A couple of minor observations about Fastpass and Fastpass+ from today’s visit to Hollywood Studios

Before you pick up the torches to burn me at the stake for the earlier post that merely pointed out the EXACT flaw in Disney’s poorly engineered app, this post requires no multi-step processes, no need to print 20 pages and no high level MDE degrees.  Easy Gaston, easy boy.  Put down the club.

First.

I noticed that the Morning Extra Magic Hour crowd wasn’t allowed to retrieve Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania until 9:00 a.m. and those paper Fastpasses were gone completely by 9:25 a.m.  I saw people lined up in a queue to get said FP before 9:00 a.m. (I could show you a photo, but I’m too lazy to post it right now.)  I’m not sure how long they had been there, we had a breakfast ressie and didn’t make it over there by that time.  I got my paper FP at 9:12 a.m and they ranged from 4:30 to 4:45 p.m.  Each time I stuck in an Annual Pass, it went up 5 minutes or more!

Second.

Last night I went to book THREE (Only 3, relax) Fastpass+ for Hollywood Studios.  Our goal was to do Toy Story Midway Mania, Tower of Terror and Star Tours via FP+.  The app had a listing for 7:00 p.m. TSMM FP+, so I just decided to wait until morning to see if anything else would appear.  Before the park opened, the app stated “Stand by Only” next to TSMM, so I waited.  After the park opened I booked my ONE Tears 1 FP+ and TWO Tears 2 FP+ (Down flamers down!  I didn’t go there to “game the system” or cheat poor handicapped children or any of the other silly stuff I’ve been accused of today.    Just went to have a nice day with my girls like Walt would have done).  After park opening a series of times miraculously appeared for TSMM that weren’t available the night before or even before the park opened.  I would deduce that they are holding a certain number of FP+ for guests visiting with no prior plans.  I booked a 9:45 a.m. TSMM FP+ and later exchanged my Tower of Terror over to the Great Movie Ride (Fully okay with the Disney morality police from what I’ve heard).  We had a nice time and met a number of characters and rode some rides together.  The kind of things that families WANT to do at Walt Disney World.  If I had booked the FP the night before I would have ridden at 7:00 p.m.  If I tried to book prior to park opening, nada.  If I waited patiently I could choose from a series of times that might fit my touring desires.

Third.

As I was exiting, my oldest and I wanted to check out the changes to Sid Cahuenga’s over to some sort of My Disney Experience dance zone or something.  We were pretty shocked as we entered.  Not because the $6000 Paulie Shore autographed photos were gone, but because a WDW guest was berating MDE to an apologetic Cast Member (Tough job!) and all it’s problems.  Something about how she paid good money for the vacation and the dining plan she can’t even use and is having to pay out of pocket for food or something, and couldn’t even use Fastpass machines because she’s staying at Pop Century.  You’d think I’m making this stuff up, but alas I’m not.  Not the quality experience that we became accustomed to back in 2003 when we started coming multiple times a year to play and meet characters.  It was so easy back then.  Stick in your park ticket and out comes a Fastpass (In best Samantha Brown voice).

When someone posts issues to MDE on their blog, a newspaper or nails it to a door, perhaps they are calling for change in the EXPERIENCE part of My Disney Experience.  The app is still in “testing,” maybe they can still fix this mess and stop restricting its guests from having a quality DISNEY experience.  How about just using the same, exact system they currently use, but digitally.  Get one at 9:00 for 9:40.  Get one at 9:40, another at 11:40, 1:40 etc.  When the great ones are gone, they are gone. I never missed any sleep over TSMM being out of FP when I arrived at 1:40 p.m.  Early tourist gets the Fastpass.