From my newfound duties regarding the development of content for this site, I have become ingrained in the culture of the “DisTwitter” and assorted other mediums of discussion. So when I take on a topic such as this one I expect some sort of contention or discussion to arise. I wholeheartedly expect and welcome any criticism from anyone in the community when I mention my discontent with a multitude of systems within the Disney Parks.
Primarily, I would like to draw into question the FastPass system that the Disney Parks implement, in which a separate line is offered that guests who have gone through assorted hoops (depending on the park) gain access to, while others must wait in the stand-by line, a queue saved for anybody willing to wait in exorbitant lines that can see traffic lasting for literal hours during the most popular times of the year.
Just on the basis of disliking the system I have received a multitude of responses, rarely in my favor. Many question my reasoning, saying that I must be in fact crazy for disliking a system that places guests in a shorter line, bypassing dull moments in an otherwise “action packed” vacation. On the other hand, many often say that I “complain just to complain”, making a mountain out of a molehill and generally looking for any issues to whine about, as that is the “cool” thing to do. While that may indeed be fun, and serves as the basis for many of my previous endeavors, this issue is one I’m strongly divided upon. To many the FastPass system is a normality, but to myself it stands as a toxic yet beneficial aspect of the average Disney vacation that many both rely on too much and take for granted.
I first came upon this realization during my first visit to Universal Studios Hollywood. A quaint park that, when compared to Universal Studios Florida (at least in pictures) seems to represent a similar dichotomy to that of Disneyland and Walt Disney World. I had a week to experience all I could in the Anaheim area of California, and on my radar (aside from Disneyland) was both Universal and Knott’s Berry Farm. What became an issue however was my distribution of time, specifically what I could experience in a day of going to Universal. I had to take an entire park and cram it into a day, something most Disney fans would tout as extremely difficult, if not impossible.
As I entered the park gate, I met the ticket salesperson and expected to leave with a day pass and little more. What I realized however was that Universal offered a system similar to that of FastPass, but honestly much more toxic to theme park culture.
The offer was essentially a cheat pass, a more expensive ticket that places you in the fast lane, and consequently the front of the line on a multitude of attractions. Lines were not a problem on that crowded summer day. Attractions with wait times up to an hour and a half were walk-ons. Jurassic Park, Despicable Me, Simpsons, Transformers, all done in one day (the entire park by noon actually).
I was astonished. Could I really buy my way past lines?
Then it hit me, Universal had fully succeeded in creating a tier based theme park experience that expands the simple tactic of “haves and have nots” in a theme park, presenting the illusion of necessity to guests looking to maximize their vacation for a variety of reasons.
What Universal has done is marketing genius. Guests who have paid for the premium experience will walk past everyone else, forcing the rest of guests to witness what they could be if they dropped a couple more bucks. Parents going with their children will see this option is the “best way to make my kids happy” with Universal holding the “you do want them to be happy, don’t you?” question over the heads of impressionable parents. Presenting a privileged group to an average one will cause jealousy, and jealousy fuels impulse purchases. The decision to buy such a ticket did improve my day at Universal, but the notion that I was content with walking by guests who had spent the entire day waiting would be highly misguided.
In addition, guests with the passes can walk right onto the ride at any time for any reason. What’s important to note in this instance is that stand-by wait times will only see an increase due to this system. Imagine getting to the front of the line, only to watch someone walk from the entrance to the loading dock, and beat you onto the ride, all because they’re willing (or able) to purchase the more expensive ticket.
This extreme, while much different than the Disney experience, provides a common ground of understanding when discussing the effects of systems allowing guests to bypass lines.
In the Disney Parks, FastPass is quite the important system. Used more heavily in Walt Disney World, guests can use such passes to enter somewhat of an express line, offering an experience advertised on skipping crowds and making the most out of your vacation.
