Boarding groups - Any thoughts/rumors on when this might end?

[piccolopat]

Not true. If staying onsite you can book your entire trip at 60 days. So there is a huge FP advantage for people with longer trips. ROTR FP will likely be impossible without at least 6 nights. Agreed!

I thought the PP was suggesting that FP+ should only be bookable at 60 days for each day, not the current entire trip starting at 60 days for your date of arrival. That change would level the playing field for booking FP+. As it stands, people staying longer have a built in advantage.

 

[rteetz]

Sure...I'll expand. Since this project was never-before-done and high-risk, they should have inflated the testing phase not by a factor of 2X, but by more. A seasoned PM with a technical background, would have probably applied an over-factor of 3-5X for the testing phase to capture the anomalies. In my technical PM opinion, the team was likely lead by vertical managers and fundamental discipline leads and not seasoned technical PM's. That lead to a substantial difference to the implementation timelines which we have now seen for almost 3 months. If I had the time and go back to my posts about 3-6 months before RotR was scheduled to open at HS, I think I predicted this exact scenario (not trying to pat myself on the back, but use my experience in project failures to a prediction). The problem is that you have Marketing and CEO's pounding the desk for a release date regardless of operational efficiency. And who gets caught in the middle? The PM team saying the didn't do their schedule correctly. Off that soapbox.

I'm convinced the egg on the face for Disney with the RotR rollout is a major data point for future attractions and more accurate release dates.

I am not sure a major theme park attraction can be compared to things you've worked on. I appreciate your insight but at the same time WDI (while inflates their costs often and construction schedules take a while) they know what they are doing. If they didn't they wouldn't be able to create attractions like RotR.

Quick question as I don't remember. Have you been on this ride?

This isn't always just one issue either. There are four ride systems at play and several different technologies that haven't been used altogether before. You can test until the cows come home but when operating on a daily basis with thousands of park guests thats different than operating without guests or with CMs. You should know that.

 

[rteetz]

OK....I'm not sure I see your point with this. Can you please expand this part? Maybe that ties into my other statement about insufficient testing and schedule build-outs.

Not sure what there is to expand on. We all know Disney would love to have this ride operating at full capacity and without any issues. Universal wants the same for Hagrid's.

 

[hertamaniac]

I am not sure a major theme park attraction can be compared to things you've worked on. I appreciate your insight but at the same time WDI (while inflates their costs often and construction schedules take a while) they know what they are doing. If they didn't they wouldn't be able to create attractions like RotR.

Quick question as I don't remember. Have you been on this ride?

This isn't always just one issue either. There are four ride systems at play and several different technologies that haven't been used altogether before. You can test until the cows come home but when operating on a daily basis with thousands of park guests thats different than operating without guests or with CMs. You should know that.

A) No, I've worked on likely more technical projects including U.S. Military projects where cross-disciplines interactivity was paramount for our warfighters; it wasn't an attraction aimed for the public consumption. I would question that "they know what they are doing" as for the past three months have demonstrated otherwise in my opinion.

B) No, I haven't ridden this ride and glad I haven't dedicated the effort required to do so.

C) You can mimic riding without guests to get an operational gauge and use that data to inject into a matrix with guests to give a better sense of rideability. Those conditions of operating on a daily basis should have been done so long before the opening at HS and I do know that.

 

[hertamaniac]

Not sure what there is to expand on. We all know Disney would love to have this ride operating at full capacity and without any issues. Universal wants the same for Hagrid's.

Is Hagrid's operating near or at full capacity? I would guess that it has a higher operational efficiency (numbers unseen). I view Hagrid's as less daring and technical than RotR.

 

[rteetz]

A) No, I've worked on likely more technical projects including U.S. Military projects where cross-disciplines interactivity was paramount for our warfighters; it wasn't an attraction aimed for the public consumption. I would question that "they know what they are doing" as for the past three months have demonstrated otherwise in my opinion.

B) No, I haven't ridden this ride and glad I haven't dedicated the effort required to do so.

C) You can mimic riding without guests to get an operational gauge and use that data to inject into a matrix with guests to give a better sense of rideability. Those conditions of operating on a daily basis should have been done so long before the opening at HS and I do know that.

I am sorry, I don't see how you can compare military projects to theme park attractions. Those are two different things. Yes I would guess those projects are more technical than theme parks in many regards but they also aren't the same.

I don't know why one would be glad to not try to ride. Its an amazing attraction. I think it would also help you understand more about what is going on.

And they have done that testing. If they hadn't this attraction wouldn't have opened when it did. Like I have mentioned before this also isn't a Disney issue. Universal is having the same troubles with a complete different complex attraction.

