How much do you know about lines? A line, or a queue, is an organized group
of people or, in this case dots, waiting their turn for some... thing. The amount of time it takes to get from the
start of the queue to the end of the queue is the wait time. In its simplest form, the wait time is affected
by two factors, the service rate, and the arrival rate. The service rate is the rate at which people
get pulled from the queue to do the thing. The arrival rate is the rate at which people
arrive to the queue. Speed up the service, and the wait time decreases. Increase the arrival rate, and the wait time
increases. At its core, this is all a line is. How fast do people get in line, and how fast
do they get out, but in any real-world scenario, queues become anything but simple. And thereâs no better showcase of this complexity
than the Disney Parks. Disney is world-famous not only for their
wait times, but for the bold strategies that they have implemented to cut them down. To truly understand this topic, it is not
enough to simply learn the history. We must deep dive into the technicalities
and psychology of queuing and fully examine the many ways that Disney has tried to tackle
the issue of lines, and unfortunately, there is no FastPass for this explanation. So without further wait, letâs take an excruciatingly
deep dive into everybodyâs least favorite aspect of theme parks. On October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World opened
to the public with two resort hotels, and one theme park, the Magic Kingdom. Within the first year of opening, Walt Disney
World began to experience the problem that had long plagued Disneyland Park in Anaheim. Long waits for attractions. Two of the most dreaded waits were for the
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride and the Country Bear Jamboree show. The wait for 20,000 Leagues consistently sat
at one hour, and the wait for the Country Bear Jamboree could go over an hour on busier
days. This might be surprising to you if youâve
visited the parks recently. Today, the Country Bear Jamboree almost never
fills its theater, and 20,000 Leagues no longer exists. However, when Magic Kingdom opened, these
two attractions had some of the longest waits in the park. This can be explained by looking at the arrival
rate and service rate of these attractions. The service rate for theme park attractions
is generally measured in hourly capacity, or how many guests can board an attraction
within one hour. 20,000 Leagues was a low-capacity attraction,
only able to accommodate around 1200 guests per hour. Compare this to the Haunted Mansion, which
can accommodate around 2800 guests per hour. This difference was due to their ride systems. The Haunted Mansion is a continuously operating
omnimover system, while 20,000 Leagues could only seat 40 guests in each submarine, and
could only operate up to 9 submarines at a time. So in a 12 hour day at the park, over 33,000
guests could ride the Haunted Mansion, while only around 14,000 guests could ride 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea. Looking at this difference another way, if
1000 guests were in line for both attractions, the wait time for the Haunted Mansion would
be 35 minutes while the wait time for 20,000 Leagues would be 1 hr and 20 minutes. The Country Bear Jamboree had an even lower
capacity than 20k leagues, but its issue was less in its service rate, but more its arrival
rate. While the capacity of a ride is determined
by design and operation, the arrival rate is mainly determined by guest demand. This demand can be influenced by such factors
as the quality of the ride and the marketing done for the attraction. The demand and capacity relationship is somewhat
similar to the relationship between the supply and demand of a product, except rather than
determining price and quantity, demand and capacity determine the wait times and number
of riders. Today, once a guest has entered a Disney theme
park, they are able to ride any attraction they choose, but there are only so many operating
hours each day, so time becomes a currency that they must spend. For instance, a guest might want to ride the
Jungle Cruise if the wait were 30 minutes but that same guest might not want to ride
the attraction if the wait was one hour. In queuing, this is called balking, when someone
decides not to wait in a queue due to its length. This can reduce wait times by turning people
away that were not determined to experience the attraction. The situation becomes even more complicated
when guests are spending both their time and money to ride rides. When it opened, Walt Disney World utilized
a ticket book system in which guests needed to purchase tickets both to enter the park
and to ride the majority of the parkâs attractions, with each attraction distinguished with a
letter A through E, with E being the most thrilling and popular attractions. This was the same system used at Disneyland,
and it became so well-known that the term E-ticket became a common phrase to refer to
something as premium or exciting. By charging guests more to ride the popular
attractions, Disneyland was able to curb demand for these rides. However, at Walt Disney World, this system
often had the opposite effect. When the resort opened, guests knew little
about the parkâs unique attractions, but they already understood the A through E ticket
system. So when visitors made their decisions, they
often looked at how Disney ranked and priced their own attractions. The Country Bear Jamboree, a musical show
with animatronic characters unknown to guests, was listed as an E-ticket, while the Mickey
Mouse Revue, a musical show with animatronic characters well known to guests, was listed
as a D-ticket. This led many guests to assume that The Country
Bear Jamboree was the better show, resulting in a false demand, leading to longer lines. This false demand was recognized by a Disney
employee named Bruce Laval. Laval graduated from the University of Florida
with an MBA, specializing in operations research, and he joined Walt Disney World right as the
resort opened in 1971 as an industrial engineer. Industrial engineers are specialized in studying
and optimizing complex systems and processes, finding ways to make systems more efficient,
a field that Disney was increasingly relying on as their theme parks became more complex
and brought in more people. Laval was among the first industrial engineers
to utilize computer simulations to optimize systems, impressive considering at the time
computers looked like this. Within the first few years he worked for the
company, Laval noticed the false demand being created by the A through E ticket system and
argued for its removal. The idea made it almost to the testing phase
for Magic Kingdom when top Disney executives, resistant to change, learned of the plan and
shut it down. However, it was soon decided that Disneyâs
third theme park, EPCOT Center, would not use the A through E ticket system, so the
decision was made to discontinue the system at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World as
well. After the switch, Lavalâs theory was proven. Wait times at E-tickets went down, and more
guests visited the underutilized attractions. Long lines were by no means eliminated from
the guest experience after the A through E ticket system was discontinued. In fact, lines were the number one guest complaint
at all three Disney parks. This is why when Disney opened its first international
park Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, many within the company were surprised at the patience
and endurance of Japanese tourists to withstand long lines, especially when compared to Americans. This is because different cultures have different
reactions to queuing, with Americans tending to be some of the most impatient, right up
there with the French, which Disney would learn soon enough. Also, peopleâs reactions to queues change
significantly over time, and the Disney Parks have played a major role in this evolution. The most common type of queue at Disney is
called the switchback queue, in which guests snake back and forth in a zigzag motion. This was pioneered by Disneyâs Imagineers
at the 1964 New York Worldâs Fair. The lines for Disneyâs attractions at the
fair were long and out of control, so Disney developed the switchback concept which organized
and condensed the line. Reportedly, Walt Disney himself also felt
the concept had a psychological benefit. Because guests were moving back and forth,
they were face to face with other guests, allowing them to interact with strangers back
when people were into that sort of thing. Switchback queues were soon implemented throughout
Disneyland, then at Walt Disney World, EPCOT Center, and eventually everywhere, but since
queueing is always evolving, by the mid 1980s, distaste for the switchback queue had grown. People were no longer tricked by its condensed
nature, and the endless zig zagging soon became grating. To combat this, Disney went back to the drawing
board, coming up with a simple three-tiered strategy to improve guests' time in line. Number 1: Keep waits to a maximum of 15 minutes. Number 2: If a guest must wait more than 15
minutes, give them entertainment, such as immersive queues and pre-show videos. Number 3: Hide the queue from view, sectioning
off different parts of the queue so that guests canât see how long the line really is until
theyâve already waited in it. This strategy really came down to one basic
principle. If you remove the guestsâ ability to visualize
the wait, the wait itself will feel shorter. In 1987, Bruce Laval was named director of
the Studio Tour for the soon-to-open Disney MGM-Studios. The new theme park was designed to focus primarily
on the tour of the new film and television production facilities being constructed alongside
the park, so when Disney-MGM opened in 1989, it had few attractions, and worse, few productions. What it did have was an excess of people. Crowds flocked to Disney-MGM to find long
lines and little to do. The issue was widely reported on, and when
asked about the crowds, Laval said âYou could have the greatest show in the world,
but if you have a three-hour wait out there people are going to leave the park dissatisfied.â Immediately after this article was published,
the Orlando Sentinel received a call from a man, named Michael Eisner, who was the CEO
of Disney at the time. Eisner assured the public, as well as the
Disney employees quoted in Sundayâs paper, that the park would be expanded with more
attractions, stating âWe do not want the lines to be that long. We are trying to rectify that as soon as we
can.â In 1995, Laval was promoted to Executive Vice
President of Operations, now assuming responsibility for all park and resort operations at the
Disney Parks. Laval had held many different positions at
the company, but his industrial engineering background had stayed with him, and the mounting
issues with wait times led Laval and his team to develop something big. In the mid 1990s, Laval and his team began
experimenting with the idea of transitioning certain attractions at the Disney Parks to
a reservation-only system. The idea was to give guests a reservation
time for an attraction so that they would not have to wait in line. Similar to a restaurant, guests would simply
arrive at the attraction for their reservation and would be seated immediately. While the idea would eliminate waits for guests
at the park's most popular attractions, there were obvious issues with the concept. First, it was nearly impossible to ensure
that park guests arrived for their reservations on time. Often they would be doing something else around
the park. When a guest would miss their reservation
time, this would leave empty seats on the ride, therefore reducing the total capacity
of the attraction. Second, if the attraction experienced downtime
for any reason, then the guests holding reservations during this downtime would no longer be able
to ride, as reservations for the rest of the day would already be filled, or if they were
allowed on, the ride would now have a line of people for the rest of the day, defeating
the point of the system. The idea was abandoned for these reasons,
and it seemed that reservation-based attractions was a dead concept. This was until Laval had an epiphany, not
while at work, but while on vacation. In 1997, Laval went on a skiing vacation in
Colorado. While on the slopes, he observed the queue
to get on the ski lift. Each lift chair held four people, and the
queue was split into two lines, a regular line and a single rider line. Laval viewed how the single riders were squeezed
in the empty seats on the ski lift when a party did not fill an entire chair. He realized that this was the compromise to
the reservation-based system. Rather than a regular line and a single rider
line, Laval could have a reservation-based system and a standby line. Whenever a guest would be late for their reservation,
operators could take someone from the standby line so that the attraction would never lose
capacity because of the ebbs and flows in guest behavior. Plus, if the attraction did experience downtime,
then the ratio of reservation based guests to standby riders could simply be adjusted
to favor those that had reservations during the downtime. Despite the idea coming from the initial reservation-based
concept, what Laval was proposing was closer to a virtual queue. A virtual queue functions similarly to a normal
queue just without the physical line. A common example of a virtual queue can be
found in many quick service restaurants, in which guests take a number and wait for their
number to be called. Unlike reservations, this still retains the
first come first serve nature of a physical line but it removes the ability to visualize
the wait, therefore, increasing the quality of it. After returning from vacation, Laval pitched
the concept to other executives, but he was met with skepticism. Believing in the idea, Laval proposed that
