How xPASS plans on servicing Resort Guests as well as Disney World’s day visitors

Jim Hill

14 years ago

Late last week, the Terrible Towel wrote in to say:

Jim,

I've been enjoying all of these XPASS articles that you've
been writing lately. But with resort guests being able to reserve their ride
times weeks and months in advance, I have to ask: What's going to be left for
the day guest, the person who bought their ticket to a Disney theme park on the
day of their visit? How are these people ever going to be able to experience these
park's very best rides, shows, or attractions once XPASS is up and running?

That's my main worry about this new ride reservation system. That XPASS is going
to backfire on Disney because all of the
great viewing spots for the parades & fireworks in the parks will be set
aside for the resort guests rather than the day guests. I'm thinking that this
will leave these people with a bad taste in their mouths. They'll be the ones
telling their friends about the awful time that they had at Walt Disney World
thanks to XPASS.

How is Disney going to stop this from happening?

It's simple, Terrible Towel. Part of this solution will come
from radically increasing the number of rides, shows and attractions at the
Parks that will offer FastPASS. Take — for example — the Magic Kingdom. Which
will eventually bump the number of FastPASS-enabled attractions at that theme
park up from 9 to 19.

Then by making it possible for WDW Resort Guests to reserve
their xPASSES in advance for use during Extra Magic Hours … Well, that will
then allow that theme park to bump the number of xPASSES / FastPASSES it has
available from over 60,000 nowadays to over 200,000 per day in the
not-so-distant future.

So at full build-out / maximum implementation here, we're
talking about a far deeper pool of xPASSES
& FastPASSES for Disney World officials to draw from. Which will (in
theory, anyway) still make it possible for both Resort Guests as well as WDW's day
visitors to continue to utilize & enjoy this ride reservation system.

Mind you, to make it possible for Resort Guests to really
get the most out of their WDW vacation and park hop while they're using xPASS
… Well, that's why Disney World plans on breaking its available ride
reservation windows into clearly designated blocks of time.

Take — for example — a day when the Magic Kingdom is open
from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. On a day like that, xPASS would give Resort Guests the
option of booking their ride times between:

9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
12 noon to 4:30 p.m.
4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Photo by David Roark. Copyright Disney Enterprises,
Inc. All rights reserved

By doing something like that … Well, that would then make
it possible for a Resort Guest to spend their morning at the Magic Kingdom
enjoying Splash Mountain & Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before grabbing
lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table and then heading over to Disney's Hollywood
Studios. Where — thanks to xPASS — this same Resort Guest would be guaranteed
a great viewing spot for Fantasmic!

FYI: DHS managers are considering having half of the seats in the 7900-seat Hollywood
Hills Amphitheater aside set exclusively for xPASS users. But — to make sure
that day visitors to the studio theme park will still get a chance to see this
fireworks-and-water show — Disney's
Hollywood Studios is also looking to possibly extend its operating hours for six to
eight weeks out of the year, thereby making it possible for stage two or three
performances of "Fantasmic!" per night during that Park's busiest
times of the year.

That's what (I think, anyway) the xPASS haters have been
overlooking to date. That — in their rush to condemn this next NextGen
enhanced version of FastPASS — these folks have mistakenly been overlooking the upside of this billion
dollar project. That — in order to accommodate all of those Resort Guests who will be booking ride times in advance via xPASS — Disney Parks & Resorts is
now looking for ways to aggressively increase the hourly capacity of WDW's four
theme parks. And in addition to extending these theme parks' operating hours, the ideas that are currently being explored include adding a third theater to Epcot's super-popular "Soarin'
" attraction to building a brand-new E Ticket over at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park (Gee, I wonder what that might be themed around … ). All of this stuff is now on
the table.

And we're talking some pretty out-there ideas when it comes
to giving Resort Guests additional viewing spots for WDW's parades and
fireworks shows. Take — for example — the East Rose Garden right off of the
Hub at the Magic Kingdom. This 5775
square-foot, currently fenced-in spot is being re-envisioned as a viewing space
for 1200 Guests. Putting these people right in Tinkerbell's glide path as she
"flies" from Cinderella Castle all the way down to the roof of
Tomorrowland Terrace during "Wishes."

So are we talking about a fundamental change in the way that
people will experience WDW's theme parks? Absolutely. But most of the changes that
Disney World is proposing making here are — in the long run — (I think,
anyway) for the better. Take — for example — how once xPASS is up and running, this NextGen program will deliberately eliminate much of
the backtracking that Guests now typically have to go through while they're using FastPASS during their time
in the Parks.

And speaking of time … The more that I talk to Disney
insiders, the more that I believe that we're talking years — rather than
months — before we see full-blown integration & implementation of xPASS (or whatever
this system will ultimately be called when it's finally unveiled at the Walt Disney World Resort) in all its permutations.

Between getting all of those Scene Ones built & installed (Work
began just last week on the NextGen elements that are going to be added to
DHS's Twilight Zone Tower of Terror), not to mention all of the cool new
features that Food & Beverage will soon be bringing online (Which — I
promise — I'll soon be discussing in a future JHM article), plus the enhanced
character meet & greets and entertainment offerings … Holistically integrating
all of these elements after first rolling xPASS out at WDW's deluxe resorts (to
be quickly followed by Disney World's moderate & value resorts as well as
all the hotels in the Downtown Disney area) is going to take a little doing.

So — as I said with last week's xPASS article — some
patience is in order here, Terrible Towel. So don't throw in the towel just
yet. Because based on the Guest feedback that WDW officials have received so
far (where theme park visitors who have been surveyed about xPASS were incredibly
enthusiastic about the idea of being able to choose between / book in advance
70 different experiences at the Resort. Not to mention being able to hold multiple
reservations per day for some of Disney World's most popular rides, shows and
attractions), people outside of Disney fan circles seem genuinely excited about
xPASS's potential.

So did anything that you read today help you change your
mind about xPASS, Terrible Towel? Or have my answers to your questions now left you with even more questions?

Your thoughts?