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couldcareless posted:If wdwnt "country bears are getting shut down tomorrow" is the one originating the story and it's just being re-reported, I'm definitely gonna step back a bit. You know it’s bad when the Disney Parks Blog literally takes the time to dunk on your website specifically.
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Jul 6, 2021 20:48
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So this was a fun exercise. I pulled our reservation from our first WDW trip in Feb 2015. 8 days, 7 nights, AoA family suite. 8 day park hoppers, and standard dining plan for 3 adults and 2 children. 6325.33 dollars. The same trip for Feb 2022 (using DDP prices from before Covid times), A little over 10,200 dollars. Without dining plan, it's 8153.31 10,200 dollars, doesn't include tips for sit down meals, transportation from the airport to WDW (no longer included), or airfare to get to Orlando.
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Jul 6, 2021 21:03
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skipdogg posted:So this was a fun exercise. I pulled our reservation from our first WDW trip in Feb 2015. 8 days, 7 nights, AoA family suite. 8 day park hoppers, and standard dining plan for 3 adults and 2 children. 6325.33 dollars. LOL, this made me go and lookup the first time we took our son in 2011. 2 adults, 1 kid (probably free at the time he was under 4), 5 nights, Caribbean Beach (Pirate Room), Magic Your Way w/Hopper, Dining Plan. $1877.39. Same trip now without dining is $3880 not including any transportation.
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Jul 6, 2021 21:12
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https://blogmickey.com/2021/07/disneyland-paris-replaces-free-fastpass-with-paid-disney-premier-access/ The thing that strikes me about this description of how premier pass works in Paris is how they apparently charge real money prices right there in the app for premier pass access. I’d think they would abstract the pricing by having you buy tokens then pricing the rides in tokens the way xbox live works. Seeing a real money amt for it and having to buy it per ride instead of pre-buying it would really remind me how much everything is costing me and take away from my enjoyment, even if I were a whale.
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Jul 6, 2021 21:40
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Since the end of the 2008 recession and its lingering effects, crowds were increasing every year until COVID, and now they're obviously quickly going to return to those numbers. Their endgame for a while has been to find the sweet spot of how much they can charge to where the parks are no longer overcrowded, but enough people still go to make the same profit or more. So far it seems they have yet to find the plateau.
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Jul 6, 2021 22:16
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:For WDW that's probably a breaking point for me until I'm a billionaire because that's a lot per person per day. $18 x 6 is $108 just to do 3 fastpasses with my spouse per day. That's more than our meal budget usually is. Okay but the good news is the standby lines go way faster when nobody else can afford FastPass either. For decades nobody skipped lines and humanity was okay waiting 30-45 minutes for Space Mountain. That turned to 90 minutes minimum because of FastPass filling seats with people from a 10 minute line. If we all give up our entitlement to 10 minute Space Mountain, together, we’ll never have to wait two hours for it again except on the very worst weekends. This is not directed only at Fluffy Bunnies but I am amazed at people who think they might as well not bother to go to the parks if the erasure of FastPass includes them. To have any effect whatsoever it needs to include a gently caress-ton of people.
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Jul 6, 2021 22:32
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SweetMercifulCrap! posted:Since the end of the 2008 recession and its lingering effects, crowds were increasing every year until COVID, and now they're obviously quickly going to return to those numbers. Their endgame for a while has been to find the sweet spot of how much they can charge to where the parks are no longer overcrowded, but enough people still go to make the same profit or more. So far it seems they have yet to find the plateau. I have no clue where that plateau is either. People are still going to go of course, they're just going to modify their trips to fit their budget. Using my previous numbers, I wouldn't spend today's prices on that same trip. I'd cut back to a normal AoA room (granny wouldn't go with us) and we might make the trip 5 nights instead of 7 and definitely drop the dining plan. We only did that once, and didn't find a lot of value in it for us (not trying to start a ddp debate). I laughed my rear end off when I saw boo bash priced at 199 for Halloween night... but I wasn't surprised when that event sold out really quickly. We've really modified how much we spend at the parks and the majority of that cut back has been dining. A big reason is the kids are older now. Next trip mine will be 10 and 12. They don't care about seeing Pooh at Crystal Palace anymore, and I'm sure as hell not paying Disney adult prices for them to eat 2 dollars worth of food at a buffet. To be honest though, if I wasn't sitting on 2 years of DVC points, we might not be visiting next June. I go through this cycle every trip though. We get back, and I don't want to visit again for about a year. I start missing WDW, we start planning the next trip, and then I start bitching about how expensive it is now, we go, have a great time, it's still worth it, and then the cycle repeats.