he test the idea to prove that it could work. Using the newly opened Animal Kingdom due
to its limited amount of attractions, testing began with a select group of guests who were
given paper diaries to keep track of their day, including how long they waited in line. The test subjects were split into two groups,
a control group and a group that would use the virtual queue system. The control group simply logged their day
at the park, while the other group were told to approach cast members at attractions entrances,
who would hand them a ticket with a return time on it. This return time was equal to the time that
it would have taken guests to wait in the line for the ride. The test subjects were then encouraged to
explore the park, and return at the time listed on the ticket, where they would then be allowed
to skip the line. The test was a huge success. The virtual queue subjects were able to experience
25% more rides than the control group, and their wait times were reduced by 50%. The virtual queue subjects left the park much
more satisfied and far more likely to return than the control group. If this was not convincing enough for executives,
the tests also showed that those using the virtual queue system spent more of their time
at gift shops and dining locations, resulting in more spending when compared to the control
group. Executives approved the concept for further
testing, which continued throughout early 1999, both at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. That summer, testing focused on Space Mountain
at the Magic Kingdom, which often had the parkâs longest wait. In these early tests, Cast Members were physically
writing return times on cards and giving them to guests, while using handheld clicker counters
to keep track of how many were handed out and how many guests returned. The tests were often haphazard and chaotic,
but they were successful enough to prove that not only the system could work, but it would
make guests happier and more likely to spend money. Many within the company, including Laval,
felt that the system should be free and available to all visitors so as not to create different
classes of park guests, citing Walt Disney himself, who was known to wait in the parkâs
lines with his guests. With the tests labeled a success, executives
approved the permanent installation of the new virtual queue system, officially titled... âHey, did you know that you donât have
to wait in line to ride some of your favorite attractions? Just look for the signs at selected attractions
and insert your park ticket. Youâll get a complimentary Fastpass with
a return ride time stamped right on it.â Guests who entered a Walt Disney World park
in late 1999 were met with a brand new system, FastPass. On the surface, the system was simple. Guests would approach an attraction where
they would be able to view the posted standby wait time. If this was manageable, they could join the
standby queue right away. However, if the wait was long, they could
instead choose to receive a FastPass at the kiosks placed outside of the attractions. Guests inserted their park admission ticket
into the kiosk to receive their FastPass with a one-hour return window listed on it. They could then enjoy the rest of the park,
and once their return window arrived, they would hand their ticket to an attendant and
enter the FastPass queue, boarding the attraction with a minimal wait. Each guest could only hold one FastPass at
a time, and they could not receive another until their return window arrived. Behind the scenes, the system was far more
complex. Each attractionâs FastPass data would be
stored on a local computer housed in each attraction, controlling the standby wait time
display, keeping track of how many Fastpasses have been handed out, and determining the
return times being printed on each FastPass. The computer was connected to a server so
all wait times could be monitored throughout the park, and so that the system would know
when a guest had already been given a FastPass to prevent them from obtaining another. The system also allowed ride operators to
tell the computer when an attraction was experiencing downtime, and in response, the kiosks would
slow down or cease disbursing FastPasses until the attraction was operating again. Some Cast Members reported this feature not
working properly or not implemented on some rides, resulting in ride operators having
to go to the FastPass kiosk, manually disburse a stack of paper Fastpasses so that return
times were pushedd back, and then immediately throwing those FastPasses in the trash. When news broke on FastPass in the summer
of 1999, Laval said quote, âWe are going to use it on the three, four or five attractions
that historically have the longest lines at each park.â By the end of the year, thirteen attractions
at Walt Disney World utilized FastPass. Five at Magic Kingdom, two at Epcot, five
at Disney-MGM, and 3 at Animal Kingdom. In early 2000, FastPass was implemented in
Disneyland on three attractions, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Roger Rabbit's Car Toon
Spin with plans to expand the program. âOne way to keep it moving is called Disneyâs
FastPass. Mi un favorito. Check this out. We roll up to the FastPass kiosk. Boom. Boom! Kicks back a ride time. Then you just come back to the ride at that
time and giddyup. Pretty sweet little invention. Letâs hit it.â FastPass was a huge learning curve for guests. Despite heavy marketing, many guests did not
know about the program and even fewer understood it. In the early days, it was referred to as Disneyâs
best kept secret, and many guests waiting in standby lines were visibly and vocally
frustrated to see priority being given to those that had FastPasses. Believing that they were being skipped or
cut in line, which in a way, they were. Some people believed that FastPass was simply
holding their place in the attracionâs line, which is not the case. The FastPass kiosk and ticket system was a
virtual queue, so there was a first come first serve system built into the program, but that
just determined guests return windows. Once guests redeemed their pass, that queue
was over, and they were admitted to a new preferred queue that shared the service rate
of the attraction with the standby line. The arrival of FastPass guests did affect
the rate at which guests moved through the standby queue. There were a few exceptions to this, such
as with Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, which has two separate tracks. So if operated as such, one track could be
standby only, and the other could be FastPass only. If this is the case, then FastPass guests
are not skipping or cutting the standby line, they essentially just have their own attraction,
as there are two separate service rates, and the arrival of FastPass guests have no impact
on the standby line. The main issues with implementing FastPass
beyond the learning curve for guests was perfecting the technology for the kiosks and finding
space in each attraction for two lines. Luckily, many attractions already had two
lines, and guests were given the choice of either the left line or the right line when
they entered. A common advice from vacation planners was
to always go left, because the majority of people are right handed and thus tended to
go right, a phenomenon found outside of Disneyâs parks and studied by queuing experts for some
time. Some attractions already had a split point,
but not until later on in their queue. For instance, Space Mountain at Walt Disney
World had a wide single line hallway up to the ramp leading to the main show building. Here, a railing was added and all guests had
to go to the right side, so that Cast Members could walk on the left. This made installing FastPass fairly simple
because Disney only needed to extend the railing to the beginning of the queue and build a
staircase to the entrance so the left side and the right side remained split the entire
time. Reviews from those guests that used FastPass
were overwhelmingly positive. On average, guests that utilized the system
waited 75% less throughout the day. A few skeptics believed that the system would
increase standby waits significantly throughout the park. Laval responded to this concern saying quote,
âItâs only a problem if they donât self-select. The only challenge has been getting people
to understand FastPass.â He added that quote, âPeople go on to what
you might consider the secondary attractions in that area of the ride they have the Fastpass
for. We found that these were typically attractions
that they didnât go on before because they were spending too much time in line. This does increase rides per capita by backfilling
less-attended attractions.â FastPass also had the potential in certain
situations to reduce standby wait times because it altered the arrival rate of popular attractions. By giving guests return windows, it spread
out arrivals more evenly throughout the day, flattening the mid-day rush and reducing standby
waits during this peak period. Those that loved FastPass argued that the
system should be added to all of the rides in the park. Dale Stafford, VP of Operations Planning and
Development for Walt Disney World believed that this was not practical, saying quote,
âIf you did it everywhere, you wouldn't have enough space in the park. Where would everyone go?â One year after FastPass was introduced, both
guests and Disney officials were confident in labeling the program a massive success. Eisner said quote, âThey now have more time
to spend money and to do other things. Theyâre also a lot happier not having to
wait in line.â In August of 2000, FastPass was recognized
by the Florida Engineering Society and was awarded a 2000 Governorâs New Product Award. Laval said quote, âFastPass continues to
exceed our guest expectations. Itâs a free service and itâs making their
time in the parks more fun and productive.â Laval retired in 2000 after 30 years with
the company, with FastPass being his last major project. Perhaps the greatest success of FastPass was
the name. It was catchy and concise, so much so that
it immediately became a household name and a colloquialism for any sort of expedited
line. It also pushed other parks to develop their
own expedited queue systems and it even inspired a hit song. ââcause if you like it then you shoulda
got a Fastpass. If you like it then you shoulda gotta Fastpass. Donât you hate on me because you came in
last. If you like it then you shoulda gotta Fastpass. Oh oh oh. Oh oh oh oh oh. Oh oh oh oh.â It was not long until touring experts started
to learn best practices for the FastPass system. For instance, guests still needed to arrive
earlier in the day to receive FastPasses with optimal return times. If a guest arrived at the parkâs opening
they could receive a FastPass with a return window only an hour away. However, by mid-day, many FastPasses return
times could be four to five hours in the future, and on busier days, FastPasses for popular
attractions would run out by 1 or 2 oâclock in the afternoon. While the system itself worked well, there
were a few issues. One was the decision to not allow guests to
receive another FastPass until their return window arrived. This left many guests upset when they went
to get a FastPass for an attraction only to realize that the return window was hours away
and they could not get another FastPass until then. The solution to this was allowing guests to
receive an additional FastPass 2 hours after receiving their initial one. Some less than honest guests found that they
could simply keep their FastPasses from previous days or trips and reuse them over and over
again. To combat this, Disney changed the design
of FastPass tickets to more clearly show the date, although this did not entirely curb
the practice. Others found ways to best the system to get
as many FastPasses as possible. Guests found that some attractions did not
communicate with the rest of the parkâs computers, so if they were to get a FastPass
from one of these rogue attractions, they would not communicate that the guest already
held a FastPass and they could therefore obtain another. FastPass kiosks were also used in creative
ways. For instance, guests obtaining a FastPass
for Who Wants to be a Millionaire Play It! might have received a special ticket inviting
them to sit in one of the special contestant seats at the attraction. Sometimes the kiosks were used to direct people
to other attractions by giving them a bonus FastPass, such as The Many Adventures of Winnie
the Pooh which sometimes dispensed bonus FastPasses for Mickeyâs Philharmagic. On February 17th, 2003, the 100th Million
FastPass was distributed to the Dillon family of Atlanta, who were given a special Golden
FastPass that allowed them FastPass access to all attractions at the resort. Mike Dillon said quote, âThings like this
donât happen to the Dillons.â On a particularly stormy night in the year
1871, Jebediah Dillon stowed away on a cargo ship named the Queen Marge, which would soon
navigate the tumultuous waters of the Atlantic Ocean, bound for the⌠whoa, think I lost
my thread there. Sorry about that. Where was I? By 2003, FastPass had grown significantly
to 263 attractions at Walt Disney World. Five at Animal Kingdom, Six at Disney-MGM,
Five at Epcot, and Ten at Magic Kingdom. Disneyland Resort now had a total of 16 FastPass
attractions, 9 at Disneyland and 7 at California Adventure. The significant increase in FastPass attractions
was due less to logistics and more to the monetary benefits of the system. During the late 90s and early 2000s, Paul
Pressler, the chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, had instituted drastic cost cutting
measures, slashing budgets across the board to increase profits. At the same time, Pressler, whose background
was in retail, dramatically increased the amount of shopping and merchandise carts throughout
the parks. FastPass was a quick fix in many ways. Not only did the system promise to get guests
out of line and into gift shops, but FastPass itself could be marketed far and wide as if
