Disneyland to introduce MaxPass (New Fastpass & New Fastpass Attractions) - Now with Poll

[Angrose]

A lot of park guests already think you have to pay for fast passes. I have had so many conversations with people in line that tell me that.

I'm wondering if you can get a FP for an attraction in DCA while you are in DL and vice versa, or if you have to be in the actual park where the attraction is located.

 

[Aladora]

A lot of park guests already think you have to pay for fast passes. I have had so many conversations with people in line that tell me that.

I'm wondering if you can get a FP for an attraction in DCA while you are in DL and vice versa, or if you have to be in the actual park where the attraction is located.

Some of the articles about the MaxPass have said that you do can get a FP for an attraction in DCA while in DL and vice versa.

Posted on the Disneyland blog:

So if I purchase max pass and I’m in disneyland can I book a fast pass for a ride inside California adventure? Or would I have to leave disneyland and enter California adventure to do so?

jamie roques on January 11, 2017 at 2:59 pm

• If a guest is within the FASTPASS window (meaning able to reserve their next one), they can reserve a FASTPASS for Disneyland park if they are in Disney California Adventure and vice versa.
  
  Erin Glover on January 11, 2017 at 4:30 pm

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

From reading this thread, I'm starting to feel that Disney is playing WDW fans vs DLR fans to its advantage. Anecdotally: When FP+ was introduced at WDW, many people were outraged; some of those people said they'd take their business to DLR. Now I'm seeing the first indications of the opposite.

They haven't lost me. I'm fairly regular at WDW and I'm planning my first visit to DLR- and I'm excited about it.

But if you really want to vote with your wallet, I recommend staying away from Disney Parks entirely.

If you read the Walt Disney World side of the boards, many Walt Disney World people actually did take their business to Disneyland who didn't want to deal with fast pass plus.

 

[ClaraOswald]

People are super overreacting to this, imo.

If you're disgusted with DLR, by all mean, please go elsewhere as that will make it less crowded when I go. I seldom ever even use FP because I get my tail out of bed early and do the e tickets early in the day and I've never been disappointed.

This does not hamper your ability to enter the park or ride rides, it's just another upsell, of which is common in theme parks these days. Apparently it's a right to some people to be able to do the very best FP possible, lol.

How many people are in your family? Are you coming from a different time zone? Do you have children who struggle with schedule changes?

If only it was super easy for all families to just "get their tails out of bed" and get to the parks at opening. But for some...it isn't even an option.

You may think people are overreacting based on YOUR experiences. But you have to understand that others have vastly different experiences in the parks.

 

[Jerryp49]

Disneyland expands Fastpass, debuts MaxPass
Just published on MousePlanet:

Almost two decades after Disney debuted the Fastpass program, the service is about to undergo a two-phase transformation at the Disneyland Resort. The first phase is the welcome addition of two additional rides to the Fastpass system Toy Story Mania in Disney California Adventure and the Matterhorn Bobsleds in Disneyland.

With this change, the list of Fastpass attractions at each park is as follows, though some are only offered seasonally:

Disneyland

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Haunted Mansion [Holiday]
Indiana Jones Adventure
Matterhorn Bobsleds
Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin
[Hyper] Space Mountain [Ghost Galaxy]
Splash Mountain
Star Tours The Adventures Continue

Disney California Adventure

California Screamin'
Goofy's Sky School
Grizzly River Run
Radiator Springs Racers
Soarin' Around the World
Toy Story Mania
The second phase launches later this year, and has the potential to change the way you use the Fastpass system. The new program is called Disney's MaxPass, and it bundles the existing PhotoPass product with a still-in-development digital Fastpass tool in the Disneyland mobile app.

MaxPass includes unlimited downloads of PhotoPass photos taken each day the entitlement is valid. It also allows visitors to collect and redeem FastPass tickets using the app, instead of collecting paper FastPass tickets.

Visitors can add Disney's MaxPass to their theme park tickets for $10 per ticket, per day. Users can choose to purchase the MaxPass for their entire length of stay, or for one or more days. Annual passholders will also be able to purchase MaxPass by the day, or add it to their pass for the year, though pricing has not yet been finalized.

