My point is, things were not perfect without FP and I do think that the features in some of the queues are still needed. I don’t remember in any line, even at other amusement parks, continuing to walk through a queue without stopping and standing repeatedly while waiting. Unless of course you are at rope drop, at the end of the park day, or at an unpopular attraction.
Some queues, yes. But as I mentioned for this trip, where the lines were back to moving at the pace of ride capacity, we almost never stopped long enough to actually interact with anything.
In Peter Pan, for example, we got to walk through the new part of the queue where you see the kids’ bedroom, etc. But we were moving so fast I barely had time to actually at it or snap a photo. The time I tried, I ended up holding up the line!
So the interactive elements in those lines, without FP, really become worthless.
The lines where it becomes more useful are non-omnimover style rides where you have larger groups that are loaded at a time. In such cases, the line still moves overall faster, but you have more “stopping” moments. In such queues, having something to look at might be more beneficial.
Then what is your point, exactly?
Ah yeah ok, I misread the details. But the gist is still: you left A, went to B (wherever that was) and came back to A. So… my point still stands: A lot of people do this. (and no, my example was MK to Epcot to MK, which is a short monorail ride)
If you had to register for whatever B was and then REregister for A, but then A was at capacity and you couldn’t get back in, you’d miss out on whatever you had planned. So most people will, instead, NOT do this at all because they will not want to gamble on missing out on what they wanted to do. Thus making the Park Hopping a lot less flexible and ultimately not as desirable.
Those 10 people were in line the same time as you by way of virtually being there. That’s what FP is. It isn’t an addition to the queue numbers. It’s just hidden numbers until they tap in. So while the FPP line is moving like mad, and perceptually skipping the line, that’s technically an hour’s worth of queue, that was waiting, now moving all at once.
And it’s only a small percentage (coughLinerscough) that know how to work that in their favor.
And like Ryan said, if you removed FP all together, those 10 people would be in standby, physically, with you anyway. Only now you’re all standing in that exact line instead of 10 of you off somewhere else. It’s literally just shuffling around where people are doing their waiting.
I don’t think you would have to do this. You were already in A. Right now, you can come and go as you please with the park you have a park reservation for, and I don’t see that changing. Disney has no method of knowing when certain people leave. So, if you went to A, and the booked a hop over to B, you can return to A without having to rebook anything.
It seems the original idea of a brand new system that did away with FP+ and incorporated paid FPs might be superseded by a simpler (ie: cheaper) idea of just limit the numbers of people eligible to book / purchase FPs. It could be any of the ones you listed, or others, or just “first come, first served”. Or none of the above.
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On the other hand, I suppose if you tap into location B, Disney now knows you are no longer in A and might then “revoke” that park’s access rights???
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But they do have a method of knowing when you tap into the other park. Which is my worry: Tapping into Epcot kills my access to MK. So if I would want to go BACK to MK, I would need to reregister for it.
But if they keep the “MK door” open for me, I’m cool with that.
Cross posted!
Um. We are eerily on the same wavelength today. What’s up with that? I fear doomsday must be upon us! 
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Get.
Out.
Of.
My.
Head!!!
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I didn’t say we went anywhere, we just went back to our Bay Lake villa and then went resort hopping.
My point was we still took a chance we could get into the park for dinner. Which is the same as taking a chance that the second park you’re heading to has capacity.
There is currently no system to check that you can get into the second park. The park reservation system actually removes that uncertainty.
As for lines. The stand-by times for rides have increased since the introduction of FPs for those rides. TP data confirms this.
Totally unrelated…but have you watched The Umbrella Academy on Netflix? We just finished the second season. For some reason, you saying that made me think of it.
This is true…to a point. Because you have to AVERAGE the wait times for the FP and the standby lines to make a true comparision.
If the average standby wait for a ride was 30 minutes without FP, but now the average standby is 1 hour with FP…you still have the same number of people going on the ride in that 1 hour time period…only, HALF of the people have zero wait, which makes the average wait time…30 minutes! 
This is probably true while park capacity is low. When things ramp back up, if they dont bring back FP maybe they can use the space to create more interactive elements into the lines that typically have longer wait times.
Hmm. I guess I’m not explaining this well.
It doesn’t matter if the line is 2 hours long, or 2 minutes long. The rate the the line moves is (without FP involved) the same as the rate of the ride capacity.
So, having more people in line doesn’t mean they will have more time to stop and interact, because they will be moving just as quickly past those ride elements as the person who only has a 2 minute wait!
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Agreed.
If you book for park B at 3pm, it would delete park A from the system and you would have to rebook again if you want to return.
Unless you are doing this all in advance. But I see park hopping as being something you would have to book on the day. The park reservation system is built from the FP booking system. Adding functionality to it to allow park hopping to be pre-booked takes time and effort. You can delete and rebook using the existing system.
And there is only one extra step needed from the pre-Covid park hopping, which then guarantees you can get into the second park before you leave the first.
The main struggle I see however with a time-based booking to hop is that Disney can’t know when/if people will leave the park in time to free up that space. Which means, it really would have to be that there is real-time availability. You could fill up park B, for example, and then have 50% of the people leave by 3:00 pm…but Disney doesn’t know that will happen, so they can’t allow someone to book a timeslot of 3:00. Instead, they would have simply allow someone to take an available slot in the moment AFTER they have detected people have left. So…Disney still needs to know when/if people leave whether or not they have another park to hop to!
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True. So I amend my statement. They should use the space on low capacity rides with long wait times. Maybe they ones where the line moved more they could use the space to add something extra, not necessarily interactive, depending on the ride.
Oh, yes, definitely. I mean, Disney does this all the time anyhow. Lots to look at! Just the interactive elements that become unnecessary. Because while we couldn’t really stop to look at everything in the Peter Pan queue, it was still far more interesting than having bare walls around us as we walked!
Doesn’t matter where you went, just that you left the park is all I was saying.
And my point is that people aren’t going to be interested to roll those dice on PHing with that kind of uncertainty, which is significantly more now than precovid. Which, before, people would do the A to B to A often cause the chances of a park hitting capacity was pretty slim (might still be as we move forward but it seems more likely this way).
Additionally, if they’re unwilling to roll those dice, I don’t see anyone opting to drop the money on the PH ticket option. Which will also negatively impact disney.
Ryan already said this, but this isn’t really black and white. And i would argue that “no, it just shows the whole ride’s line is longer and that’s all”.
Yup, saw it. But not sure what I would’ve said to trigger anything? :shrug:
Not sure. Maybe Klaus and Ben? Curious what you thought? I really liked it and was excited when season 2 hit. Kind of reminds me of Heroes (season 1).