FastPass advice wanted…

It’s the system at Disney World for avoiding long lines. In other news, we went to Disney World

A fastpass is a ticket for a ride for a times lot, usually an hour long, later in the day. If you go to a ride, you can either wait in line as “standby” (anywhere between 30min to 2 hours) or you can get a fast pass which says something like “valid between 520pm and 620pm”. Note that you can’t use the fast pass earlier than that slot, but if you are late it’s probably ok and the cast members will let you in anyway UNLESS the park is crazy congested (like on New Year’s eve). When you return at that time, you get to use the FastPass line which has zero or minimal wait (though for Jungle Cruise we did have a 20min wait just in the FP line… Standby line was over an hour).

I’m sure Disney has it patented which is why you don’t see the same system at other parks though Legoland in San Diego had something similar, I can’t recall the details exactly now…)

We figured it out quickly. Basic tips: pick a “runner” to go get FastPasses for everyone as soon as you enter the park for your highest-priority ride of choice. In Magic Kingdom, this is probably going to be Peter Pan or Buzz Lightyear if you have kids, or Space Mountain if you don’t. In Hollywood Studios, get the Toy Story fastpass no matter what. That’s the first priority. The runner will need everyone’s park admission card to get the passes. While the runner is getting them, everyone else go pick a non-FP ride and stand in line (use the free online app from Disney if you’re at Magic Kingdom to check wait times and pick the highest priority ride that has least wait). the runner then can join the rest of the party in line.

you can only get one fastpass per person at a time. After a set number of hours, which varies by park congestion, you can get another round of fast passes for a different ride, even if your first fastpass time slot hasn’t come up yet. So keep an eye on that and get the second round of fast passes as soon as you can.

In general, prioritize rides like Peter Pan at Magic Kingdom which have long wait lines all day, or rides like Toy Story at Hollywood Studios which tend to run out of fastpasses entirely early in the day. The day we went to Hollywood Studios, we didn’t get there until noon, and Toy Story was out of fast passes, and never had less than a 100-minute wait all day. So we couldn’t go on that ride at all, alas.

Here’s more info on FastPass from WDW Info (the best informal, non-official user’s guide to Disney out there)

http://wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/fastpass.htm