BigDisneyKids
WDW & DIS Recovering Addict.
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The following article is courtesy of:
http://miceage.com/allutz/al071304b.htm
Meanwhile, about the same time the Thunder accident was happening, news began to spread amongst Disneyland CM's (cast members) that a radical rethinking of the parks FastPass strategy had just been approved by TDA, and that those changes would be coming sooner than anyone thought.
Beginning Monday, July 12th they were conducting a "test" by not offering FastPass at Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. The FastPass machines at those two rides have been covered up, and they have tried to restore as much of the original queue setup at those two rides as they could with such short notice.
But there are other radical changes coming to all of the Resorts FastPass locations, besides this "test" at Pirates and Mansion. Before we get to those however, it would probably help explain the current Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) mindset behind these big changes if we go back a few years to the beginning of FastPass.
In early 1999 Paul Pressler had just become Disney's parks and resorts chief, and Cynthia Harriss had assumed the role she was being groomed for by Paul as Disneyland's president. Paul was enamored of a new concept for a ride reservation system that seemed to be the answer to the consistent customer complaint at Disney parks; the lines are too long. FastPass looked to Paul as though it could be the answer to customer dissatisfaction without having to actually spend capital on pesky new rides and attractions for which neither he nor Cynthia had much passion for.
And so Paul and Cynthia both latched on to the slick PowerPoint presentations created by the marketing and finance departments that showed FastPass would increase both the customer spending numbers as well as the customer satisfaction numbers. There were still folks working for Paul and Cynthia though that had a great deal of experience in operations management of Disney parks, and they were more skeptical of the wonders of FastPass as touted by the marketing department. One of those people was Al Weiss, the Walt Disney World (WDW) president who felt that too much FastPass would likely overwhelm a parks infrastructure and literal design intent, especially at his older Magic Kingdom park.
Cynthia, on the other hand, just about tripped over herself to support Paul's FastPass plan and couldn't get FastPass installed fast enough at Disneyland. Despite objections from her operations management teams, Cynthia instructed her executives to approve a massive slew of FastPass installation projects in 2000. Practically every E-Ticket in the park had FastPass installed on it, and even a few D-Tickets like Roger Rabbit and Autopia got the FastPass treatment. The only E-Ticket that seemed to escape FastPass was the Matterhorn, and that was only because the cost estimates kept soaring with every fiscal years proposal to radically redisign the Matterhorn queue and boarding area to make it FastPass friendly.
Fast forward to 2003 and Paul Pressler suddenly resigns to go to The Gap, and is replaced by Jay Rasulo. Jay Rasulo has a very different style than Pressler, and Jay takes a hard look at the '03 numbers now that FastPass has been established for several years. Jay is surprised to learn that not only did the quantum leaps in customer spending and satisfaction failed to materialize for the most part, but that Disneyland is now saddled with rising customer complaints stemming from the overburdened infrastructure issues caused by FastPass.
It seems Cynthia never did quite see the writing on the wall regarding FastPass, and up until the very end she refused to even consider implementing the limited operating strategy that had been successful in the Florida parks for several years. In October of '03 Cynthia suddenly resigned to send more time with her family and FedEx her resume to The Gap's headquarters up in San Francisco. And that brings us to Jay Rasulo's hand-picked successor to Cynthia, Matt Ouimet.
We've mentioned here earlier this year that Matt was unimpressed with FastPass and would be looking at it with a critical eye. And after listening to his operations management in the parks, something Cynthia rarely did, Matt gave the go ahead to radically rethink the way Disneyland and California Adventure (DCA) offer FastPass to its customers.
Following here are some of the changes currently approved for FastPass attractions in Anaheim. Read 'em and weep FastPass ticket collectors:
Pirates of the Caribbean will no longer offer FastPass, effective immediately. In September the marquee will have all references removed, the machines will be removed, and the queue will be restored to its pre-FastPass condition.
The Haunted Mansion will keep its FastPass machines closed for 9 months out of the year. Haunted Mansion will only offer FastPass during the Haunted Mansion Holiday season, and even then there may be slower weekdays when it is not offered.
Winnie The Pooh will have its FastPass operation permanently removed in the fall, and minor queue modifications will be made. It is still undecided whether or not Splash Mountain will move back to its old FastPass distribution area where the Pooh machines currently are. Big Thunder Mountain will continue to offer FastPass, although it will not offer it on slower weekdays.
Roger Rabbit will continue to offer FastPass as the only FastPass attraction in the northern half of the park, although it will not offer it on slower weekdays. It's a small world holiday will not offer FastPass again. This Christmas season they will restore the queue they used during 1997-99 before FastPass. Star Tours will have its FastPass operation permanently removed in the fall.
Autopia will continue to offer FastPass, although it will only be offered on weekends and during busy seasons. Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain will continue to offer FastPass, although there will be slower weekdays in the off season when it is not offered at either attraction. Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear will both open in 2005 with FastPass. They plan to evaluate whether to keep FastPass on Buzz Lightyear later in 2006.
The changes at DCA have primarily taken place already:
The FastPass areas were shuttered at It's Tough to be a Bug and MuppetVision earlier this year, and the machines will be permanently removed this fall. Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It! will have its FastPass removed this fall, and the attraction itself may not last too long into 2005. All of the other DCA attractions will retain their current FastPass setups, however there will be slower days in the off season when it will not be offered on some or all of those attractions.