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Jul 6, 2021 22:33
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Craptacular! posted:Okay but the good news is the standby lines go way faster when nobody else can afford FastPass either. For decades nobody skipped lines and humanity was okay waiting 30-45 minutes for Space Mountain. That turned to 90 minutes minimum because of FastPass filling seats with people from a 10 minute line. Except the times that they don't. Because sometimes they don't. I don't really do Space Mountain though. My thing is the constant 45+ minutes for Jungle Cruise with a service dog in tow. It's absolutely a perception thing. E: Basically, I can prioritize FP throughout the park for things I like to do that will be higher waits. I have DAS regardless, so I can still kind of do it, but bleh. Fluffy Bunnies fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 22:36
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Is it possible people against FastPass are locals who can just skip rides with long waits? I want to ride stuff like Everest, Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog, etc every trip so I'm just force to wait if they don't bring it back
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Jul 6, 2021 22:50
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I have adored being there this last year and not dealing with the headache of FP. Just wander around, pick something that looks interesting, see a queue I’ve always skipped (because of FP) and generally have a good time. Also I feel I’ve walked “less” this last year because I’m not racing around to hit FP.
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Jul 6, 2021 23:55
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Anya posted:I have adored being there this last year and not dealing with the headache of FP. Just wander around, pick something that looks interesting, see a queue I’ve always skipped (because of FP) and generally have a good time. Also I feel I’ve walked “less” this last year because I’m not racing around to hit FP. That's why my FP is always sequential in the area I was touring a park, so I was walking a little less.
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Jul 7, 2021 00:00
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alg posted:Is it possible people against FastPass are locals who can just skip rides with long waits? I want to ride stuff like Everest, Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog, etc every trip so I'm just force to wait if they don't bring it back Well, I'm not local to WDW and I personally hate FastPass+ for being yet another thing I have to schedule, and day of, it's a thing that puts me on a clock. I get that some people get super into the planning and the pre-planning but when I'm on vacation I want to be on vacation. I follow enough plans and schedules everywhere else in my life, let me roll out of my Disney bed in the Disney resort and decide where I'm going based on which bus shows up first or what mood strikes me while I'm drinking my coffee or whatever. This isn't even incompatible with Park Pass or whatever that mutates into in 2022/2023, so long as they hold some amount of capacity to release day of to on-property guests. I'm certain I'm not the only person who thinks this way.
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Jul 7, 2021 00:09
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Successful Student posted:Well, I'm not local to WDW and I personally hate FastPass+ for being yet another thing I have to schedule, and day of, it's a thing that puts me on a clock. I get that some people get super into the planning and the pre-planning but when I'm on vacation I want to be on vacation. I follow enough plans and schedules everywhere else in my life, let me roll out of my Disney bed in the Disney resort and decide where I'm going based on which bus shows up first or what mood strikes me while I'm drinking my coffee or whatever. If you could go day-of and get restaurant reservations for stuff you actually want to go to, I'd agree wholeheatedly.