Focusing specifically on Florida and the system in place at the Walt Disney World Resort, one could (and should) compare FastPasses to dinner reservations. Before an update in the late 2000’s, FastPasses were acquired once guests entered the parks and visited one of the many kiosks located near each compatible attraction, dispensing a piece of paper, detailing the time guests should return for their FastPass experience. A system dependent on actually showing up to the park, the only noticeable flaw was the transfer and trading of FastPasses, creating somewhat of an underlying market in some instances (see Shanghai Disneyland in the modern day). The pass you were given depended on how quickly you could get to the ride, sometimes leading to massive mobs of people heading to one compact location at park opening. One notable example was the FastPass distribution for Soarin’ over California in EPCOT, packing guests into a tiny room for one of the most popular attractions at the time.
It became apparent that a change was necessary. Besides the hassle of getting paper FastPasses, they would often conflict with reservations. Often, above the kiosk entrance, a timestamp detailing the hours that FastPasses were currently being distributed for would give guests a basic idea of when to return. Issues arose when guests arrived only to find that FastPasses would line up with meal reservations, essentially pushing them away from their attraction experience (unless they wanted to wait for the time to change, but for most attractions that could’ve taken an hour or more).
Disney desperately wanted to create a uniform system for Walt Disney World, in which guests could handle their entire day’s itinerary in one spot. The ever increasing surge of smartphone users seemed like a no-brainer to Disney, resulting in one of the most impactful decisions in the resort’s history.
The FastPass+ system was debuted in Walt Disney World in tandem with the RFID Magic Band system and the My Disney Experience App. No longer did guests have to enter the park to make their FastPass reservations, rather, a 60 day period before their trip opened up for FastPass reservations linked to their MagicBands. What used to be a “first-come first-serve” system was now a tiered system of elitism, forcing guests to book lengthy vacations with Disney themselves in fear of losing access to a multitude of attractions.
Imagine two families. Family A booked with Disney for 5 days and are staying at the Contemporary Resort. Family B lives in Miami and are planning to take their extended family to the parks over a 5 day period. Family A has access to smartphones 60 days prior to the vacation and have already made plans to take their daughter on the Frozen ride, based on her love of the film. Family B can’t purchase the tickets in advance as they either don’t have a phone or haven’t consolidated plans. What results is a hectic mess of disappointed guests and impossibilities.
Looking further into Family B, and maintaining the example of a day at EPCOT, one can plainly see that those without an understanding of the way Walt Disney World works (first time guests) or those without technological access (33% of Americans lack a smartphone which is not the only device used for My Disney Experience, but is an important aspect of the system) would find the vacation stressful and difficult
In EPCOT, there are 5 stations designated for the booking of FastPass experiences to those who maybe have not made any beforehand, or to those who have already used up their 3 FastPasses designated by the app. Family B has a son that realllyyyy loves Soarin’. In fact, it’s all he’s been talking about. The feeling of flying is an unrivaled experience that he could not live without. Family B goes out to lunch at a nearby restaurant, arriving at the parks around 12. Upon arrival they realize that Soarin’ has already peaked at a 90 minute wait time, a common sight to those who frequent Walt Disney World during the summer. Family B heads to a nearby kiosk, and quickly realize that all of the FastPasses for Soarin’ had been nabbed by guests who had made their reservations months in advance. While Family B struggles to decide their course of action, Family A gets off of “Living with the Land”, a nearby attraction, decked out in Frozen merchandise from their previous experience.
Now, both families are examples of the social extremes. Family A represents the wealthy guests while Family B details an experience that local guests in impoverished areas may often face (Note: Disney has done a good enough job nickel-and-dining their guests to the point where they’ve basically priced these families out).
There is definitely something to learn from this hypothetical, especially the fact that it isn’t even close to far-fetched. The idea that a system such as FastPass+ being so dependent on the guest’s knowledge of the Disney Parks seems like such a bad idea when looking at the makeup of guests in Walt Disney World alone during the summer.
We all know them, the tour groups. The mass amounts of people who join together to visit Walt Disney World as a massive group from assorted walks of life. South America is often the source of such groups, but just saying that is an over-generalization. I have friends who go down because of school band, and it’s plain to observe that community groups are core tourists of Walt Disney World. These children do have tickets, they do have cards or other identifiers allowing them to make reservations at kiosks, but they enter the park empty handed. Most of the time they think they’re just going to Walt Disney World and nothing more, rarely do they pay much attention to booking FastPasses as their tickets are given to them when they arrive. A dependence on having to actually show up to the park before making any FastPass reservations places them at a severe disadvantage in comparison to other guests.
