Disney is Selling FP's in Shanghai-Is WDW Next?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Disney recently started selling FP's at Shanghai Disneyland.  As explained in this article, the move was in response to the practice of locals showing up early and draining the FP machines, and then hanging around to sell the FP's to guests:

Since Shanghai Disneyland opened last year, certain attractions have seen consistently long lines, even on days when the rest of the park is a ghost town.

These long lines have caused some local entrepreneurs to begin selling FastPasses. Unlike in Orlando, in Shanghai the FastPass system is still via a printed-out ticket that is only issued the day of. With this system in place, some locals arrive early in the day to get desirable Fastpasses, then they sell them to other guests. Since trespassing laws like those in the West are more or less nonexistent in China, Disney can do little about these FastPass hawkers.

So, after nearly a year of fighting them, Disney has finally decided to join them. Called Disney Premier Access, the new upgrade option allows for guests to skip the lines on seven of the busiest rides in the park, including the TRON Lightcycle coaster, Soaring Over the Horizon, and Peter Pan’s Flight.

Shanghai Disneyland guests can either purchase a single FastPass or a seven-attraction pack. The single FastPasses range in price from 120 RMB (roughly $17.50) on non-peak days to 150 RMB (approximately $21.75) on peak days. The seven-attraction pass is much more reasonable at MB 480 or 600 (US$69.71-87.14).

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/04/04/disney-world-is-the-only-major-theme-park-in-central-florida-without-an-upcharge-program-to-skip-lines-but-probably-not-for-long

I have no doubt that selling FP's has been considered by WDW management. 

And, now there's precedent for it.

$70 for 7 FP's that can be used at any time?

Those would sell like crazy. 

And it's pure profit.

Hold on to your wallets.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

4 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Disney recently started selling FP's at Shanghai Disneyland.  As explained in this article, the move was in response to the practice of locals showing up early and draining the FP machines, and then hanging around to sell the FP's to guests:

Since Shanghai Disneyland opened last year, certain attractions have seen consistently long lines, even on days when the rest of the park is a ghost town.

These long lines have caused some local entrepreneurs to begin selling FastPasses. Unlike in Orlando, in Shanghai the FastPass system is still via a printed-out ticket that is only issued the day of. With this system in place, some locals arrive early in the day to get desirable Fastpasses, then they sell them to other guests. Since trespassing laws like those in the West are more or less nonexistent in China, Disney can do little about these FastPass hawkers.

So, after nearly a year of fighting them, Disney has finally decided to join them. Called Disney Premier Access, the new upgrade option allows for guests to skip the lines on seven of the busiest rides in the park, including the TRON Lightcycle coaster, Soaring Over the Horizon, and Peter Pan’s Flight.

Shanghai Disneyland guests can either purchase a single FastPass or a seven-attraction pack. The single FastPasses range in price from 120 RMB (roughly $17.50) on non-peak days to 150 RMB (approximately $21.75) on peak days. The seven-attraction pass is much more reasonable at MB 480 or 600 (US$69.71-87.14).

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/04/04/disney-world-is-the-only-major-theme-park-in-central-florida-without-an-upcharge-program-to-skip-lines-but-probably-not-for-long

I have no doubt that selling FP's has been considered by WDW management. 

And, now there's precedent for it.

$70 for 7 FP's that can be used at any time?

Those would sell like crazy. 

And it's pure profit.

Hold on to your wallets.

TCD

This is the same article my daughter sent me yesterday.

 Odd that a weekly type of paper would scoop the Disney Bloggers. That's why I didn't post it.  Wasn't too sure how authentic it was.

 Maybe the bloggers overlooked it because they were blinded by all of the Pandora stuff they will be getting.

Both SeaWorld and Bush have pay for the front of the line tickets, and I think Legoland does also.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

45 minutes ago, Travisma said:

This is the same article my daughter sent me yesterday.

 Odd that a weekly type of paper would scoop the Disney Bloggers. That's why I didn't post it.  Wasn't too sure how authentic it was.

 Maybe the bloggers overlooked it because they were blinded by all of the Pandora stuff they will be getting.

Both SeaWorld and Bush have pay for the front of the line tickets, and I think Legoland does also.

I think it's the real deal. The WDW bloggers are all so beholden to WDW that they aren't going to post anything that might cut off their free perks.

Universal also sells a front of the line pass.

The article says the WDW parks are the only theme parks in Central Florida that do not sell a skip the line pass.

There's no way WDW management can resist this easy money grab for much longer.

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Even kind-hearted Dolly sells front of the line passes at Dollywood.  

[keith_h 420]

If Disney decides to sell passes at WDW I think it will be due to their local competition not as a response to some cultural problems in Shanghai. That being said since everyone else is doing it in Florida I can't believe that Disney will hold out with free passes for too long.

[LONE-STAR 370]

Well if they were to start charging for them they should only charge people who stay off property and give them to on property guests.

But I am against paying for front of the line to me that is to unfair to so many people. 

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Well if they were to start charging for them they should only charge people who stay off property and give them to on property guests.

But I am against paying for front of the line to me that is to unfair to so many people. 

Dolly gives what they call Timesaver Passes to guests of Dollywood's DreamMore Resort for free. So essentially an incentive to stay on property.