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Jul 7, 2021 00:14
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alg posted:Is it possible people against FastPass are locals who can just skip rides with long waits? I want to ride stuff like Everest, Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog, etc every trip so I'm just force to wait if they don't bring it back Every person who has ever operated a Fastpass attraction (and also cares enough about their job to pay attention and ask questions) such as myself will tell you that Fastpass is almost completely detrimental to the theme park experience, but is beneficial to Disney. It allows Disney to manipulate crowd flow, keep queues and seats filled, and (in theory) allows for slightly more time spending money in shops and restaurants. This is the whole reason it was made free in the first place. People like it because of the illusion that you are "skipping the long standby line." The reality, however, is that you are using a virtual queuing/reservation system that the vast majority of any popular attraction's riders also used. Disney distributes enough Fastpasses to account for 80% of each attraction's hourly capacity. This is also a rolling number in 5 minute increments, so instead of there being a constant, steady, manageable flow of Fastpass users entering the Fastpass queue, it often gets slammed with a huge surge, resulting in 90-95% or sometimes even 100% of the attraction's seats devoted to Fastpass users, which completely grinds the standby line to a halt - something that would not happen with only one line. Nothing is worse than standing in a line that isn't moving or ends up being way longer than posted because of a surge of Fastpass users. You simply cannot feed two lines, while giving huge priority to one, into a fixed capacity attraction without resulting in artificially inflating the other line. Another argument people often make is that "those Fastpass users would just be in the standby line anyway and the result would be the same wait time", but this is also false. Having a second line with higher priority results in more people riding before you when you queue up in a standby line than would be physically possible with only one line. Fastpass+ also further complicated things because of advanced booking ensuring that the Fastpass bookings are fully utilized regardless of how busy the park actually is. With the old legacy paper ticket system, you would, say, arrive in the morning, grab a Fastpass for the most popular attraction, and queue up for another attraction with a short wait. But, with Fastpass+, you arrive at the park already having a Fastpass for both, so both attractions now have a more artificially inflated standby line. What it boils down to is: when Fastpass is in use, you MUST use it to experience the same number of attractions you would if it wasn't offered. Those who don't use it are experiencing less. With Fastpass+, this means a lot of extra work, including in advance, to experience what you would if it didn't exist. Some, but what amounts to a very small percentage of guests, know enough about the Fastpass system to game it and can experience slightly more than average. This, however, involves a lot of extra strategy and planning in advance as well as constantly checking the app while you're in the park. As both a local and having worked with troubleshooting the system I know how to game it very well, but given the choice I would rather not have to do that at all and not worry about it, than either do it or experience less. e: tl;dr: basically, you have to use a Fastpass to skip the artificially inflated, overly long line that Fastpass created. SweetMercifulCrap! fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jul 7, 2021 |
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Jul 7, 2021 01:01
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I have to wonder if a lot of that crowd flow thing wouldn't work itself out automatically if they just had a single line for every ride and then put up discreet monitors everywhere showing current wait times for all the rides.
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Jul 7, 2021 02:31
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SweetMercifulCrap! posted:Every person who has ever operated a Fastpass attraction (and also cares enough about their job to pay attention and ask questions) such as myself will tell you that Fastpass is almost completely detrimental to the theme park experience, but is beneficial to Disney. It allows Disney to manipulate crowd flow, keep queues and seats filled, and (in theory) allows for slightly more time spending money in shops and restaurants. This is the whole reason it was made free in the first place. 110% accurate. Despite all of the COVID protocols in place, I had like 10% of the issues I'd normally have working attractions after reopening because 90% of the issues were related to Fastpass either directly or indirectly.
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Jul 7, 2021 02:43
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Roadie posted:I have to wonder if a lot of that crowd flow thing wouldn't work itself out automatically if they just had a single line for every ride and then put up discreet monitors everywhere showing current wait times for all the rides. Universal has this. Disney sort of does - each park has a main tipboard near the center of the park with wait time information. Both resorts also have the wait times updates on their respective apps. It's not always the best thing though as a guest. As soon as a popular attraction posts a low wait time on a busy day, half the park stampedes to it and it shoots right back up. By the time you get to it, the line might be long again.