The newest E-Ticket attraction in Animal Kingdom, Avatar Flight of Passage, truly serves as a basis for this problem, in which FastPasses for this attraction disappeared almost as quick as new Nike’s. Fans who had been following the news, reading the updates, and refreshing the pages were pleasantly award while the “normal people” ended up waiting in lines averaging at 150 minutes. The kiosk issue may have been a problem before, but in this case kiosks are nearly worthless. If you don’t have a FastPass by the time you enter the gate, even if there are morning magic hours, you’re not getting on. Plain and simple.
What has worked however is the tier system placed in multiple parks at WDW. EPCOT and Hollywood Studios both have systems in place where guests are essentially blocked from riding more than one E-Ticket (even though there are really only two in HS being R&R and Toy Story Mania). In Epcot, guests are forced to pick between Test Track, Frozen Ever After, and Soarin’. Dividing the public amongst these three attraction surely decreases the demand, and opens availability, but aforementioned flaws in the system still persist.
Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom suffer from the lack of a tiered system, allowing guests to possibly take 3 FastPasses from 3 E-Ticket attractions in one day. This was likely done because of the surplus of E-Tickets in each respective park, but guests like Family B will end up doing Laugh Floor, or other assorted high-capacity low-traffic attractions over and over because they were the only FastPasses they could get.
Now, of course, I’ve benefitted from this system. But the fact that I walked on to Flight of Passage at 1:30 in the middle of the summer while guests had to wait outside for over 2 hours for the same attraction really made no sense to me. Were they really just putting me in front of all these people? There was at least some semblance of guilt retained from that experience (aside from bewilderment from the attraction). I’ll continue to use the FastPass system at Walt Disney World, but in its current incarnation it seems as if it’s a jumbled, mismanaged mess that places most people in a difficult position.
So, we’ve discussed the “pay to play” system of Universal and the discoordinated mess of Walt Disney World’s FastPass system, which only leaves the king of this entire debacle. Disneyland.
I would be lying if I ever said I disliked Disneyland. After years of visiting only WDW in Florida, Disneyland was like a breath of fresh air. New locales, new people, better attractions, a more structured system. Everything felt perfected to a tee, and it all felt like home. The climate surrounding Disneyland rivals no other experience. It genuinely felt like I place I belonged in, as if it was a second home.
So if I have a problem with a system allowing you to get on nearly unlimited attractions, you know you messed something up.
Before the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction opened in DCA, people began reporting issues regarding the FastPass implementation on attractions such as Matterhorn and Toy Story Midway Mania. Twitter user @DLthings, Matthew Gottula was (and still is) one of the individuals who reported on and described the ever increasing wait times met by the implementation of FastPasses. Beforehand, both attractions would max out at around half of what the stand-by is now, with FastPass wait times rarely passing 15 minutes. Included here are multiple pictures detailing such issues.
The Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania definitely have affected the standby wait time. #Disneyland pic.twitter.com/ZKqIOD9Nzk
— Pink Bunny (@pinkbunnyr) April 9, 2017
The Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania definitely have affected the standby wait time. #Disneyland pic.twitter.com/ZKqIOD9Nzk
— Pink Bunny (@pinkbunnyr) April 9, 2017
https://twitter.com/dlthings/status/859513886759829504
https://twitter.com/dlthings/status/851865084536045568
https://twitter.com/dlthings/status/851865084536045568
But, it only got worse from there. Following Mission:Breakout came a new FastPass system in Disneyland. No one is sure what the system exactly is, but some attractions have stopped adhering to the old FastPass rules. Guests have now begun stacking FastPasses to the extent where at some points you can get a FastPass for nearly every attraction in a single day. Some attractions allow guests to get FastPasses for other attractions while waiting for the original one, some do not. Some attractions (such as Star Tours) have gotten so bad that you can get a FastPass so close to the current time, that you’ll literally bypass the line at that exact moment. Essentially, Star Tours and multiple other attractions give FastPasses for the current time rather than the future, so while guests wait in standby you can walk right past them.
