I am planning a trip with the family to Disneyland soon, and I have heard about this new “Fastpass” system. Apparently you can go to the attraction of your choice, get a standby ticket for a future time, and then return later to get in without the usual 9-hour wait.
How do they ensure that everybody else there doesn’t wind up waiting in the fast pass line? How can they gauge traffic flow at attractions to determine when people should return? Has anybody used this system?
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
Phouchg,
We were at Disney World this year and did use the Fastpass service. It worked well, but there are strings attached. First, you need to be staying at Disney accomodations. Also, you can only hold one fastpass at a time, so you can’t go to all of the rides you want to go on and get fastpass for each then go back later. When you return at your designated time you go to a separate line where a park employee checks your pass and time stamp to make sure you are not early. Then you go to the front of the line (or at least to the end of the much shorter fastpass line). On the rides we used it for the two lines were kept seperate until the final boarding area so non-pass people cannot use the shortcut. I do not know how they gauge traffic, but some attractions had very late return times. For example, we went to the Test Track at Epcot at 11:00 AM and the fastpass return time was 3:30 PM. We did not bother and just stood in line for 40 minutes. But we were leaving and could not stay until 3:30. It would have been helpful though if we were planning on staying at Epcot all day. Overall, I would say it is a nice benefit for Disney guests, but it is not the end of long lines. Have fun at the parks.
John
No, you don’t need to be staying in a Disney Resort, but Thing 1 is almost correct about only being able to have one Fastpass at a time. Since the fastpass gives you a range of times, you can get a new fastpass once the beginning of the range of the last fastpass has passed (got that?). The fastpass is simply a piece of paper with a time printed on it. The passes are printed by a machine that you insert your ticket into. You have to get one for each guest in your party.
Here’s a page on Disney’s website that gives a listing of all the fastpass attractions.
And here’s a link to the (unofficial) Fastpass FAQ.
A very sophisticated software system that uses historical ride volume, thoughput rates, and queing calculations to forecast the best times to add Fastpass holders to the normal line for the most efficient traffic pattern.
It’s pretty impressive stuff.
a person I talked to who was at DW in Fla last week said the longest line for any of the rides was about 10 minutes (except the Test Track, which took about 25 for some reason). I don’t know if DL in Cali is similarly slow, but it seems like it would be a good time to go (unless your ass gets terroized) since the lines are short.
I’ve noticed that the Disney resorts have not cut their room rates, even though the airlines are 50% off right now on flights to Orlando.
DisneyWorld has not cut the room rates, but they have cut back on park hours, employee hours, shows and have shut down one entire resort hotel (Port Orleans - French side). They’ve also shut down “Carousel of Progress”, one of Walt’s original attractions - a little warning would have been nice.
Saturdays are the busy day at the parks - TestTrack was a 45 minite wait, with no FastPass available (they were re-vamping the system, as well as updating the inside of the attraction). Even with FastPass, pre-9/11, we would end up with a 30 minute wait, since so many people were using FP. Add in the “Immediate Pass”** and the lines can get really backed up.
(Wednesdays the parks are darned near dead empty.)
**Immediate Pass - is a ticket that Disney gives out to people actually in line when a ride/attraction breaks down and cannot be re-started in a short time, mollifying an irate patron: these allow the holder to jump to the absolute front of the line (even before the FP line) anytime the ride/attraction is back in normal service - the tickets do not expire and are good for only that attraction. TestTrack is quite noted for severe breakdowns (and let me tell you, the braking system and the restraint belts on those cars really work): not often, but when it’s down, it can be down for several hours. We’ve ended up with 4 “Sorry fo the inconvenience” passes: it somewhat makes up for standing in line for 30 minutes.
Was just in DW three weeks ago–fastpass rocked. (Even with the fairly short lines it meant you could go on a different ride instead of waiting in line)
Recommendation for fast track–go in the single riders line. We had a group of 4. The cars are two rows of 3 each so there are a lot of single seats available. It gave us a ten minute wait instead of a 40 minute wait and we were only divided between 2 cars. I just sat behind my friend instead of next to her, and since you can’t really talk during the ride that didn’t matter much. We still all were on the ride at the same time.
Another thing to consider is they have a deal where they let people into the park early, and open one section for the early people. They serve breakfast and have some mascots out for the kids to go nuts over, and they open up the rides in just that section.
When we went to DL about 8 years ago, the day we went they opened up Tomorrowland for us. My son and I went through Space Mountain three times with absolutely no line.
The crap shoot there is they don’t necessarily tell you which world they’re opening up early…
This perk is called Early Entrance and is only available to Disney World resort guests. There used to be a page on their site which gave the schedule (i.e. which park would be open early on which days) but now I can’t seem to find it. The resort desks certainly have the answers, though. I’m fairly certain they open the same rides (within a particular park) early each day.
This must have just happened. I have a friend who was in Disney World about two weeks ago and she said she went to this attraction.
Having returned from Disney World not twelve hours ago, I can sagely tell you that the lines for the rides are damn near non-existant. I think, as has been said, 10 min was about the longest I waited on a ride. Go and have fun.
Oh, and security there was a joke. A half-assed look inside the diaper bag I was carrying and that was it. I’ll credit that the first day, the woman there made me open the package of wipes and prove that it had wipes in it, but the other days, I didn’t have to do as much as pull stuff out of the bag to show there was nothing nasty under the top layer of extra sweatshirt. And no one actually checked me with my large jacket on so I could have been carrying God knows what anyway. Sheesh… but I digress.
Ohhh, I am now the official DisneyWorld expert, having researched it ad nauseum prior to my August visit. (Hint for those who have no grasp of the obvious: Don’t go to Florida in August.)
The FP worked great for us. Say you want to ride Space Mountain. It’s noon. You go to the marquee that says “FastPass” (clever, no?) and put your bar-coded admittance pass into the thingeymabob. It takes it, then spits it back out along with another coupon that has a return time on it. Let’s just say it says “2pm-2:15pm”
You can then go about your business and hop on another ride, waiting for your window to open. Here’s a hint: You may get another FP once your window opens up. So prior to getting into the FastPass queue, go to another FP machine and get another FP.
We used this system during one of the more crowded days at the park and we managed to ride all the major attractions with no wait.
Another hint: You may also get another FP after 2 hours have passed. So if you arrive at 11am and the FP says to return at 3pm, you may get another FP at 1pm regardless if you’ve used your first one yet.
More hints: Early admission days work at the non-Disney owned properties (such as Courtyard by Marriott, the Dolphin and the Swan) that are on Disney property. I found some sweet deals at these non-Disney places using various discounts, such as Entertainment. I would definitely not stay on Disney property if early admission didn’t give a significant advantage. (And the less crowded the parks are, the less significant the EA becomes). Instead, save your $$$ and go off-property.
If you have your heart on staying at a Disney owned property, go to a website named mousesavers.com. It’ll give you publicly advertised codes to use when making reservations. I saved 40% off my suite price by using a code.
Finally, if anyone is going to DisneyWorld, the Pundit family highly recommends Discovery Cove. It’s a bloody fortune ($189/pp), but you get to swim with dolphins and stay at a marvelous, clean, non-crowded facility for a day. We liked it much better than Disney.
Hate to mention this too, but I believe DisneyWorld has dropped its ‘early admission’ policy for on-site resort guests. Makes sense with the amount of workers and hours they’ve cut.
And yeah, “CoP” closing was announced last Monday.