Something Interesting Is Happening With Disney's FastPass Signs!

Comments for Something Interesting Is Happening With Disney’s FastPass Signs!

FastPass+

Credit: Alessa D. Inside the Magic

37 Comments

  1. Mike

    I don’t see how they can eliminate FP+ as they continue to allow more capacity without repair with something else. Wait times would be 3 hours+ on certain attractions

    1. Chris

      Actually, FP+ makes the standby waits substantially longer, in all reality it may be better to keep FP gone or at leastpdify it to be more like Maxpass at Disneyland where you can’t book in advance and get a window assigned based on wheb you get the FP after entering the park.

      1. Walt

        FP+ halves the ride capacity. I’ve been going to Disney World since 1978 – last there in 2015 or so – and I hate FastPass+.

        OG FastPass wasn’t bad – you went to the ride and got a ticket, then came back later. Having to reserve your rides months in advance is just insanity and leaves you running back and forth across the park.

        1. Kathy Skipper

          I agree the old fast pass was just much better. There are rides now that unless you are staying onsite you never get to ride no matter how often you go. Going to the ride and getting the fp made sure you were at least in the park & notaking plans that ended up cancelled. Plus people were cheating the system to get them by making reservations to get fp then cancel the reservation

          1. Rodney Simonson

            They are using fast pass lines for disability and child exchange access on most experiences. FastPasses are better than virtual queues, for those of us who visit seldom and cannot join a boarding party in the 10 second window of availability… when we have to plan a park reservation months in advance.

        2. Melanie Durham

          I agree! I absolutely loved the old FP too!

  2. If they don’t make fast pass available again, they will make Universal look even more attractive. If you stay at a Universal hotel, you get a bracelet that gets you onto all the rides quickly for free, or you can pay for it if you are staying somewhere else.

    1. 3s1dmommy

      No, if you stay at the most EXPENSIVE resorts at Universal you get that.

    2. Laura Tober

      I’ve been going to Disney World since 1984 every 3 years. Since Fast Passes they cut wait times tremendously. Now with no more magical express and no fast passes I’ll be visiting Universal for half my usually only Disney World trip next visit.

  3. JJ

    The experience without FP+ recently made for a pretty miserable visit to Disney. More people waiting in even longer lines. And yet Universal offers full Xpress Pass tickets for guests on every ride with purchase. My advice is to skip Disney until they get their act together.

    1. Josie

      FastPass+ is one of the reasons we avoid WDW. I dint know what I want to ride 6 months in advance and it makes planning a vacation too much work. I love the Disneyland MaxPass and hope that WDW goes to that.

    2. Cory

      The wait times are way shorter right now. FP+ gives you the false sense of a quick line for those couple rides you have it for.

      What you don’t realize is they’ll let 20 fp+ riders on then mix 10 stand by que in… Your stand by lines are longer because of fp+.

      1. Patrick

        Not my experience at all. Went in November and everything took an hour.

  4. Anon

    The article told us nothing that we didn’t already know. They have no new information on Fast Pass+

    1. Matt

      They are going to start charging for fast passes like they do in disney overseases

  5. Larry

    FP+ allowed you to wait in line in one part of the park knowing you had a set window for an attraction elsewhere. In that respect it was great, but I do see the point about stand-by lines for anyone not able to get a FP. However, with crowd levels increasing Disney needs to do something to disperse the crowds throughout the park instead of peeps waiting in line for hours. Its time for virtual queuing to be expanded for all the popular attractions and not as you walk into the park, but something you can plan in advance around your meal and show times.

    1. Patrick

      I didnt mind FP+ but Disney managed it badly. Too much reservation compared to ride capacity so they had more FP reservations going on compared to the higher numbers of people doing FP reservations. “Stealing” capacity from walk on lines and effectively overcapacity the attractions. The resorts have more people than the parks general attractions line capacity can handle. They have to do something more like the max pass /ild fast pass system or virtual queues like Universal and they needed to start that already. They are already pushing the attraction line capacities during the day at 35% of their overall gate capacity. I’ve seen some Disney job posts for data science specialists and engineers. They may be trying to figure out how to solve the problem problem by massaging the data until they can come up with a solution. Or maybe they could actually have people who pay attention to attractions and the lines look at what’s going on and just start thinking about solutions and get a feel for how things are going, like Walt used to do himself. (Example trash can placements)
      Disney management won’t even go to the bathroom without data massaged to support the case and then later they find that they misinterpreted the data and they have to go back to the drawing board again.

  6. David

    When FP+ returns, so will I. I’m not paying to stand in line.

    1. Nick

      It’s just a preamble to Disney introducing a pay as you go FP system.

  7. Joe

    Fastpass is just nice so at least you know you don’t have over hour waits at every ride .. c’mon Disney … Step it up!!

  8. Herschel

    I think everyone is reading too much into this. They’ve got signs that tell you where to go if you have Fastpass+. Nobody has it right now. Having signs advertise it will confuse guests who might think they’re missing out on something that isn’t available. I’m surprised these signs weren’t all covered up on the reopening day.

  9. Bailey

    I don’t know about other attractions, but at the Safari, the sign has had the tape covering the FP+ part of the sign since they re-opened. ?