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Jul 7, 2021 02:55
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alg posted:Is it possible people against FastPass are locals who can just skip rides with long waits? I want to ride stuff like Everest, Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog, etc every trip so I'm just force to wait if they don't bring it back I have not been to the parks in 13 years. I have been going since 1987 though and have a very long memory, aided in part by my Dad recording everything onto tapes back then. But ever since FastPass appeared the impact on walkways and benches at Disneyland, where we don’t have nearly as much space as the Orlando parks, has been severe. If anything, locals seem to like FP because it creates this subculture of knowledge on how to exploit it in ways tourists just passing through are never going to use.
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Jul 7, 2021 03:18
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Resort news officially opening back up for rest of 2021 Starting tomorrow for booking All Star Music opens sept 16 Riverside oct 16 POFQ oct 28 Sports dec 9
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Jul 7, 2021 22:18
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If I needed to get a a one night stay for 9 people who are heading to EPCOT only for that single day visit, should I pick for them 3 Pop Century rooms -600.15 total 9ppl Key West Villa-647.33 total They say they'd be at the park most of the day, so creature comforts doesn't sound necessary. I just don't know which is faster to get to and from each hotel to the park and back; Pop has the gondola but its the last stop to get to EPCOT.
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Jul 8, 2021 01:09
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Kind of depends on the family break down to me. Are they the kind of people who would want to all be in the same room?
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Jul 8, 2021 01:29
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Braksgirl posted:Kind of depends on the family break down to me. Are they the kind of people who would want to all be in the same room? All are Adult cousins who still get together and sleepover at one another homes every once and a while for a birthday or other celebration. They are going to Epcot for food and wine to celebrate a birthday together. Only one out of the nine am I worried about having a go on trying a drink around the world but he's a cheapskate and doesn't know disney prices. As previously stated they said they'd spend the whole day at the park since its one day only before the scatter to the four winds once more.It's happening in August so who knows if the oppressive weather will make them reconsider. Like being the tech support of a family, I'm the "Disney expert" for them and they asked for advice.
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Jul 8, 2021 03:28
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I think Pop is the way to go here but I really enjoy the skyliner and the resort. The location of the resort isn't really going to make a lot of difference for one day. Save the money and do Pop, I say.
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Jul 8, 2021 03:52
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I don’t see dropping FP+ working well in WDW given how hotel driven it is. Some of the suites at Paris got a fancy unlimited FP as a perk. This perk has been dropped with this new system and the reception as already been frosty.
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Jul 8, 2021 16:46
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Wasn't Paris running in the red for the longest time now? Then I realized in 2017 Disney bought majority stakes for the park and it's the Bobs up to their old games. I'm 50/50 on whether they do away with free FP or not right now. Braksgirl posted:I think Pop is the way to go here but I really enjoy the skyliner and the resort. The location of the resort isn't really going to make a lot of difference for one day. Save the money and do Pop, I say. My worst free comes true- I have to talk on the phone with customer service to be able to book three rooms at once.
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Jul 8, 2021 18:09
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Unless you buy front-of-line pass as a very expensive addon, FP doesn't actually do anything. Any benefit you save in an FP line is usually lost by every non-FP ride having a line stuffed full of people waiting for their FP time. Standby queues are excruciatingly slow, and at Disneyland CA's little carnival-style Fantasyland it often means dark rides with queues packed full of people with Pan or IASW or Matterhorn passes. It's amazing that we've made it to 2021 and people still think free FP for all benefits anyone. It only provides any benefit if some percentage of tourists find it too confusing or irritatingly structured and don't take advantage of it, giving up their leverage to the Orlando Commandos and all the while sitting in long standby queues that go nowhere while watching people breeze past them. Fastpass was made by a person who was very good at math. But not at theme park operations, or staffing, or customer service. They have to invest human effort into making sure that the people in the FP queue have a phone or a paper ticket or whatever with an FP that's due right now, which is way more human effort than they put into making sure unmasked guests are vaccinated. In this era that just about kills it right there. At least the "I'm rich and the rules don't apply to me" pass requires nothing more than asking a ride operator to double as greeter, which they're already doing for DASH users. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 8, 2021 |
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Jul 8, 2021 18:32
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FastPass owns, I hope they keep it.