it were a new attraction, during a time when Disney didnât have anything else to promote. For a period of time in the mid-2000s, FastPass
was used as a perk for vacation packages, namely once booked through Triple A, which
allowed guests access to what was referred to as Enhanced FastPass, which removed the
2 hour limit on guests tickets, allowing them to obtain as many FastPasses as available,
with the only restriction being that they could not receive multiple passes for the
same attraction until the first pass for that attraction had expired. With this, guests could enter Disneyland Park
in the morning, obtain a FastPass for every FastPass attraction in the park, exit Disneyland
Park, walk over to California Adventure, obtain a FastPass for every FastPast attraction at
that park, and now holding, 16 FastPasses, have the best day ever, with the only downside
being that they now have to experience seven attractions at a mid-2000s California Adventure. The over-implementation of FastPass did exactly
what Stafford had predicted, and walkways at the park were more congested than ever. This was especially noticeable at Disneyland
which is a much smaller park in comparison to the Magic Kingdom. The park was designed to have people waiting
in line, but now, with most attractions using FastPass, guests found themselves wading through
a sea of people, all waiting for their return time to arrive. Also, standby waits for high-capacity attractions,
such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, were noticeably increased with FastPass, In 2002, Paul Pressler resigned to model for
the Gap, where he would also serve as CEO. He was replaced by the Chairman of Disneyland
Paris, Jay Rasulo. When Rasulo and other management took over,
they reevaluated Disneylandâs FastPass system, determining that the best solution was to
begin removing FastPasses from certain attractions. At Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie
the Pooh, and Star Tours had its FastPass kiosks removed, and Haunted Mansionâs FastPass
would only be utilized for Haunted Mansion Holiday. In California Adventure, Itâs Tough to be
a Bug and MuppetVision had their FastPasses removed as well. Eventually, the Haunted Mansion at the Magic
Kingdom would have its FastPass removed as well. While FastPass worked well on some rides and
did increase customer satisfaction significantly, the over implementation within the first few
years of its debut seemed to be clear proof that it was a bad idea to put FastPass everywhere. It is now September of 2007. It has been two years since Bob Iger became
the CEO of Disney after an embattled Michael Eisner resigned, FastPass has just turned
eight years old, and Jay Rasulo is still heading the parks division. It has also been recently announced that Disney
was patenting a technology that would utilize a centralized computer system to manage FastPass
tickets throughout Walt Disney World and Disneyland, allowing guests to obtain FastPasses from
their mobile devices, which at the time looked like this, so most of the plans relied on
sending text messages to guests. The patent application also stated that the
new system could allow quote âspending per guest at hotelsâ to determine hierarchies
of access to Fastpass. Disney stated publicly they had no plans to
change FastPass at the moment, merely that they were monitoring how to take advantage
of technological developments. However, within the company, executives were
formulating plans for a massive project in complete secrecy. In 2007, Jay Rasulo and four other senior
Disney Parks officials formed an exploratory committee to determine how the ongoing technological
revolution could reinvent the guest experience. Like Walt Disney and Imagineers in the 1960s
and like Bruce Laval in the 1990s, discussions once again centered on how to improve crowd
control and wait times. The group was exploring multiple concepts
when one member had an epiphany. While on a flight, VP of Business Development
John Padgett was browsing through the in-flight magazine, SkyMall, when he came across a magnetic
wristband that promised to improve balance and reduce joint pain. This was of course a scam, but it gave Padgett
an idea. What if Disney Parks guests had their own
wristband that contained technology that they could use around the park. It would be like a magic wristband, so naturally,
they called it the experience Band, or xBand for short. The team opened a testing space for the xBand
in the abandoned Body Wars attraction in the Wonders of Life Pavilion at Epcot. After an ideation phase, Disney CEO Bob Iger
was given a tour where the team explained their idea for the xBand. The proposal was to house an RFID tag inside
the band that would allow guests to interact with touch points throughout the park. The xBand could act as guestâs park tickets
or their hotel room keys. They could even use it as a credit card. When Iger was shown the technology, he was
impressed enough to give the project a proper budget. In 2008, development officially began on Disney
NextGen Experience, an initiative that promised to bring the guest experience into the modern
age. This encompassed multiple strategies, ranging
from reinventing the way guests order food at the parks to experimenting with different
queue-types to increase guest enjoyment while in line. Perhaps the most ambitious part of NextGen
was MyMagic Plus, a complete overhaul of Walt Disney Worldâs technological infrastructure
and the introduction of a new website and mobile application. âEver wish you could have the magic of the
parks right at your fingertipsâ Wait, what is this? âThanks to Disney Parks... This is not MyMagic Plus I donât know what
this is. âIntroducing Mobile Magic. A magical app that will turn your Verizon
mobile phone â Ugh. Exclusive to Verizon? â...super easy to use. Just touch characters. Look, Mickey⌠Ahh. Oh gosh, I forgot about this. Ok, so real quick, in 2009, Disney and Verizon
partnered on a new mobile app named Mobile Magic, that allowed guests to see a map of
the park, view showtimes, and play trivia for $9.99 every 180 days, geez. And you had to send a text message to download
the app? Ugh. Most impressive, the app allowed users to
view wait times and FastPass return times from their phone, with real time information
from the parkâs computer system. They could not book or view their FastPasses
from the app, but this was still a powerful tool for the time, and it had a valuable feature. Guests could now balk at an attractionâs
wait time from the other side of the park. Understanding the power the app had over guest
decisions, Disney began to inflate posted wait times to point guests in certain directions. For instance, if there were too many people
in Tomorrowland, Space Mountainâs posted wait time might be adjusted to 90 minutes
despite the actual wait only being 60, in order to dissuade guests from visiting the
crowded area of the park. This also served the additional function of
improving guest satisfaction, as actual waits were almost always shorter than posted waits,
and giving ride operators a buffer in the event of delays or downtime. It is unclear when this strategy began, but
it would become an integral part of MyMagic+âs crowd control features when the new app launched. In November of 2009, two years into the development
of Next Gen Experience, it was announced that Jay Rasulo would become the CFO of the Walt
Disney Company, switching places with then CFO Tom Staggs, who would be taking Rasuloâs
position as the head of the Disney Parks. The switch was Igerâs decision, and it was
done to see which executive adjusted better to their new role. This was a way to help Iger determine his
successor, as he planned to retire from the company in 2015. Staggs was inheriting the NextGen program
and MyMagic+, and the pressure was immediately on for him to deliver on the teamâs plans,
which had only become more ambitious. Not only did the NextGen team want to reinvent
park tickets and hotel keys, they wanted to completely overhaul FastPass as well. The new system would be titled XPass, and
it was the key feature of NextGenâs Guaranteed Experience initiative. The philosophy behind Guaranteed Experiences
was to increase customer satisfaction and guest retention at the resort by removing
unwanted variability in vacations. The program sought to ensure that guests would
be able to eat at their favorite restaurant and ride their favorite rides during their
vacation. This is where XPass came in. Guests would now be able to book multiple
FastPasses before they arrived at the park, and rather than using paper tickets, they
would use their xBands to enter the expedited queue. In late 2011, news broke on XPass, mainly
focusing on a rumor that FastPass would cost money. People took that great, but despite the uproar,
the rumor turned out to not be true, at least not entirely. FastPass would still be available to everyone,
but priority access would be given to those staying at a Walt Disney World resort hotel. The plan was for guests to be able to book
between 2 and 4 FastPasses before they arrived. The specific number would be different for
each park and would vary based on attendance. On the busiest days at Magic Kingdom, guests
would only be allowed to book 3 Fastpasses, but on most days, they would be able to book
4. However, at Epcot, which had significantly
less attractions, guests would only get to book 2 FastPasses on busy days, while most
days they would get to book 3. The times for the reservations would be determined
by guest preferences. Guests would input which attractions they
wanted to ride, and an itinerary would be created with FastPasses to optimize guest
flow throughout the park. When paired with the rest of the NextGen technology,
this had the potential to radically redesign crowd control. There was just one problem. Actually there were a thousand problems, but
this was one of them. XPass sought to offer multiple FastPasses
to the majority of guests before their arrival. The problem was there were not enough FastPasses
available at the resortâs FastPass attractions to do this. In the original FastPass system, popular attractions
would run out of FastPasses for the day by noon or even before, and that was when people
could only obtain one FastPass every two hours. Since FastPass already took up the majority
of a rideâs capacity, and most rides at Walt Disney World were already operating at
maximum capacity, it was not feasible to simply give out more FastPasses for these rides. When the industrial engineers ran models for
XPass, it became apparent that there was not enough FastPass availability at the parks
to make the system work. The engineers quickly realized that in order
to offer multiple FastPasses to guests before they arrived, they would need to add FastPass
to nearly every attraction at the resort. The total number of FastPass attractions at
Walt Disney World would increase from 28 to 50. When the industrial engineers put the increased
FastPass availability into the model, it still didnât work. Even with an additional 22 attractions, there
were still numerous days throughout the year where FastPass availability would be gone
before a significant amount of guests could book all of their passes. To solve this, it was suggested that FastPass
be added not just to every attraction, but also to things that were not typically considered
attractions, such as meet and greets with characters. Apparently, this still wasnât enough, so
it was suggested that guests could obtain FastPasses to things that donât even have
lines, such as firework shows or parades. Rather than skipping the line, special viewing
areas would be created for these experiences and guests could book a FastPass to gain access
to them. Finally, this increased, or more accurately
inflated, the amount of FastPasses that could be offered, which helped support the idea
to offer multiple FastPasses to guests before they arrived. With the basic framework figured out, plans
moved forward on XPass as NextGen and MyMagic+ continued to develop. In February of 2011, the Walt Disney Companyâs
Board of Directors approved MyMagic+ with a budget of around $1 billion. Iger reportedly sternly told Staggs, âThis
better work.â Which became a mantra for the entire team. Staggs was under enormous pressure to deliver
on a project that didnât really make the parks or Disney money. âNow when I put this in, does money immediately
begin flowing out of my checking account?â âIf itâs working correctly, yes. Yes.â âYeah.â In a shocking twist, most of the rhetoric
surrounding NextGen and MyMagic+ internally was not about the potential profit from the
system. Those developing the new technology and even
much of the executive team, believed in the more altruistic benefits of the program. The ability to guarantee experiences for vacationers,
to simplify the experience of visiting the resort, to improve traffic flow and crowd
control at the parks, to create an IT infrastructure that could be built on over the coming decades,
even to make Cast Members jobs easier so they could focus more on providing great interactions
with guests. These were the key components of the pitch. This is not to say that there were not some
ulterior motives. Disney definitely wanted to impress with the
program to establish themselves as a major player in the tech space, but this did not
create a clear path to generate income. Apart from the new digital PhotoPass system,
which had direct monetary benefits, the revenue that the billion dollar MyMagic+ overhaul
would generate was almost entirely theoretical. Maybe guests would think less about their
purchases when using their xBands which would then lead to more spending. Maybe the novelty of the xBand would encourage
more people to stay at Walt Disney World resorts which would increase revenue. Maybe the data collected from everyoneâs
xBands and account profiles could be leveraged in ways to increase spending. Maybe a few Cast Member positions could be
automated with the system which would save money. Maybe the traffic flow improvements would