The standard Fastpass system will still be available at no charge to visitors who do not purchase the MaxPass product.

While this is a change for Disneyland's Fastpass system, this is not the west coast implementation of Fastpass+ as some rumors have suggested, nor should you expect to be outfitted with a Magic Band anytime soon. Fastpass may be getting a shiny new digital interface, but the nuts and bolts of the program remain the same.

Unlike the Fastpass+ system at Walt Disney World, the MaxPass system does not allow users to select Fastpasses months, weeks or even days in advance. This is still a same-day program, and users must activate the entitlement on the day they visit the park.

Nor can users make Fastpass selections from home before even heading to the parks. Visitors must be inside a theme park to collect a digital Fastpass to use the same day, though MaxPass users need not walk to their selected attraction to claim a Fastpass ticket. A MaxPass user can walk onto Main Street, U.S.A. and claim a Fastpass for Splash Mountain if they want, without ever stepping foot in Critter Country. The MaxPass app also allows users to claim a Fastpass for a ride in the other theme park, so a user in Disneyland could claim a Fastpass for Radiator Springs Racers before park hopping.

Regardless of how they obtain their Fastpass, users are still subject to the same policies. Tickets are issued on a first-come, first-serve basis. Users can generally not obtain another Fastpass until two hours after they obtain the first Fastpass, or at the end of the return window of the first Fastpass, whichever comes first.

When it comes time to ride, MaxPass users will likely scan a barcode displayed from the screen of their app at a new portal installed at the Fastpass return gate. Paper Fastpass ticket holders will scan the barcode on their ticket to access the return queue. Disney has been testing these portals at various times for well over a year, and recent building permits issued indicate that installation is ready to proceed.

There are still so many details we don't know about MaxPass, and Disney acknowledges the product is still under development. We don't know if entertainment Fastpass like World of Color or Fantasmic can be collected using the app. We don't know if parents can claim and redeem Fastpass tickets for their children using one mobile device, or if one member of a party can manage Fastpass tickets for the entire party. We don't know if the app will allow you to cancel a previously-collected Fastpass if you change your mind, possibly freeing you up to collect another Fastpass more quickly.

The $10 per ticket, per day price point for day guests is intriguing, if only because that is $29 less than the cost of the Disney PhotoPass+ One Day product currently offered. Setting aside for the moment any discussion of the Fastpass element, it's cheaper to add MaxPass onto one member of the party just to receive the PhotoPass benefit.

As for the Fastpass benefit, it's really hard to say right now if that alone is worth the added cost. Signature and Premier passholders who already receive PhotoPass downloads as part of the price of their annual pass will especially want to look at the final pricing for passholders, and decide of the Fastpass benefit alone is worth the add-on cost.

MousePlanet will continue to follow this new product as Disney provides more details about the MaxPass.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

How many people are in your family? Are you coming from a different time zone? Do you have children who struggle with schedule changes?

If only it was super easy for all families to just "get their tails out of bed" and get to the parks at opening. But for some...it isn't even an option.

You may think people are overreacting based on YOUR experiences. But you have to understand that others have vastly different experiences in the parks.

That's such a big part of it, what you just said. Essentially, what's been going on at Disneyland in the past couple of years and continuing with this change is that Disneyland is throwing itself, lock stock and barrel, at local guests exclusively. They are trying to manage the load of local guests who visit, and upcharge them in specific ways that local guests would be comfortable about being upcharged. There is absolutely no, zero, element here, nor has there been in a long time, for the benefit of long-distance guests. Even though guests come from as far away as Australia, regularly, to visit Disneyland. I think that's what you're giving voice to.

Part of my point was that Walt Disney World doesn't do that. Even though most of its guests are long-distance, Walt Disney World equally markets itself to locals. It doesn't leave anybody out. After experiencing at WDW free and far more robust advance fast pass and dining reservations, cheaper ticket and annual pass prices, free airport and luggage transfers to and from your resort, on-site hotels in every price category, as a long-distance Disneyland visitor, it gets increasingly hard to look at the Anaheim resort and not expect the same things there. Especially when such things keep improving in Orlando.

