Paid FP options coming soon to WDW?

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I really hope they don't make boarding groups a permanent thing. It's ridiculous to force people to get up at the break of dawn if they want to ride a popular ride.
I echo that. And that's coming from early risers...were up by 7 on saturday without an alarm when there's nothing going on haha. That's why I like paid fast passes; just roll out the same paid system that universal, cedar fair, and I'm sure every other park, uses.
 
Why not make it like every other theme park and just have an express pass? No booking times for queues just go in the fast pass line. Do it like Universal and make it free for guests at certain resorts and ones staying at lower resorts get a discount. For everyone else make it a cost of $80. High enough to discourage people from buying it.
I agree with the sentiment, though disagree with pricing structure. Where you stay should be decoupled from ride access...everyone should be able to pay, say, double the price and get 8 fast passes. Where resort category comes into play is booking window...80 days for dvc/golden oak, 70 days for pass holders staying on property, 60 days for deluxe, 50 days for moderate, 30 days for value, 20 days for pass holders, 10 days for offsite. Nobody has to fight at rope drop, nobody who wants to sleep in has to get up...people would get what they pay for instead of what they think they're entitled to.
 
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I've got to agree with this one. I know a lot of people don't like pre-planning their vacations, but no one says you have to. Either way, 60 days in advance is not a long time, and I feel like most bookings are before the fastpass window opens.

Personally, I very much prefer knowing that I have 3 FP already booked, and am guaranteed to get on 3 rides of my choosing (unless they go down during the day). It's much less stressful day-of for me. Even if I don't get all of the rides I want on FP+, knowing that I have most of them allows me to focus specifically on the one that I'm missing for rope drop, or before park close. Removing the 3 pre-booked FP would just lead to more anxiety about "missing out" during my actual trip, and that's a lot less enjoyable for me.

Edited to add: I don't think Disney would ever go straight for a "pay-to-win" model like Universal or Six Flags. At least, I hope they wouldn't. They still maintain some semblance of "fairness" - everyone can still book FastPasses, ADRs, etc. without paying. There are partial benefits and certainly paid alternatives like Club Level or Dining/Dessert Parties that give special access, but they're not exclusive - Club Level just gives more FastPasses and Dessert Parties just give a nicer area to shows that are already fully accessible.
Though this is completely fine with me too. I'd prefer to have a paid option, but am fine with no changes to the system.
 
Though this is completely fine with me too. I'd prefer to have a paid option, but am fine with no changes to the system.
From the rumors that are out there FP+ might be a thing of the past. Looks like they might be going to a day of FP like it used to be as well as a paid option. I for one in favor of Disney going to a less planning vacation.
 


Why not make it like every other theme park and just have an express pass? No booking times for queues just go in the fast pass line. Do it like Universal and make it free for guests at certain resorts and ones staying at lower resorts get a discount. For everyone else make it a cost of $80. High enough to discourage people from buying it.

Likely because Disney (past Disney, before limited park capacity became part of our conversation) doesn’t have ride capacity for this to work properly. Each park has a small handful of attractions people would flood (especially if this thing was unlimited), and you’d have significant wait times in the express line. It’s why we have tiers in 3 of the 4 parks. And the booked times help keep the waits steady throughout the day. Have you ever seen what happens to the FP line of a ride that sees some downtime and has a bunch of people wanting to use their anytime FP to get back on? They can be crazy long.

$80 is laughably low for anytime access. No offence. They charge $50 per person for a minimum of I believe 3 days on top of a club level stay for 3 booked fastpasses. They charge literally thousands for the closest thing to an anytime unlimited FP, a VIP tour guide who among other things is primarily a human fastpass.

Just picking up what Universal does with express pass (or other parks) and plopping it in Disney doesn’t work. It would have to be so limited that most people (and most DISers) either wouldn’t qualify with their stay, couldn’t afford it, or couldn’t justify its cost. The timed entry aspect, booked day of or X number of days out, is something I think needs to stick around except for a very small minority of guests.

(PS jumping into this “old” kind of Disney debate is nice)
 
Likely because Disney (past Disney, before limited park capacity became part of our conversation) doesn’t have ride capacity for this to work properly. Each park has a small handful of attractions people would flood (especially if this thing was unlimited), and you’d have significant wait times in the express line. It’s why we have tiers in 3 of the 4 parks. And the booked times help keep the waits steady throughout the day. Have you ever seen what happens to the FP line of a ride that sees some downtime and has a bunch of people wanting to use their anytime FP to get back on? They can be crazy long.

$80 is laughably low for anytime access. No offence. They charge $50 per person for a minimum of I believe 3 days on top of a club level stay for 3 booked fastpasses. They charge literally thousands for the closest thing to an anytime unlimited FP, a VIP tour guide who among other things is primarily a human fastpass.

Just picking up what Universal does with express pass (or other parks) and plopping it in Disney doesn’t work. It would have to be so limited that most people (and most DISers) either wouldn’t qualify with their stay, couldn’t afford it, or couldn’t justify its cost. The timed entry aspect, booked day of or X number of days out, is something I think needs to stick around except for a very small minority of guests.

