Walt Disney World prepares to open amid praise and criticism

On my visits to WDW I would go into the park, ride the rides I had passes for, maybe see the fireworks, and then the rest of time time was usually spent down the street at Universal. FP+ did an amazing job at what it was designed to do. That just made it way harder to enjoy the parks unless everything was preplanned perfectly.

Every single ride had a wait, even Jungle Cruise, and I love me some Jungle Cruise. I was at Epcot and living with the land managed to have waits. Literally everything had waits all of the time.

Disney managed to jam as many people into the park and extract every ounce of capacity out of the rides. They did a great job, it just wasn't the experience I wanted.

BrettV said:

Nearly all of the loopholes were closed with Fastpass+

Which ones are we talking about? I don't know if you call them all loopholes but drop times, modify, fake leading reservations, umbrella policy, band swapping, change party, rider switch, party size shenanigans, late night lotto/ride closure lotto, and just asking at the concierge for more Fastpasses were all alive and well right up to the park closing in March.

This is an old but still mostly accurate version of this document.
https://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/PostLink/955962

I think the thing everyone seems to forget about paper FP was that you generally, in the busy season, had to be in the park in the morning to get any of the good passes. Granted, you could stack one after another, overlapping, from then on if you played it right, but that involved a lot of crossing the park.

The only negative with the current system that I've noticed, and it's consistent for local day visits as well as resort stays (yeah, I've done that despite living next door), is that there is roughly one attraction at each park that books out weeks in advance (7 Dwarfs, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog, and Frozen). I'm not saying the rest is a slam dunk the day before, but you'll have a shot at least. If you get three of the "best" rides early in the day, there's often availability to get the rest after that, one at a time, the way you did with the paper passes.

I guess what I'm saying is that I still don't experience the plan-o-rama that a lot of people do. 🤷‍♂️

We always get up early on vacations so to us the benefit of being in parks first thing in the morning for paper FP was viewed as a plus for us.

Jeff said:

I think the thing everyone seems to forget about paper FP was that you generally, in the busy season, had to be in the park in the morning to get any of the good passes. Granted, you could stack one after another, overlapping, from then on if you played it right, but that involved a lot of crossing the park.

Granted it is more difficult to do in Florida but relatively easy in California with the smaller parks. Getting in the park early has never been an issue with my family.

We did plan-o-rama last time we were there (18 months ago) but I'm not sure it would have been strictly neccesary. By the end we were happy to do Sorcerors of the Magic Kingdom for half a day and didn't even use all our FastPasses. Trying to do Epcot in a single day and DHS in a single day (this was with Toy Story Land but not SW:GE) both required fairly strict plans and we didn't adhere to them perfectly, but we also didn't miss anything we really were excited about at either of those parks. I suspect if you didn't have FOMO and were okay missing Mission: Space or Star Tours or some M&G's or shows, you could be totally fine just taking what you got when you got it, but I think if you really wanted to do mostly everything in a non-MK park in a day, you'd need a pretty solid plan.

If FP+ works for you, great.

But I fundamentally do not believe that the average guest would prefer "guaranteed access to three attractions if you know how to use the system and its constraints work for you" vs. the "easily able to get FPs for everything I want day of, including repeats, and it's very easy to get 10+ FPs in a day" system that exists in the other Disney parks around the world.

They may not KNOW better, or want to know better, but that's a whole different discussion.

The only scenario in which I think FP+ is an upgrade is people arriving to a park later in the day. Otherwise? Rubbish.

ApolloAndy said:

I don't know if you call them all loopholes but drop times, modify, fake leading reservations, umbrella policy, band swapping, change party, rider switch, party size shenanigans, late night lotto/ride closure lotto

I have nothing important to add to the conversation (do I ever?), but not having been inside any Disney park since I was 14, I feel like I'm reading another language.

ApolloAndy said:

Of course we had a rider switch eligible child and two grandparents who didn't really want to ride that much, so...

Yeah, things are harder without some willing family members to drag along. Everyone in my group wants to (and can) ride.

I’ve spent a non-trivial amount of time reaearching and collecting tricks, loopholes, and exploits. It is realy another language as it would take between one and three paragraphs to explain each of those. Except “band swapping” which is exactly what it says.

I always love the comparison that having to book 3 Fast Passes per day on an app is over-planning while having a similarly pre-planned strategy to run around a get as many paper passes as you can in the shortest amount of time is completely spontaneous.

I’m curious why FP+ is so hated. I genuinely think that your average “once every five years” family would much rather have 3 rides scheduled and locked in before they leave (and maybe totally ignore all the other aspects of FP+ and not have to worry about mid-trip) than even a MaxPass style system where they have to be on their phone booking and rebooking throughout the day. I can’t imagine anyone seriously thinks average families prefer actual paper passes dispensed from the front of the ride.

ApolloAndy said:

I’m curious why FP+ is so hated.

