Fastpass+

[cousininmiami]

Made our Fastpass+ reservations today. I feel totally cool now!

[Amy]

Made our Fastpass+ reservations today. I feel totally cool now!

What did you choose? And what color magic bands did you get?!

[jderoche5]

Enjoy the bands! I LOVED them!

[cousininmiami]

Made our Fastpass+ reservations today. I feel totally cool now!

What did you choose? And what color magic bands did you get?!

I ordered the Red Magic Band! Even though I am a Pink person at heart, I felt that the Red one more represented Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I think I want to have a Mickey theme so to match my nails... as I always paint them red with a Mickey head and white polka dots! My husband picked Blue and my Son picked Green

I had initially been scoffing at the changes... making Fastpass reservations at home etc. But now that I have had the opportunity to actually use the system, it is really awesome! The My Disney Experience app is really great, shows my resort reservation, dining reservations and Fastpasses. This was all very easy to use and customize the way we wanted it. I thought it would take away from the spontaneous action at the parks, but now I think it makes it easier to enjoy the parks with not having to run to get that first fast pass. Also, how many times have we been to EPCOT and the fast passes are already gone for SOARIN or are super late? Most of the time that is the case! But now I have Soarin at 11:30.... unbelievable.

All in all I am very impressed how the system has worked so far. As a Florida resident and AP holder, it usually doesn't make sense to stay on property, but this may just force me to to a Disney Resort more often.

[theBIGyowski]

I will have to agree with you, cousininmiami, and I think you will like the changes so far. There are definitely advantages to the new system...especially the ability to get FPs for the E-ticket attractions without having to be that the parks at rope drop. The way I approached it was to figure out which attractions would have the longest standby wait and then get FP+ for those. For the other attractions, I just made sure to get to the park at rope drop. For example, we went to AK one day and knew we would be there from rope drop until about 2:00 in the afternoon. So we didn't make any FP+ reservations in AK...because we would never have more than a 15-20 minute wait for anything. Instead we made FP+ reservations for EPCOT, where we were going after dinner. The downside was that we were only able to use 2 of our 3 FPs because we couldn't get them all in the time frame we would be in EPCOT...but it allowed us to ride Test Track after waiting only 15 minutes instead of the 70 in the standby line.

[holiday road]

Planning things out fully works well for my OCD but adding the new wrinkle doesn't. I'm sure once I get this down the way I did the old fastpass system i will be alright. Until I do I'm stressing a bit.

[Amy]

Planning things out fully works well for my OCD but adding the new wrinkle doesn't. I'm sure once I get this down the way I did the old fastpass system i will be alright. Until I do I'm stressing a bit.

I've heard far more positive things about FP+ than negative now that it has been in place for awhile. One of the biggest pluses seem to be that the stand-by lines and FP lines are more consistent without having huge influxes of people. And as BIG pointed out, you can get a FP+ for very popular attractions for later in the day when you would have had no chance getting a FP without being at rope drop at a park. And it sounds like AP holders, once they stay on property once and get their magic band, can continue to make their FP+ reservations online even when not staying on property on future visits And it also sounds like the minimum of three FP per day will be increasing soon!

[junebug1233]

I am intrigued by the positive responses but I have a question. Everything I have seen says you will be able to choose only 1 fastpass per day to a E-ticket ride. How can this ever be an improvement? I am used to getting at least 2 a day, when possible.

[theBIGyowski]

I am intrigued by the positive responses but I have a question. Everything I have seen says you will be able to choose only 1 fastpass per day to a E-ticket ride. How can this ever be an improvement? I am used to getting at least 2 a day, when possible.

As of right now...only MK has no tiering of their attractions as far as FP+ goes. So you can pick any 3 attractions. The other parks, however, have tiers and you can only select one attraction in "tier 1" and two attractions in "tier 2". The only park this stinks for is EPCOT because the lines for Test Track and Soarin' increase exponentially the first hour or two after rope drop. For DHS...ToT is in tier 2...so you can get FP+ for both RnR and ToT...so that's nice. You'd have to pick between TSMM and RnR though...and that should be a no brainer because TSMM has lines of over an hour just 15 minutes after rope drop.

