Last week Jason Garcia of the Orlando Sentinel published about Disney World’s new advertising campaign touting FastPass+ and staying at Disney resorts.
Right now, those not staying at Disney-owned resorts can use FastPass+, but can’t book rides ahead of time, while Disney resort guests can.
(So far, booking great same-day FastPass+ has not been a big deal–see this.)
Garcia’s article quoted Disney spokeswoman Marilyn Waters a couple of times–interestingly, and glancingly, on “non-hotel” guests as well (bold added):
“Disney would not say when it will begin offering reservations to non-hotel guests. Waters said only that it will happen ‘in the coming months.’“
Not sure what to make of this.
It could be referring to the annual passholder test that has recently begun.
But it could also be referring to making reservable FastPass+ available to regular people with regular tickets not staying in a Disney World hotel.
This would make a lot of people happy…
Pretty much everyone expects that Disney will make the whole MyMagic+ thing better for on-site guests than for offsite.
But how much better has not been clear–and still isn’t.
If off-site guests get reservable FastPass+, something will be different for them–the booking window, the number of FastPass+ available per day, access to “Tier One” FastPass+…maybe all the above.
Pragmatically speaking, the next big practical test of FastPass+ will be the busy spring break season–this will be the first test of the full system during a sustained period of high crowds.
I could not see Disney offering reservable FastPass+ more broadly to off-site visitors until it makes it through this test…
My guess is that if off-site guests get access to reservable FastPass+, it’ll happen at earliest this summer.
There’s a press event scheduled for April 30 to May 2. Topics in it include not only the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train but also MyMagic+. If the spring break tests of FastPass+ go well, that’s a natural time for the announcement of such an expansion of eligibility…
Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!
Leave a Reply
Be the First to Comment!