 

[rteetz]

Is Hagrid's operating near or at full capacity? I would guess that it has a higher operational efficiency (numbers unseen). I view Hagrid's as less daring and technical than RotR.

I am not completely familiar with its numbers. I do know it has a high capacity when running well. Also requires a lot of maintenance much like RotR. They will have 5-6 trains on the track at a time. Not something you see often with coasters.

 

[mshanson3121]

So, let me get this straight, I say:

"I agree. There were rumors from reliable sources that this ride was NOT ready (as in, ready to run reliably). It wasn't running well during trials. Maybe they should have tried to figure out why, then. We all know Disney opened it for one reason and one reason only - $. The whole "We needed to open it to test it further" is just to appease the masses for an unreliable ride, awesome as it may be."

You come back to argue what I said, telling me I'm wrong:

Even the more ready Disneyland version of this attraction hasn’t been working well. Your comment about appeasing the masses is not correct either. (Implying that other parts of my comment we're also wrong). They could have waited a year and this ride still wouldn’t have opened without interruption.

And then go on to say to someone else...

Per what’s been said they knew going into it there would be issues. But the land was underperforming and the anticipation for this ride was through the roof. I don’t think they had any other choice. The ride was ready to go just not without any downtime. (We'll ignore the irony of this statement)

So, ultimately using different words, you said what I said, but apparently it's only right when you say it. When I say it, it's wrong.

Just for clarification, what we BOTH said was:

- they knew there were issues, that it wasn't ready to run reliably
- they opened it anyways because of money (land underperforming)

Ergo, they opened it to the public, knowing it wasn't functioning reliably yet, could have benefited from further testing, knowing they were rushing the opening because of money, but unwilling to admit that to the public. But you are right about one thing, I was wrong about crediting the "masses" comment to Disney. That award goes to someone else who has used that line to excuse the rushed opening - which you yourself have now finally just said, was because of the land underperforming.

 

[JayMass]

My biggest complaint is there is zero advantage to being a wdw hotel guest vs off-site or local. My second biggest complaint is I am expected to plan my days 180 and 60 days out and then have this random chaos drive my day the morning of. 100% silly.

Yes!!!!

 

[DGsAtBLT]

I really don’t understand people who want the BG gone. I get having issues with them, and an frustrated by them too, but a virtual queue is so much better for the vast majority of guests. Getting rid of BG doesn’t make the ride more reliable, often times the elephant in the room in these discussions.

Getting rid of the virtual queue benefits such a tiny amount of people, basically: the people at the very front of the pack in a stand by scenario (who probably arrived at the park at 4 AM), or people who got lucky or had the right kind of trip booked with a FP method. Honestly, I think it would make it harder for almost everyone who wishes the VQ away. I don’t get it.

It is really awful when people who do everything right still miss out. It really sucks on days where things run out extremely fast, the ride sees lots of downtime, or someone’s app isn’t functioning properly. I hate when people have to dedicate the entire day to trying to make it on when it’s actually running. None of that is made better with stand by or fastpass. A tweak to the system to change how BG are gotten may or may not help, but the real fix is reliability. We have seen that over and over again watching our beloved chart over on the SWGE forum thread.

With a reliable attraction, I LOVE the concept of BG. It would be cool to see the newest or most popular attraction in each park offer this. Imagine not having to eat up a MK fastpass when Tron opens. Imagine missing out on FoP fastpass, but knowing the stand by line is a VQ so you can still get on pretty easily. The concept with a reliable ride in combination with FP is awesome, IMO.

 

[rteetz]

I agree with someone else who said the ride should have remained in testing longer to try and work out the links, saying:


"I agree. There were rumors from reliable sources that this ride was NOT ready (as in, ready to run reliably). It wasn't running well during trials. Maybe they should have tried to figure out why, then. We all know Disney opened it for one reason and one reason only - $. The whole "We needed to open it to test it further" is just to appease the masses for an unreliable ride, awesome as it may be."

You come back to argue what I said, telling me I'm wrong:

Even the more ready Disneyland version of this attraction hasn’t been working well. Your comment about appeasing the masses is not correct either. (Implying that other parts of my comment we're also wrong). They could have waited a year and this ride still wouldn’t have opened without interruption.

And then go on to say to someone else...

Money is always the easy answer. Yes money is a driving factor. They wouldn't have made this ride to begin with had they not thought it would make them money. Thats beside the point. Every theme park addition is looked at to bring in a return. Thats how business works in a simple sense. I don't quite understand what your point is.

So, ultimately using different words, you said what I said, but apparently it's only right when you say it. When I say it, it's wrong.

