Writeup of XPass first day

[josh]

No one knows.

[pfalcioni]

My feeling is that this is somewhat Disney's response to people who go to Guest Services and complain "I paid thousands of dollars for this vacation, and I get to Hollywood Studios today at 11am and there are no Fast Passes available for TSM! I mean, what is with a company that won't allow me to ride my son's favorite ride without waiting over an hour, even though I got to the park EARLY!!!"

[AmeliaPond]

Well, on the bright side for me...by the time I make it back to WDW, all of the kinks will be ironed out and I'll have a much better understanding of the system. (Of course, on the negative side....I won't be back in WDW for years..ha!)

[WDW Vet]

I do think FP plus has some merit and can be a useful tool especially for someone seasoned. making an advanced FP is golden especially during peak periods. How many times have you been at an attraction to FP in the morning only to see the next time will be 6 hours later and you planned to be in another park. This could be awesome. But what about someone FP+ in say the Magic Kingdom and then having a FP+ in Epcot right after. Will the system be smart enough to not allow that? Does it only allow a park per session. Can you FP+ multiple parks per day. I'd like someone who is beta testing this to let us know.

[josh]

Current testing is only at ten attractions at Magic Kingdom.

[nolarookie]

I thin it'll be cool to schedule stuff in the afternoon. Especially with small kids who have low tolerance for waiting.

[Jenny]

If you can schedule in the evening, then you can take your afternoon break, and return to ride with FP in the eveining- just like before FP times were enforced. Or, in October, we'll be doing a couple of tours at park opening time, so we could schedule a couple FP for after.

I think it sounds good- except that when we go as a family we stay off-site as there is 5 of us. Hopefully, it won't make regular FP run out too much earlier...

[josh]

It isn't supposed to be just for on-site guests when it finally comes online.

[Mossy1]

If this really ends up being for anyone (offsite) to use, then it really opens up the options for park hopping. This coupled with a good AM plan, fastpass window enforcement (never thought I would say that), And fastpass + in the PM would make for an awesome day!!!

[blyday]

At this point, there's no way it will replace the regular FP distribution system, since X-Pass will only be available to people who stay on-site.

It is my understanding that XPass will be available to everyone.....not just people staying onsite. The initial guesses were that it would only be offered to those staying on-site but that theory has long since been dropped.

My personal feeling on this is that XPass can only make the planners day better and the non-planner who really doesn't care about standing in a few lines and just goes with the flow won't notice any difference. It is like FPs right now.....there are people who use them and people who think that they are a waste and never use them.

For me.....I see those of us willing to get up early in the morning and arrive at the park 30 minutes before it opens will only have a better experience since many more people will now figure that they can sleep in a bit and arrive during later and use those scheduled FPs. (For example....George who currently is a RD has stated that he'd use it as a means to arrive later and I personal have thought that it means that I could maybe limit my RDs to only once per park or maybe even only at HS and MK and then sleep in a bit for all of my other mornings.) So.....the my personal guess is that mornings will become even more magical as more planners will now sleep in.

The other thing that I can see is it making the enforcement of FPs return times 100 percent better. It means that I won't have to guess when I need to pull a FPs to have a return time that fits within my schedule. I already know when the FP is so I'm set. So....if I have an ADR at 12 PM, I can make sure that my next FP window opens at 1:30 PM or, if I want to return in the evening and have a few FPs rides, I can do that also and know that I'm set to go. It saves me having to guess if I will be able to ride ToT when we return from our break or not....I already know!!!

I am a little worried about the blocking in of the times as Josh mentioned with the ride capacity issues. Obviously, they will only be able to allow so many XPasses for TSMM to be handed out over the day. So, that would mean first come, first serve. So......if they let you start getting your FPs reserved at 180 days, what does that do to the person who ends up having a surprise trip and books a month out?? Does that mean they either stand in an hour long line at TSMM or not get to ride it? Of course, you will still have those morning options but still.....I can see this hurting the last minute planner. Of course......I'm sure that Disney will work that bug out too!!!

