Forget Fastpass+, Fastpass in General Needs a Major Overhaul. Period!

[1DisneyNut]

What the problem really is, is that it requires you to a lot of logistical thinking while you are on vacation.....run here grab this first fastpass, go ride these two rides/see shows, go grab second fastpass, go use first fastpass, eat, go ride/see something, grab third fastpass, run across park use second fastpass, go back and ride a couple of rides and so on.

You really have to stay mindful of when you can get a new one, when you can use the one you have, and what you can get done in between to utilize the fastpass system efficiently. I really don't like having to keep up with all of it while I am on vacation because I deal with scheduling and logistics all day long every day with my business but it does help you get more done. Probably what makes it work so well is the fact that so many people either do not understand, don't want to or simply can't utilize it efficiently which allows those of us who can to realize great benefit.

With all of that said, I personally don't want to have to plan fastpass+ 6 months in advance but I am a planner and if that is what it comes to, you can bet I will have every detail worked out in advance. I always do itineraries for what parks we will visit on what days and other activities months in advance anyway. I am sort of concerned about fastpass+ advance reservations because we found that we despise ADR's hanging over our heads every day while in the parks. We never plan dining in advance.

[seanyred]

At certain attractions a full day of Fastpasses are gone within an hour of the park opening. What's the sense of that?

That's about logistics and capacity. There has to be a limit of fast passes otherwise the benefit of the fastpass would be nullified. What I mean is that everyone has the opportunity to participate if they choose to do so and there is no additional cost. Now it might require getting to the parks early but that comes with each person choice.

With FastPass+ theoretically late starters will be able to get the Fastpasses they want assuming they are willing to use MyMagic+.

[jclightchasr]

Fast pass works great the FP plus is puzzling to me. Last I heard you could electronically schedule your day in the parks up to months in advance. If this is still the case it seems as though the time slots would be filled up so quickly by those ahead of the learning curve that any newbies would have to go the whole day via standby lines. Someone please shed some light here.

[Tekneek]

Fastpass+ only allows 3 FPs per day (4 for MK). If you are using a magic band, you cannot use the regular fastpass.

Yep. Gone will be the days of 5 or 6 FP. You get your 3 or 4, and the rest will be good ol' standby regardless of when you get up or how well you know your way about.

[DizneyFreak2002]

Fast pass works great the FP plus is puzzling to me. Last I heard you could electronically schedule your day in the parks up to months in advance. If this is still the case it seems as though the time slots would be filled up so quickly by those ahead of the learning curve that any newbies would have to go the whole day via standby lines. Someone please shed some light here.

You book FP+ 60 days in advance... Only 3 attractions/experiences... MK may allow 4 attractions/experiences... If you snooze, you loose... So don't try to book a spur of the moment trip... It is Stand By city for you if you do...

[Aurora]

I just realized something. If all this turns out to be true in the end, it won't eliminate the crazy rush in the morning at all for attractions like Toy Story Mania. It's just that instead of everyone making a mad dash for FPs, they'll make a mad dash to go to the standby line. Especially if they weren't lucky or organized enough to plan to get FPs for it 60 days in advance.

[waymickey]

My question is why do people wait in line when Fastpass is available? I just don't understand the lunacy of waiting!

Sometimes you have no choice but to wait if you want to see an attraction. For Example: I want to ride TSM I get a fastpass at 9am for 230pm. I can only hold one fastpass so now if I want to see or ride an attraction before 230 pm I must wait in the standby line.

I also commented on how stinking long the standby lines were when I was there this month. Standby Lines were out of control. I don't want to see Fp to go away just to go back to what worked in the past.

[NewDVCowner]

Sometimes you have no choice but to wait if you want to see an attraction. For Example: I want to ride TSM I get a fastpass at 9am for 230pm. I can only hold one fastpass so now if I want to see or ride an attraction before 230 pm I must wait in the standby line.

I also commented on how stinking long the standby lines were when I was there this month. Standby Lines were out of control. I don't want to see Fp to go away just to go back to what worked in the past.

