Here’s the scenario:
You’re in the parks. You’ve used all of your advance Fastpasses. Now if you want a Fastpass, you have to walk over to a kiosk to make a reservation.
Suppose that process takes 8 minutes (three to walk, 2 to make the reservation, 3 to walk back to wherever you were going).
How long does a wait in line have to be for you to consider this 8-minute detour worthwhile?
Keep in mind that if you’re using Fastpass+ at an attraction with a 20-minute standby wait, you’re likely to wait 3-5 minutes to use the Fastpass+ anyway, so you’re saving 15-17 minutes, not all 20.
I’ll use this information to set a minimum standby wait threshold in the Optimizer. If a standby wait is under this threshold, the Optimizer won’t consider it a candidate for Fastpass+.
25-30 minutes, given your stated parameters. However, with the chaos I saw last time at the FP+ kiosks, I’m not sure you could pay me enough to try to use one.
If I have to walk to a kiosk, it would be 30 minutes for me – but if eventually you can make one from a mobile device, my personal threshold would drop to 20 minutes.
Tough one - we’ve been to WDW about 10 times since the introduction of FPP and we have never used a kiosk and I am not sure why. At EP, AK and HS let’s be honest, after the first 3 there really isn’t much point.
So at MK if I wanted to ride the Jungle Cruise and there was a 40 minute wait I would check a kiosk.
I think another deterrent for me is that since I have never used a kiosk I have never bothered locating them. Being familiar with where they are around the park and how they fit into my flow would probably improve the likeliness that I would use one. Under old FPP the return times were clearly noted on the sign. I also don’t like the idea of having to look up what’s available, choose a time, etc. Too many options I guess are a deterrent too.
Yeah, I can’t see waiting to use them at all. I reLly like the idea of FPP and would do additional FPPon an app if I could but waiting 8-10 minutes just seems like a waste of time, especially when I don’t know when/what I will get.
Attitude might change after December trip however.
I would say over 30 minutes. I have only bothered to walk to a kiosk once in my last three trips. I agree, if I could book on my phone it would be 20 or less.
if the wait is over 20 min I’d get the fpp, even if that means walking to a kiosk and standing in line for 5-10 min. the reason for this is that with little kids, I can be in the kiosk line while my husband takes the kids to the bathroom, gets a snack, etc. we were there in may a week after they rolled out being able to add additional fpp’s and we used a total of 8 that day (added 5 b/w 2pm-8pm). it was awesome.
With your math, 20 min. Although the psychological effect of waiting 15 minutes versus me being active for 15 minutes would still cause me to lean toward the kiosk. ("C’mon family, run around with me for a few minutes to save that same amount of time!)
Though as I write this, since only one person needs to head to a kiosk, that 15-17 minutes could be used for bathroom breaks, snacks, a quick character meet. Time not in line always feels better than time in line. So, I change my answer to 10.
I have had no issues with kiosks, hardly had any waits, and had pretty good luck getting what I wanted. This last trip, we were leaving tsmm, wanted to schedule one for RnR, and got one starting one minute later. It was on our way, no time was lost, and the posted standby was 40 minutes.
For me, it would be over 20 minutes - 25 seems right (not sure why the 5 minutes makes a psychological difference, but it does). When I think about it, I factor in the time to walk to the kiosk, discover that they don’t have a time that works for me and then get back into the standby line. It has to be decent wait to make it worth it.
If standby is 20 mins or less, I would just get in line. If standby is at 25 min plus, I would consider using a kiosk, but it would depend on the ride really, I might just go do something else with a short standby time and try again later. I usually visit during quiet times in Jan and Feb though.
