Non disney hotels getting FP+

[msuweather]

Thank you for posting this. We are staying at the Dolphin and I've been so confused as to how all this works.

I actually called this morning with some questions and was told we would not be getting FP+ at all. Maybe they didn't know about this option yet.

Either way FP+ or not FP+ we will have a great time. Just going with the flow and making the most of it. We should be there on a "slower" week so hopefully all will go well

 

[doconeill]

I'm heading to WDW on Dec 3, staying at SSR. I have an AP. I was able to make FP+ choices last week, and select my MB. Today I got the official invite in the mail.
Soooo, I head to WDW next week, staying at the Dolphin. So far, nothing about being able to use FP+ while there. We'll see what happens when I get there next week, as far as FP+ kiosks go.

I don't think you'll get any notice about FP+ before you get there. When you check in, they will probably give you info.

What isn't clear to me...can you make selections for several days in advance once you get there? Or is it day-of only?

Will they be tied to your existing MDX account, and therefore accessible via your MagicBand, or will these be "anonymous" (tied strictly to an RFID card, something I was theorizing they'd do for handling day guests who have not set up MDX...)

We'll be there in a week as well, so I'll find some of it out (no MBs for us yet...AP holders in general are still unloved...)

 

[rteetz]

I don't think you'll get any notice about FP+ before you get there. When you check in, they will probably give you info. What isn't clear to me...can you make selections for several days in advance once you get there? Or is it day-of only? Will they be tied to your existing MDX account, and therefore accessible via your MagicBand, or will these be "anonymous" (tied strictly to an RFID card, something I was theorizing they'd do for handling day guests who have not set up MDX...) We'll be there in a week as well, so I'll find some of it out (no MBs for us yet...AP holders in general are still unloved...)

So far what it seems is day of only the fast pass will be tied to your my magic account but at swan and dolphin you cannot get a magic band or pre book attractions

 

[KatieCharlotte]

It's a carry over once you have that one Disney resort booked you can use the magic bands for the rest of your life

Wait. Is this true for seasonal/AP holders only? We're probably spending one night at POR in the spring. We will get magic bands. Could we use them for future offsite trips and add new park tickets on our account? Dislike MB and FP+ for myriad reasons but an interesting loophole.

 

[bjakmom]

hmmmm I'm wondering how this will work at the kiosks. Will this give Disney more control over your selections, giving them more control in steering guests to certain rides and/or certain times? Will you truly be able to see for yourself what is available or will a CM just be giving you an option of 'fast picks'?

I cannot imagine that each guest will get the kind of personalized, time sucking attention that it took me to select/change/book my FP+s on MDEx to a point where it truly worked for me. The lines would be huge!! If you think of every single guest using every single paper FP- machine currently in each park being funneled to the currently availble 6 kiosks in each park - !
Am I missing something?? Sounds like a nightmare.

 

[rteetz]

Wait. Is this true for seasonal/AP holders only? We're probably spending one night at POR in the spring. We will get magic bands. Could we use them for future offsite trips and add new park tickets on our account? Dislike MB and FP+ for myriad reasons but an interesting loophole.

Yes as long as you have a park ticket linked to your account you can use your MB

 

[f19810]

I am glad that I just came back from WDW because if I could not get FP- and had to get FP at a kiosk in the park while thousands of people get FP+ 60 days in advance I would be very unhappy. My first day, I went directly to the MK and I only had the three FP+ that I reserved in advance (stayed 1 day at POP and then moved offsite) and that was not enough. I did not enjoy my day like I did in the past. I wanted to pull more FP and couldn't. I enjoy disney but at $100/day, just being at WDW is not enough. When I went to Epcot, the FP were gone be 9:30 for TT. Even if I could get FP in advance, if I am limited to 3, I will not enjoy my day like I did before. If I can't get FP in advance and I am standing in more lines and going on rides at off peak times since that is all that is available for prime rides, I will not enjoy my day as much as before. I will wait and see what the final outcome is but if what they are doing with the swan is what they are going to do for offsite, I will be looking at doing more cruising in the coming years.

 

[Sammie]

Well, somebody does. Just nobody here.

or not sharing,

 

[Sammie]

Wait. Is this true for seasonal/AP holders only? We're probably spending one night at POR in the spring. We will get magic bands. Could we use them for future offsite trips and add new park tickets on our account? Dislike MB and FP+ for myriad reasons but an interesting loophole.

