PeoplemoverMatt

GOOD! It's about darn time they took even the first steps to curtail new AP sales. But I'll believe they've turned over a new leaf here when they stop advertising how cheap AP's are per month. Hopefully the end of monthly payment option is next.

So far we are having a great time using FP+! Being able to go to the parks each day already knowing what FP+ rides we have and when we have them for is MUCH easier than running around acquiring paper tickets all day. Also, we have been able to change and move around our FP+ times on the fly, and it has been easy to do so both on MDX app and via the web from our hotel room. After our three FP+ times are used, it has also been very easy to visit a FP+ kiosk to schedule a new time. The CMs are very helpful and polite to the point where it almost feels like they are taking my admission and handing me the new FP Tokyo-style. Finding a FP+ kiosk has never been a problem as they seem to be quite abundant, including being next to both MILF and Stitch's Great Escape in Tomorrowland. Yep, two kiosks right across the street from each other. Yet for some reason, one always seems to have a longer line than the other. Go figure. Using MagicBands to access the resort and our rooms has also been a very welcome change. No longer am I fishing my Key to the World card out of my wallet each night when I drive back into the resort. Just a wave of the band and the gate magically opens! When it's 1-2am, this makes a huge difference. When we are visiting a different resort, all security needs to do is scan the MagicBand and we are allowed to enter. Much easier! But what makes the biggest difference of all is how one wave of the MagicBand opens the hotel room door. When the arms are full of grocery bags because we routinely perform the internet meme of carrying all 16 grocery bags in one trip or die trying, only having to waive the MagicBand makes a HUGE difference. No more fishing out the Key card and scanning it 17 times before the green light flickers. That is very nice. We LOVE this new system and we absolutely cannot wait for it to come to Disneyland in CA!

Any reports from people who've successfully used more than 3 FP+'s per day? How about using 4th, 5th, etc at a different park than the first 3? Everything been going ok?

By a very wide margin.

Hopefully not too much past that!

That's a very nice touch. These are a blank canvas of sorts. If a new one will be given w/ each visit/resort stay, I can see people eventually building up quite a collection and wanting to have all sorts of different ones like this. It'd be great to see additional levels of customizability like this come out at some point.

Oh yes...SO riding this in a few weeks!!! The only part that concerns me is the landing when the seats rotate back to sitting position. That might be a bit jarring.

Maybe I missed it, but will the first three FP+ times need to be redeemed before additional FP+ times at other parks can be scheduled? The way I'm reading this, it sounds like the first 3 must be used first, then additional FP+ times can be obtained for any park at that park's FP+ kiosk at this point. Is that right? If so, then that Fantasmic! or Illuminations FP+ comes at a steep cost since there's no way to finish the first three and get more FP+ times. Going to have to weigh the benefit of having Fantasmic! or Illuminations FP+against that, I suppose. Good way to ensure those who have the Fantasmic! or Illuminations FP+ are those who really want it, and aren't just taking up a reservation spot they don't really intend to use.

Most likely this too.

Keeping an eye on it, and I'm still not seeing any Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade FP+ selections open in May, while most of the remaining April days are sold out. So what's up with no Festival of Fantasy FP+ times in May so far? The parade is still on the calendar in May. Is this Disney experimenting with ways to prevent FP+ reservations to be all gobbled up too soon?

These days whenever I hear "documentary" I switch it for "propaganda." Learned that from Michael Moore's piles of crap. It works with Blackfish just as well.

Not a good thing to read the day after buying tickets for May trip. Hopefully it's only a minor delay, but we'll still manage to have an awesome time even if it can't open in time for us.

Had a happy surprise waiting for me in the mail today! Well hello there package from Walt Disney World! I wonder what could be in here? Side view! Other side view! OMG! OMG! OMG! They're here! Ok, can I be excited now??? Can't wait to see these in action! Why does the trip have to be a month away still?!?!! Helpful directions on the underside of the lid explain how the MagicBands are both adult and kid sized already! Could these be any simpler to wear and use? These are very easy to put on and rather comfy to wear. Wish I could be using these at Disneyland right now with the huge Easter crowds but I'll have to wait until May and WDW!

I'm counting on that! Less people for me to wait behind!

Having Seven Dwarfs Mine Train possibly opening during my trip in May is really messing with my trip planning in a good way!

EDIT: Noticing something interesting on MDX. Festival of Fantasy comes up on MDX for FP+ for days within the next week or so, but then disappears when I check days in May during my trip. Has anyone else noticed this? EDIT EDIT: In clicking through each individual day, I see Festival of Fantasy appears through April 30, but disappears starting May 1. I'd love to know what's behind that. There isn't much room to cheat the system if the first touch point is still verifying that people are coming back on the proper day/time. If the FP is not collected at the second point, the most anyone could do is go through the FP queue multiple times in their one hour window, which on Splash would be 3-4 times at most. I would think the CM at the first point would catch on after the 2nd or 3rd time the same person/group tried to go through. Once the one hour window is up, the FP is gone anyway. Sure they could immediately switch the Splash FP+ to another ride after riding Splash, but now that another FP+ time opens after the first three have been used anyway, it's the same net result right? So either way, I don't see how this is the huge crisis you're making it out to be. The system is still very much in its infancy. It's probably never going to operate 100% perfectly 100% of the time.