be so great that more guests could fit into the park? And the biggest maybe that the entire project
was predicated on, maybe MyMagic+ would create such a wonderful experience for our guests
that they would be more likely to return and more likely to recommend that others visit. Sure, the end goal was to increase revenue,
but Disneyâs focus was on improving the guest experience, and hoping that the money
would come as a result. This optimistic and almost quaint approach
seemed to be at odds with the $1 billion dollar price tag, but Iger, Staggs, Rasulo and other
executives believed in the program enough to keep it going. Others throughout Disney had a much different
opinion, which quickly led to infighting. Disney hired multiple tech contractors to
manufacture and deliver much of the MyMagic+ technology, and it was an open secret in the
tech industry that they hired subpar firms that saw the project as a cash cow, over charging
and under delivering. These firms also did not get along with the
parkâs IT team, especially when major issues were found with implementation. Walt Disney Imagineering was not all in on
the MyMagic+ technology either. The parks hoped that the Imagineers would
take advantage of the Magic Band technology to deliver unique experiences in attractions,
but Imagineering viewed the xBandâs as a gimmick, and a risky one at that. Plus, placing xBand readers throughout the
parkâs lands so that guests could redeem FastPasses clashed with the theming. Imagineer Joe Rohde said, âIf Iâm supposed
to be living with fairies, fairies donât have iPhones or MagicBands.â The Imagineers ended up barely integrating
the xBands into new attractions, with EPCOTâs Test Track being one of the only real benefactors. âWhatâs FastPass+ you ask? Come on, Iâll Show you. It makes your stay a treat. Reserve that meet and greet. Come on, get it now. Make your trip go wow. Itâs sweet.â That is technically my second favorite FastPass
parody song, but itâs really not even a competition. In January of 2013, Disney officially announced
the creation of MyMagic+, along with the introduction of new high tech wristbands, now renamed to
Magic Bands. XPass was also announced, renamed to FastPass
Plus. The system had been altered slightly, and
it would allow guests to book three FastPasses in advance. This static number applied to all four parks
rather than XPassâs proposed dynamic system. As rumored, guests staying at Walt Disney
World resort hotels would get early access to FastPasses. Hotel guests would be able to book their Fastpasses
60 days in advance while everyone else could book 30 days in advance. When guests went to book their FastPasses,
they were given a list of attractions that had FastPass available. They then selected three of them, no more,
no less. If the guests didnât select three, the system
picked two at random. After the selections were made, the computer
would intelligently create multiple itineraries that guests could choose from. After this, guests could still edit the selections,
either by changing the time of the FastPass reservation or by selecting another attraction
within the initial attractionâs time frame. FastPasses were now redeemed with MagicBands
or guests park tickets, but during the initial rollout, paper FastPass kiosks would still
be available. MyMagic+ was introduced in phases throughout
2013 and early 2014 and issues with the system were immediate, apparent, and overwhelming. Reportedly, those on the rollout team and
IT pleaded to executives to pull the plug, as the tech was making operations much worse,
to which executives essentially responded, âWe know, but weâre in too deep.â Spotty Wifi, malfunctioning MagicBand readers,
website crashes, an at times unusable mobile app, and many more issues plagued the system
and thus the resort. There are too many issues with MyMagic+ to
discuss, but if youâre curious here are a few. The biggest disappointment with the system
was that the tech was so broken that it was never able to take the guest experience to
the next level. At best, it worked, but it never impressed
in the ways that the team had hoped, and many of the more ambitious plans for the technology,
such as leveraging data to give guests recommendations or even being able to communicate to Cast
Members via MagicBands that it was a guests birthday, could never be implemented, because
IT was too busy keeping the entire system afloat to ever have time to take it to the
next step. Most damning, by and large, Cast Members hated
it, and it made many positions much more frustrating to work at. It automated few if any jobs, and because
of the issues, Disney had to triple the size of its customer support department. Despite all of the issues, Disney publicly
labeled MyMagic+ a success, and Staggs even said that thanks to the systemâs ability
to distribute guests more evenly throughout the parks, Magic Kingdomâs maximum capacity
was increased by 5000 people, although it is unclear whether this has anything to do
with the New Fantasyland expansion that also debuted around this time. Staggs was determined to be the winner of
Igerâs competition, and Rasulo stepped down from CFO in 2015 while Staggs was promoted
to Chief Operating Officer, with Bob Chapek, the president of Disneyâs consumer products
division, was promoted to head the parks. Stags would leave the company the following
year, with no confirmed reason for his departure. Overall, My Magic+ and MagicBands streamlined
the guest experience as much as it stalled it. Some guests loved it, some guests hated it,
and others simply didnât care. In many ways, the introduction of the technology
was a wash. A $1 billion wash. But what about the new programâs headlining
feature, FastPass Plus? By the end of its life in 2014, the original
paper FastPass system was still operating off of a Windows software from the late 90s,
so the update in technology, as buggy as it could be, was definitely a welcome one, but
FastPass Plus was much more than its touch points. It was an entirely new system, and like the
original FastPass, it was a huge learning curve for guests. The new system could only be accessed on the
website, on the My Disney Experience app, or with a Cast Member at one of the FastPass
kiosks set up throughout the park. During the initial roll out, this led to huge
lines for the FastPass+ kiosks, or to put it another way, there was a line to get the
pass to skip the lines. While guests adjusted to the new system, the
system itself was undergoing constant adjustment. In November of 2013, Epcot and Hollywood Studios
transitioned to a tiered FastPass+ system, in which the parkâs most popular attractions
were separated from the rest and only one popular attraction could be held at a time. In February of 2014, the transition to FastPass+
was complete and all paper FastPass kiosks were removed from the park. Rumoredly, the speed of the transition was
part of an effort to force guest adoption of the new technology to prove its efficacy. Two months later, the system was altered once
again to allow guests to receive additional FastPasses after they redeemed their first
three. Once guests redeemed their third FastPass
for the day, they could go to a FastPass Plus kiosk and choose one additional pass. After they redeemed this additional one, they
could select another, and repeat the process until the end of the day. The next major change would not come until
mid-2016, when the itinerary system was dropped, and now guests had to choose each of their
FastPass times themselves. This also removed the three initial FastPass
rule, allowing guests to select only one or two FastPasses without forcing them to start
with three. Finally, guests could now choose their additional
FastPasses from the My Disney Experience app rather than only at the kiosks. It would not be until 2017 that Disneyland
would update their FastPass system. Rumordely, Disneyland was set to receive MyMagic+,
MagicBands, FastPass Plus, and all, but the major issues with the system resulted in the
expansion being cancelled. Instead, Disneyland would receive an entirely
different system called MaxPass. For $10 a day, visitors could book FastPasses
from their phone, except they could only do so when inside the park. Like paper FastPass, users could only receive
one FastPass at a time, unable to receive additional passes until the first return window
had arrived or 90 minutes after the initial pass was booked. The system received mixed reviews upon announcement,
but after installation, many warmed up to it, believing that MaxPass was superior to
FastPass Plus, which by this point, was the subject of a heated debate. FastPass Plus was a divisive program, and
many had strong opinions on it. There are pros and cons to the system, so
Iâd like to take this moment to examine the biggest ones. Before we get into this, I want to mention
that we will not be discussing or factoring in other ways guests are able to cut the line,
such as with tour guides or the Guest Assistance Program. These systems have their own complex histories
during this period that, while interesting and important, are not factored into this
list or this discussion on FastPass in general. That said, here are some of the pros and cons
to FastPass Plus. Pro #1
You get to skip the line more. Obviously. Pro #2
Improved traffic flow throughout the park. One of the biggest downsides to the original
FastPass was that guests had to travel to an attractionâs entrance to obtain a paper
FastPass just to return to the same location when it was time to ride. This backtracking was causing major traffic
flow issues, so allowing guests to make reservations from their phone eliminated this unnecessary
foot traffic. Plus, it was more convenient for guests. Pro #3
Reduction in length of stay. As park attendance climbed through the early
2000s, FastPasses for major attractions ran out earlier in the day, so in turn, guests
arrived earlier in the day, resulting in more people arriving in the morning and staying
for longer, which increased the amount of people in each park. With FastPass Plus, guests would know three
of their FastPass reservations before arriving, which would encourage guests that had FastPasses
for later in the day, not to arrive until later, thus relieving morning and mid-day
crowds. Plus, guests no longer had to wake up early
to rope drop FastPasses, allowing for a more relaxing vacation. Con #1 Irrelevant FastPasses. In the mad dash to add as many attractions
to the FastPass system, the implementation of certain attractions were less thought out
than others. For instance, FastPasses for Monsters Inc
Laugh Floor and MuppetVision 3D rarely saved guests any time, as these attractions were
theater shows that held guests in large waiting areas before the next showing. Guests who had FastPasses for these types
of attractions soon learned that all their FastPass did was give them a different entrance
to the same giant room where they had to wait with other guests. Con #2 Long FastPass Lines. Many using FastPass Plus reported waiting
longer after redeeming their FastPass than they did with the original FastPass system. The original intention of FastPass was for
guests to wait no more than fifteen minutes before boarding, but with FastPass+, guests
were now having to wait over half an hour at certain points. This was in part due to the fact that FastPass
plus was basically guaranteeing that an attraction would be operating sixty days in advance. As previously explained, paper FastPass had
a built-in response to downtimes, or at the very least a ride operator could throw a bunch
of FastPasses in the trash to give operations some wiggle room. This was much more difficult with FastPass+,
when an attraction went down, it might have already had an entire day's worth of FastPasses
distributed. If the downtime was significant, anyone with
FastPasses during the downtime were given an any-use FastPass with which they could
use on any ride they chose, which backed up FastPass lines at other attractions throughout
the park. If the ride was delayed but did not completely
shut down, this caused a backup in the FastPass line for that ride. When there was a backup, the FastPass to Standby
ratio had to be altered to get the FastPass line under control. This was the same compensation plan as paper
FastPass, but the new system seemed to be disbursing any use FastPasses much more frequently,
leading to Disney to eventually put limits on these passes. Con #3. The FastPass to Standby Ratio. We have yet to discuss the FastPass to Standby
ratio in detail. It is no secret that of the two lines, the
FastPass line was given priority over the standby line. In fact, thatâs the whole point. The question is how much was FastPass favored
over standby. There is no definitive answer to this, because
it was different for every attraction and ultimately up to the Cast Member stationed
at the merge point. Bruce Laval recounted that this was the most
difficult position to train, and it was the key position to getting the original FastPass
system to work. This Cast Member not only had to keep the
attractionâs ratio steady, but they had to manage the expectations and frustrations
of two very different lines of people experiencing two very different waits. The FastPass to standby ratio cited on the
original FastPass patent was 80/20, or in other words, for every four FastPass guests,
1 standby guest was let through. This is consistent with Cast Member and guest
recollections of the system at the time. The 4 to 1 ratio remained standard after the
transition to FastPass Plus, but with backups occurring much more frequently, Cast Members
at merge points had to modify the FastPass to Standby disparity more often. There were three phases Cast Members had to
go through. Phase 1 was standard operating procedure with
a 4:1 ratio. If there was a backup in the FastPass line,
Cast Members would go to Phase 2, which was a 20:1 ratio, and if the backup was significant
enough, Phase 3 would be initiated, which was for every 1 standby guest, 100 FastPass