I think it is because the paper system was easier to use to (comparative) advantage with a modest amount of learning invested. FP+ levels the playing field, and the people doing the complaining had it easier under the old system. I could easily grab two FP for each of the three Mountains in a single day, and that's difficult to impossible even with a small group and dedicated refreshing today. However, the people doing that complaining are also the Disney enthusiast community, and are not representative of the average guest.

I am quite sure the average guest either likes this system more, spends more money under it, or both. Disney is fanatical about surveying guests, and doesn't purposefully tick them off or torch its bottom line just for fun.

That's interesting because I find the FP+ system infinitely more game-able than the MaxPass system.

Though I suppose the way to gain the modest advantage under MaxPass is "get to the park early and book the rarest rides first." The way to gain the substantial advantage in FP+ is "do an equivalent amount of work to a college seminar in research and planning and spend a non-trivial amount of vacation on your phone."

I'm not sure that it's "hated." I mean, don't use fan sites as a gauge. Those assholes don't seem to have fun doing anything. 😁 I can't imagine a world of not having it now. Remember, as always, if you really want to ride something, you can still wait for it if it's that important to you. But I like going in and knowing that I'll do one or two things specifically, even as a local, and wing it the rest of the time.

Maybe others have had more luck with day-of FP+ than I have, but I've had considerably more luck with MaxPass or even regular FP. I've had some visits to WDW where it's been ok and I've managed to pick up FP+ for some rides after the fact, but even then there's considerably less availability and flexibility than under the other systems. My last visit, I couldn't get FP+ for *anything* worthwhile and waits were outrageous. Maybe that was an isolated incident, but it was one of the most frustrating days I've EVER had at a park, and even Tokyo Disney on a weekend was not only far less exasperating, but far more productive.

I still think the average joe would prefer the current DL experience, where everything is available when you walk into the park at opening, and most of the time it's very easy to get everything you want other than ROTR vs. the WDW system where you have to stay at a Disney hotel and be on your game 60 days out to have *any* shot of getting FPs for the newest and most popular attractions. I mean, you *could* theoretically score a day of FP for those rides, but the odds are decidedly NOT in your favor, especially compared to the other Disney parks.

The more people do in a day, the happier they are and the more likely they are to return. Purposely inflating waits by slapping FP+ on everything is counter to that. Disneyland and Magic Kingdom have similar attendance, but in my experience waits for Disneyland attractions tend to be about half that of WDW's on average, and I lay at least some of the blame for that on FP+.

I hate FP+. I can’t really put it into words but I feel like I am constantly swimming upstream at Disney World compared to Disneyland.

eightdotthree said:

I hate FP+. I can’t really put it into words but I feel like I am constantly swimming upstream at Disney World compared to Disneyland.

Exactly this. It very tangibly FEELS like the system is working against you and artificially limiting the amount of things you are able to accomplish. Even if you're familiar with it works and how to most effectively use it.

And because of how widely its been implemented, at MK in particular, everything that has FP+ has obscene wait times most of the day, made worse by shortened hours vs. even a few years ago.

I've never experienced anything else like it at any other park and it doesn't make the park experience particularly pleasant. I'd be curious to know how many of FP+'s biggest defenders have been to DL recently; I feel many WDW regulars would be blown away with how much easier it is to actually accomplish things at DLR or the other Disney resorts around the world largely because they *don't* use FP+.

ThemeParkFan1990 said:

Purposely inflating waits by slapping FP+ on everything is counter to that. Disneyland and Magic Kingdom have similar attendance, but in my experience waits for Disneyland attractions tend to be about half that of WDW's on average, and I lay at least some of the blame for that on FP+.

Yeah. Except at MK you get 3 free rides without any waiting and without having to wake up at the crack of dawn. It's not like they're just inflating the waits for S&G. They're inflating the waits so that people, including you, can ride without waiting.

Now admittedly, the 60 days/30 days thing is sort of weird. It does mean that non-resort guests are at a distinct disadvantage and even guests with shorter stays are kind of fighting an uphill battle, but I don't see that as fundamental to the nature of FP+. I mean, they have to open availability at SOME point and have to prioritize some people in some way - if they open it for everyone at exactly the same time then they're just prioritizing people with fast internet connections or who live in convenient time zones. (What's got two thumbs and had to wake up at 4am to book FP's from California? This guy!)

If the wait of everything else is obscene because of FP+ than that negates the benefit IMO.

Whereas old school FP as it existed in the past at WDW and still exists at the other parks allows you to experience the same thing on more rides, and the waits in general are less obscene because not every major ride has it.

While three rides with minimal waits sounds nice, I'm not convinced that most guests wouldn't prefer to have ten instead.

They really could just open availability day of, the way every other Disney other park around the world does it. I have yet to experience problems with availability with that method, or hear of anyone else who had problems with that method either. I HAVE heard and experienced many issues regarding availability with FP+, however.

And wouldn't you prefer to book FPs the day you're there and not worry about it until you're in the park vs waking up at 4 AM x number of days in advance?