Fast Pass Plus Return Lines

[james1865]

We are heading to Disney the week of 4/13. This will be our 4th trip since 2008 and we are used to going during peak season, with one trip in June, one trip Easter week 2010 and one trip the week after Christmas 2011-2012. I am a pretty good planner and we have all of our reservations and fast passes in place. This is our first trip since the advent of the Fastpass Plus, however, and some of what I am reading has me really worried.

We have an 11 year old ADHD daughter who is also bi-polar. She has extreme difficulty with very long lines. We have always been able to get around this in the past ( for the most part) at Disney by showing up early to the parks and using Fastpass for the more popular attractions. But from what I'm reading it sounds almost as thought the Fast Pass return lines are no better than the standby lines. Is this accurate? I'm ok with the 3 a day limit and the fact that the passes won't park hop. I can live with that. But if we show up Saturday night to use our BTMR Fastpass at MK and the wait is 40 minutes I am going to have a major issue on my hands. What can I honestly expect?

Thanks in advance for any info you can give me.

 

[sonofanarchy]

Sadly, the same as the rest of us in your shoes. You can either wait in the long lines or you can skip the ride.

 

[Suellen]

The FP+ return lines appear no longer and perhaps shorter than before (to me anyway). They LOOK long because people can't seem to figure out the Mickey Heads and tapping the card or bracelet. Once past that first hurdle they are IMO shorter than before.

 

[BubblyTrip]

FWIW, our two days in MK last week had very fast moving FP lines. They were super busy park days. If there was a back up, and there hardly was, it moved quite fast. We FP splash, Buzz, BTMRR. I did not notice a backed up FP line on anything on our days. For sure stand by lines on b level attractions were longer than last year after 11 AM. We did great with RD and an afternoon break and FP later In the day.

 

[wannabatwdw]

When we were there in February we were in the standby line for Peter Pan. The Fast pass line was long also, but as we got closer after an extremely long wait we began to figure out the process. The castmember would let at least 20 people from the fastpass line and then one party from the standby line and then at least 20 people from the fast pass line. The fast pass line moves very quickly where as the standby line was well "Standing still".

 

[dispooka]

Have you considered getting a DAS card for your daughter? From your post, it sounds like that may help.

We are in the same boat, my DS is on the autism spectrum and we were previously able to make do with arriving early and using FP- really effectively, but now with the "2nd tier rides" like itsw and POTC running long waits too, we will be using DAS for our next trip.

 

[bbak3030]

We just got back from a week long trip and we never had a long FP line. It would kind of bottleneck in the beginning near the scanners but then moved quickly.

 

[RWF]

We just got back as well (3/26-3/29).

The FP lines were not a problem at all. They rarely extended past the first scanner. The only times we encountered lines past the first scanner were at Buzz and Space. However, it was only a slight delay. And the longest total wait was for Buzz in the afternoon. We waited 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the FP queue was full, so the standby line took a hit. I noticed SB only moved once during our time in line.

I do recommend getting to the parks for rope drop. The standby lines were long otherwise. We saw HM at 90 minutes! And even though the parks were crowded, I have seen them more crowded. So the long standby lines seem due to FP+. Basically, we only rode rides at RD and with our FPs.

 

[SirDuff]

Have you considered getting a DAS card for your daughter? From your post, it sounds like that may help.

We are in the same boat, my DS is on the autism spectrum and we were previously able to make do with arriving early and using FP- really effectively, but now with the "2nd tier rides" like itsw and POTC running long waits too, we will be using DAS for our next trip.

It actually won't help the problem of a long FP line (though I agree it will can be helpful and something that the OP should look into). The DAS works by giving you a return time equal to 10 minutes less than the current stand-by wait time. When your time is up, you can enter the FP line. This means that you don't have to wait in the full stand-by line, but, if the length of the FP is too much for the OP's daughter, the DAS won't help as you still wait in the FP line.

 

[kakiegirl]

We just went 2 weekends in a row and I didn't find the Fast Pass Wait any longer than it used to be. There were a couple of times that there was a line to get in the fast pass line but it moved fairly quickly or we would walk off and come back in a few minutes and it would be gone. I got behind people going in a couple of times that didn't know what time they were supposed to come and one didn't understand the system they thought their band just got them to the front of every line. I think things like this are what cause the backup most of the time.

 

[MichelleVW]

We were there for Spring Break March 9-14 and didn't wait in any long Fast Pass lines. We used a touring style that combined a couple of rope drops, EMH, and Fast Pass Plus and we didn't wait in any lines at all.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

The FP+ return lines appear no longer and perhaps shorter than before (to me anyway). They LOOK long because people can't seem to figure out the Mickey Heads and tapping the card or bracelet. Once past that first hurdle they are IMO shorter than before.