Just for clarification, what we BOTH said was:

- they knew there were issues, that it wasn't ready to run reliably
- they opened it anyways because of money (land underperforming)

Ergo, they opened it to the public, knowing it wasn't functioning reliably yet, could have benefited from further testing, knowing they were rushing the opening because of money, but unwilling to admit that to the public. But you are right about one thing, I was wrong about crediting the "masses" comment to Disney. That award goes to someone else who has used that line to excuse the rushed opening.

As I know I have said several times, they could've waited a year and this ride still wouldn't be 100% running every day without any issue. There literally is no theme park attraction to compare this too.

As I said before everything comes down to money. At the end of the day the ride is open. Its getting rave reviews despite its issues. Before it opened it was well known there would be issues. As you quoted that I said (because that was necessary apparently) the Disneyland version which had MORE time than WDW isn't doing much better. More time and testing didn't necessarily equal more reliability now did it?

 

[rteetz]

With a reliable attraction, I LOVE the concept of BG. It would be cool to see the newest or most popular attraction in each park offer this. Imagine not having to eat up a MK fastpass when Tron opens. Imagine missing out on FoP fastpass, but knowing the stand by line is a VQ so you can still get on pretty easily. The concept with a reliable ride in combination with FP is awesome, IMO.

And according to sources/rumors Disney has looked at that. Its why MMRR was heavily speculated to not open with the normal FP and Standby right away. I know Rat has been speculated a bit with the as well. Like you said I think it would work well with something like FoP and I am surprised Disney hasn't tried that.

 

[mshanson3121]

More time and testing didn't necessarily equal more reliability now did it?

Yeah, a whole whopping 6 weeks. Sooo much more time.

 

[hertamaniac]

So, let me get this straight, I say:

"I agree. There were rumors from reliable sources that this ride was NOT ready (as in, ready to run reliably). It wasn't running well during trials. Maybe they should have tried to figure out why, then. We all know Disney opened it for one reason and one reason only - $. The whole "We needed to open it to test it further" is just to appease the masses for an unreliable ride, awesome as it may be."

You come back to argue what I said, telling me I'm wrong:

Even the more ready Disneyland version of this attraction hasn’t been working well. Your comment about appeasing the masses is not correct either. (Implying that other parts of my comment we're also wrong). They could have waited a year and this ride still wouldn’t have opened without interruption.

And then go on to say to someone else...



So, ultimately using different words, you said what I said, but apparently it's only right when you say it. When I say it, it's wrong.

Just for clarification, what we BOTH said was:

- they knew there were issues, that it wasn't ready to run reliably
- they opened it anyways because of money (land underperforming)

Ergo, they opened it to the public, knowing it wasn't functioning reliably yet, could have benefited from further testing, knowing they were rushing the opening because of money, but unwilling to admit that to the public. But you are right about one thing, I was wrong about crediting the "masses" comment to Disney. That award goes to someone else who has used that line to excuse the rushed opening - which you yourself have now finally just said, was because of the land underperforming.

Just wow.....you are razor sharp.

 

[GoingSince1990]

And according to sources/rumors Disney has looked at that. Its why MMRR was heavily speculated to not open with the normal FP and Standby right away. I know Rat has been speculated a bit with the as well. Like you said I think it would work well with something like FoP and I am surprised Disney hasn't tried that.

Ratatouille, being an exact clone of a ride that has existed in Paris for many years, and presumably has had every last problem ironed out, should be the most reliable of all of the new ride openings. Opening like MMRR with standby/FP would seem to be a certainty.

 

[rteetz]

Yeah, a whole whopping 6 weeks. Sooo much more time.

Disneyland's SWGE opened in May, DHS in August. Also 6 weeks does allow for a good amount of work to be done.

 

[rteetz]

Ratatouille, being an exact clone of a ride that has existed in Paris for many years, and presumably has had every last problem ironed out, should be the most reliable of all of the new ride openings. Opening like MMRR with standby/FP would seem to be a certainty.

Should be yes. The one in Paris needs some work due to construction issues though. That likely won't be a case in Epcot of course. The boarding group if implemented (a long shot yes) would be more for crowds than anything much like if they were do use it for FoP now.

 

[mshanson3121]

Disneyland's SWGE opened in May, DHS in August. Also 6 weeks does allow for a good amount of work to be done.

And were we discussing SWGE? No. We were discussing RotR, as you well know. Seriously.

 

[rteetz]

And were we discussing SWGE? No. We were discussing RotR, as you well know. Seriously.

I may have missed something but RotR is inside SWGE...

 

[mshanson3121]

I may have missed something but RotR is inside SWGE...

Are you truly this dense, or do you just love to argue for the sake of arguing?