So what could be worse than a 3 FastPass per day system that restricts guests from seeing their favorite attractions and prioritizes Disney fans who are on the top of their game in comparison to normal guests? A FastPass system so easily abused that I would find it difficult to actually call it abuse, given that the system is so flawed in and of itself.
As if it couldn’t get worse, we’ve reached full circle in an odd turn of events.
Disney has recently unveiled a new premium FastPass service for Disneyland titled “MaxPass”. Guests can spend an extra $10 a day per person to get digital FastPasses (the phone is the MagicBand) as well as unlimited access to Photopass. What we see here is a slow implementation of a system similar to that of Walt Disney World. While guests are getting more FastPasses than they know what to do with, while others are booking their FastPasses beforehand, a similar issue to that of WDW will unfold. Wait times increased drastically upon introduction of basic FastPasses, and with these new routes of generation of FastPasses we should only see such problems increasing.
I don’t expect many people to agree with my disappointment with the FastPass system. Many, including myself, have benefitted greatly from any system that allows guests to spend less time waiting and more time experiencing. Yet, many seem to be in some sort of denial regarding the negative effects of FastPasses. Sure you get on the attraction, but stand-by times always increase following the implementation of FastPasses.
Often I’ve heard that before the FastPass system was created, it was a near impossibility to ride more than a few things a day. Stand-by times soared and it was a negative experience in general. The system itself doesn’t necessarily hurt the parks, but the innovations seen in recent years have been slightly problematic to the fluidity of the parks.
Seeing Disney jump into the premier ticket market is a tad frightening. To divide the guests into monetary scales and divisions based on what someone is willing to spend is a dangerous decision. Parents are essentially guilted into buying the best possible ticket to make their children the happiest they can be. Disney is already sold as that “necessary” vacation that “every kid needs to go on to be happy.” We all know how they sell it, the “Happiest Place on Earth.” Disney can essentially ask for anything, at any price, and expect the core fans and average family to pay for it.
Turing FastPass into a paid service or exclusive deal flips the mentality of the parks on its head. The true Disney experience (in my own opinion) is a leisurely romp through a masterfully designed world, taking in the surroundings, enjoying amazing food, and experiencing a community built for people just like yourself. Going to a Disney Park without the stress is one of the best experiences anyone could ask for. An itinerary is truly something that can kill a trip, especially when you’re running from one side of a park to another just to reach that next stop on the trip. Adding FastPasses to that stress truly only serves as another thing to put pressure on your head.
While the FastPass system is truly beneficial, the current state of the system on both coasts of the United States is a bit messy. Disney needs to work out a few kinks in the system to alleviate some stress from the shoulders of guests. Of course, that’s easier said than done, the system as we see it right now have the proper foundation, but the basic structure is an issue as a whole when compared to what it could be.
At this point, the best we can do is hope that Disney does not take a page from Universal’s book, and continue to maintain a simple system while ironing out bugs in the process. Guests deserve to all be on an equal footing regarding the experiences at a Disney Park (when applicable).
The guests should be the center of the experience, not how much money you can charge them for an experience that was previously free. The experience should be one that requires little stress, lacking in any difficulty booking reservations or assorted other sources of guest troubles. Disney is far from creating the perfect system, quite far from it actually, but what is here represents an attempt to shift focus toward guest autonomy where assistance is an extremely important asset.
Ryan Dorman is a Columnist for the Boardwalk Times.
Many thanks once again to Matthew Gottula (@DLthings on Twitter) for providing the documentation (both physical and anecdotal) regarding the change in wait times at Disneyland following the implementation of FastPass systems.
In addition, I extend my gratitude to other great members of the community, those being E Nguyen (22ENguyen) and Chris Glass (@TheChrisGlass) for graciously allowing me to use their pictures when developing this article. Each image served as a basis for my points and I could not have done it without them.