By going with tiers, Disney is attempting to get guests to spread out throughout the parks instead of clogging the traditional E-ticket attractions. It also regulates the number of people that will be in the FP return queues, which gives Disney a better idea of what the standby queues will be like each hour of the day. Before FP+ and a strict FP return time policy, you'd have standby queues of 3-4 hours for TSMM after 6:00 PM when everyone decided to use their expired FPs...and the FP return queue would still have you waiting about 60-90 minutes.

[theBIGyowski]

Oh...and I would count on MK to start using tiers once the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train opens.

[Amy]

I am intrigued by the positive responses but I have a question. Everything I have seen says you will be able to choose only 1 fastpass per day to a E-ticket ride. How can this ever be an improvement? I am used to getting at least 2 a day, when possible.

As of right now...only MK has no tiering of their attractions as far as FP+ goes. So you can pick any 3 attractions. The other parks, however, have tiers and you can only select one attraction in "tier 1" and two attractions in "tier 2". The only park this stinks for is EPCOT because the lines for Test Track and Soarin' increase exponentially the first hour or two after rope drop. For DHS...ToT is in tier 2...so you can get FP+ for both RnR and ToT...so that's nice. You'd have to pick between TSMM and RnR though...and that should be a no brainer because TSMM has lines of over an hour just 15 minutes after rope drop.

By going with tiers, Disney is attempting to get guests to spread out throughout the parks instead of clogging the traditional E-ticket attractions. It also regulates the number of people that will be in the FP return queues, which gives Disney a better idea of what the standby queues will be like each hour of the day. Before FP+ and a strict FP return time policy, you'd have standby queues of 3-4 hours for TSMM after 6:00 PM when everyone decided to use their expired FPs...and the FP return queue would still have you waiting about 60-90 minutes.

That's a very good explanation BIG

Oh...and I would count on MK to start using tiers once the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train opens.

I would bet it happens even before that...

[cy1229]

I am intrigued by the positive responses but I have a question. Everything I have seen says you will be able to choose only 1 fastpass per day to a E-ticket ride. How can this ever be an improvement? I am used to getting at least 2 a day, when possible.

As of right now...only MK has no tiering of their attractions as far as FP+ goes. So you can pick any 3 attractions. The other parks, however, have tiers and you can only select one attraction in "tier 1" and two attractions in "tier 2". The only park this stinks for is EPCOT because the lines for Test Track and Soarin' increase exponentially the first hour or two after rope drop. For DHS...ToT is in tier 2...so you can get FP+ for both RnR and ToT...so that's nice. You'd have to pick between TSMM and RnR though...and that should be a no brainer because TSMM has lines of over an hour just 15 minutes after rope drop.

By going with tiers, Disney is attempting to get guests to spread out throughout the parks instead of clogging the traditional E-ticket attractions. It also regulates the number of people that will be in the FP return queues, which gives Disney a better idea of what the standby queues will be like each hour of the day. Before FP+ and a strict FP return time policy, you'd have standby queues of 3-4 hours for TSMM after 6:00 PM when everyone decided to use their expired FPs...and the FP return queue would still have you waiting about 60-90 minutes.

How on EARTH can they classify ToT as a "Tier 2" attraction???!!!! Then again, it works well for us because (a) we love both RnR and ToT, and (b) we have little to no desire to wait more than 20 minutes for TSMM. It's fun, but it's just not a big enough payout for the time standing in queue.

I'm getting the idea that the FastPass+ and MagicBand push has to do more with getting people to stay on property than anything else. Sure, knowing ahead of time how the crowds should pan out will help with staffing, but I think it's more of a "hey if you stay on property you can get your fast passes in advance, and we have these cool Mickey bracelets you get to wear!" kind of thing. I only recently developed this opinion after seeing how many WDW commercials are doing a HHAARRDD sell of staying onsite.

[Amy]

Do you think they might be classing ToT as a Tier 2 attraction as it is a bit older, and not as many people want to ride a free fall ride as compared to a roller coaster?

[Wizzard419]

Drop rides have smaller draws than coasters, so they probably don't have the same crowds.

[theBIGyowski]

They also have historical data on which attractions use FP the most...and I'm guessing ToT doesn't use nearly as many FPs as some of the other attractions opened after it.