Sent from my handheld doohickie

[slices 16]

That's also what Universal and SeaWorld do, depending on the level of hotel you stay at you get free express passes.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Kings Island has what they call "Fast Lane Plus".  Starting at $68 dollars for all the rides [this can be more if the park is but more during the busy season - $78 on a Wednesday in July.  You can the "Fast Lane" starting at $53, but it is for 20 rides and not the main headliner ones.

[ThemeParkCommando 81]

I'm a little confused about how they are selling enough to turn a profit?   Even with the paper fastpass system, you had to slide your ticket and you could only get one per guest in your party.  Don't they just do the same thing there?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

13 hours ago, ThemeParkCommando said:

I'm a little confused about how they are selling enough to turn a profit?   Even with the paper fastpass system, you had to slide your ticket and you could only get one per guest in your party.  Don't they just do the same thing there?

That's a good question.

I figure that there must be groups of people who pool their tickets to grab the FP's.  But, you raise a good point- how many FP's could one guest actually pull, and how would it be enough to make it profitable?

I could work something like this . . . Back in the days of paper FP's at WDW, I could easily get 4-5 sets of FP's for a park over the course of a day.  In my case, I would usually have my three daughters with me, so I could get 4 FP"s for each FP attraction.  So, I could gather maybe 16-20 FP's.  If I could have sold them for $10 each, I would pull in $160-200, but that would only be after I spent $2000 or so on AP's for the year.  What if I had a group of ten friends who agreed that we would all enter the park at opening, and hand all of our tickets over to one of us, whose job for the day would be to gather and sell FP's, while the rest of us took off and went to work or whatever?  That one person could gather 10 FP's at a time, and maybe get 4-5 attractions worth.  That could be $400-500 a day.  But, that is not all profit, as someone would have to pay for the 10 AP's, and the income only comes in if you can get others to enter the park and let you use their passes. 

However they might have been doing it, there are a lot of things that Disney could do to stop the abuse and sale of FP's, but they instead jumped right to selling FP's.  That might have been the plan all along.

TCD

[keith_h 420]

For the professional seller they might be offering folks already in the park money for their FP's. Let's say they sell for $10 an FP and the seller offers $5 per FP to the person. That's still a pretty decent profit for little work. It wouldn't surprise me if there are regular folks who look at as a way to subsidize their ticket. Get 10 FP's that sell for $10/ea and that's $100 off your ticket. 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I don't remember how we use to do it but we were able to get multiple paper FPs. 

I think we used our paper tickets and room keys.  Or we used old tickets. 

[wdwpoohbear...Jennifer 40]

14 hours ago, ThemeParkCommando said:

I'm a little confused about how they are selling enough to turn a profit?   Even with the paper fastpass system, you had to slide your ticket and you could only get one per guest in your party.  Don't they just do the same thing there?

I don't know that would be profit for the individual selling the fast pass tickets.  It would be pure profit for Disney to sell the fast passes like Universal or Sea World does.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

21 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

I don't remember how we use to do it but we were able to get multiple paper FPs. 

I think we used our paper tickets and room keys.  Or we used old tickets. 

Oh man, those were the good old days.

When FP's first came out- you could use anything with a magnetic strip to pull a FP from the machine -a credit card, library card, your Annual Pass, room keys- literally anything with a magnetic strip!  That loophole was closed after about the first year.

After that, there were still times where there were glitches, the last one being when they were introducing MB's and you could use your pass and your MB to get two sets of FP's.

The best thing about the paper FP's was that CM's would let you use them at anytime after your return window expired. There were lots of times we would hit a park at rope drop, enjoy the short lines, pull 2 or 3 FP's and then go take a break.  We could come back that night, and use those 2 or 3 FP's to ride headliners in a row with no wait.

TCD

[LONE-STAR 370]

There was also a button on the back of the old fast pass machines if you pushed it, it would spit out a fast pass. It was handy. 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

9 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

There was also a button on the back of the old fast pass machines if you pushed it, it would spit out a fast pass. It was handy. 

Boy that would have been nice to know back in the day. Lol. 

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Boy that would have been nice to know back in the day. Lol. 

The good rides usually had CMs stationed at the machines that might have prevented you doing that. But if you had any issues getting a FP and asked for help the CM would just push a button on the back of the machine and hand you FPs.

Sent from my handheld doohickie

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

On ‎4‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 11:34 PM, LONE-STAR said:

There was also a button on the back of the old fast pass machines if you pushed it, it would spit out a fast pass. It was handy. 

I forgot all about that button!

You're right.

Initially, the buttons were unlocked and easy to access. Then the CM's got smart, and they locked the buttons on all of the machines, and a CM would have to unlock it in order to press the button to resolve technical issues.  But, they often forget to lock them back.  So, I often checked. 

I miss paper Fastpasses.  Those were the good old days for sure.

TCD

[LONE-STAR 370]

11 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

I forgot all about that button!

You're right.

Initially, the buttons were unlocked and easy to access. Then the CM's got smart, and they locked the buttons on all of the machines, and a CM would have to unlock it in order to press the button to resolve technical issues.  But, they often forget to lock them back.  So, I often checked. 

I miss paper Fastpasses.  Those were the good old days for sure.

TCD

There was normally only one machine unlocked.