There is no loophole to it, Fastpass+ is depends on ticket media and Annual Passholders have ticket media.

 

[Planogirl]

I'd be real surprised if they end up treating the Swan and Dolphin like any other offsite resorts. They are so intertwined in many ways and both resorts add a lot of value to WDW when it comes to dining facilities. I could see the two resorts getting less but not getting just the same as the local Holiday Inn.

 

[Cafeen]

I wonder if there's some functional issue as to why they cannot book on the MDE app. Making them line up for a kiosk in the park would be a dealbreaker for me. That has the potential to eat up a lot of rope drop time.

I'd venture to guess that it's due to resort stays, since those are currently the trigger for FP+ availability during the test. I don't think MDX plays very nicely with non-Disney reservations (it rarely plays nice with Disney reservations made through the app itself!)

If they have MYW or AP, they are supposed to be able to...but I wonder if they are just trying to test the kiosks with a larger group before they unleash it on the public. I'm betting that the Swan/Dolphin reservations system can't be integrated, so they'd be unable to distinguish between S/D guests and anyone else.

The load/crowd testing of the kiosks is interesting. While I was there last week, the kiosks were almost always empty since everyone had MDX availability to book and tweak. There was pretty much always someone at Guest Relations being walked through though, and that was absolutely a lengthy process.

Judging from that process and the CMs' involvement with them and the few and far between kiosks I noticed (in MK, I only saw 2 screens in Fantasyland and 2 in the tunnel between Adventureland and Frontierland near Aloha Isle), this has the potential for a mess.

(Note, I didn't notice any at the other parks, but I also wan't particularly looking for them.)

In any case, the results should be...interesting.

--
As far as my predictions since no one asked?

MBs free to onsite, $40 per guest offsite. Disney will want to monetize the bands even more than they are now and there are reports (and I heard several people ask myself) if people not part of the testing could buy them. I don't think Disney's going to want to miss that opportunity.

FP+ prebooking available to all, with perhaps a +n perk for onsite guests (assuming they can ever get the functionality working correctly...it's still very flaky with ADRs). There is no need for FP+ prebooking to be limited to resort stays, since it's all based on the ticket media and not the resort. Under a ticket-based system, MM+ doesn't have to care about where you're staying, as the system remains the same across the board. A +n perk would be enough to satisfy most onsite guests and is a system already proven to work (there are many who consider the +10 perk for ADRs as one of the high ranking reasons for doing so.)

There's also the issue of the kiosks themselves. Allowing prebooking for all distributes the processing over time and across a multitude of devices, rather than forcing them all to use the same few kiosks in the park. This has several beneficial effects for Disney including reduction of CM support time, reduction of wear and tear on the kiosk hardware, reduction of guest dissatisfaction from standing in yet another line, and limiting exposure to kiosk system crashes. (I'm a bit too cynical to believe they'd do it primarily for the guest purposes, but it makes sense for them to do it from their perspective.)

There is no loophole to it, Fastpass+ is depends on ticket media and Annual Passholders have ticket media.

Except, the case in question was new tickets and not APs. Of course, this still qualifies as having MBs (moreso the MyMagic+ system that MBs are a portion of) activated by a previous stay as well as having valid ticket media, so it's similar, but slightly different than the intended use case.

 

[aubriee]

Wait. Is this true for seasonal/AP holders only? We're probably spending one night at POR in the spring. We will get magic bands. Could we use them for future offsite trips and add new park tickets on our account? Dislike MB and FP+ for myriad reasons but an interesting loophole.

That's what I'm wondering. As an annual passholder I go to WDW 4-6 times every year, spending 9-11 days in the parks every trip, so average at least 45 days in the parks each year. However, we prefer to stay at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. I might be willing to book one night onsite (even if we don't use the room), if it would activate the magic bands we would receive, so we could use them for future offsite trips. As you said an interesting loop hole.

 

[aubriee]

I am glad that I just came back from WDW because if I could not get FP- and had to get FP at a kiosk in the park while thousands of people get FP+ 60 days in advance I would be very unhappy. My first day, I went directly to the MK and I only had the three FP+ that I reserved in advance (stayed 1 day at POP and then moved offsite) and that was not enough. I did not enjoy my day like I did in the past. I wanted to pull more FP and couldn't. I enjoy disney but at $100/day, just being at WDW is not enough. When I went to Epcot, the FP were gone be 9:30 for TT. Even if I could get FP in advance, if I am limited to 3, I will not enjoy my day like I did before. If I can't get FP in advance and I am standing in more lines and going on rides at off peak times since that is all that is available for prime rides, I will not enjoy my day as much as before. I will wait and see what the final outcome is but if what they are doing with the swan is what they are going to do for offsite, I will be looking at doing more cruising in the coming years.

