Trip Report, thoughts on MaxPass

[Metalliman98]

Just returned today from a five night trip, four days in the parks (Sun-Wed). This was our first time visiting during July.

Overall it was a good trip. Sunday seemed to be the easiest day crowd wise, though it helped that we got to DL at park open. Security lines were a breeze, as were gate lines. After a little frustration with not being able to purchase MaxPass (had to sign out and re-sign in to get it to show up) we were on our way. On this day, we thought MaxPass was very useful, definitely convenient not to have to walk all the way across the park or send a runner to get fast passes. We pretty much knocked out all of the rides and had a nice meal at Blue Bayou for the MSEP and fireworks viewing. Red Rose Tavern for lunch was fine, but not life changing.

On Monday we hit DCA at about 10 am. Crowds were definitely heavier but manageable. Did Guardians twice and it was awesome. At first i thought the ride was longer than Tower, but I think now the ride time is the same, it's just that Tower wasted about a minute telling the story, leaving only a minute for the actual ride, whereas the action on Guardians starts right away. We also did Screamin several times; MaxPass is awesome for that ride, it consistently seemed to be an instant FP that you could pull as soon as you scanned in and have ready once you got off the ride. Toy Story is far more enjoyable with FastPass as well.

On Tuesday morning we hit up DL MM at 7 am, did Tomorrowland while getting MaxPass for Guardians, then hopped over to DCA and did Guardians twice. We kind of bounced back and forth between the parks, finishing up in DL for Riverbelle Terrace and Fantasmic, which we enjoyed, though we didn't get Aladdin and Jasmine flying on a carpet, just animation of them doing so. Did that change? Anyway, we did have a MaxPass issue this day....after having a MaxPass ride get cancelled and getting an (almost) anywhere MaxPass, we decided to go to Splash Mountain, only to find a 30 minute FP wait. Crazy! We had a similar problem yesterday with a RSR FP line that was also about 30 minutes and stretched out to between Ramone's and Flo's. This is the downfall of MaxPass as currently set up. If headliners go down for any length of time (as happened on both of these days) then it causes these back ups later in the day. I don't ever recall this happening with old FP.

Wednesday was DCA and downtown Disney, capped off by one last ride on Guardians. I went five times overall during our trip, and got five different songs, missing only "Hit me with your best shot". Something to look forward to for next time. Sad to just miss out on the return of the trains and boats, but also glad to avoid the crowds that would have brought.

So again, overall a great trip. My feelings on MaxPass are mixed. When all rides are operational, it is great. But when a headliner goes down, even for a bit, it has a domino effect on other rides and causes long backups which are not worth paying $10 a day for. As for the price point, I think that $10 is about my limit, for our family of 3. It will be interesting to see how quickly Disney will change it, and by how much, and whether they tinker with the minimum waits times for pulling another FP.

 

[mom2rtk]

There's really no way to tell the reason why the backups were so long for FP. You might have just hit them at the wrong time. But it's also entirely possible they have beefed up the quantity of FPs being issued so they have more of a product to sell.

I hope at least that they have continued to take FP offline for new tickets while the ride is down. I know they did in the past. It's a problem with FP+ in Florida in that FPs are issued in advance so no way to stop issuing when something goes down.

 

[3TinksAndAnEeyore]

There's really no way to tell the reason why the backups were so long for FP. You might have just hit them at the wrong time. But it's also entirely possible they have beefed up the quantity of FPs being issued so they have more of a product to sell.

I hope at least that they have continued to take FP offline for new tickets while the ride is down. I know they did in the past. It's a problem with FP+ in Florida in that FPs are issued in advance so no way to stop issuing when something goes down.

I know that when DH and I were at DLR in June, we were able to pull a paper Fastpass (no Maxpass yet at that time) for TSMM when it was non-operational. In fact, TSMM had never even opened for the day and didn't open for a couple of hours. The CM at the attraction actually told us that the Fastpass machines shouldn't have been working and we wouldn't be able to use the Fastpasses later. But we did use them without problem that afternoon.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

We had a similar problem yesterday with a RSR FP line that was also about 30 minutes and stretched out to between Ramone's and Flo's. This is the downfall of MaxPass as currently set up. If headliners go down for any length of time (as happened on both of these days) then it causes these back ups later in the day. I don't ever recall this happening with old FP.

We have experienced this a number of times prior to the advent of MaxPass. When RSR goes down, the fastpass line can be ridiculously backed up when it comes back online. That is simply a consequence of the ride having been down and too many people trying to redeem their fastpasses at once when it comes back up. This happened during one of our spring break days this year and there were repeated announcements to the stand-by people that their wait would be 3 hours long and to the fastpass people that their wait would be longer than usual. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get through the fastpass line, and they were letting only fastpass people through while all of standby simply stood by waiting. CMs stood at the entrance actively discouraging people from getting in either line. I have seen this situation on more than one occasion with RSR. A similar kind of thing but for a different reason happened to us on Soarin' last month when one of the simulators went down. The fastpass line quickly backed up and extended beyond Smokejumpers. CMs came out and told everyone at the end of the line to expect a wait of at least an hour and said that if we wanted to leave and come back later, the fastpass would still be honored later.

 

[Winnowill]

There's really no way to tell the reason why the backups were so long for FP. You might have just hit them at the wrong time. But it's also entirely possible they have beefed up the quantity of FPs being issued so they have more of a product to sell.

I hope at least that they have continued to take FP offline for new tickets while the ride is down. I know they did in the past. It's a problem with FP+ in Florida in that FPs are issued in advance so no way to stop issuing when something goes down.

I noticed yesterday morning that RSR was down for quite a while, but FPs continued to be issued during the outage.

 

[mom2rtk]

I noticed yesterday morning that RSR was down for quite a while, but FPs continued to be issued during the outage.

That's not good.

 

[GatorChris]

Sounds like they've yet to correct the "everyone wins the lottery" scenario with the MaxPass. If they give out all of these extra FPs, especially those that are instant, then it makes the FP line 20-30 minutes long. That, in my mind, is unacceptable. It ruins what FP is supposed to be.

 

[tlovesdis]

I noticed yesterday morning that RSR was down for quite a while, but FPs continued to be issued during the outage.

I was there in June, before MaxPass even started, and noticed that they were issuing FP for many rides that were down (Splash, RSR and Thunder Mountain come to mind). I thought it was strange.

 

[agamble]

We had a long FP return wait for Splash Mountain before MaxPass rolled out. And the FP return line for RSR consistently gets like that if the ride goes down for any length of time. Also, GRR has been bad, for a couple years now, with having it's FP return queue outside the main queue and it backs up into the walkway and beyond the "temporary" queue. We have not visited with Max Pass yet and have experienced lengthy waits with FP. It just happens sometimes.