guests were let through. Once the FastPass line was under control,
Cast Members would return to Phase 1, but the disparity of Phase 2 and 3 was infuriating
to guests waiting in the standby queue, which during these phases would almost completely
stop. There was also a psychological gamble to FastPass. Disney was banking on the idea that guests
would not remember the three or four times they were cut in line, they would just remember
the one time they got to cut the line. This seemed to pay off, but they were also
working against another issue with the psychology of queueing. Now that FastPass was slowing down the standby
line, the pace at which guests moved through the queue was much slower. In most cases, people prefer to spend 20 minutes
walking at a steady pace rather than spend 20 minutes standing still, but the latter
was now happening frequently on FastPass attractions. In the pre-FastPass days, lines often stretched
out of an attractionâs dedicated queue, but it is important to remember that back
then, these lines were moving three, four or five times as fast. With FastPass, guests found that the amount
of people waiting in the standby line was less than before, despite the wait being the
same or longer. Con #4 FastPass Availability After guests became accustomed to the FastPass+
system, it didnât take long for them to figure out the best ways to use it. In turn, FastPass availability was running
out extremely fast for popular rides. Practically every day of the year, popular
attractions would run out of FastPass availability completely before the day of operation. This was the case for 5 attractions at the
Magic Kingdom, 3 at EPCOT, 3 at Hollywood Studios, 2 at Animal Kingdom, and 4 meet and
greets throughout the resort. This meant that nearly 17 experiences were
out of FastPasses before guests even arrived to the park. This prompted Disney to hold back a small
amount of FastPasses until the day-of, where they would then drop these held-back passes
at different points throughout the day. This also gave them the option to not drop
these additional passes at all if the attraction was experiencing downtime. Still, unless a guest got lucky and snagged
a FastPass during one of these random drops or after another guest modified or cancelled
theirs, if they wanted a FastPass for a popular ride, they had to plan in advance. Which leads me to Pro #4 and Con #5, Planning. Many people love planning their Disney trips,
and do a lot of research and groundwork beforehand. MyMagic Plus and FastPass Plus significantly
increased the amount of planning necessary to have a consistently good experience at
Walt Disney World. FastPass Plus was supposed to give guests
the option to plan their trip in advance, but in practice, the system forced guests
to plan their trip in advance or risk not getting to experience the most popular attractions
without an extreme standby wait time. Hotel guests could book an entire trip's worth
of FastPasses 60 days out from their check-in date. This allowed some guests to book as many as
70 days in advance, resulting in certain attractions like Slinky Dog Dash at Hollywood Studios
and Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom running out of FastPasses even before the 60-day mark. Securing these FastPasses practically became
a sport, and everyone had tips and tricks to snag those passes. âAlright, so weâre going to start with
prep you need to do beforehand. So you get three FastPass+ reservations per
day.â âSo once you hit the 60 day mark from your
first night at your hotel, you can actually go on and book FastPasses for the whole length
of your stay.â âStart with the last day of your vacation
first.â âSo the further out you can make it, the
more likely you are able to get it. Also, if you take a longer trip, you are more
likely to get it too, so if you need an excuse to take a longer trip, there you have it.â âSo, on my 60 mark day, I log on to My Disney
Experience and I can start making FastPass selections at 7am eastern standard time. Or 6am central standard time, which is where
I live.â âBecause you want to make sure that you
are logged in about 5 minutes before your FastPass window opens.â âIf at all possible, book them early in
the day, that way you can get different FastPasses for different parks later in the day.â âYou save that first hour of the day to
ride some of the smaller rides, but then you try to set up your three FastPasses as soon
as possible after that hour as close as possible together.â âI have filled in a vague idea of what I
want to do.â âI make a FastPass+ list with all of
the days, times and rides Iâm hoping to reserve.â âAll it takes is some luck. That is a huge part of it. Please do not be thinking that this is like
a super guarantee.â âSo I guarantee you, by the time your 30
day window comes up for off property guests...â âFlight of Passage...â âFlight of PassageâŚâ âGone.â âSlinky Dog.â âGone.â âSeven Dwarfs.â âGone.â âKeep checking the app. Seriously, keep refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. Last minute FastPasses pop up all the time.â âYouâll be able to click hour by hour
and if you just keep clicking hour by hour it will reload and reload and reload and reload. Thatâs called âpounding the appâ by
seasoned veterans of Walt Disney World.â âAnd there are also tickets that are available
like after 5pm tickets. What you can do is buy these tickets and essentially,
what that gains you is three extra FastPasses. And I would put this under a dummy name and
then what you can do is use it again the next day because you never enter the park with
it.â Some savvy guests that knew how to use the
system loved the new FastPass, and the extra planning was a welcome activity, adding even
more anticipation to their upcoming trip while also guaranteeing certain experiences during
it. Others knew how to use the system, but did
so begrudgingly, disliking the overplanning and longing for the days of flexibility. Many more guests did not know the tips and
tricks of the system, and thus missed out on the most valuable FastPasses, leaving them
with only one option if they wanted to experience these popular rides. Con #6 Standby By far the biggest complaint with FastPass
Plus is the belief that the new system drastically increased wait times throughout the parks. When the system was first introduced, Haunted
Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, two attractions that did not previously offer
paper Fastpass, reported consistently higher wait times. On the other end of the spectrum, Space Mountain
and Expedition Everest saw their standby waits decreased slightly. As the system was fully implemented, standby
waits appeared to be longer, and for years, fans have argued back and forth whether or
not FastPass increases or decreases standby waits, increases or decreases overall waits,
or increases or decreases the amount of attractions a guest can experience in a day. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to
answer these questions. Statistics like these have not been reported
by Disney, and wait times before FastPass were not consistently recorded, and even if
they were, it would be unfair for numerous reasons to compare these numbers. Even doing the math ourselves would be almost
impossible. The equations necessary to determine what
a virtual queue system such as FastPass does to a theme park is much too complicated for
a spreadsheet. In order to answer these questions, we would
actually need to create a computer simulation, like one of the oneâs Bruce Laval created
during his time at the company. Even then, this is no small task. Someone would need to pay an industrial engineer
to create a complex computer simulation of a theme park populated with agents, all with
unique preferences, riding attractions of varying capacities and run times in order
to compare and contrast wait times, number of rides ridden, and other factors with and
without a virtual queue system just to get to the bottom of this ridiculously niche curiosity. Hey everybody I made a theme park in the computer. Welcome to Shapeland, where all the guests
are dots, and all the rides are shapes. Hereâs how it works. I decide how many people are going to visit
the park each day. They then arrive based on an arrival schedule
that is similar to that of a real theme park, with most of the guests arriving in the first
few hours of the day, and few guests arriving in the last few hours of the day. From there, each guest independently makes
decisions on what they are going to do. To ensure variability, there are seven different
archetypes of guests: Ride Enthusiast, Ride Fan, Average Tourist, Activity Fan, Annual
Passholder, Entitled Annual Passholder, and Vlogger. Each of these archetypes determines three
factors. The first is stay time preference. This dictates how long the guest wants to
stay at the park. For instance, the ride enthusiast archetype
wants to stay at the park for 9 hours, while the average tourist archetype only wants to
stay around 7 hours. The second factor is balking point. The ride enthusiast has a balking point of
four hours, meaning that they refuse to ride a ride that has over a four hour wait. On the other hand, the average tourist refuses
to wait more than two hours for a ride. The annual pass holder wonât wait more than
thirty minutes, and the vlogger wonât wait more than fifteen. The third factor is attraction preference. This determines whether a guest wants to ride
an attraction or do an activity such as eat at a restaurant or go gift shopping. Obviously, the ride enthusiast much prefers
attractions, but the average tourist is more open to doing activities. After a guest enters the park, they will begin
flipping coins and rolling dice, weighted based on their own preferences. For instance, this guestâs name is Bernadot. Bernadot is the average tourist. They are open to both attractions and activities,
they will only wait around two hours for a ride, and they will stay for seven hours. Once in the park, Bernadot decides whether
they want to do an attraction or an activity based on a weighted coin flip. Letâs say they choose to do an attraction. They then decide which attraction to do. Bernadotâs decision is now based on a weighted
die roll. Each attraction in the park has a different
popularity ranking, and the more popular the attraction, the more likely it is that Bernadot
wants to ride it. Letâs say Bernadot decides to ride Shapelandâs
most popular attraction, the Triangle. Since Shapeland is currently operating off
of the original FastPass system, Bernadot first looks at the posted standby wait time. If the wait time is under 30 minutes, they
join the standby line. If it is over 30 minutes, Bernadot will check
if the attraction has FastPass. If it doesnât, whether it be because the
attraction doesnât offer it or because there are no more available for the day, Bernadot
will make sure that the current standby wait is less than their balking point. If it is, they will join the standby line. If it isnât, they will go back to the hub
and decide to do a different attraction. In the case that the attraction does offer
FastPass and still has some available, Bernadot will grab one and be assigned a return time. The equation that determines Bernadotâs
return time is the same one used at the original FastPass kiosks. With their spot in the virtual queue secured,
Bernadot can now go back to the hub, and repeat their logic over again, deciding whether to
do an attraction or an activity, deciding which attraction or activity to do, but this
time, Bernadot ensures that they will still have time to make it back for their FastPass. Bernadotâs stay time preference is 7 hours,
so after they have been at the park for seven hours, they will choose to leave and their
day at Shapeland will be finished. This same logical and preference based progression
is repeated for every single guest in the park over the course of the operating day. At the end of each run, the simulation gives
me a plethora of data to comb through. Almost everything in my simulation is dynamic. I can change the number of attractions, attraction
capacity, runtime, popularity, and whether each individual attraction has FastPass or
not. I can change the behavior archetypes, the
parkâs arrival schedule, and even how many guests are able to utilize the FastPass system. The simulation is by no means perfect and
there are many factors that it does not take into account, such as these⌠I ran the simulation three times. One with no FastPass, one with original paper
FastPass, and one with a system that simulates FastPass+ to the best of the simulationâs
ability. More info on that here. So after obtaining and organizing the results,
some fascinating patterns emerged. First, letâs discuss what results we will
be looking at. Whenever discussing the pros and cons of Fastpass,
three factors always seem to emerge: Standby Wait Times, Overall Wait Times, and Average
Number of Attractions Ridden. Thanks to Shapeland, we finally have answers
as to how virtual queue systems affect these results when all other factors remain constant. Letâs first examine Standby Wait Times. These are the average standby waits for Shapelandâs
10 attractions throughout a 12 hour operating day, when there is no FastPass implemented
throughout the park. As you can see, we still get huge waits. The triangle has a wait of over three hours,
because everyone wants to ride the triangle. There are two rides, the square and the circle
that have one hour waits. While the Hexagon and Octagon have no waits
and are typically walk ons. Letâs see what happens when we add FastPass
to the three most popular attractions and operate the park with the original paper FastPass
system. Wait times increase for every single attraction. The Triangleâs average standby wait increases
by 15 minutes, the Hexagon is no longer a walk-on, but the Octagon still is. Now letâs simulate FastPass+. Again, every wait time increases, except for
one. The standby wait for the most popular ride,
