Heard some FP kiosks were uncovered in MK today

[Pookie9922]

Did everyone buy it at Disneyland? I don't think so. but I don't really know either.

We never bought it at Disneyland. Even at $25 a maxpass, it's too much for a family of 5 just to have access via phone. DL is small enough that its not that big of a deal to go around and get FPs.
Now WDW is a bigger price vacation that we save up for, but for an extra $125 or more a day, we'd still probably be priced out unless that was the only way to get FPs or the we'd have to run around the whole park to get them. (Question - how did the old legacy FP work? Did you have to go to the actual ride or could you get FPs for any ride anywhere there was a kiosk? I cannot not imagine having to run around any WDW parks like I would at DL. They're too big!)
I feel like any paid amount pp/pd would price out the majority of families and so it would only benefit individuals/couples. And not that anyone wants to wait in lines, but the mammas with little kids are the ones that feel the pain of standing in line the worst! (Not me anymore, but I've been there and feel their pain!)

If it’s that cheap - wouldn’t pretty much everybody buy them? That would kind of negate the whole purpose…

I don't think the purpose is to only let a few have FPs, I think the purpose would be to milk all visitors for any $$ they can. So keeping it low enough that everyone would still buy it would be the key.

Ultimately having a maxpass add-on to a package (not per person or per day necessarily) like the Memory Maker makes the most sense to me. It wouldn't be outrageous but would be an extra income stream for disney.

 

[DisneyFive]

I think Disney is getting higher profit per guest in other ways. They don’t need to do it through a paid fastpass system.

Just look at ticket, resort and dining prices the last five to ten years. It has way outpaced inflation. They are using this to not only increase profits per guests but also limit park attendance.

Dan

 

[finedice]

(Question - how did the old legacy FP work? Did you have to go to the actual ride or could you get FPs for any ride anywhere there was a kiosk?

Yes. You had to run to each individual ride, and back to your group - I worked hard as the designated runner.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Yes. You had to run to each individual ride, and back to your group - I worked hard as the designated runner.

We saw a lot of that back then. Young people running past you from time to time. My wife and I would just say "Yep. Another FP getter." as they ran past us.

 

[finedice]

We saw a lot of that back then. Young people running past you from time to time. My wife and I would just say "Yep. Another FP getter." as they ran past us.

I felt older even then! Today - I say no way - never legacy again! AK and Epcot were the worst - They are SO big! "Okay Ladies, I will run to EE while you walk leisurely toward KS - I'll meet you there!". Ugh!

 

[disneymom0104]

And the high end, the rumor is $300/person/day LOL. so for your 10 day trip with 6 guests? $18,000 hahaha. Would you like access to the formerly free fastpasses? or would you rather have a new car?

OMG hahaha. Yeah- new car, trip around the world, some college for the kids... or FP. Insane.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

2012 called. They want their arguments about "abusing" the legacy FP sytem back.

Agree with this. Harken back to the old days of Disney. As long as we don't go back as far as the E ticket era

As one of the resident "Grumpy old men" I do go back that far!

I am reading all these opinions and LOVING that we are all "discussing" FP and not masks!!!!

Well, we weren't discussing them until you brought it up.

OMG. Please tell me no one is thinking that these random kiosks will be the only way to get FP? Even if it's only day of, we can still use the app to get them?

Maybe. But if they roll out a variation of MaxPass, you might have to pay extra for the privilege of getting FPs from your phone instead of using those kiosks.

Keep in mind, at DL, paying Maxpass isn't required, it just makes it a lot easier. Guests can still use the FP kiosks for free, but you have to pay for Maxpass to book FP by phone. I loved Maxpass at DL (I hate FP+ and booking weeks ahead), but I don't think it would be cheap or easy to roll out at WDW.

Just speculating, but I could see this being the way they monetize FP at WDW. FPs can still be obtained for free at the kiosk on the day of, or you can pay for MaxPass and then get them from your phone instead of having to traipse over to the kiosks and wait in line at them.

Theoretically, this wouldn't alienate the "masses" who would still be able to get FPs without paying extra, but would put more money in Disney's coffers from those folks who are willing to pay extra for a more convenient method of obtaining their FPs.

 

[cakebaker]

I expect a paid system to be equivalent to what universal sells theirs for. I'd think it'd go for about $100-$150 a day per person. so it will nearly double the cost of park admission for a single day. So for my upcoming trip with two only two park days, it would add roughly 1000 bucks for the fam. no thanks. Honestly if they roll something out at Max pass prices, 20 bucks or so a person per day, that I would prob shell out for without thinking twice.

I'm not expecting a paid system at all, at least not at first. But when they do, if it's priced comparable to Universal, in reality it's cheaper as Disney has more parks and I'm just assuming it would cover any parks hopped to. Or ......maybe not.

 

[Pookie9922]

2012 called. They want their arguments about "abusing" the legacy FP sytem back.