You very quickly realize that in order to be a long distance visitor to Disneyland, especially now, you are expected to pay quite a lot more money for quite a lot less convenience versus simply going to Walt Disney World. It's a feeling almost as if Disneyland is breaking up with you after many years because you suddenly don't matter as a guest. I'm glad so many of these changes, especially this one, work for locals. But for those of us who have regularly visited both coasts, there's a point where it just starts to get ridiculous to sing the praises of paying more for a less convenient, more stressful vacation at Disneyland. Especially when you're very well aware that the same company has no problem offering long distance guests and local guests, both, an amazing welcome on the opposite coast.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I don't love this news, but it does seem like some people are reacting in a very over-the-top way.

For what it's worth, a ton of these questions are being answered in the blog comments. You have to activate your ticket first. It's the same "rules" as paper FPs. Everyone pays but one person can manage the whole group. Etc.

Some thoughts:
1. Certainly FPs will go faster - how many more people will grab a RSR FP first thing with no line and from anywhere in either park?! Even if only 25% of guests on a given day have Maxpass, that's going to be a huge drain on those FPs early. When you make it more convenient, more people will use it, period.

2. By charging for the digital version, Disney keeps usage down and allows for itself to avoid offering free wi-fi, etc., because it's just "optional." If its offered for everyone, you have to make it accessible to everyone. If it's an optional "add-on," then you don't.

3. I don't understand the entitled AP attitude over this. There will be an "add-on" fee for the service for the year, like adding parking used to be. Take it or leave it. I don't see why APs think this should be free for them if it's not free for everyone. (And I say this as someone coming from a household of Signature and Deluxe passes.)

4. I do predict that the first few minutes after rope drop will now be spent with tons of people on their phones, likely frustrated that things aren't loading/working with the sudden load of everyone at once. That's a shame.

 

[althepostman]

Setting aside for the moment any discussion of the Fastpass element, it's cheaper to add MaxPass onto one member of the party just to receive the PhotoPass benefit.

I like the news just based on this fact. MP will just come as a bonus on whichever ticket we add it to.

 

[az4boys]

With 4 kids this would cost us $60/day. Ugh. I was just trying to convince myself that it would be ok to splurge on AP's for one year. The idea of spending an extra $60 each day definitely makes that harder. I understand that we can still do the regular FP, but we would be at a disadvantage compared to everyone doing the Maxpass. Not having to cross the park for a FP would make it so much easier. I think if we were to go, we would pick a few days to really focus on rides and only buy it then. When it is slower and FP's don't matter so much, it would be a little pointless. I do wish they had figured out how this will be handled for AP's before making the announcement. If I buy them, I wanted to get them before the 13 month promotion ends in February.

 

[mom2rtk]

First, Disney just raised the price of the daily ticket by $10. Cash grab.

Next, I bought 4 APs and a Signature AP so I wouldn't have to pay for anything else for a whole year (Signature gets parking and photopass included). So that means my already too expensive AP just went up in price to get this experience (offered for free at WDW). Cash grab.

The next time we go in February, we WILL NOT get the MP. And then we'll feel the pinch as we go to all of our favorite rides and realize the FPs are gone for the first 3-6 hours before we even walk to them. That'll make me want to get MP the next time I'm in. Cash grab.

I can't wait to walk through those gates and .... run into a mass of people staring at their phones (including me), running into each other. Magic GONE. But since we're all looking down, now Disney doesn't have to pay for entertainment when you walk in. Cash savings for them. We'll just call it another cash grab.

#1 Point - And when you all realize this will apply to WoC and F!, and then realize that all those FPs will be gone in minutes if you don't have the MaxPass, you'll start paying for it, too. Cash grab.

