We love visiting the parks whenever we stay in our beautiful villa in Orlando, but at peak times there will undoubtedly be longer queues at the Disney parks for the most popular rides. Of course, the last thing you want to do when on holiday is waste a lot of time waiting in line, but, happily, Disney offer a great solution – the Fastpass.
The Fastpass is completely free (unlike at Universal) and it is a system available at most of the most popular rides to enable you to return to a ride within a specific time slot, and go down the Fastpass line, which is usually considerably shorter than the normal line. Of course, you will still have to queue for a little while but you will have saved a significant amount of time, and be able to ride some of the less popular attractions while you wait.
So how does the system work? Well, your entry ticket is key to this system. At the entrance to each of the most popular rides you will find a Fastpass area where there are automatic ticket machines. Simply insert your entry ticket into the machine and it will issue you with a Fastpass ticket which is printed with the time slot that you can return to the attraction. The time slot will vary according to how popular a ride is, so you may have to wait a couple of hours before you can return, but it does enable you to go and do something else in the meantime. Instead of an hour or more you will likely wait only 10 minutes or so. Don’t forget to collect your park admission ticket before you leave and you will need Fastpasses for every member of your party who wants to ride the attraction, although not all of them have to be there to obtain the Fastpass. In fact, it is more time effective if just one of the party takes all the entrance tickets and obtains the Fastpasses for the whole group, while the others go and join another queue.
Having obtained your Fastpass you will have to wait a certain amount of time before you can use this system again, so make sure you check this on your ticket. It will tell you when you can use it again, enabling you to plan where next to use it.
One of the most useful things you can do – and we always recommend this to our guests, and send them a park map – is to plan out which rides you want to do before you get there. We pick up park brochures and then decide which rides we really want to do, so that we can go straight to the most popular ones and ride them before the queues get too long. For example, ‘Soarin’ at Epcot is incredibly popular and by midday the queues can reach 2 hours or more, so go straight there and use your Fastpass, then queue in the normal lane if it is not too long a wait so that you can return later in the day. We have used this system on Toy Story in Hollywood Studios. The Fastpass machines are right outside and we always use them before we go on the ride.
The next essential thing is to arrive at the parks early, so that the wait times are shorter. Once you have your Fastpass you will have an hour or so slot in which to return to the ride. They will not allow you on before that time, but if you are a little late we have found them quite flexible. You will have to show your Fastpass to one of the cast members at the Fast pass entrance to the ride, who will check the time on it. You can then join the much shorter Fastpass line. Towards the end of the line, usually where it joins the stand-by line, you will have to give your ticket to another cast member.
Even if the Stand-by lane is really short we always use obtain a Fastpass ticket so that we can return for another ride at our leisure without having to join a very long queue. It is a great system, and one which can save you a lot of time.
The Fastpass is completely free (unlike at Universal) and it is a system available at most of the most popular rides to enable you to return to a ride within a specific time slot, and go down the Fastpass line, which is usually considerably shorter than the normal line. Of course, you will still have to queue for a little while but you will have saved a significant amount of time, and be able to ride some of the less popular attractions while you wait.
So how does the system work? Well, your entry ticket is key to this system. At the entrance to each of the most popular rides you will find a Fastpass area where there are automatic ticket machines. Simply insert your entry ticket into the machine and it will issue you with a Fastpass ticket which is printed with the time slot that you can return to the attraction. The time slot will vary according to how popular a ride is, so you may have to wait a couple of hours before you can return, but it does enable you to go and do something else in the meantime. Instead of an hour or more you will likely wait only 10 minutes or so. Don’t forget to collect your park admission ticket before you leave and you will need Fastpasses for every member of your party who wants to ride the attraction, although not all of them have to be there to obtain the Fastpass. In fact, it is more time effective if just one of the party takes all the entrance tickets and obtains the Fastpasses for the whole group, while the others go and join another queue.
Having obtained your Fastpass you will have to wait a certain amount of time before you can use this system again, so make sure you check this on your ticket. It will tell you when you can use it again, enabling you to plan where next to use it.
One of the most useful things you can do – and we always recommend this to our guests, and send them a park map – is to plan out which rides you want to do before you get there. We pick up park brochures and then decide which rides we really want to do, so that we can go straight to the most popular ones and ride them before the queues get too long. For example, ‘Soarin’ at Epcot is incredibly popular and by midday the queues can reach 2 hours or more, so go straight there and use your Fastpass, then queue in the normal lane if it is not too long a wait so that you can return later in the day. We have used this system on Toy Story in Hollywood Studios. The Fastpass machines are right outside and we always use them before we go on the ride.
The next essential thing is to arrive at the parks early, so that the wait times are shorter. Once you have your Fastpass you will have an hour or so slot in which to return to the ride. They will not allow you on before that time, but if you are a little late we have found them quite flexible. You will have to show your Fastpass to one of the cast members at the Fast pass entrance to the ride, who will check the time on it. You can then join the much shorter Fastpass line. Towards the end of the line, usually where it joins the stand-by line, you will have to give your ticket to another cast member.
Even if the Stand-by lane is really short we always use obtain a Fastpass ticket so that we can return for another ride at our leisure without having to join a very long queue. It is a great system, and one which can save you a lot of time.