This isn't my first rodeo.
Of course lines were physically long since they weren't using all queues. (FP and standby). The actual standby waits were also LONG. We've been many days this exact same time of year, as well as many days during historically slow times. Even with arriving very early and staying late we still waited in lines FAR more than with FP+. I'm tired of people trying to convince me that my experience was different than what I experienced. With FP+, heck even paper FP, rarely did we EVER stand in a line more than 15 minutes. This year there were few times where it wasn't MUCH longer than that, even with arriving 30+ minutes to 1 hour before park open and staying till close.
Speaking of early entry and staying late...
- It royally stunk having to get up so early this year. Parks filled much faster than they did when FP+ was around because the cat was out of the bag. Guests knew they had to get there early if they wanted a chance at the headliners with "low wait."
- Staying late helped for perhaps a ride or two, but for example FOP still took us over 60 minutes standby at the end of the night. With FP we never waited over 15 minutes (and that was during peak hours of the day). Space Mountain took us over 30 minutes... etc...
Feel free to browse my play by play summaries of our trip this year. I documented actual wait times for all the attractions we rode, versus the posted wait times.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/h...g-park-hopping.3807247/page-662#post-63232483
I welcome G+ as an option to help us get on more attractions with less wait, even though we have to pay for it. My wish would have been to have FP+ back, but that ship has sailed.
Dan