The key is for EVERYONE to say "forget you, Disney" and not pay for the extra fee. Of course, that'll never happen. So get used to paying for this service in the future. This gives me more than enough reason to finally return to my favorite resort, Walt Disney World. I've avoided going there since FP+ came in 2013. But since we're going to have it shoved down our throats in Anaheim, it makes sense for me to start looking at Orlando again once my DL AP runs out. Or maybe Hawaii or Aruba or some other non-stress-laden, non-headache-producing vacation.

What a freaking shame. The easy relaxed pace of DL was just executed by cash grabbing execs.

Except that now they will have their "regular" price increase in the next few weeks on top of this as well.

Good point about the show FPs. I wonder if those will be disconnected any longer or if getting an evening show FP will now block you from getting FPs during the day at all.

 

[mom2rtk]

Some of the articles about the MaxPass have said that you do can get a FP for an attraction in DCA while in DL and vice versa.

Posted on the Disneyland blog:

So if I purchase max pass and I’m in disneyland can I book a fast pass for a ride inside California adventure? Or would I have to leave disneyland and enter California adventure to do so?

jamie roques on January 11, 2017 at 2:59 pm

• If a guest is within the FASTPASS window (meaning able to reserve their next one), they can reserve a FASTPASS for Disneyland park if they are in Disney California Adventure and vice versa.
  
  Erin Glover on January 11, 2017 at 4:30 pm

Except that I bet they'll have the 2 parks connected now so you so you can't hold them in both parks simultaneously now.

 

[Tink1987]

Does anyone else really hate the name also? It is awful!

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Except that I bet they'll have the 2 parks connected now so you so you can't hold them in both parks simultaneously now.

Ohhhhh, good point. Bummer.

 

[mom2rtk]

I like the news just based on this fact. MP will just come as a bonus on whichever ticket we add it to.

Please remember the key words......... "introductory price".

 

[alvernon90]

this is pretty useless. All it does it save a tiny bit of walking?

I don't think grabbing FPs from your phone is only saving "a tiny bit of walking." If you are waiting in line for Space Mountain, it takes more than a tiny bit of walking to grab a Splash Mountain FP -- it takes giving up your place in the standby line. And even if you aren't currently waiting in a line when your FP window opens up, on a crowded day it can be quite a bit of effort to get from Tomorrowland to Splash and back again.

You still may not think it is worth the money, but what you are saving is not nothing. That will be especially true if you can reserve FPs for either park rather than the park you are in at the moment.

 

[agamble]

I'm looking forward to FP for both Matterhorn and Toy Story MM. I don't care for the rumors that Peter Pan and Pirates will be getting FP too, but Matterhorn and TSMM are welcome in my book.

On the Parks Blog it said that the MaxPass would be linked to the ticket. That would make it sound like if the ticket isn't activated for the day you couldn't use it. They also said the tickets could be linked to one phone/account, so you won't need a smartphone for everyone.

I personally think $10 per person per day is a big chunk of change for many families, especially those visiting multiple days, and I wonder how popular it will be. Regular FP is still free, so many people may opt against it or maybe just use it one or two days of their trip. I like the suggestion someone else made that perhaps it would be cheaper for a family, but somehow I doubt that. The WDW tickets allow you to add what you want to the tickets, and it is all per ticket fees. It's more likely it would be cheaper for multiple days, i.e. $10 for one day $20 for two days $30 for 3-5 days.

I do not think the FP will disappear that fast. They will likely be gone earlier in the day overall, but not first thing in the morning. All rules still apply, with the exception that you can get a DCA FP while at DL. But even that is kind of allowed now as one person can run to the other park with everyone's tickets and get a FP. And they said to get the FP at the other park it has to be your window, currently with paper FP you can hold a FP at DL and DCA, but with MaxPass you cannot. I wonder if they'll close this loophole for all tickets then?

If it's 8AM opening and I'm at the rope with no MP and you're at the rope with MP you could book your FP for Star Tours and then walk to Peter Pan. I would have to go to Star Tours and get my FP and then go to my next ride (or I could send my husband to run and get the FP and still walk to Peter Pan and just be rude and let him hop through the line ) It's not as big of a game changer as people are thinking. It's just a nice convenience. It's more that throughout the day you can immediately get your next FP while I would actually have to walk to get mine. A person with MP would probably use FP more because they can get one immediately upon the window opening and they don't have to walk to their next location, so they free up time to do more of everything. But it does not mean no FP available for the rest of us.