the Triangle, is 20 minutes less than with the original FastPass system, and 5 minutes
less than with no FastPass. The reason for this is clear when you look
at the wait times throughout the rest of the park. The Octagon, which was a walk-on with both
no FastPass and the original FastPass system, now has a fifteen minute wait. The oval has jumped from a 5 minute wait with
no FastPass to a 35 minute wait under FastPass Plus. Hexagon, which was a walk-on with no FastPass,
now has an hour wait with FastPass Plus. This pattern can be seen throughout the park
when Fastpass+ is added. It is safe to say that overall that both FastPass
and especially FastPass+ increases standby wait times throughout a park. The average standby wait with no FastPass
was 41 minutes. With FastPass+, it is now 67 minutes. If FastPass was completely removed from the
Walt Disney World parks, wait times would almost certainly decrease. But this is not the full story, because many
guests arenât waiting in the standby line. They are skipping them. Letâs now examine the average overall wait. This takes into account both the guests waiting
in standby and the guests waiting between 5 and 15 minutes in the FastPass line. For our purposes, weâre not considering
the time in between guests obtaining their FastPass and redeeming it as part of their
wait. While in the original FastPass system, guests
are technically waiting during this period, their ability to multitask would throw off
these calculations, resulting in some guests being able to wait more hours than there are
in the day, and it would make FastPass look like it increased waits for everybody, which
is not fair to the system. Also, with FastPass Plus, how would you even
do this? Did this guy wait 60 days to ride Seven Dwarfs,
I guess technically but that might throw things off a bit. Anyways, The average posted wait in Shapeland with
no FastPass is 41 minutes, so if a guest did every attraction in the park in a single day,
their average wait per ride would be 41 minutes. However, few guests actually do this, and
most gravitate toward the popular attractions, so Shapeland guests actually find themselves
waiting on average, 58 minutes per attraction. With the original paper FastPass, the average
posted standby wait was 48 minutes. but the overall average wait when factoring
in both guests' standby line decisions and those skipping the line entirely with FastPass,
was only 40 minutes. 18 minutes less than without Fastpass. But how is this possible? As weâve discussed, service rate or capacity
is determined mainly by design and operation, and itâs nearly impossible to increase an
attractionâs maximum capacity after itâs been constructed. You canât safely put more ride cars on Space
Mountain or make it go faster, it wasnât designed for that. So when we add paper FastPass to Shapeland,
Shapelandâs top rides such as the triangle and the square see little to no increase in
the number of riders, because they are already serving their maximum number of guests. However, other rides at Shapeland are not
operating at maximum capacity. The reason for the increase in the average
amount of rides ridden goes back to what Bruce Laval claimed about FastPass backfilling less
attended attractions, and it brings up a new concept within queuing. We know about how capacity and arrival rate
can affect a wait time in different ways, but we have not discussed is the concept of
a negative wait time. Now a wait time cannot be negative in the
sense that you can get time back. For instance, I canât ever give you back
the time youâve wasted watching this video. What I mean by negative wait time is that
when attraction is not filling itâs capacity, it is losing capacity. Look at this way. Letâs say a ride has a capacity of 1000
guests per hour, but only 500 people per hour ride it. It could be considered that this attraction
has a wait time of negative 30 minutes, meaning that 30 minutes worth of people, in this case
500, could show up throughout the hour, and the attractionâs wait would still be 0 minutes,
because these additional guests are merely filling empty seats on the ride. You might recall that this was one of the
problems with the original reservation-based system pitch in the mid-90s. If a guest missed their reservation, they
leave an empty seat, and thus the attraction lost capacity. FastPass not only avoids this problem, but
it actually helps other attractions at the park. Without FastPass, 1900 guests rode the Octagon,
with paper FastPass, 4800 guests rode the Octagon, an increase of over 150%, but the
average posted wait time never breaks 0, because these people are filling empty seats, and
increasing the capacity of the ride. This explains why with FastPass, despite most
attractions' standby waits rising, guests on average waited less, because unlike with
no FastPass, guests were actively being pushed to attractions with zero waits, which dropped
the average overall wait per attraction. However, with FastPass Plus, this 0 wait threshold
is broken in most cases, as with the Octagon, which previously went from a walk-on to an
average of a 15 minute wait. The average standby wait in Shapeland with
FastPass Plus is 67 minutes, but the overall average wait per attraction was 42 minutes. This is interesting, because while more people
are skipping the line more often than with the original FastPass, the rise in standby
waits throughout the park are so significant that there is no change to the overall wait. In fact, the average overall wait per attraction
with paper FastPass was 2 minutes less than FastPass Plus. FastPass does reduce average overall wait
times by encouraging guests to go to underutilized attractions, so long as those exist. Finally, letâs look at the average number
of attractions ridden, and if youâve been paying attention, you should already know
the answer to this. In the park with no FastPass, guests ride
an average of 3.31 rides, but really the distribution looks like this. 22% of guests ride 2 rides, 21% ride 3, 16%
ride 4, and the percentage declines from there. You can also see that around 13% of guests
only ride 1 ride and 3% ride none. These are mostly people that favor activities
and have a limited amount of time in the park. When the original Fastpass system is added,
the amount of attraction ridden increases, going from 3.31 to 3.77. With FastPass+, we again see an increase,
jumping to an average of 4.23 rides per guest per day. On average almost every single guest gets
to ride one additional ride with the new system. This is significant and proves FastPass+ merit
as a tool for guest distribution, but itâs not the full story. This is the distribution graph we viewed early
for when Shapeland has no FastPass implemented. This is what it looks like with FastPass+,
when the average amount of attractions ridden increases from 3.31 to 4.23, assuming that
the distribution is even and the system is fair to all guests. However, that is not FastPass+. This is the actual distribution graph for
Shapeland under FastPass+. As you can see, more people experience less
attractions, and more people experience a lot more attractions, while less people are
able to do what could be considered a reasonable amount of attractions, in this case 3 to 7
in a single day. With FastPass+, more guests are able to experience
8, 9, 10, 11 and someone found out how to do 39 rides in a day. These are people that got FastPasses for long
waits like the Triangle and spent most of their time riding shorter waits like the Octagon,
over and over again. Meanwhile, the amount of people riding only
2, 1, or even 0 attractions is up from no FastPass and is far more than in the ideal
FastPass+ distribution. This is because the waits for rides like the
Triangle, Square and Circle are so long that if a guest chose to wait in it, they donât
have time to do anything else. Other guests want to ride rides, but they
donât want to wait over an hour, so if they enter during mid-day, they instead choose
to eat a meal, gift shop, and then leave because the waits are so high throughout the park. So yes, FastPass and FastPass+ increases the
average amount of attractions ridden per guest per day. Itâs a system that pushes people to go fill
empty seats around the park, and as a guest distribution tool, FastPass and FastPass+
works. But in practice, from a guest perspective,
the system benefits those that use the system and know how to use it well, while those that
donât use it or donât know how to use it well, have it much worse than they did
before. So at this point, your mid to late 2010s trip
to Walt Disney World might have some additional context. Perhaps you even know where you land on this
distribution graph, and I can probably predict your opinion on the entire subject based on
that. If you were here, booking 60 days in advance,
and then riding 8 or more attractions per day, I imagine hat you enjoyed FastPass+. If you were here, not using the systeem, facing
astronomical standby wait times and thus only experiencing between 0 and 2 attractions per
day, you probably didnât like FastPass Plus. Now these two sides might have some opinions
on the other. If you didnât use the system to its full
effect you might have been waiting in long standby lines, watching hoards of guests in
the FastPass line cut you just because they researched the tips and tricks, and were able
to pay for an on-property hotel. Those using FastPass Plus to their advantage
believed it was those peopleâs fault for not doing their research and using the system
that was available to everyone, despite that system requiring a certain amount of time,
energy, technological literacy, English-proficiency, and money for on-site hotels. Even if you benefited and loved FastPass,
the truth is that it only worked well for these people, because it worked so poorly
for these people, otherwise most everyone would be here in the middle. But since that is not the case, a palpable
disdain exists between boths camps of guests. In queuing theory, this is called⌠Within the Disney Parks, there has become
a class system, just like in the real world, except for this one is silly, mostly inconsequential,
and you arenât forced to live in it like a nightmare you canât wake up from. The class system at the Disney Parks, for
a long time, wasnât based on money. After the discontinuing of the A through E
ticket systems, all guests had equal access as long as they could pay for the price of
admission. As we discussed earlier, the in-park currency
is time and any advantage came from knowledge. Those that read the guidebooks, knew the parks,
and planned their trips had a leg up on other guests, but apart from paying for a tour guests
knew to rush for Space Mountain in the morning, go into the left lane when available, experience
the rides with the longest waits during a parade or fireworks, and so on and so on. In Shapeland, under no FastPass, it takes
guests an average of 6 and a half hours to experience the top six attractions. If people showed up earlier in the day, they
would have a jump on other guests, but for the most part, there are no hard lines separating
visitors. This was introduced with the original paper
Fastpass, but this was still a system that was free, with knowledge still being the dividing
factor. This is how long it takes on average for a
guest to do the top six attractions at Shapeland, but this time with paper FastPass. Here we see the different knowledge classes
emerge. This is split between those that know the
system in and out, those that know how to use the system on a basic level, and those
that did not use the system at all. Those that knew the system best could do the
six attractions in less than four hours. Those that knew the basics of the system could
do the six attractions in six hours. And those that didnât use the system would
have to spend eight hours in order to experience the six attractions. Money was reintroduced into the equation with
FastPass+. Guests that stayed on-property would get to
book 60 days in advance as a perk of their stay, and if they utilized this perk, they
could experience Shapelandâs six attractions in less than four hours. Those that understood the system but had to
book within the thirty day window as opposed to the sixty day window would have to spend
six hours to do Shapelandâs six attractions. And those that did not use FastPass Plus at
all would have to spend 10 hours on average to do these attractions. And this is not accounting for walking, meals,
bathroom breaks, or any other non-attraction activity. The disparity between these three systems
and their categories of access is staggering, and it showed just how much FastPass+ favored
those that got premier access to the system. But you might be thinking, this doesnât
mean anything. Shapeland isnât a real park, these are just
fake numbers you made up. But thatâs not actually true. Because Shapeland is actually Animal Kingdom. The Triangle is Flight of Paasage, the Square
is Expedition Everest, the Circle is Navi River Journey and so on. More than that, the entire simulation is based
off of a specific day at Animal Kingdom, Saturday March 23, 2019, a day with medium high crowds. We adjusted the dynamic factors of the system
to replicate this day as closely as possible, and then simply turned off FastPass and examined
the differences. So all of these results, including this graph,
is based off of Animal Kingdom with the top six attractions being Flight of Passage, Kiliminjaro
Safaris, Expedition Everest, Navi River Journey, Dinosaur, and Kali River Rapids. For good measure, we also simulated Magic
Kingdom and observed the same results, and while the parkâs more diverse set of attractions
helped to mitigate the effects of the system in some areas, all of the basic patterns we
observed were the same as with Animal Kingdom. So this disparity is real, and it has created
rigid categories of preference among park guests. While the system does not treat everyone the
same, it should be noted that not all of Walt Disney Worldâs guests are the same. For instance, you have families that save