(PS jumping into this “old” kind of Disney debate is nice)
All I would love is for Disney to get away from the spreadsheet planning. Keep FP but turn it to day of.
 


I would hate going back to day-of FP. If you don't get up/to the park first thing you're SOL.
Exactly right. And even if you are up first thing in the morning, it's way more hectic.

I book my FP+ for about an hour after park open, which allows me to go rope drop what I really want. Taking away the FP+ means I then have to focus on rides that will end up with long lines later in the day, all while frantically booking my fastpasses as soon as they're available.
 
Exactly right. And even if you are up first thing in the morning, it's way more hectic.

I book my FP+ for about an hour after park open, which allows me to go rope drop what I really want. Taking away the FP+ means I then have to focus on rides that will end up with long lines later in the day, all while frantically booking my fastpasses as soon as they're available.
Just like every other theme park then.
 
Just like every other theme park then.
Disney parks, especially WDW as a whole, are not like other theme parks, and that's purposeful. You've stated many times that you don't care about theming, shows, and other features that differentiate Disney from other theme parks, but not everyone (and I'd bet a majority of Disney's guests) agree with you. People go to Disney because they want the Disney experience, not for it to be the same as every other theme or amusement park. If people want only to get on thrilling rides with minimal wait by paying extra, Six Flags and other amusement parks are around and very accessible.
 
That's a negative, not a positive.
I don't see that as a negative at all. I love being able to buy a fastpass to have a better chance of riding attractions multiple times in a day. What I would love to see the most at Disney is a way to be able to ride attractions multiple times in a day. If I want to ride Tower of Terror multiple times in a day plus other attractions I should be able to. With Disney's FP at this moment you really can't. I'm surprised so many are ok with riding an attraction once a day.
 
I don't see that as a negative at all. I love being able to buy a fastpass to have a better chance of riding attractions multiple times in a day. What I would love to see the most at Disney is a way to be able to ride attractions multiple times in a day. If I want to ride Tower of Terror multiple times in a day plus other attractions I should be able to. With Disney's FP at this moment you really can't. I'm surprised so many are ok with riding an attraction once a day.
For me at least, Disney isn't about riding as many attractions as possible in a day. I'm usually ok with riding each attraction once or twice on a trip. There are a couple exceptions to that, but they aren't the top tier rides. As others have said above, if I wanted to ride as many rides as possible, I would go to a traditional theme park.
 
I don't see that as a negative at all. I love being able to buy a fastpass to have a better chance of riding attractions multiple times in a day. What I would love to see the most at Disney is a way to be able to ride attractions multiple times in a day. If I want to ride Tower of Terror multiple times in a day plus other attractions I should be able to. With Disney's FP at this moment you really can't. I'm surprised so many are ok with riding an attraction once a day.

You definitely could before. ToT in particular was easy with a small bit of effort to keep grabbing near immediate FP for, especially before they tweaked DHS tiers right before everything closed.

And again, Disney has always had an unlimited “FP” available. The VIP tour guides. It costs thousands per day. So you could have paid for it.
 
I don't see that as a negative at all. I love being able to buy a fastpass to have a better chance of riding attractions multiple times in a day. What I would love to see the most at Disney is a way to be able to ride attractions multiple times in a day. If I want to ride Tower of Terror multiple times in a day plus other attractions I should be able to. With Disney's FP at this moment you really can't. I'm surprised so many are ok with riding an attraction once a day.


My husband and daughter rode ToT 6 times in a row during EMH in November. I went and met every character available.

Win win.
 
Why not make it like every other theme park and just have an express pass? No booking times for queues just go in the fast pass line. Do it like Universal and make it free for guests at certain resorts and ones staying at lower resorts get a discount. For everyone else make it a cost of $80. High enough to discourage people from buying it.
My guess is that Disney makes multitudes more money just off good neighbor hotels for the right to the 60 day window than they could ever make off a regular express pass system and that doesn’t include the premium it adds to the price of their own resorts.
 
Just like every other theme park then.
And that's the reason I don't go to other theme parks. FP+ works very well for a lot of people. That said, the rumors I've seen posted here- with AP's and/or onsite guests getting some pretty decent perks, we'll learn to work with whatever they choose to go with long term. I don't think what they're doing in the near future has much to do with what they'll do long term.
 
If I want to ride Tower of Terror multiple times in a day plus other attractions I should be able to. With Disney's FP at this moment you really can't. I'm surprised so many are ok with riding an attraction once a day.

For many people, there is more to WDW than just riding rides. You can ride anything you want as many times a day as you want. You just don't get a quick walk on every time- just like every other theme park. As for me, there are rides we like to ride multiple times but by using FP+ and by using rope drop, emh's, after hour events and park hopping, we manage to get in lots of rides on our favorites over the length of our stay.

And here I thought the old argument over a system long gone was...long gone. Silly me.
 
I would hate going back to day-of FP. If you don't get up/to the park first thing you're SOL.

What if you had to have a reservation for the park but not be up and in the park, starting at open? And you could only do one at a time....or one every X amount of time (and maybe exclude the shows--you could get them on top of your ride FP, like they do with MaxPass in CA).
 
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