Have you considered getting a DAS card for your daughter? From your post, it sounds like that may help.

We are in the same boat, my DS is on the autism spectrum and we were previously able to make do with arriving early and using FP- really effectively, but now with the "2nd tier rides" like itsw and POTC running long waits too, we will be using DAS for our next trip.

Don't the people with DAS cards enter the same line as FP+ when they return for their time? I felt like when I was there in December that is where they were entering which would not solve the FP+ line problem. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

We just got back from a week long trip and we never had a long FP line. It would kind of bottleneck in the beginning near the scanners but then moved quickly.

This is what we experienced. I have seen some pretty scary videos showing the looooong lines outside of the scanners but we never had any of those lines.

 

[butterfly71076]

The FP+ return lines appear no longer and perhaps shorter than before (to me anyway). They LOOK long because people can't seem to figure out the Mickey Heads and tapping the card or bracelet. Once past that first hurdle they are IMO shorter than before.

This was our experience too.

 

[over50visits]

The FP+ return lines appear no longer and perhaps shorter than before (to me anyway). They LOOK long because.....

You mean the LOOK long but they are not? Huh? The standby lines sure do look long, are they also shorter than before?

 

[MichelleVW]

You mean the LOOK long but they are not? Huh? The standby lines sure do look long, are they also shorter than before?

Lol....it's spring break...aren't there always lines during spring break? The lines weren't any different in my opinion than when we went in 2009 for Spring Break.

 

[slickpoetry]

You mean the LOOK long but they are not? Huh? The standby lines sure do look long, are they also shorter than before?

What she said is that, because a bunch of people get bunched up at the front trying to figure out how to use the mickey heads (or learning they don't actually have a FP, or came at the wrong time), the area outside of the line looks crowded. But then once you get past that area and into the line itself, it is not crowded.

 

[donnawine]

The FP+ return lines appear no longer and perhaps shorter than before (to me anyway). They LOOK long because people can't seem to figure out the Mickey Heads and tapping the card or bracelet. Once past that first hurdle they are IMO shorter than before.

We noticed the same thing during our March 18th visit. According to a cast member we spoke with, a lot of people are arriving before their fastpass time actually starts or after it ends. So they don't get the right color Mickey head and then hold up the line talking to a cast member about it. Most of the time the CM tried to pull them to the side though.

 

[Iowajes]

A DAS could still help the OP with her daughter. For one- it means that they can wait in the FP lines for more than 3 rides. AND with DAS, they can park hop and have access to the FP lines.

Now, if the FP line is too long, they are still stuck with the original dilemma of having to skip the rides, but in many cases the FP lines aren't that long, and they are always better than the standby line. So they might have to skip a ride or two, but they will likely have a better chance of more rides with a DAS than without one.

The DAS will also give them flexibility of being able to eyeball the line to decide if it is feasible. Booking a scheduled FP time- if they show up and it is too crowded, they lose out.

 

[estherhead]

We found that we actually didn't wait any longer than we normally do. But because there are so many lines and there are lines where there weren't lines before it can give you a mini heart attack. We went into the standby line at Mission: Space and it said 30 minutes, which we were willing to do (this was midafternoon last week and VERY busy) but when we got into the line room my heart sunk because it was FULL. Then I realized that they had all 4 lines in there together but really separate. There was the orange standby & fp+ AND the green standby & fp+ and you couldn't tell which line was which and where yours was going. We only ended up waiting 15 minutes and that includes the briefing room time.

Also, if I can give advice: don't be in MK from 3-7:00pm on a busy week. That's my new advice. It's just absolute chaos. Until they get the kinks worked out the walkways are very unpleasant at that time of day. Go from 9-3, or 7-midnight. And stand in any line that says 20-30 minutes or less. Because Disney doesn't know how fp+ is working quite yet they are grossly overestimating wait times. Several times we went into a 20 min queue only to discover it was a walkon or under 5 minutes. The only line that was true when we were there was ITTBAB. It said 30 minutes and from seeing that sign to the show actually beginning was 29 minutes. But it was the last thing we had to do at AK so we just went ahead and waited.

Don't have a FP+ scheduled before 11 am if at all possible or after 9 pm.

And go ahead and get in that long FP+ line outside the ride, it will move pretty quickly and once you are in the actual line you'll almost walk right on.

I knew FP+ would change the way we tour but I thought we were super experienced and would be totally fine. I was right, mostly. We did everything we wanted to and had a magical time. But it did impact me more than I expected. However, it didn't even come CLOSE to the doom and gloom you read on here. I wished there had been more accurate info on here instead of "We Love It!" or "We Despise It!" We actually didn't have extreme feelings about the subject.