Sunday, July 26, 2009

Come one, come all, get your FastPasses here!!!

DeWayne Bevil at the Orlando Sentinel has a story posted yesterday about a new experiment Disney is conducting at Animal Kingdom with the FastPass system -- centralized FastPass distribution. Guests can go to one location and get a FastPass for any attraction that offers FastPass in the park.

I'm not so sure about this one. I'm a huge fan of FastPass, but part of the magic of FastPass is actually going to the attraction to get your pass. Guests play the game of FastPass time vs. standby line time By making FastPasses available at a central location, FastPass becomes the ONLY option, thus making the odds of FastPasses running out much sooner is pretty high.

I also assume that the one-FastPass-per-person rule (with some exceptions, see this post for more) will remain in effect.

Let's carry this idea forward and put it at the Studios, a park where FastPasses for the major attractions runs out very quickly (think Tower of Terror, Rockin' Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania). The rop-drop happens and instead of people hurrying to one attraction, they instead rush to the central FastPass location to get passes for one of the E-ticket attractions. That place will become so crowded it will be insane. You'll practically need a FastPass to get a FastPass.

Even with a centralized FastPass distribution, Disney has to keep the FastPass machines at the individual attractions. If Disney ONLY has FastPass distribution at a central place, it will be bedlum and the entire FastPass system will be worthless, so I very much hope Disney doesn't decide to pull out the individual machines.

I'll try to look at this on the plus side. Having a centralized location does offer convenience. If, for example, you want to get a set of FastPasses for Soarin' and then catch the standby line at TestTrack, you wouldn't have to go all the way to Soarin' to get the passes and then hustle all the way over to TT, hopefully to get a short standby line. A central location would be beneficial in this instance.

I guess I'll have to see just how this pans out before I decide if this is a good idea or not.

What are your thoughts? Keep it or ditch it? Post a comment!

4 comments:

Believes in Fairies said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Believes in Fairies said...

Ditch it! I agree with the fact that the FB will run out faster, that there will be a mob there. Plus, if is for the family of 4 let's say... there are a lot of families who will have people not wanting to ride a ride that is included. So, maybe only 3 will ride it, will they get someone that is by themselves to join them? If I have a FB that I am not going to use, I try to give it someone who is going. Have been given them too, so I like to pay it forward. With this, I do not see how that can happen.

black743 said...

I'm all for getting rid of fast passes altogether. I've found the wait times to be much longer for standby since introduction of the fast pass and, in the long run I don't seem to save any time.

kleb111 said...

I just came back from Disney 2 days ago. We stood in a 10 minute line just to get a fast pass for Toy Story Midway Mania! I though about a central place for Fastpasses but you're right, it would be crazy. I wanted to go on rides at night after I took a mid-day break back at the resorts. I think they should let you pick your return time.

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