I'm with George though.....I really think it would be awesome to field test it and hope they are still doing it in 3 weeks from now when we go and that we are offered the chance to try it out.

[josh]

Yeah, at the moment we're only talking about four things per day for anyone, on-site or off. I'm not sure how they're going to police it because supposedly Annual Passholders and Cast Members aren't going to have first dibs or be able to schedule as early as those with vacations. But if it's open to off-site visitors, I'm not sure how they would tie it to anything. The tickets I guess?

As far as capacities, my guess is they'll do it in tiers sort of like they are now. Toy Story Mania, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Fantasmic, Tower of Terror, Star Tours in the top tier. And you can choose two. Then shows and other rides in another tier. And you can pick two or three or something. That way, even people that end up with Tower of Terror and Star Tours would probably be happy, even if Toy Story and Fantasmic are the "best."

[WDW Vet]

Current testing is only at ten attractions at Magic Kingdom.

That makes sense as it can't be multiple parks as some people don't have the park hopping option and that would open a can of worms for Disney. I've been doing Disney vacations for the past 18 years and a lot has changed. I would recommend areas of a resort because it was a better location. Disney started charging preferred view rates for that. POP is $5 more a night than other value resorts. It use to be value, regular, peak and holiday seasons. Now it's value 1 and value 2, summer, etc.

When a promotion ran and I booked a guest starting the last day of the promotion the discount carried for all the dates. Now you get the discount for only the night during the promotion. All other dates are the normal rate. Never had weekend rates. Now there are weekday and weekend rates. The technology to do different rates has been around for awhile but Disney never adopted it. Last year theme park tickets increase in less than a year. Dining plans have two rates, peak season and other seasons. Does it cost Disney more for a cheeseburger in peak season?

So some comments are positive for this. Making multiple reservations without having to run back and forth in the parks. Getting on Toy Story Mania since it takes forever and is so slow. But you are doing this in advance before others can. So this is a privilege. So I assume this will be a resort guest only perk? Now looking at the above examples this is what I see. You will have the park hopping option, water & fun option and non expiration option. What about the Fastpass plus option? We all do Fastpass, it's a great tool. What are you willing to pay for the ability to make Fastpass plus and do this in advance for your favorite attractions and fireworks before others can?

[pfalcioni]

If this really ends up being for anyone (offsite) to use, then it really opens up the options for park hopping. This coupled with a good AM plan, fastpass window enforcement (never thought I would say that), And fastpass + in the PM would make for an awesome day!!!

Oh yea, I hadn't thought about that. We love hopping to a different park in the afternoon and this would allow us to maybe do it and still fit in a few headliners without much trouble.

[Mossy1]

What about the Fastpass plus option? We all do Fastpass, it's a great tool. What are you willing to pay for the ability to make Fastpass plus and do this in advance for your favorite attractions and fireworks before others can?

While if this was an option I might be interested but with only 4 rides available the price would have to be right. Also with an AP holder it would create a whole different grade of AP unless you would have to have the premium to play this game. I would love for it to be free!!! So much is still unknown so it is tough to say. I am liking this more and more after thinking about the possibilities.

[blyday]

Yeah, at the moment we're only talking about four things per day for anyone, on-site or off. I'm not sure how they're going to police it because supposedly Annual Passholders and Cast Members aren't going to have first dibs or be able to schedule as early as those with vacations. But if it's open to off-site visitors, I'm not sure how they would tie it to anything. The tickets I guess?

