red timing passes? Are they going to the far back of the line, or to the first Mickey Orb?

It was at the first Mickey orb, but we didn't have any wait getting to those. The lines once through the first Mickey did seem a bit longer than previously, esp. for the time of year.

 

[Hoodie]

Surely they have seen the lines backed up out into the parks. The only thing timing from the Mickey orb would accomplish is sweeping a problem under the rug.

The only time I saw lines approaching the Mickey orb was for the safari and that was only about 2-3 groups totaling about 10 people. In that case they were requesting only 1 person per group scan their band and the group move forward.

I didn't see lines approaching the orbs at any other attraction, including the big ones.

 

[Meggysmum]

The only time I saw lines approaching the Mickey orb was for the safari and that was only about 2-3 groups totaling about 10 people. In that case they were requesting only 1 person per group scan their band and the group move forward.

I didn't see lines approaching the orbs at any other attraction, including the big ones.

We had lines at BTM, Kilimajaro Safari and Space Mountain. BTM actually took over 5 minutes until we reached the orb. Space Mountain went all the way across the plaza to almost the bottom of Blue Line!

Other biggies such as Everest and TSM never had a line so I couldn't understand it.