Deacon on Disney - Fastpasses

[yoda91]

So here are my thought's on this subject,

I am a Disneyland CM and work on Space Mountain, I see what the Fastpass system really does. We distribute a percentage of tickets every 15 min. based on a number of factors but, usually turns out to be about 54 tickets, so that is around 216 passes every hour. We do let guest come back late on a fast pass that was issued on that day only (unless we went down and never came back up before park closing, which is very rare). We are trained to not stop the fastpass line, but we are also told to let standby go about every 45 seconds. We need to leave a buffer in the line so fastpass guests do not have to wait over 15 min. So you can see it is very hard to not make guest upset, especial the ones waiting right at the merge point as they re standing there watching everyone go right in front of them after they just waited 45 min. so with 10 rockets running and 12 seats in each if loaded fully that would be 18 rockets every hour are for fastpass guests, you can see how this increases the standby wait time.

There definitely are advantages to having fastpass but I don't think they outweigh the negatives. We get so many angry and upset guests every day because we are 1)out of fastpasses or 2)they are for so late in the day. plus all the guest who do not understand or have never heard of fastpass thinking they are being cheated out of something because they don't want to pay extra for something, not releasing they are free. We have gotten rid of fastpass in many attractions at disneyland for that fact and may be loosing more in the near future.

And for those of you who say it is not clear how fastpass works, look at a map it explains the whole system right there or, just ask any CM.

My Spiel is, "Fastpass is basically like a reservation, you take your entrance ticket and put it into the machine and it will print out a ticket for the time you come back right now between (looks at fastpass clock) 4:15 and 5:15 this afternoon and only wait about 10 to 15 minutes no matter what the standby wait time is."

[WVParkfan]

yoda91,
Thanks for the info and welcome to the board. It's great to hear from a current CM. Please feel free to look through the entire forum and weigh in on some of the subjects. We'd all love to hear the opinion of a current CM!

[Dr. Ravenscroft]

I am a Disneyland CM and work on Space Mountain, I see what the Fastpass system really does. We distribute a percentage of tickets every 15 min. based on a number of factors but, usually turns out to be about 54 tickets, so that is around 216 passes every hour. We do let guest come back late on a fast pass that was issued on that day only (unless we went down and never came back up before park closing, which is very rare). We are trained to not stop the fastpass line, but we are also told to let standby go about every 45 seconds. We need to leave a buffer in the line so fastpass guests do not have to wait over 15 min. So you can see it is very hard to not make guest upset, especial the ones waiting right at the merge point as they re standing there watching everyone go right in front of them after they just waited 45 min. so with 10 rockets running and 12 seats in each if loaded fully that would be 18 rockets every hour are for fastpass guests, you can see how this increases the standby wait time.

There definitely are advantages to having fastpass but I don't think they outweigh the negatives. We get so many angry and upset guests every day because we are 1)out of fastpasses or 2)they are for so late in the day. plus all the guest who do not understand or have never heard of fastpass thinking they are being cheated out of something because they don't want to pay extra for something, not releasing they are free. We have gotten rid of fastpass in many attractions at disneyland for that fact and may be loosing more in the near future.

Thank you for the great explanation!!! I am glad that Disneyland actually did get rid of many of the Fastpass machines. I have noticed that HM only uses the Fastpass system during the Christmas season, which is nice to see that it just sits there collecting Themeing (Dust).

This illustrates exactly What I always say about Fastpass, "It hurts more than it helps".

[rdeacon]

Thanks yoda... a CM on the front lines!

Good to see that Disney might see the disservice that that fast passes create.

Just a quick update as well. I was just in the Magic Kingdom yesterday. I got a fast pass for big thunder mountain railroad. When I entered the fast pass line it took us all the way to one side of the loading dock. So in effect the ride capacity for the stand by was cut in half! Also to make matters worse they were running a 2 cars to each station, and didn't even give the poor stand by's a 3 to 1 train ratio. The wait when I got in line for the stand by's was 60min. If they didn't have the fast pass system the line would have been an acceptable 30min.

Rich

[Dr. Ravenscroft]

The wait when I got in line for the stand by's was 60min. If they didn't have the fast pass system the line would have been an acceptable 30min.

And Thus killing the spontaneity of the Parks. Who would want to wait in a 60 minute line, especially now a days everybody is GO GO GO!!! If it was 30 minutes, or 35-45 because you have to factor in those people who actually have the FP's into the total waiting in line, I'm sure more guests would still complain that the wait times were too long anyway. But honestly I would rather wait in a 45 minute line that a 60 minute line anyday (except if it was Dumbo, that gets HOT!!).

[natatomic]

I posted this in another fastpass thread, but I thought I'd post it here too, though I have tweaked it a bit to make a few things clearer.

Since I worked on an attraction that had Fastpasses, I can tell you that 9 out of 10 CMs HATE them and wish more than anything that Disney would just do away with the whole system all together. The merge point of the fastpass line and the standby line was a position that was dreaded by all, especially if the FP line was backed up. When that happened, we were sometimes told to just dump line (i.e. don't stop collecting the fastpasses until that line has emptied, which is VERY HARD TO DO since there are always people entering the queue) after all, the FP guests were guaranteed a shorter wait, and if they had to wait more than 10 minutes, they'd chew us out. But when we dumped the queue, the stand by line was held at a standstill for as much as 10-15 minutes. Then *they'd* yell at us, especially since we're right there obviously not letting them move. I'm not even kidding when I say this, but I was sworn at, called a racist, had my name taken down so they could "report" me, and one of my fellow CMs even got punched in the face! It's brutal. And I KNOW it sucks to just wait there and watch hundreds of people go by and basically "cut" you, but that was what we were TRAINED to do. If it got too bad, sometimes a manager would come stand with us just so they could be on our side when everyone started b*tching at us.

Now, yes, those people in the stand by line could technically have gotten a fastpass as well, but don't forget that you can only get one at a time, so they couldn't help it if they had one for BTMR and had to get stuck in the Splash line. And if the FPs were all distributed, then that's another thing they couldn't have predicted, especially if they're new to the parks and don't really know which ones to make a mad dash for first thing. And for those who weren't all that familiar with the parks, there were MANY who had *no idea* that the fastpasses were free. I'd have a least 15 people a day ask how much they were (imagine if every attraction CM had 15 guests ask them that - that's a LOT of people who don't know they're free!), and I greatly suspect that it's because the theme parks they frequent closer to their homes (Six Flags, Dollywood, Legoland) do indeed charge.

Now, even though I'd like to see the whole FP system done away with, I might be persuaded to keep it if it were run correctly and efficiently.

What makes the current system so awful is that even if people are late for their FP times - even if their late by HOURS - we still let them go. And THAT's when the line starts getting back up. If all the people who had 3:00-4:00 FPs decide to come between 4:00-5:00 when the parade is over, well, suddenly the FP line is filled with twice as many people than it is meant to have (okay, not ALL of them do that, but it DOES happen, and enough of them do it that it makes a big difference), and since the FP queue is so full, we're told to dump it, then the standby line is completely stopped and people are p***.

It's just a very, very flawed system, and it definitely needs some sort of overhaul.

[Lumiere]

Natalie gives an added dimension to the FP system. How'd you like being a CM and spend hours a day dealing with the above???

I'd be traumatized