In hindsight, we didn’t end up needing to stay on property at all if I hadn’t had an annual pass.
Originally, we had planned to rent a house off site, like we always do. But then it seemed to me that Disney was going to give preference to on-site guests getting into the parks, so I cancelled our rental home and booked us on-site. This ultimately, even with AP discount, cost us at least twice as much.
But then, there ended up being plenty of availability in the parks for just plain ticket holders. I would have switched us to off site again if it wasn’t for the fact that I had an AP…and AP holders who are not staying on site could only book 3 parks at a time, max. Not very helpful. This forced my hand.
So, aside from the AP, we could have saved ourselves a ton of money by staying off site without any real loss of privileges.
If fp is going away, they’re going to need to do something to solve the “in the line, not in the stores” issue that fp was created to solve.
There’s also the issue that all or most new rides were built with fpp intended (like mfsr and Rise)
Virtual queues I’m all for (…so long as they don’t all go in 12 seconds like Rise), but I also don’t want to wait an hour in an actual queue after getting into a virtual queue (which is something that happens with Rise).
Registering for a park is not gonna be enough and lowering capacity is going to do nothing but impact their bottom line.
And if you need to register to go to a different park before going to that park mid-day, I foresee a lot forgoing that because of the hassle and uncertainty of being able to get back to where you came from. Which, brings us right back to the main problem: the registration thing is far too constrained.
My family likes EMH (morning) and the extra FP time is nice. We could get a lot done in that extra hour in the morning with low crowds. With both gone, I see no reason to stay on property when I could get a 7 bedroom condo with a pool for what a studio at Pop costs for the week. Disney transportation is not reliable so I don’t consider that much of a perk. Magical express is nice.
Emh hasn’t had low crowds in my experience. The only one I ever noticed was hs during the opening of Rise. But even then…still a ton of people.
But I agree, even if those perks weren’t amazing, if they’re gone, there’s no reason to stay on site. Because disney transportation isn’t even exclusive to on site guests. Everyone can use them.
We go during low crowd times so that might be the difference. Even during the busiest part of the day the crowds are too bad. In January the EMH was useful at MK. HS was still a disaster even getting there before 7 am to get a BG. We didn’t use it for EP or AK.
FP+ did not achieve what they wanted. And many rides now have much longer average wait times thanks to FP+ than they did before. Disney have access to all the data that Len and his team here on TP have, and they can see this for themselves. They also know that those who know the system get far more FPs than other guests.
If the number of Fastpasses issued was cut to 20% of capacity rather than 80%, most people would wait for far less time to ride.
I assume that when you say rides were built designed for FPs, you mean the double queues. Those can still be used as they are right now for DAS and the small number of people with Fastpasses.
Not sure what you mean by “getting back to where you came from”. How many people seriously go from park A to park B and then back to park A in a day? On the other hand, booking to go to Epcot before you leave DHS isn’t a great inconvenience. In fact at least you know you can get in.
Things are going to change. and the fastpass system we knew before (ie FP+) is almost certainly not coming back. I liked FP+, I liked knowing we would be able to do our favourite rides & attractions. We’re not rope droppers and so preferred it to the legacy FP system for that reason. But actually, every trip we’ve had to WDW has been with a different system. And the last time I had already gleaned all the knowledge I had about FP+ from forums without first hand experience of it. So whatever replaces it, I’m sure liners will soon have all the tips they need to benefit from it!
Only one counter point: Location, location, location.
Being able to walk to a park is a perk that you cannot get without being on site. The only way to not have to rely on some form of transportation is to walk. This has proven key to us more than once. Granted we haven’t been since the mess that is 2020 happened, but in many debates in the past it has tipped the scales to paying more (aka exorbitant Disney rates).
This is true. And I think Disney could handle park-hopping, in at least the short term, this way. Perhaps you won’t be allowed to pre-book your park hop. But if you are in HS in the morning, you might be allowed to then book a second park-pass on the same day at another park. Once you are in that park, if you really wanted to, you could then book a third park-pass for the same day. It would definitely help things.
Of course, the downside to that methodology could be in ADRs. So perhaps pre-booking a hop would be needed. The question is how Disney would handle those who tie-up reservations for a hop that they ultimately decide to skip? Then again, maybe it wouldn’t matter if they had some time cut-off…like, you can’t hop until 2:00 in the afternoon or something?
The park hopping for ADRs was still a gamble though, pre-Covid.
When we booked dinner in MK for Christmas Eve, and left the park in the afternoon, we took a gamble that we would get back in. (I know it isn’t park hopping but the premise was the same). Now as onsite guests we would have been last to be denied re-entry. So the chances were reasonable we would be able to make dinner. But there were no guarantees.
Same applied to park hopping. If you book dinner at Epcot but started at AK that day, you were gambling on getting into Epcot. If Epcot was full (it has happened once I believe), then hard luck. I suspect Guest Services would cancel the no-show charge for the ADR in that case too.
Thinking about this a bit more…actually, here is how I could see it. You can PRE-BOOK a second park (park-hop) if you have park-hoppers (or are an AP), AND you have an ADR booked. If you cancel your ADR, the pre-booked park hop would be cancelled. All others, you have to depend on same-day park-hop booking. Am I missing any obvious flaws?
Eh, doubtful. The whole crux of the argument of FP “slowing things” down is that it removed a full queue. Which whether you have 80%, 20%, or 5% FP, you still have FPs who need to be separated ad have their own queues which still has the problem remain.
Which would be fine for those new rides…what about the ones that didn’t have special queues made? So only 3-4 rides get fast passes? While I’d be personally ok with that, not sure it’d be globally accepted.
A lot of people. It was the whole point of my original comment: Park Hopping to get dinner in another park.
Which is only half the issue. If I’m wanting to pop over to Epcot for dinner at Monsieur Paul while i’m waiting for my BG for Rise to come up in another 4 hours, I am going to pass on it because what happens if HS is now at capacity while I’m in Epcot?
Same. If nothing else it guaranteed 2 rides.
If you can do park hopping like a progression, that’d work. For example, you register months ahead for MK (like we do now), then you get to mk on the day, register for epcot while in MK and you can go, but your current park reservation never goes away and you can get back. So it eliminates the whole worry.
Very true. Walking to a park on a nice morning is the stuff of dreams. But it is it enough to pay $700 a night?
Agree. We have a trip booked for May 2021 for 6 people, 2 rooms booked at ASMo. I already have our park reservations. If we go, I’m seriously considering moving us off-site. The only perk is the Magical Express at this point. And maybe ADRs? But I could cancel my rooms after booking ADRs. I wouldn’t feel bad about that considering that this is a rebooked trip from May 2020 and then October 2020. I’ve already been dealing with this mess since March/April 2020.
Oh. True. Forgot about ADRs as an onsite benefit. You get 60+length of stay for ADRs, otherwise just 60 days. Right now, it might not matter so much unless you are particular about getting exactly what you want. But if you are okay with alternative options, perhaps it isn’t such a big deal. If Disney starts to increase capacity (and doesn’t simultaneously open up more of the TS places), it might start to become more cut-throat!
I don’t see the ADRs as a huge benefit. I had more success using reservation finder. I was able to change times for BOG and AP several times until I found the perfect time. I wasn’t even able to get these initially when ADRs opened up, even with the extra days being on property.
Of course, one advantage of staying OFF property is that you can choose to eat anywhere you want, including in the rental itself, saving even more money. If you stay on property, without a car, you can’t do that so easily.