  10. Ben

    I’m at MK now. The FP+ sign and scanners at Space Mountain are covered, though the FP queue is being used for disability access and rider swap.

    The sign and scanners are not covered at Haunted Mansion or Big Thunder Mountain. I saw a few other guests using FP at these attractions. A CM told me they were for rider swap or disability access, but that doesn’t make sense because the exit is used for disability access on those attractions. So, not sure why the inconstancy.

    1. Michelle

      While FP+ is suspended, they’re using a lot of those lines as disability access points as it’s easier than having them come up the exit, which could cause social distancing issues.

  11. Disney fan

    So glad to see fast pass gone! Just keep the reservation system and crowd control in place!

  12. Adina Long

    Sorry but if you know how to navigate the FP system, you can pretty much get every available ride covered. I’ve found those that complain about it, don’t know how to use it. This past almost year has been ok but crowds have been much smaller. I’ve been going since 76 and go 4-12 times a year including during covid. Universal only gives front of line passes if you stay in premium/ deluxe hotels otherwise it’s very expensive. They nickel and dime you to death.

    1. Judy

      FP+ is good for those who go to Dis often. For first timers? Crazy. Planning your rides 3 months out and dinning plans 6 months is crazier. We stayed at a premium hotel in universal and it was awesome. Thier premier is the price of Disney’s moderate. The Polynesian is over $700! We love disney but headed back to Univ in June. Staying at a value resort this time. Cabana Bay has so much more then Disneys value resorts. Pools, lazy river, bowling alley…right now Univ had more to offer for the price. Getting rid of thier airport shuttle is another mistake. I will go back to Disney when it improves..

  13. F Copelin

    My season passes for our family of 5 expire in August if they don’t bring back fast passes I’m not renewing. The wait times have been crazy & I’ve gone while they were at limited capacity. At least with the fast passes you can get on a couple of rides without a huge wait.

    1. Cory

      Wait times are not crazy at all right now. They are way shorter than what they’d be if we weren’t in a pandemic.

  14. Danielle

    Anyone who has complaints about FP+ Is just bad at using it. It’s as simple as that. With a little effort and maybe a little practice, it is an easy, extremely useful tool to make the most of your WDW vacation. FP+ has been so efficient for us that we consider any wait longer than 20 minutes a “long” wait, and avoid it. We ride EVERY ride we want every time we go. Last year was the first year in about 10 years that we’ve not gone and prior to COVID, FP+ was a total game changer. I will be so disappointed if they cancel it forever. For now, we will hold on planning a trip until it is no longer suspended.

  15. Michael

    With Early Morning Magic before park opening and fast past once the park opened my family of 5 have averaged 25 attractions at the Magic kingdom for the last 7 years.(Of course that’s multiple rides on some attractions but definitely not worth going without both of those options)

  16. JZ

    Um, I don’t plan on returning until Fastpass+ is back or replaced. I don’t see how it can be that confusing to people who have never been before; it is a great system. Also, assuming more people are there for the 50th won’t the lines be terrible? That wouldn’t be a great first impression for someone either. Welcome to Disney, now wait in line 2 hours for Barnstormer…womp womp.

  17. JZ

    Same.

  18. SG

    We LOVED Fast Pass and as APs we miss it terribly! With Fast Pass we were guaranteed at least 3 rides that we didn’t have to wait an hour for. We really hope it returns, even a virtual line will work like Star Wars ROTR. Since COVID we’ve just been walking and enjoying the food and ambiance and maybe an hour or more wait for one of our favorites rides. I feel badly for those who are visiting now because their Disney experience will be only a fraction of the magic it could have been PRE-COVID. On the bright side, it won’t be that much longer before enough of us are vaccinated that we won’t need COVID precautions. By then hopefully FP will be back along with the magic!

  19. Brent

    Disney needs to find more value for resort guests. My magic ball prediction is a virtual fast pass system with some type of “skip the line” benefit that increases as you more up the hotel tiers. Not much dollar benefit to staying on property at the moment.

  20. Patrick

    I feel they need to bring back FastPass. Seems they are increasing park capacity. Yet dining options and FastPass are still gone. Unless things have changed since November, everything took about an hour to seventy minutes. With more people it will be longer. I do not trust the disney app as it looked all peachy last time and then went down and viola the numbers went from thirty to sixty. Maybe they increased ride capacity.

  21. Sallie McG

    I loved and will miss free FastPasses. The wording on the site quoted in the article suggests that IF FP+ returns anyone who has bought a ticket or AP has no purchased the service, I.e., it will either be discontinued or continued for a fee like it is at Disneyland, or worse, like it is at Universal. I just priced Universal Tix. Sure, $89/day is great compared to $109 for WDW. But the single use per ride express pass add on varies between $69-129 extra per day. Basically doubling the cost and pushing Universal way over the cost of Disney, but people pay it. So, if the market will bear it Disney will follow. FP selections might be included with Deluxe Resorts and available for a fee to others just like Universal. OR FP selections will be included in a more expensive ticket… one thing is for sure, with parks almost back to capacity (an average day saw about 57% of capacity before the pandemic and I think latest estimates had parks at 50%) and no immediate return of FP something will be different. Maybe they’re trying to make up the money they lost.

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