This right here is exactly why I wish Disneyland Resort would adopt FP+ as soon as possible. My friends and I would have liked to visit the park today but aren't specifically because it's the Sunday of a busy spring break week, and won't next weekend either because of Easter. If we were able to reserve FP times early like with what FP+ provides, we probably would not be making other plans! In the meantime we are enjoying being able to make FP+ reservations in advance of our May trip!

A couple of days ago I just moved many of my FP+ times to earlier in the day for this very reason. But for the shows, I would hope they don't shift the rules because giving up the extra FP+ times for the nighttime show FP+ means whoever has a FP+ for the nighttime show really wants it and would have a really good viewing spot because not many others reserved the time for the show. For annual once-a-year visitors like me, that can make a difference. But I don't see this as being a real big problem. Most guests are just becoming aware of FP+, using it for the first time, and non-Resort guests were just granted access to it. WDW guests by & large probably wouldn't even know they can get another FP+ times after all 3 have been used and wouldn't miss not having the extra times.

While I agree the Deluxe guests should have nicer perks, I'm not totally convinced having another couple of FP+ reservations is enough perceived value to be worth it. Especially when the discrepancy would be on full display to everyone who isn't a Deluxe guest. Seems to me that there'd be more negative perceived value than positive. Probably also why you've never seen special viewing areas for different tiers of Resort guests at parades, shows, and such. It's also tough to make this a perk now that Disney starts allowing additional FP+ times beyond the first three once the first three have been used. Something like giving complementary Park Hopper and Water Park upgrades to admissions would be a smarter, easier "perk" to include if they wanted to go that route I would think.

Is it any surprise? I mean, for the longest time these same people were complete idiots about ticketed FastPass too. How many horror stories did we read about FP being a "zero sum game" and how it was making midways overcrowded and increasing wait times by a factor of 400, etc etc when none of that was actually true? Through it all, FastPass was almost constantly changing. From rides going on FP, to off, to back on, to having all these different networks, to the button trick, to having Pirates and Mansion not knowing what FP you held for other rides, to the window closing time being enforced, then not, then back to being enforced etc...it was almost never constant. Disney was always tweaking the system trying to make it the best for everyone. Meanwhile these people were bemoaning every change every time, and all the while saying how they were using it because it benefitted their day. Clearly logic and reason were quite foreign to them then, and they still are now. So now of course these same people say FP+ is only 100 times worse for all sorts of crazy reasons, and guess what? They're using this evil system too! I just...I don't even know what the point is. I'm just glad those people are not who Disney is primarily listening to or catering towards with this system.

Finally got my admissions for my May trip all squared away and linked up. In looking through the FP+ options for the first time, I'm noticing opportunities to reserve FP+ for Fantasmic!, IllumiNations, Finding Nemo musical and various other shows. How does that work exactly? Is there a special viewing area at Illuminations for FP+? Is there now a FP+ entrance to the Hollywood Hills Theatre for Fantasmic! or even a FP+ seating area for it as well?

If I'm seeing that right, that queue is flooding out of the FastPass+ Return entrance. Yikes!

There just isn't much left in the ride after the balls are removed.

Personally, I'd prefer to not see 30 minutes of a "Physics Day" presentation about coasters. It's been done, and done, and done some more. I'm probably dreaming here but why not have a focus on Japan? Journey to the Center of the Earth has to rank right up there as one of the best attractions ever built. How about a behind the scenes tour, maybe a glimpse at some of the designs and such that went into that? Mt. Prometheus with Journey inside would certainly be a "modern marvel" of theme park attractions. Tokyo DisneySea as a park is a great place to feature seeing it is hands down the most spectacular theme park on the planet. The greater Tokyo Disney Resort as a whole could have an interesting feature on it seeing as it sits on reclaimed land. Then branching out from Tokyo Disney...there are numerous other parks in Japan all with great coasters and various kinds of rides. Sega Joypolis is a marvel of an indoor "theme park" that has many interesting features. Consider Tobu Zoo, Nagashima Spaland, etc etc. An American audience relatively unfamiliar with Japan's parks would drool over all the eye candy and uniquely wondrous attractions, as well as the huge mechanism behind a mega resort in Japan and how it may differ from one in the USA. Tell the producers we want to see Japan!

I'm not too thrilled by either to be honest. The Starbucks looks great and Big Thunder looks to have had another 30 years of life breathed into it, but I don't feel a need to be the *first* to ride it, or to say what's good/bad/otherwise about it. It was down both times I tried to ride it on Saturday. Did I go stomping into City Hall demanding a refund on my AP because the ride wasn't open for me on AP preview day? No. Just moved on and had a good time with everything else. People who do that really need to get a hold on their lives. I'm sure I'll ride it at some point in the next 30 years. No need to go nuts over it one way or the other. It looks great and I look forward to riding it eventually.