up for a once in a lifetime trip to the resort, you have regular vacationers that come every
year or two, and then you have annual passholders that might go multiple times a month. Many argue, with good reason, that a system
that gives preference to these once in a lifetime vacationers is necessary, and a system with
a distribution like this might seem like the solution, while a distribution graph like
this might seem like itâs treating everyone almost too equally. However, this conclusion ignores many factors
weâve learned about queuing, such as capacity and demand. Letâs use an analogy. So there is a company that makes shoes, and
you have two potential customers. Customer 1 really wants the shoes. Customer 2 does not feel strongly about the
shoes. If the shoe company offered the shoes for
$30, Customer 1 would buy them, because they really want the shoes, and since $30 is a
great deal for a pair of shoes, Customer 2 would buy them as well. However, if the shoes cost $100, Customer
1 would still buy them, because they really want the shoes, but since Customer 2 doesnât
feel strongly about them, they would pass on the offer. Now letâs say the shoe store offered Customer
2 the shoes for $30, while offering Customer 1 the shoes for $200. Customer 2 would take their offer, despite
not caring for the shoes, and Customer 1 would also take their offer, because they really
want the shoes. Rather than using simply supply and demand
to find a fixed price to maximize profits, many companies will find ways to maximize
profits via price discrimination, especially when there is an exess of supply. But as it applies to queuing, weâre not
trying to maximize wait times, weâre trying to minimize them. While it sounds like a good idea to give preference
to once in a lifetime vacationers, while those that visit frequently are favored less, it
is extremely difficult if not impossible to enforce this. And with the way FastPass+ was set up, it
often produced the exact opposite results. Instead of priority access going to once in
a lifetime vacationers, with secondary access going to those making semi-regular trips and
with remaining or no access given to those making regular visits, the actual categories
often looked like this, with semi-regular visitors that understood the system booking
60 days in advance, regular visitors and annual passholders without reservations booking within
the 30 day window, and once in a lifetime vacationers often finding themselves out of
luck, not realizing that they needed a bachelor's degree from MyMagic+ University with a major
in FastPass+. So dynamic system, great in theory, not so
much in practice, and while this distribution might not look good at first glance, it often
produces better results, because while there is no system in place separating guests, guests
are still self-separating. The person that comes once in a lifetime gets
to ride the top six rides in a little over six hours while the annual passholder or semi
regular visitor likely will choose to not ride the top six rides in a single day because
they go so often. The guest that comes once a month will probably
not ride Kilimanjaro Safaris if it has a 90 minute wait, but they would if it had a fifteen
minute wait, and because they come so often, they know the system, which means they can
get a fifteen minute wait. And this family who comes once every three
years is determined to ride Kilimanjaro Safaris no matter the wait, but because they come
so infrequently, they donât know the system, so they have to wait longer, which they do
because they donât visit that often. And to raise the stakes, for the regular vistor
with an annual pass, the cost of their visit is abstract, as they paid a fixed annual price
and likely already got their moneyâs worth, while this family, knows exactly how much
it cost for them and their children to be inside of the park that day, increasing the
pressure to get their moneyâs worth, thus increasing the amount of time they are willing
to wait. And because capacity of rides are determined
by design and operation, the supply is finite, so this exact scenario plays out over and
over again, to the point where someone might just wonder, hey if you have a limited amount
of shoes to sell, stop giving them to people that donât want them for $30. Instead, just get rid of the system, and let
people self-select. Some rides will have long waits, some rides
will have short waits, but at least everyone will be making a personal decision based on
the context of their visit and not how good they are at playing the My Disney Experience
app as if it were a slot machine. I know that some might disagree with this
conclusion, there you are, and I understand there is a level of subjectivity to this. Your experiences are not incorrect, FastPass+
allowed guests that were not frequent visitors to have incredible vacations, but based on
the evidence both in the simulation and in real life, the truth is that, in practice,
FastPass+ was not a more fair system than no system, and it often was the opposite. Perhaps the best compromise between FastPass+
and a no FastPass park, is unsurprisingly, the original paper FastPass system, in its
initial limited capacity. This retains the guest distribution benefits
of the system, while also maintaining the natural self-selection process that guests
go through when making decisions. Most importantly, while knowledge remains
a dividing factor among guests, the original FastPass system reset every single day. With FastPass+, when guests arrived at the
resort, it was too late to educate them on the system. FastPasses for the most popular rides had
already been gone for months. With paper FastPass, guests might find themselves
unaware of the system on Day 1 of their vacation, but they could quickly learn it and be properly
utilizing it by Day 2. This is why Disneylandâs MaxPass system
was more favorable to many guests. It was essentially the original FastPass system,
except for digital rather than physical, the only caveat being that it cost money to utilize,
which was its most divisive aspect. The original paper FastPass was an idea that
was birthed from within operations, while FastPass Plus, by all indications, was a system
birthed from marketing. Its intention was not to make operations more
smooth within the park, its purpose was to be a key part of a larger guest experience
initiative. So it should not be shocking to suggest, based
on all of the evidence we have viewed, that guests and operations would fare better without
FastPass+. But what am I talking about, they spent a
billion dollars on this, theyâre not getting rid of anything. SoâŚ. (Ominous Music) (ROAR) So what started as a neat little idea has
turned into a billion-dollar monster that is now actively eating guests at the park,
what do you do? You could kill the monster, but you donât
want to because you spent a billion-dollars making it and some guests have befriended
the monster and have really come to like it so that would be sad for them. Ok so weâre not killing it. What if the monsters was friends with everybody. Canât do that, as long as the monster is
still alive, it has to eat a certain amount of people. What if the monster had more friends than
it does now? In order for the monster to be able to have
more friends, i.e. FastPass users, there would need to be more
ride capacity. This could be done by adding new attractions,
however, many argue that this will trigger induced demand, which is when increasing the
supply of something also increases its demand. The most common example being a highway adding
another lane, and rather than reducing traffic, it actually increases congestion. This is not perfectly comparable to theme
parks. The reason traffic increases when you add
a lane to a highway is because the increased supply reduces the price, or in this case,
congestion, enough for the demand to increase in response. New drivers are not generated simply by the
allure or appeal of the lane itself, however, in theme parks this is the case. New rides, especially good ones, almost always
draw in new guests, often offsetting any capacity gained by the addition. Also, building new rides is expensive and
takes time and is by no means a quick fix. What if you could increase the capacity of
an already existing ride. As weâve discussed ride capacity is finite,
and is determined by design and operation. You canât just put more ride cars on Space
Mountain or make it go faster. What if it wasnât finite? Well unfortunately it is, unless you were
to just build a second dumbo right next to the first one, so they did that. But thatâs an easy one, you canât do that
with most rides, like can you just build another theater for Soarinâ, you can actually and
they did. But that was to support the new Soarin Around
the World ride film, would they really do that with a ride just to quietly increase
capacity. But despite all of these strategies to increase
capacity and thus slow down the monster, the monster continued to grow for a factor we
have not even discussed yet. Attendance. When paper FastPass was introduced in 1999,
42.6 million people visited Walt Disney World annually. When XPass was developed in 2008, 47.1 million
people visited annually. By the time FastPass+ rolled out in 2013,
50.1 million people visited annually. In 2014, 51.5 million people visited. In 2015, 54 million. By 2019, over 58 million people were visiting
the resort annually, a sixteen percent increase since when FastPass+ was introduced. The FastPass system was designed to be dynamic
but the rate at which attendance increased was unpredictable, and FastPass+ did not operate
well under it, so the monster only grew bigger. Some parks fared better than others. For instance, Magic Kingdom has a wide array
of attractions and appeals to many different demographics. When attendance increases, not all of those
additional visitors want to go to one specific ride. If the park has an annual increase of 100,000
visitors, not all 100,000 visitors want to ride Space Mountain. Compare this to a park like Animal Kingdom,
that in 2017, added Pandora: The World of Avatar a heavily promoted and well-received
addition to a park that doesnât have that many attractions to offer. From 2016 to 2017, Animal Kingdom saw an increase
of 1.7 million guests. From 2017 to 2018, it saw an increase of an
additional 1.2 million guests. Because this was sparked by a single land
that only had two attractions, it is safe to assume that the majority of these visitors
not only wanted to ride Flight of Passage, but that they were determined to. Not only were they determined to, but it was
the only reason they chose to visit Animal Kingdom in the first place. This is known as inelastic demand, when the
wait time of a ride has little to no effect on the amount of people to ride it. This was the case of Flight of Passage, as
it seemed that no wait time would turn guests away. As a result, wait times increased to 1 hour,
2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, and one day, there was a posted 6 hour and forty minute
wait for the 4 and a half minute attraction. So with attendance increasing, and with additional
capacity, on its way, guests were starting to notice the issues. In response, departments throughout Walt Disney
World argued that they should be given additional FastPasses. Guest services wanted more Fastpasses for
compensation purposes, while the resorts argued they needed more Fastpasses at the 60 day
mark so that hotel guests could receive their perks. In 2018, club level guests at select resorts
were allowed access to a new tier of FastPass+, allowing them to book six fastpasses in advance,
3 at the 90 day mark and 3 more at the 60 day mark for an up charge of $50 per person
per day. The more FastPasses that were handed out the
more the monster grew and grew and grew. Then, in the summer of 2019, Universal Orlando
debuted a new ride at their Islands of Adventure theme park, The Wizarding World of Harry Potterâs
Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike AdventureTM. The new ride was heavily anticipated and drew
large crowds. There was only one issue, it did not work,
at least not consistently. This led to frequent downtimes throughout
the first few weeks of operation, and when paired with the massive demand, waits climbed
to up to 10 hours. Why is this relevant? Because, also in the summer of 2019, Disney
was opening its heavily anticipated Star Wars: Galaxyâs Edge. After reports that crowds for the new land
were far less than expected, the chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products
Bob Chapek took a jab at Universal saying quote, âThe deep secret is that we donât
intend to have lines ... If you build in enough capacity, the rides donât go down and it
operates at 99% efficiency, you shouldnât have 10-hour lines. So, 10-hour lines are not a sign of success. It should be seen as a sign of, frankly, failure.â Coincidentally, Disney was about to debut
another ride for Galaxyâs Edge, Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, the landâs signature
attraction, which, like Hagridâs, did not work consistently, and the ride was primed
for the FastPass monster to swallow guests, resulting in huge wait times. Under pressure to open the ride anyways, Disney
took extreme measures to ensure that wait times remained under control, to keep guests
comfortable and satisfied and not at all because the chairman of the parks publicly deemed
a ten-hour line a failure in the press months earlier. When Rise of the Resistance opened at Walt
Disney World in December of 2019, it utilized a new virtual queue system that completely
eliminated the standby line in favor of assigning guests boarding groups that would be called
throughout the day. The idea reportedly came from, of all places,
the DMV, that had implemented a customer service system in which guests calling the help line
were given a call back rather than being put on hold. So thatâs where we are everybody. The virtual queue nearly eliminated lines