Mouseplanet posted an article about this today and suggested that you could potentially buy the $10 MaxPass for just one person's ticket and use it just for photopass, which is much cheaper than the current one day photopass option. I like that idea. And I would consider adding MP to my AP just to have the photopass option even if I didn't add MP to the entire families APs, essentially making the FP portion useless.

It would be nice if they use some of this money they're going to make from the sell of MaxPasses to upgrade their WiFi to support the new pass.

Overall, I don't think it is going to be too horrible. I'm disappointed they're charging for digital FP because I was looking forward to them, but I'm not willing to pay $40-$50 a day for my family to use it. I think Disney will be tweaking the system throughout the year(s) and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 

[SeiterClan]

One advantage that I read about is that you can book FP for either park. So, you could be in Disneyland and grab a RSR FP without having to go over to DCA.

Also, from what I have seen, the same rules about FP will appl, only one at a time and you can get another one either 2 hours after you got a FP or when that FP window opens up. What I would be interested in knowing is if, with this new system, you can still have both a DL and DCA FP at the same time or if they will have effectively closed that option.

I'm curious to know this too! I was really hoping the digital FP via the app would be free. :/ In the article comments from Erin Glover the wording makes it sound like you CAN"T have FP's in both DCA & DL for the same time frame ie. you could have one for Splash but not also RSR within the same 2 hour time frame or the same 1 hour return window? That would be a huge dealbreaker for me!

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm curious to know this too! I was really hoping the digital FP via the app would be free. :/ In the article comments from Erin Glover the wording makes it sound like you CAN"T have FP's in both DCA & DL for the same time frame ie. you could have one for Splash but not also RSR within the same 2 hour time frame or the same 1 hour return window? That would be a huge dealbreaker for me!

I'm guessing if they close this loophole for digital FPs they will be closing it for paper ones as well.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I don't think grabbing FPs from your phone is only saving "a tiny bit of walking." If you are waiting in line for Space Mountain, it takes more than a tiny bit of walking to grab a Splash Mountain FP -- it takes giving up your place in the standby line. And even if you aren't currently waiting in a line when your FP window opens up, on a crowded day it can be quite a bit of effort to get from Tomorrowland to Splash and back again.

You still may not think it is worth the money, but what you are saving is not nothing. That will be especially true if you can reserve FPs for either park rather than the park you are in at the moment.

Which is why FPs are going to go a lot faster. If my "next FP window" opens at 11, and I'm in line for Pirates and want to grab Indiana Jones next, it's probably 11:30 by the time I make it through that (long) ride and get over there. But if I can hop on my phone at 11, done! And that's an example where the next ride is very close.

I'm very curious to see how it affects FP distribution - I would guess that rides like Splash, Screamin', etc. currently distribute less FP because people don't want to hoof all the way to them just for a FP. Also, when a FP window opens for a desirable time (RSR after dark, Splash right at noon on a hot day), I bet they'll disappear very quickly since people can check, click, done rather than physically getting to the ride.

It will be interesting, that's for sure.

 

[roxymama]

So I'm out of towner going for 3 days in May. So this could be totally moot point if they don't roll it out until after my trip. I'm thinking we skip MP altogether on arrival day. Then our busiest day by far will be Saturday and although we are going to magic mornings and attack Fantasyland...I may buy the MP for our party of 3 people so we can get RSR from inside DL. On Sunday I'm running a half marathon...so I'm thinking I'd buy MP just for me because of the photopass and then just skip it for the rest of my party aka not use it for FP reasons.
So I'm looking at $40 total.
I better buy my park tickets very soon JUST IN CASE there is a price increase, right. Then it won't be so bad.

This is just a one-time DL go-ers thought process. Hoping they let you just buy it that way based on the day and not make me buy all three days of MP on my three day tickets.