Nope. They wouldn’t. I’ve modeled it out. It is essentially a wash.
FPPs do exactly what they are intended to…make you THINK they are saving you time. That’s it. But it does so quite successfully.
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I’ve seen it claimed before and I think it makes sense, but why specifically is this the case?
Our models differ then. Lines for things like SM, 7DMT, BTMR would be significantly longer. Lines for things like HM, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Small World, etc would be shorter. Overall it’s a wash if you do all attractions in a day. But if you do all the headliners plus a selection of the lower tier rides, you come out ahead with FP. FP has the result of spreading the waits.
It also takes people from the busier parts of the day and spreads out the utilization of attractions to less busy times of day. So overall it reduces wait times for everyone because it spreads things around.
same number of people, same number of rides. It has to average out. Some people will wait more, some less depending on your choice of rides. Unless people choose to spend less time in the parks than they otherwise would.
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There are a lot of nuances to this, but I’ll try to summarize.
- It is still true that any specific individual may benefit or be harmed by FPP depending on what they utilize, but overall, the wait times are a wash.
- The average wait time for the rides are primarily dictated by the ride’s hourly capacity. As such, if a ride can handle 1000 riders/hour, then in an hour, 1000 guests ride it. Makes sense. Having FPP does not in any way magically increase the number of riders per hour.
- If a person obtains a FPP for a ride, it is absolutely true that FOR THAT RIDE, they have a significant reduction in wait time. But, since one only gets three FPPs (unless they known how to take advantage of same-day addtional FPPs), the remainder of their waits will actually be LONGER because they have to use Stand-By.
- Stand-by times have greatly INCREASED because of the introduction of FPP. This is because (based on estimates) anywhere from 4 to 10 people get on a ride from the FPP line ahead of each person from the SB line. This means that the time it takes a SB line 100 people deep is the same as the same line would take without FPP 400+ people deep. Put another way, even though the SB line is shorter in length, the time standing in line is actually significantly longer!
- If a ride is able to keep up with demand in terms of capacity, then having a FPP offers no benefit. No gain/loss. So such scenarios don’t play any significance in the “balance”. You could get a FPP for such a ride, but you save little to nothing in wait time, and the SB line is increased by little to nothing.
- When someone who knows how to take advantage of same-day FPPs does so, they are contributing to adding overall wait time to those ride’s SB line (unless the point in number 5 applies, in which case, the FPP was of no benefit to anyone). This means that every time someone uses a FPP, it is to the detriment of someone else. So, again, it ends up a wash overall, even if a specific individual it benefited them.
- Attrractions that have effectively “infinite capacity” play no significant role in the calculation of the advantage of the FPP system because the FPP neither benefits them nor harms those in SB. It is a practical wash automatically. The best one can say is having a FPP for such attractions is an artificial means to shift crowds to something that person might not otherwise do.
Here are some takeaways:
- FPPs are here to stay, so even though they mathematically ultimately offer no actual benefit for the average guest, it would be silly for someone to NOT use them as much as they can in order to keep the overall balance in check.
- Some individuals will find that using FPPs strategically can still put them at a slight advantage. It is especially true for guests who don’t plan to necessarily ride much of anything EXCEPT the rides they have FPPs for.
- Ultimately, it is important to realize that any advantage you get using an FPP ultimately negatively impacts those in the SB line. You, as an individual, might only be adding, say, 20 seconds to the wait of those in SB, but for every individual using the FPP, those 20 seconds keep adding up.
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where is this coming from? That’s 80-90% capacity dedicated to FPP. That seems awfully high. My personal limited experience would have pegged it closer to 50-50.
What Ryan says is pretty much what I’ve always heard. It’s certainly nowhere near 50/50.
Some examples (the first from easyWDW and the others just randomers repeating what CMs have told them).
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It varies wildly, not only by ride, but park capacity. I’m just using that as an illustrative example. It doesn’t really matter if it is 50:50, 90:10, etc.
I always take anecdotal reports with a grain of salt. somebody who’s mad about waiting in a
Long line is not going to give an accurate report. The person who reports they were told 100:1 ratio, really? Who would believe that? I’ve been in the FPP line plenty of times where i had to stand and wait for lots of SB to go through.
I haven’t looked at ride capacities in a while but I might have to dig it up just to convince myself.
It is kind of up to the CM how to handle it. I’ve seen it done where a CM lets everyone from FP line go through until there is no one there, then lets SB people through. I’ve seen it done where a CM seems to be counting people, then once they hit some unknown number, switch over to SB and let X number of people go before switching back. I’ve seen it where a CM seems to alternate more often, but favoring the FP line.
