Remember about a week or so ago when it was announced that Anna and Elsa at Princess Fairytale Hall would have a new standby queue procedure? Well, the same was going to be done for Soarin’ over at Epcot as well, and that test began on July 29, 2014, but it didn’t go too well on its first day.
According to a number of reports and some sources contacting me directly, the first day of the new standby queue procedure at Soarin’ turned into a bit of a disaster and they had to reopen the line to all guests between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m.
Many guests were not too happy.
The way it works is that guests that made FASTPass+ reservations for Soarin’ will go about their routine and return as scheduled to return.
For standby, Soarin’ Cast Members will have the line get to a certain point and then cut it off. They will then hand out cards (paper FASTPasses) to guests with a half-hour return window for later in the day.
Upon returning, guests will show those cards and then be ushered into the standby line.
The problem here is that the tickets are given on a first-come, first-served basis. Once all of the cards were handed out, the standby line was cut off for the day and no other guests were allowed to get into the line or ride the attraction.
According to what I was told, guests were showing up at Soarin’ to get into the standby line, but being told it was closed. Yet then other guests would show up with the cards and be ushered right into the standby queue while FASTPass+ riders also went on.
Some guests started to get very upset and it ended up leading to the standby queue being reopened early in the evening.
The testing was scheduled to run through July 31, 2014, but we will see how that goes.
This is the worst thing DISNEY has done. I can see it for ANNA & ELSA, but for rides like SOARIN’ this is ridiculous. It is basically the old FASTPASS system that DID work for 99% of the people, AND it proves this new FASTPASS+ just does not cut it for the popular rides if they are trying this to alleviate.
Scrap FASTPASS+ and go back to original FASTPASS, b/c it was fair to all people and it was efficient.
Wow, that’s a really dumb idea. It does make you wonder if Disney wants to eliminate Standby queues all together, which works in theory but not in practice. This isn’t the same as ADRs, where there are many dining options and people can just eat somewhere else. There are a limited number of attractions that some visitors want to see.
The old fastpass was not efficient. Run around the park every two hours to wait two hours before you could get in line for 15 minutes, not to mention all the moving parts in the machines, needing constant maintenance, and the wasted paper. Also, it was not fair, some people figured out cheats, and spread it around, while the average family only used 1.5 fastpasses per day.
Fastpass+ will be more efficient, once it is fully implemented and the bugs are worked out. Give it time and see what the finished product can do. Also, it’s still a FREE service!
For those of us who go to Disney “once in a blue moon” this is NOT a fair practice. We pay “through the nose” just like every one else. We currently are planning to go next spring and now with all the extra “crap” you have to go through I don’t think it’s worth it especially since we won’t be staying on property. I would hate to spend a couple thousand on tickets and then have my kids disappointed because we can’t right anything. Disney is really operating with their head solely in the “cookie jar” and not on their guests.
Well, that’s why this is a test. It’s not set in place and they are testing it to see what works and what doesn’t.
I’m glad they are testing concepts to reduce queue times. I’m at WDW to enjoy myself. Not to queue for 3 hours. I’m sorry this test didn’t work, but I like the concept.
With this idea you also have the problem with people not showing up for their “fastpass” time and then you are turning people away from the queue. Also, the large problem is, with the original fastpass system the fastpasses may have run out early in the day but you would always still ride if you were willing to wait. There have been a few rides that the standby time just never went down and fastpasses were gone so I decided to wait because I wanted to see that attraction. With this system you can’t do that so even people willing to wait in a three hour line (not me by all means) because they want to see the attraction that badly may be turned away and told they cannot see it. Also, when seeing a very long line many people will not wait and go do something else, choosing not to see the attraction. With this system no one does that so yes, you’ll run out of tickets a lot sooner. Good idea in concept but I really don’t think it will work in the long run. Lines are as long as they are due to fastpass (and the ungodly amount of people who would use GAC, when they did not need it, before they switched the system), before lines rarely got over an hour even at the busiest time of year and while I like fastpass this is something that has to be accepted. If people want to wait, let them wait.
The return window was an hour and not a half hour. The point was to return with a moderate wait and no the 90+ minutes the queue would be ALL day during peak periods. You would wait between 30 and 45 minutes, sometimes less. The test wasn’t meant to be the end all of how this would be implemented, just to see how it would work for an E ticket. And they always planned on opening the queue back up around 7 and they stayed open an extra hour for guests too. From being a guest at Epcot for two of these days I felt it went smooth. I didn’t have any issues riding and it took less than 30 min. And have you guys been in a full soarin queue? Talk about stressful jockeying for position. This was sooo much better. And you have to think that because you come back to a moderate wait they give out more than twice that amount of tickets than fastpasses so they’re not gone by 11am. And when I had questions about it they had so many people out front to help. I think for what it was they were well prepared. And again it was only a test. I’m not sure if the test was just for reducing the wait time, I have a feeling there could be more to this….