Correct me if I"m wrong, but the Fastpasses have something on them that says you can get a new fastpass at X:XX time and often that time is 2 hours after you get the first fast pass if the new fast pass return time is longer than that. At least that's the case in Disneyland. So, if you get a fastpass at 9:30 and the return time is at 2:30, you can get another fast pass at 11:30.

[badjujue]

The fast pass system makes wait times go up. With fast pass + coming on board you think the lines are long now just.wait. Really what dose disney care once you get into the park after paying all that money to get in and to park they got the bulk of your money. Why would they care how long you wait. 95 $ to get in plus tax so what you get to see 3 to 4 attractions out of 20

[waymickey]

Correct me if I"m wrong, but the Fastpasses have something on them that says you can get a new fastpass at X:XX time and often that time is 2 hours after you get the first fast pass if the new fast pass return time is longer than that. At least that's the case in Disneyland. So, if you get a fastpass at 9:30 and the return time is at 2:30, you can get another fast pass at 11:30.

Not when I was there a few weeks ago. We could not get another fast pass until the time to go on the ride.

[MickeysBestPal]

Correct me if I"m wrong, but the Fastpasses have something on them

1- that says you can get a new fastpass at X:XX time and

2- often that time is 2 hours after you get the first fast pass

3- if the new fast pass return time is longer than that.

4- At least that's the case in Disneyland.

5- So, if you get a fastpass at 9:30 and the return time is at 2:30, you can get another fast pass at 11:30.

1- Correct.
2- It's usually just for the very popular rides.
3- Correct. If the current FP Return Time is longer than 2 hours away, you will be able to get another FP at the 2-hour mark from time of
current FP pick-up.
4- And, at WDW.
5- That is correct.

Not when I was there a few weeks ago. We could not get another fast pass until the time to go on the ride.

You must not have been looking very closely.
The "2 hour rule" is how the "regular" FP system has worked for over a decade.

[TheHD]

FP has been great to me every trip. I recently got back from a trip in mid-July. There were often wait times of 120+ minutes for major rides. I even saw It's A Small World with a wait time of 50 minutes. With that being said, the longest wait I did was 40 min to allow my daughter to meet Gaston and rope drop (caught the bus at just the right time). The second longest wait was 30 min to meet Wreck It Ralph. I was able to ride every ride, major ones especially, several times thanks to FP.

[Opus X]

1- Correct.
2- It's usually just for the very popular rides.
3- Correct. If the current FP Return Time is longer than 2 hours away, you will be able to get another FP at the 2-hour mark from time of
current FP pick-up.
4- And, at WDW.
5- That is correct.



You must not have been looking very closely.
The "2 hour rule" is how the "regular" FP system has worked for over a decade.

110% correct

[Jared]

How I wish Disney would just eliminate Fastpass altogether. The system is used considerably less in Disneyland, and park operations seem to run so much smoother.

Toy Story Mania is the obvious example. It doesn't have Fastpass at California Adventure, yet the line is rarely long. Even when it is, it's about half of the peak wait time of Toy Story Mania in Florida.

Granted, there are other reasons for this phenomenon, but Fastpass is certainly a major contributing factor.

[Mickey91]

Sometimes you have no choice but to wait if you want to see an attraction. For Example: I want to ride TSM I get a fastpass at 9am for 230pm. I can only hold one fastpass so now if I want to see or ride an attraction before 230 pm I must wait in the standby line.

Actually, when you get a fast pass with such a late time on it from the time you received it, it will usually give you an earlier time to get another one. We a lot of times get to DHS around 9:30 - 10:30 and TSM already has passes timed anywhere from 2:00 - 7:00PM depending on the day. When this happens there is a note on the bottom that reads "your next fast pass will be available after 11:30" or about two hours after the issue of the TSM fast pass.

[MickeysBestPal]

How I wish Disney would just eliminate Fastpass altogether. The system is used considerably less in Disneyland, and park operations seem to run so much smoother.

Toy Story Mania is the obvious example. It doesn't have Fastpass at California Adventure, yet the line is rarely long. Even when it is, it's about half of the peak wait time of Toy Story Mania in Florida.