The biggest thing for the CM is that they can’t let the FP line back up very much, otherwise it stops being a FP line.
Years ago, when I paid explicit attention on PPF, the ratio appeared to be about 20:4…meaning, they let about 20 FP people through for every family unit (averaging around 4).
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So there’s some false assumptions here and some incorrect logic. I’ll try to address point-by-point.
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Overall wait times for any given individual who makes use of the 3 FastPasses they are allotted are reduced by the delta between the standby wait time and their fastpass wait time for the three attractions they have FPs for. This will be illustrated below.
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You are correct, hourly capacity does not change as a result of FPP. But it does remove people from the standby line and replace them with people in the FastPass “virtual line”.
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Their wait times will not be longer because standby wait times are not longer. See Point # 4.
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This is the biggest incorrect assumption. Standby times have not increased at all, on average, since the introduction of FPP. Touring Plans has done the analysis on this, and standby times are virtually the same (once you adjust for increased crowds). They go up for a few attractions, go down for a few, and stay the same for most. This is because, as you stated, capacity is fixed. But this is also because ridership is fixed. For a moment, let’s assume an attraction has a capacity of 1000 pph (people per hour). In the old pre-FP days, if the line had 1000 people in it, and a person got at the end of the line, the wait would be an hour. Now let’s assume (for this argument) that FPP is introduced with a 50/50 split. Now, of those 1000 people, 500 were able to obtain FPs for that hour. So they are not in the standby line, they are virtually in line and can return during their FP window. That means there’s 500 people now in the standby line. But since 1 FP person is going through for every person in standby, it takes the 500 people in standby a full hour before the last person in line gets to ride. So the standby line physically moves slower, but the wait time remains virtually the same. Again, this is proven by the wait time data that TouringPlans has and the analysis that they have done on that data from before FPP and after.
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This is true, but there are few cases where this is an issue anymore due to increased crowds. There are virtually no attractions that are able to keep up with demand (which would mean 0min wait time).
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Due to point #4, since everyone gets 3 FPPs, then everyone gets three rides where they get to wait in a virtual line and save on wait times for those three rides. Since standby is on average the same and not increased, the total time an individual saves waiting in line per day is SUM(standby wait - FP+ wait) for the three attractions they have FPPs for. Now, you’re correct in that people who get additional FPs are offsetting the base case here - but that number tends to be negligable, and there is also a set of people who don’t use FPP at all, so it ends up balancing out. But this is all based on the data that shows that standby lines are roughly the same since FPP was introduced.
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Valid point, no argument on that one.
From your takeaways:
- Mathematically, they do offer a benefit to the average guest. They offer more benefit to the guest who uses more than 3, and less benefit (but not negative benefit) to those who don’t use them.
- Yes, using FPP strategically can put someone at a significant advantage. On my solo trip in May, I avoided a 115 minute line, a 90 minute line, a 60 minute line, a 45 minute line, and a 15 minute line. I waited in a 25 minute line in standby, waited 5 minutes at one attraction, and waited 5 minutes for a show. I think that was more than just a slight advantage.
- Again, it doesn’t impact the standby line negatively because a fixed-capacity system. There are only so many FPPs allocated. It only negatively impacts the standby line if the FP capacity would go underutilized otherwise.
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In the thread they mentioned why, it wasn’t that it’s always 100-1, there had been a massive influx of FPs for some reason so they were trying to get them through.
I’ve read 80% FP several times, and that’s what I was looking for but I can’t remember where I read it. Josh at WDW is a good source though, not anecdotal as he has based it on regular visits to the parks. And what he reports is certainly in line with what I’ve seen.
I may be off base here, but since they are in virtual line, can’t they now go be in a standby line that they would not have otherwise had the chance to be in? Therefore adding to standby waits?
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Yes. But TP analysis does reflect what @mikejs78 said - standby waits are generally shorter at headliners and generally longer at other attractions than before FPP, so overall it balances out.
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Shall we discuss Dumbo in the summer with ONE set of elephants and no shade over the line??
Yep. We did it in the early 80s because my sister HAD to do it. First ride at Disney. Over an hour in line.
And amazingly we are all still fans.
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Exactly. There’s also the fact that not everyone who has a pending FP does this. Many do other things - shop, eat, etc (which was part of the goal of FPP). It tends to balance out.
If anything it probably has led to longer lines at stores and restaurants. So now we have FP for food (mobile ordering).
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I’ve done that. Truly painful.
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I’ve never done Dumbo. I might try to do it this trip. Though probably on my own as I don’t think DS14 will go for it!
Okay, forget FPP, this is what we should be talking about!
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