Hey, you were lucky. I was staying offsite at Wyndham Bonnet Creek when I was there in Sept, so couldn't even get the three FP+ per day that you did. Believe me I did not enjoy my days like I did in the past either. Both standby and fast pass lines were longer than I have ever seen them, fast passes I were able to get had much later times than I was used to getting first thing in the morning, and FP- ran out sooner than I have ever seen them. At least you had three fast passes a day guaranteed. I had none. If we'd been there the same eleven days I was, you would have had 33 prebooked fast passes whereas again I had zero, just because you booked one night at Pop, before going offsite and I stayed at Bonnet Creek for the full eleven days. If I had known that a one night booking at a value resort would have guaranteed me 33 fast passes for the eleven days I was there I would have booked one night at Pop and not even used the room, staying at BC instead. If WDW continues this, I can see the value resorts suddenly getting very very booked with just one night stays by offsite guests.

edit: Hmm, maybe they are already are. I just went and checked and not a single value resort or campsite is available under the AP discount for Friday Dec 6th (first day of my next trip). That week is value season, so usually a slow time of the year too. Maybe offsiters have already caught on and are making dummy one night reservations just to get access to those bands and FP+.

 

[doconeill]

That's what I'm wondering. As an annual passholder I go to WDW 4-6 times every year, spending 9-11 days in the parks every trip, so average at least 45 days in the parks each year. However, we prefer to stay at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. I might be willing to book one night onsite (even if we don't use the room), if it would activate the magic bands we would receive, so we could use them for future offsite trips. As you said an interesting loop hole.

Annual Passholders are supposed to get MagicBands by default. However, they have not "activate" Annual Passholders outside of resort reservations yet. I'm actually a bit surprised they are giving FP+ to Swan/Dolphin guests first.

 

[kim_o]

Annual Passholders are supposed to get MagicBands by default. However, they have not "activate" Annual Passholders outside of resort reservations yet. I'm actually a bit surprised they are giving FP+ to Swan/Dolphin guests first.

That's what I'm doing. Staying one night on property to get a MB on December 5. My MIL stayed on property in September and her MB has been active since then (she was able to make FP+ reservations all through October even though she never stayed onsite again). I've also been able to make FP+ reservations for my whole trip even though I only booked one night.

 

[f19810]

Aubriee, I booked my stay atPOP back in May before I found out that I would be getting a mb. I am very glad that things turned out as they did. I have been going to wdw once a year by staying at bonnet creek and wdw was not my main vacation for the year. If I have to stay on site and the cost of my vacation goes up, I will have to reevaluate my trips to see if I want a vacay that is relaxing like a cruise or one that will require me to plan every detail like wdw. All I know is that I would be pissed if I spent a lot of money to go to wdw in nov or dec and had to deal with the way the fp are going to be.

 

[EmilyJ517]

If off-site won't be able to do FP+ until the day of, it would be nice if they had a kiosk in the lobby of the hotel or at least outside of the park so that people could arrive early or do it before they leave for the park.

I have never stayed off-site, nor do I plan to, but that seems fair. Otherwise the lines at the kiosks at 9am are going to be extreme!

 

[f19810]

Aubriee, I booked my stay atPOP back in May before I found out that I would be getting a mb. I am very glad that things turned out as they did. I have been going to wdw once a year by staying at bonnet creek and wdw was not my main vacation for the year. If I have to stay on site and the cost of my vacation goes up, I will have to reevaluate my trips to see if I want a vacay that is relaxing like a cruise or one that will require me to plan every detail like wdw. All I know is that I would be pissed if I spent a lot of money to go to wdw in nov or dec and had to deal with the way the fp are going to be.

 

[Runnergal]

Isn't the point of fast pass+ being able to make your reservations ahead of time? Going to the kiosk sounds like a pain and a waste of time.

 

[suzanna1066@comcast.]

That sucks for them. Instead of heading to attractions first thing they have to do is find the kiosk to make ride reservations.

Or maybe they are relieved because instead of hiking all the way to Everest to pull a FP, they can go to a central kiosk and get a FP for later because what they really want to do right now is the safari.

Seriously? How is this a negative for the typical guest?