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Jul 9, 2021 02:21
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I think I will welcome the death of fastpass+ so that I am no longer compelled to walk around the park constantly refreshing MDE to get a fastpass for the attraction I’m walking to. Or scouring forums and podcasts for tips about when flight of passage releases extra fastpasses day of. (I think it was 11 am?) It felt cool to be in the know but it also kinda sucked.
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Jul 9, 2021 02:25
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Dren posted:I think I will welcome the death of fastpass+ so that I am no longer compelled to walk around the park constantly refreshing MDE to get a fastpass for the attraction I’m walking to. Or scouring forums and podcasts for tips about when flight of passage releases extra fastpasses day of. (I think it was 11 am?) Agreed. I realized I was spending more time in FP queues refreshing for the next FP than I was talking with my group or appreciating the ride/queue atmosphere.
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Jul 9, 2021 02:45
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I can't imagine Disney will ever do away with Fast Pass entirely. Like, at worst it'll be paid or just for on-site guests right? Whatever. Im just happy to be in a park. Unrelated: the Jungle Cruise movie really feels like the Mummy
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Jul 9, 2021 04:21
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BlueBayou posted:Unrelated: the Jungle Cruise movie really feels like the Mummy I was thinking more a rehash of pirates of the Caribbean, but Mummy sounds fine too. In fact, I'll welcome a rehash of Mummy.
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Jul 9, 2021 06:35
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SweetMercifulCrap! posted:e: tl;dr: basically, you have to use a Fastpass to skip the artificially inflated, overly long line that Fastpass created. Vertical integration: sell the problem, then sell the solution.
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Jul 10, 2021 02:52
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Here's my ideal, no lines only online virtual queue
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Jul 10, 2021 04:40
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couldcareless posted:I was thinking more a rehash of pirates of the Caribbean, but Mummy sounds fine too. In fact, I'll welcome a rehash of Mummy. 
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Jul 10, 2021 05:11
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Jul 10, 2021 05:15
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Junkie Disease posted:Here's my ideal, no lines only online virtual queue FastPass, but on the blockchain.
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Jul 10, 2021 05:34
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Junkie Disease posted:Here's my ideal, no lines only online virtual queue It's a bad idea for a few reasons: 1. There still has to be at least some queue anyway to ensure enough people are actually there to fill the seats 2. Evenly spreads demand for the attraction across the operating day, potentially removing the possibility of short waits or walk-ons in the evening. 3. Without people in the queues, all the walkways, shops, and restaurants would become unbearable and they already get pretty ridiculous.
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Jul 10, 2021 06:08
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SweetMercifulCrap! posted:It's a bad idea for a few reasons: You have to show up 15 minutes prior. Boom, done.
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Jul 10, 2021 14:12
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Junkie Disease posted:Here's my ideal, no lines only online virtual queue How is volcano bay these days anyway? The only news I heard about it after it opened and was electrocuting people people was when it paralyzed that guy because they built the splashdown pool too short. Neither of which are related to the 100% virtual queue (hopefully) but it made me think of it.
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Jul 10, 2021 14:58
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Boxman posted:How is volcano bay these days anyway? The only news I heard about it after it opened and was electrocuting people people was when it paralyzed that guy because they built the splashdown pool too short. We went back in Mid-May and had a blast. It wasn't too crowded, the virtual queue worked well and the weather was nice. Overall, a very good experience. No electrocutions or paralyzations.
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Jul 10, 2021 15:24
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