Granted, there are other reasons for this phenomenon, but Fastpass is certainly a major contributing factor.

I agree that TSM does not offer FP at DCA.
But, I must disagree that the lines are shorter BECAUSE it does not offer FP.
Definitely not a "major" contributing factor to its shorter wait time.

To understand that FP is a positive factor in queuing for DL attractions, one only needs to remember the 3 hour-plus waits for Splash Mountain before FP, and look at the (formerly needed) massively-long (and entertaining) entrance queue that was built for Indy.

FP works.

If they dropped FP at DHS' TSM, you would not suddenly see short lines for the attraction.

[Jared]

FP works.

If they dropped FP at DHS' TSM, you would not suddenly see short lines for the attraction.

Short lines? No, certainly not. Shorter lines? Yes, absolutely.

Toy Story Mania's immense popularity in Florida is artificial, exaggerated by the fact that the park has virtually no other family rides. That isn't the case at California Adventure. Put Toy Story Mania in the Magic Kingdom, and the lines would immediately drop to something more manageable.

Whatever you think about Fastpass -- and I will always argue that it is a bad thing for park operations -- we can agree on this: All Fastpass does is redistribute the supply-and-demand chain. How about Disney fixes its increasing "demand" problem by expanding the "supply."

That is to say, build more attractions.

[Tearin_it_up]

Aw you beat me to it. The best solution for TSM at WDW is for another family attraction in the Studios. Hopefully all the changes coming helps with that

[PopPhan]

Fast pass works great the FP plus is puzzling to me. Last I heard you could electronically schedule your day in the parks up to months in advance. If this is still the case it seems as though the time slots would be filled up so quickly by those ahead of the learning curve that any newbies would have to go the whole day via standby lines. Someone please shed some light here.

How is that any different than today? If you don't know about FP and/or how it works, you are still stuck in Stand-By lines.

How many people still visit WDW and believe that FP is a 'paid for' perk or that only those staying 'On Property' are eligible?

Yep. Gone will be the days of 5 or 6 FP. You get your 3 or 4, and the rest will be good ol' standby regardless of when you get up or how well you know your way about.

Unless they decide to up the number of FastPasses (FP+) per hour per attraction, there should be no discernible difference in Stand-By line lengths. This is based on them removing the current FP operation or combining the FP+ and FP amounts to equal the current FP/hour numbers.

Since they clamped down on return windows for FP, how many people are really getting more than 3 or 4 FP in a day and being able to use them? There is no more "Let's collect FP all day and come back at the end of the day to use them all"


For those who have been "Test Subjects" for the FP+ system....Do you still have windows to schedule your FP+ attractions? Say, for example, you schedule TSMM for 9:00, can you then schedule Rn'R for 9:30 and ToT for 10:00, or are you limited to one FP+ per hour? 2 hours? 3 hours? I haven't read any threads that talked about that.


Personally, I can count the number of time I have used FP, in all my trips since 2003, on one hand and have fingers left over. We always went during slower seasons -- Sept., Oct., early Dec., very early Jan., and Valentine's week -- and have never had lines, except for Soarin' and TSMM, that have been longer than 20 - 30 minutes and most of those were actually shorted than the posted times.

[AndrewJackson]

The wait times are so much better at Walt Disney World than they use to be, it's not even comparable.

Those of us who have been going to WDW since it opened will remember waiting in line for 60+ minutes for POTC, or 60+ minutes for the boat rode at Mexico at Epcot.

We were just at WDW last March the week before Easter. We were able to ride everything we wanted, and never waited in line more than 30 minutes.

WDW is so popular, and crowded most of the year. If you use FP, and get to the parks early, the wait times are very manageable. If you go on a busy day, and get in the standby line for Peter Pan at 2:30 PM, be prepared to wait 120 minutes to ride a 3 minute ride.

There is no doubt, FP has lessened the amount of wait time I have experienced ad WDW.

Now, the jury is out for FP+. I have some concerns about it, but really won't know until I experience it.