for Rise of the Resistance, but it left many guests frustrated when boarding groups ran
out almost immediately in the morning, with the app informing guests that the ride was
booked for the rest of the day before the sun had even come up, but hey, there were
no ten hour lines so it did its job. Speaking of new systems, also in 2019, at
the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Bob Chapek announced, whatever this is. âItâs called Disney Genieâ (Applause
and laughter) âIt will put customized itineraries geared towards your interests at your fingertips,
cutting down on the need to plan and research.â So with the old system raging on, a new one
just beginning, and a future one in development, the beast was growing faster than ever. Every attempt to fix the problem was at best
a stall, but most often, the attempts only made the monsterâs damage worse. The amount of guests that the system benefited
declined, while those that did benefit were more loyal to it than ever, because it was
more necessary than ever to have a good time at the parks. The more FastPasses that were added to the
system, the more the monster grew, the more people that came to the parks, the more the
monster grew, The monster grew and grew, until Walt Disney World had succumbed to the beast. âWell, boss, good news. We broke everything.â âHuh? What do you mean?â âYou know that thing that doesnât directly
make us money that we spent a billion dollars on?â âYeahâŚâ âWell itâs broken, but on the bright side,
it also broke everything. Look.â âThose people are just trying to go to the
attractions, why is itâŚâ âEating them? I donât know.â âWhy isnât it eating those people?â âOh, those people are friends with it.â âOh my gosh, how is this good news?â âEverything is broken.â âYeah but how is that good?â âCome on boss donât you see? Everything is broken, which means we can charge
people money to bypass the mess we created.â âHuh.â âRight now, most of the people that have
befriended the monster are buying rooms at our hotels, and as a perk, the monster wonât
eat them, as much. But our research shows that getting rid of
this perk wonât really hurt our hotel business all that much, so instead, letâs just start
charging people to be friends with the monster. Look at this graph, this kind of advantage
shouldnât be a hotel perk, it should be an additional charge.â âDotson, youâre a genius.â âBoss, thatâs not even the best part. Look at these people, theyâre where the
real money is.â âWeâre going to charge people to have
a worse day?â âNo of course not, but weâre going to
make money from them. See, it takes these people 10 hours to do
six rides, thatâs not even accounting for walking, bathroom breaks, or meals. The park is only open for 12 hours. Thereâs no way theyâre going to do those
six rides in a single day, which means...â âTheyâll have to come another day, which
means they'll have to buy more tickets.â âTheyâll have to buy more tickets!â âExactly, either they buy into the system
to do everything they want to do in one day, or they have to do multiple days, which means
more money for us.â âThis really is genius.â âAnd all it took was a billion dollars and
a lot of mistakes.â âWell Dotson, in life, you win some, you
lose some, and sometimes you manage to do both at the same time.â âThereâs just one problem, the friends
of the monster are not going to be happy with us when we charge for this.â âYouâre right. That would a PR nightmare. It would take some sort of global cataclysmic
event that would shut down our business long enough for us to make drastic changes to our
operating procedure~ while also giving us a shield from criticism of those changes.â (Thunder crack)
âOh, did you not hear-â âBreaking just in to our news room. A historic move amid the Coronavirus. Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando, both
announcing they are closing their theme parks.â âAnd your reaction?â âSad. Heh heh.â âDo you understand why?â âYeah.â âYesâ After being closed for four months for the
Covid-19 Pandemic, Walt Disney World reopened in July of 2020, while Disneyland would not
reopen until April of 2021. When they did, both Fastpass Plus and Maxpass
had been suspended for social distancing purposes, and a new park reservation system was implemented
to limit crowds. Bob Chapek was now the CEO of Disney, after
Bob Iger suddenly and coincidentally retired 2 weeks before the world shut down. Chapek commented on the changes coming to
the parks as they reopened, saying quote âObviously, nobody wants to have the parks closed for
up to a year. But at the same time, we realized that was
a unique opportunity maybe to advance some things that would have been difficult, if
not impossible, for us to go change in an operating environment. And so weâve made some moves already, but
weâre going to make further moves.â These moves were revealed in August of 2021,
when Disneyland announced that both FastPass+ and MaxPass would be officially discontinued. Replacing the programs would be the long-anticipated
Genie app. The Genie app would use all of Disneyâs
internal data as well as guest preferences to intelligently plan itineraries in order
to maximize efficiency throughout the parks. Unlike FastPass+, Genie is simple. There are now four ways to visit attractions,
the standby queue, the virtual queue, Lightning Lane through Genie Plus or Lightning Lane
through additional purchases. For any ride, guests can still choose to wait
in the standby line, except for the rides in which they canât, which are the ones
using virtual queue. If an attraction is using virtual queue, guests
must wake up at 7 am on the day of and attempt to join the virtual queue from their phones. If they donât get a boarding group then
they will have another chance once they are inside the park at 1 pm. If guests donât want to wait in the standby
line or use a virtual queue, for $15 per person per day, they can upgrade to Genie+, which
is similar to Disneylandâs MaxPass, allowing them to obtain one Lightning Lane Pass every
two hours or after the first one is redeemed, except rather than being inside the park they
can make their first reservation from anywhere at 7 am on the day of. However, not all Lightning Lane attractions
are included in Genie+, some are available for additional purchase with varying prices
depending on the season. For instance, the Lightning Lane for Rise
of the Resistance, which moved to a seasonal standby queue, will cost $15 per person. So guests either pay $15 per person to enter
the Lightning Lane or enter the standby queue, if it is available, if not they need to wake
up at 7 am to enter the virtual queue, or just pay the $15 per person to enter the lightning
lane. See, simple, and hugely popular. Or is it? Whoâs to say? There were rumors of paid FastPass long before
the pandemic, since Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Shanghai
Disneyland all utilized some form of a paid FastPass system, and with the introduction
Genie Plus, Tokyo Disneyland is now the only remaining park to utilize free FastPass, still
using a combination of paper and digital passes. Thereâs two ways to look at this change,
the optimistic version and the pessimistic version. The optimistic version is that Disney is once
again trying to improve everyoneâs enjoyment of the parks, this time by reducing the amount
of people using the FastPass system. If this occurs, it will reduce standby wait
times while giving once in a lifetime vacationers the option to experience more. The fact that they are using the MaxPass model
of only allowing guests to book passes day of, seems to be a deliberate attempt to reduce
the negative side effects caused by FastPass+. Combining this with rising ticket prices,
which reduce demand, and a park reservation system to place a cap on guests and predict
how many guests will visit, Disney now has more control over crowds than ever. Plus, the Genie appâs suggestion and itinerary
tools will be able to reproduce some of the positive distribution features of FastPass+,
by directing guests to underutilized areas of the park, and it could even increase the
average number of attractions per day. The pessimistic version is that Disney wants
money. They increase ticket prices not to reduce
demand and lower crowds, but because they can. Theyâre not charging for FastPass to get
less people to use the system, theyâre charging for it because they can. The $15 price for Genie Plus seems to be a
good indication that Disney expects a majority of vacationers to buy into the system, and
if utilization remains anywhere close to FastPass Plus, every travel agent and vacation guide
will suggest that their travelers buy into the system, because $15 to experience all
of the rides in one day is a lot cheaper than spreading out a park visit over two or more
days. The paid FastPass system also gives Disney
more motivation than ever to inflate wait times, and favor Lightning Lane over standby
, with the job of the Cast Member at the merge point becoming even more difficult. The truth might be somewhere in the middle
of these two outlooks. Disney understands they need to reduce usage
of FastPass Plus, and rather than getting rid of it, they choose the option that also
makes them money. So far, the amount of passes offered seems
somewhat limited. With Lightning Lane on popular attractions
running out quickly in the morning, but who knows if this will remain the case. As with FastPass and FastPass Plus the true
effects of the new system likely will not be seen for quite some time. So the FastPass Beast has finally been killed,
or maybe itâs just been put inside a cage, behind stronger paywalls. Maybe it will get out one day, or maybe it
will remain under control, but what a monster it has become. In a way, weâve truly come full circle. In 1971, Magic Kingdom opened with a ticket
book system in which guests had to pay to ride each ride, and exactly 50 years later
in 2021, guests are once again paying to ride rides, or at least skip the line. Despite a similar destination, the path that
queueing at the Disney Parks has taken over the past five decades was anything but predictable,
and this long, winding narrative shines a light on an oft-overlooked aspect of the theme
park industry. We have examined ad nauseum the ways in which
Imagineers and theme park designers create immersive worlds that transport guests out
of their reality and into a new one, but the story of FastPass is one of the rare tales
that belongs not to the Imagineers, but to operations. If the Imagineers job is to design and construct
environments that entertain and immerse guests, it is the job of operations managers, Cast
Members, and industrial engineers to operate and maintain these environments, and their
job is more involved in a parkâs escapism than one might initially think. When operations finds strategies and tests
systems that have the potential to take the guest experience to the next level, they are
not merely increasing guest satisfaction, but they are supporting the environments and
stories of the parks by offering a higher level of escapism. There is no better example of this than FastPass. Long lines have always been a disruptive force
in the Disney Parks, detracting from the guest experience and often the design intentions
of the parkâs theming. After all, the real world has lines, at the
bank, at restaurants, at the DMV. Attempting to remove them, or at least giving
guests the ability to avoid them, has the potential to create an experience better than
reality, thus assisting in the escapism and immersion of the parks. However, with the evolution of FastPass, we
also saw the opposite side of this coin. Instead of operations creating a reality better
than ours, the disparities and inequalities of the real world were allowed to creep in. Whether guests were separated by knowledge
specific to the park or their personal financial situation, utilizing a system that allows
for these disparities can take away from the intention, uniqueness, and beauty of the theme
park experience. This is not to say that these strategies werenât
worth experimenting with, and Iâm sure weâll see many more in the future. As we know, queueing is always evolving, and
no one knows for sure what the next step will be, but what does seem certain, is that as
long as there is something worth waiting for, there will probably be a wait for it. So, Iâll ask you again, how much do you
know about lines?
I love extremely in-depth and informative videos about weird niche topics. I haven't been to Disney in over a decade and have no immediate plans to go back, but I was completely enthralled by this for almost 2 hours. I feel like I learned so much and yet I will almost certainly never use any of this information at any point in the rest of my life
I really don't like Disneyland or theme parks in general... but I do like youtube essays, and a lot of people on youtube really like Disney parks. So I find myself learning a lot about Disney parks despite never intending to go to one.
Yes I'm definitely going to watch this, possibly multiple times.
This is both oddly informative and vaguely terrifying. I never want to go Disneyland now; this is like... an anti-commercial. I feel like there should be a shorter term for that.
Uploaded an hour ago, hour 45 mins long.... Over 1200+ likes already...
Wow
The absolute madman actually simulated FastPass+ by hiring an industrial engineer to set it up.
2 Hour Defunctland Video? đĽ_đĽ
Hawt Damn, Defunctland doesn't upload a regular Defunctland episode in 6 months and hits it out of the park.
Can highly recommend the one about the failed launch of Euro Disneyland Paris
As someone who did a trip to Disney last month, Genie Pass is a horrible system. My family could not sync times to get on a open time, even when syncing the request. We'd try to plan the day and it never worked out for us. Overall, a confusing system. God help you if you're not that great with apps or phones. Universal system was way better. Just get in the fast pass line. No app required.
Didn't see the twist coming!