The Annual Passholder thing really bothers me. Especially as a DVC member who has the AP as a perk. It kind of takes away from that. I guess if they make it so that DVC members can still book at the same time as everyone else then that is okay since it will override the AP thing but still......I think that would need some work on it. I can see some AP holders getting very upset about that. Maybe they could make it so that Regular or Premium AP holders would be able to book with others but discounted FL resident ones not being able to book as early?? I'm guessing that the AP thing is because the locals could block out all of the rides and go often where the once in a lifetime visitor would then be blocked out....but if I'm going to travel all of the way from VA to get there, I'm not going to be happy with being blocked out of my favorite rides because I happen to be able to make it to WDW 2 times in one year!!!

[MrsNick]

The Annual Passholder thing really bothers me. Especially as a DVC member who has the AP as a perk. It kind of takes away from that. I guess if they make it so that DVC members can still book at the same time as everyone else then that is okay since it will override the AP thing but still......I think that would need some work on it. I can see some AP holders getting very upset about that. Maybe they could make it so that Regular or Premium AP holders would be able to book with others but discounted FL resident ones not being able to book as early?? I'm guessing that the AP thing is because the locals could block out all of the rides and go often where the once in a lifetime visitor would then be blocked out....but if I'm going to travel all of the way from VA to get there, I'm not going to be happy with being blocked out of my favorite rides because I happen to be able to make it to WDW 2 times in one year!!!

I'm guessing they'll find a way to differentiate between on-site guests (i.e. cash ressie or DVC ressie) w/AP and off-site guests (i.e. locals) w/AP. Ability to book could be tied to your room reservation instead of ticket type. I know that DVC has been able to fine tune Disney products, such as DDP. Cash guests must purchase tickets to get DDP, but they fine tuned DVC so that we can purchase the DDP without a ticket purchase since they know so many of us have AP's.

I would think that it would be in DVD's interest to ensure that DVC guests can have this ability or people won't have an incentive to buy DVC. Why spend thousands to buy DVC if you can't even use FP+. Conversely, this could be a very good selling point: You can buy DVC and still have access to FP+. I think that sounds a little bit better. And if access to FP+ helps DVD, then that should help Disney's bottom line.

Maybe off site guests (both AP and regular tix holder) would still have access to FP+, but not until the day of or the day before. I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I've been thinking about how this could be used to "flatten" crowds, and I can see this helping to flatten crowds not only within a specific park at certain times of day, but among all four of the major parks. Offer more FP+ at a park that is anticipated to have a low crowd day, and fewer at a park that is anticipated to be very crowded. This is very interesting to me in that there must be a lot of ways that you could fine tune this to maximize attendance, much in the same way that airlines try to maximize their passenger load.

[Janine]

I don't understand why it needs to be tied to a ticket type or vacation. I'm a non-local AP holder who stays off-site. Why can't I make FP+ reservations 180 days out, just like I would make an ADR?
Originally, this was announced as a multi-million dollar personalized vacation reservation/experience. If it's still a multi-million dollar project, seems like a lot for just a system to schedule four rides. Of course, could be more to it than I currently know.

As a planner, I'm very interested.

[haven_alise1997]

You guys are being silly. We're talking about scheduling four attractions/shows/things over the course of the day.

Peter Pan's Flight from 3:50pm to 4:50pm.
Haunted Mansion from 5:20pm to 6:20pm.
Main Street Electrical Parade at 7:40pm.
Space Mountain at 9pm to 10pm.

It's just like pulling FASTPASSes except you don't have to run all the way over to the other side of the Magic Kingdom to actually collect them. And you know exactly what return time to get. It fixes all of your "FASTPASS runner" problems and cuts down on walking/reentering lines. You can still ride all of those rides in the morning if you want. Or skip them if you're not in the mood to do them.

I'm not seeing a negative here.

I agree Josh, I think if it's a good idea! Will definitely give you some leeway if you want to take a break and come back to the park later
without having to worry about trying to find rides that are still giving out fastpasses and if you can still utilize the regular fastpass
machine, even better!

[mousehelper]

trying to decide if I should scroll back and read this whole thread, or not bother because we just don't know....
Hmm... Wonder if there' anything on the blog? I' think I'll look!
: )