Wait, people considered sending a runner out for FPs an "abuse" of the system? That's just standard operating procedure at Disneyland! Work smarter not harder!

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Wait, people considered sending a runner out for FPs an "abuse" of the system? That's just standard operating procedure at Disneyland! Work smarter not harder!

No. The cheating would be standing at the kiosks and when the CM's inevitably opened the machines to help speed things up people would lie and say they had far more in their group than they actually did and they would have more FP's than they should. This and many more "cheats" are what drove people nuts back then.

 

[Pookie9922]

No. The cheating would be standing at the kiosks and when the CM's inevitably opened the machines to help speed things up people would lie and say they had far more in their group than they actually did and they would have more FP's than they should. This and many more "cheats" are what drove people nuts back then.

Oh interesting. Never had that situation at Disneyland in my experience. The only way I even saw CMs speed up the process was by taking the tickets and sticking them in the machine for people.

 

[monstermash23]

No. The cheating would be standing at the kiosks and when the CM's inevitably opened the machines to help speed things up people would lie and say they had far more in their group than they actually did and they would have more FP's than they should. This and many more "cheats" are what drove people nuts back then.

Wasn’t there also button in the back of the fastpass dispensing kiosk/machines that you could jiggle that would spit out extra fastpasses too? I remember hearing this back then but never tried it (never really tried to game fastpass anyway in general though).

 

[cakebaker]

Wait, people considered sending a runner out for FPs an "abuse" of the system? That's just standard operating procedure at Disneyland! Work smarter not harder!

Strategy vs Cheating - it's a fine line. But no, a designated runner wasn't a cheat. There were much better ones than that! My son-in-law was thrilled when he got to retire. We ran him all over the park. And before they required park validation and we stayed at the YC, we'd have him dash over to HS in the morning to grab FP for a hop to there in the evening- then head to our morning park. It was the only way to get FP's in the afternoon for headliners because of so many spent the morning collecting FP's for the evening.

I was so glad to see the switch to FP+.

 

[cakebaker]

Wasn’t there also button in the back of the fastpass dispensing kiosk/machines that you could jiggle that would spit out extra fastpasses too? I remember hearing this back then but never tried it (never really tried to game fastpass anyway in general though).

That was the story I heard, we never tried it though. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

 

[monstermash23]

That was the story I heard, we never tried it though. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

I remember when they implemented the rule that everyone had to go through the park turnstile to be able to get fastpass tickets. I used to be the runner in the morning that would grab everyone’s park passes and run into a park early to grab fastpasses for everyone. That was a real strategy ruiner back then lol I’m guessing this little button trick probably went extinct at that point too. But yea, desperate times back then I guess

Edit: Added “park” before the word turnstile so it made more sense

 

[finedice]

Strategy vs Cheating - it's a fine line. But no, a designated runner wasn't a cheat. There were much better ones than that! My son-in-law was thrilled when he got to retire. We ran him all over the park. And before they required park validation and we stayed at the YC, we'd have him dash over to HS in the morning to grab FP for a hop to there in the evening- then head to our morning park. It was the only way to get FP's in the afternoon for headliners there. Because so many spent their mornings collecting FP's for the evening, it was impossible to get them after noon most days.

As I recall, you had no choice about the return time when you inserted the ticket and you could only gather one at a time (unless it was 1 hour after the last one you got).

 

[finedice]

Wasn’t there also button in the back of the fastpass dispensing kiosk/machines that you could jiggle that would spit out extra fastpasses too?

That must have been a well-guarded secret. I have been reading these forums for years and never heard that before.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

If Disney offers an option for unlimited fastpasses for all rides, I can’t imagine it costing less than $300 /person/day. And I think probably more than that. (Though maybe the price would be a bit less for club level guests, and even maybe deluxe guests.). There is just no way Disney would come in cheaper than Universal.

But I think Disney would not limit paid fastpasses to that option, which would be cost prohibitive to most guests. In addition or instead, I would expect Disney to sell some or all of (1) groups of fastpasses to particular clusters of rides (i.e. all three mountains for $35); (2) groups of additional fastpasses for use on any rides, though maybe with tiering (i.e. your first three are free, and after that it’s $50 per person for each group of three more, perhaps with only one tier one ride in each group); or (3) dynamically priced instant fastpasses for individual rides, based on crowd size and line length (i.e. $5 to skip the line at Small World on an average crowd day; $75 or more to skip the line at FOP on a crazy packed day).

 

[finedice]

Again, Disney likely has no interest in pricing themselves completely out of their target demographic. The fact that they push it to the upper limits of that demographic's perceived value is irrelevant. The tickets are really, really expensive already (if you, like me, are in that target demographic).

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Oh interesting. Never had that situation at Disneyland in my experience. The only way I even saw CMs speed up the process was by taking the tickets and sticking them in the machine for people.

They would start out that way but you knew they were eventually going to open the machines if the lines were really long.