Disney announced yesterday that starting next week, once people have used their initial three FastPass+, they will be able to get additional FastPass+ one at a time via park kiosks.
These additional FastPass+ can be on any FastPass+ ride with available capacity. This means they can be re-rides of rides already done on FastPass+ earlier, and, at the tiered parks, on additional Tier 1 rides.
This can be in the same park, or another park–effectively adding FastPass+ to park-hopping.
We need to see a bit how this will work–I’ll be in the parks the weekend of May 3rd so will have some firsthand experience to report on.
But it’s hard to see that this will much matter.
The rides for which demand is highest will likely rarely be available, so in most cases, most times of the year, the additional FastPass+ will be for great but not headliner rides where, without these changes, standby lines would have been OK anyway.
If the result is more people seeing these rides per hour, then their standby waits will go up, making these additional FastPass+ more valuable. For example, it may end being wise to target 4th and following FastPass+ at the Magic Kingdom to Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion and Pirates. Â Even before the change, standby waits had already gone up at these with their new reservability on FastPass+; we may see even more of this. Josh has a great discussion of this and the overall change here.
This change also diminishes the value of FastPass+ for evening events. Other than Main Street Electrical parade–where a FastPass+ also positions you well for Celebrate the Magic, and puts you in the right neighborhood for Wishes–these were already low value FastPass+. Under the new policy, it seems that having evening entertainment as one of your three initial FastPass+ will basically shut you out from getting more.
More to come as we all learn more about how this works and what the resultant implications are. In the meantime, the best way to get around the limitations of FastPass+ remains simply throwing vast amounts of money at it.
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19 Comments on "Availability of Additional FastPass+ Won’t Much Matter"
Brian, yes, you can stay in that section, as the FP+ area for Wishes is elsewhere. The ropes disappear, but you don’t have to move. However, you should move for Wishes, as you are a little too close to the Castle. After Celebrate the Magic, move closer to Main Street.
I saw that you mentioned fastpasses for the MSEP. Do you know if you can stay in that location to watch the celebrate the magic and wishes? Do they keep that section roped off or does the rope get removed after the parade?
Thanks!
Jeff there’s a longer story here, but to allow every guest 3 FP+ per day, they had to add FP+ capacity. In the old model, half of guests didn’t use FP at all, and those who did averaged 1 each…
Why are they making FP+ so complicated? Wouldn’t it have been easier for everyone (including them) just to put FP+ on the rides that already had legacy FP, and leave everything else alone?
One of the advertised benefits of FP is that you can “skip the line.” So, why would it be needed on a ride like Pirates of the Caribbean, which hardly ever had a line before? It doesn’t make much sense that the line skipping mechanism is the reason there’s a line at all.
Sorry, I know you aren’t inside Disney’s collective head on this one, I’m just venting…