Got my fast passes today with the help of a leading reservation! (changed from throwaway room)

If you go back a few pages, that’s being discussed in this thread. Amongst other things! :joy:

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Seems like it’s gone live!

To my mind this is a good thing and strikes just the right balance. I think with most of this forum the opinion that taking a reservation just to get FPP advantage and then cancelling it was pretty shady. I’m going to be absolutely fascinated to watch what this does to 60 day availability!

Wow, this thread is still going on…

TBH, I have always been amazed by the amount of righteous indignation that this practice stirs up. I think that it is important to consider why people do leading reservations in the first place.

Remember, back in the day FPs were part of buying a ticket and were equally available on the day to all guests, and those guests who planned and were willing to zoom around the park were able to get a big benefit because of their efforts. With the advent of FPP, certain guests (those staying on-site) were given a massive advantage by being able to book at 60 days out, and off-site guests were left to fight for the scraps at 30 days out.

IMO, it is a reaction to the increasing monetization of the WDW experience, where things that were formerly free and/or equally available to all guests are put behind a paywall. Stick it to the Man!

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Lol! Stick it to the man! Thanks for the flashback this morning @brklinck. For about five minutes I wasn’t “old as dirt”.

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See - this is the capitalist in me. The person who worked the hardest got the prize. Study hard, make an effort, and get good grades, er, I mean get fast passes.

FP+ is the kindler, gentler system that makes it nice for everyone to get their three fast passes - whether they understand what they are reserving or not.

It never was really about evening the playing field though. It was really about ride rationing, and the data science that would allow them to change staffing patterns. It can’t truly be dissected from the whole MDX which was never about the guest experience, but fully about calculating the movement of guests and establishing a way to stop truly low-crowd-walk-on-“quieter”-days in the parks. Brilliant from their end.

But -yes- those who were willing to study up and try harder looked for better ways to get a strong ROI.

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I changed the title on this from throwaway room to leading reservation, which is more fitting.

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For all those interested I found this Disney Dish episode the other day on the invention of the fastpass, it’s absolutely fascinating!

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I think I need to insert this picture into about every other work e-mail. It says so much, yet cracks me up every time.

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It seems some people at the chat are already reporting that their rolling window is not opening up. Maybe this is the real deal.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

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I saw that, but wasn’t the person reporting it actually trying too early? They didn’t seem to have made allowance for their initial days to have cleared before they hit the rolling 60. But watching with interest.
Looks like I got mine just in time with the one day campsite booking. All still intact.

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I still have 60 day FPP access showing in MDE despite not having a matching onsite stay (just a previous one for the stay). So at the moment it’s not clear what’s happening.

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My fast passes still there. In tact. Only two days worth but still there.

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That’s how I read it. It looks like they were trying to early. I think tomorrow will be the telling day. People with AP’s will be able to work through it and see if there are any loopholes. I think they are going to close everything on the Disney side. The real question is will they be able to have their coding see if a Disney Springs hotel that booked 60 day fastpasses is still valid or canceled.

I think right now they are targeting the off site crowd. Those like myself who still have a Disney reservation but used a fake leading reservation to open up the fp window early will still be an issue.

Yeah, I have to think it is those who just flat out cancel a reservation with nothing linked. We shall see…

The leading reservations are going to be much harder to fix because it’s such a legitimate situation compared to just checking if someone’s booked and cancelled completely. They risk hurting ‘normal’ guests.
The thing I’m fascinated to see is if they stop the 60 day rolling bookings, that’ll be a game changer on various fronts.

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I agree with SimonUK. I can’t see how they would penalize ppl for modifying their reservation dates. They would need to make clear changes to their reservation polices before implementing.

It really isn’t, when you think about it for a while. I know I went round in circles, but worked how how they could stop the leading reservations situation.

But the rolling 60 day window currently keeps on going right until you check out. So on your last actual day at the resort, you can still book 60 days ahead, if you have a ticket linked.

That is easy to stop. The rolling window would stop when the open window reached your last day onsite, instead of the booking day reaching your last day.

I can see if you cancel a separate leading reservation but not modify an existing room reservation.