Those are some pretty big changes, don't you think? Matt and his executives are fully prepared to receive some fairly nasty complaint letters for a couple of months, but Matt is convinced that this is the right thing to do for the long term good of both parks. Especially at those big E Ticket attractions like Pirates that can consistently cycle through 2,750 riders per hour, it makes sense from just about any angle you look at it.
But it's just one more example of Matt and his hand picked executives being willing to make some tough decisions that will benefit the park and its patrons in the long term.
http://miceage.com/allutz/al071304b.htm
Meanwhile, about the same time the Thunder accident was happening, news began to spread amongst Disneyland CM's (cast members) that a radical rethinking of the parks FastPass strategy had just been approved by TDA, and that those changes would be coming sooner than anyone thought.
Beginning Monday, July 12th they were conducting a "test" by not offering FastPass at Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. The FastPass machines at those two rides have been covered up, and they have tried to restore as much of the original queue setup at those two rides as they could with such short notice.
But there are other radical changes coming to all of the Resorts FastPass locations, besides this "test" at Pirates and Mansion. Before we get to those however, it would probably help explain the current Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) mindset behind these big changes if we go back a few years to the beginning of FastPass.
In early 1999 Paul Pressler had just become Disney's parks and resorts chief, and Cynthia Harriss had assumed the role she was being groomed for by Paul as Disneyland's president. Paul was enamored of a new concept for a ride reservation system that seemed to be the answer to the consistent customer complaint at Disney parks; the lines are too long. FastPass looked to Paul as though it could be the answer to customer dissatisfaction without having to actually spend capital on pesky new rides and attractions for which neither he nor Cynthia had much passion for.
And so Paul and Cynthia both latched on to the slick PowerPoint presentations created by the marketing and finance departments that showed FastPass would increase both the customer spending numbers as well as the customer satisfaction numbers. There were still folks working for Paul and Cynthia though that had a great deal of experience in operations management of Disney parks, and they were more skeptical of the wonders of FastPass as touted by the marketing department. One of those people was Al Weiss, the Walt Disney World (WDW) president who felt that too much FastPass would likely overwhelm a parks infrastructure and literal design intent, especially at his older Magic Kingdom park.
Cynthia, on the other hand, just about tripped over herself to support Paul's FastPass plan and couldn't get FastPass installed fast enough at Disneyland. Despite objections from her operations management teams, Cynthia instructed her executives to approve a massive slew of FastPass installation projects in 2000. Practically every E-Ticket in the park had FastPass installed on it, and even a few D-Tickets like Roger Rabbit and Autopia got the FastPass treatment. The only E-Ticket that seemed to escape FastPass was the Matterhorn, and that was only because the cost estimates kept soaring with every fiscal years proposal to radically redisign the Matterhorn queue and boarding area to make it FastPass friendly.
Fast forward to 2003 and Paul Pressler suddenly resigns to go to The Gap, and is replaced by Jay Rasulo. Jay Rasulo has a very different style than Pressler, and Jay takes a hard look at the '03 numbers now that FastPass has been established for several years. Jay is surprised to learn that not only did the quantum leaps in customer spending and satisfaction failed to materialize for the most part, but that Disneyland is now saddled with rising customer complaints stemming from the overburdened infrastructure issues caused by FastPass.
It seems Cynthia never did quite see the writing on the wall regarding FastPass, and up until the very end she refused to even consider implementing the limited operating strategy that had been successful in the Florida parks for several years. In October of '03 Cynthia suddenly resigned to send more time with her family and FedEx her resume to The Gap's headquarters up in San Francisco. And that brings us to Jay Rasulo's hand-picked successor to Cynthia, Matt Ouimet.
We've mentioned here earlier this year that Matt was unimpressed with FastPass and would be looking at it with a critical eye. And after listening to his operations management in the parks, something Cynthia rarely did, Matt gave the go ahead to radically rethink the way Disneyland and California Adventure (DCA) offer FastPass to its customers.
Following here are some of the changes currently approved for FastPass attractions in Anaheim. Read 'em and weep FastPass ticket collectors:
Pirates of the Caribbean will no longer offer FastPass, effective immediately. In September the marquee will have all references removed, the machines will be removed, and the queue will be restored to its pre-FastPass condition.
The Haunted Mansion will keep its FastPass machines closed for 9 months out of the year. Haunted Mansion will only offer FastPass during the Haunted Mansion Holiday season, and even then there may be slower weekdays when it is not offered.
Winnie The Pooh will have its FastPass operation permanently removed in the fall, and minor queue modifications will be made. It is still undecided whether or not Splash Mountain will move back to its old FastPass distribution area where the Pooh machines currently are. Big Thunder Mountain will continue to offer FastPass, although it will not offer it on slower weekdays.
Roger Rabbit will continue to offer FastPass as the only FastPass attraction in the northern half of the park, although it will not offer it on slower weekdays. It's a small world holiday will not offer FastPass again. This Christmas season they will restore the queue they used during 1997-99 before FastPass. Star Tours will have its FastPass operation permanently removed in the fall.
Autopia will continue to offer FastPass, although it will only be offered on weekends and during busy seasons. Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain will continue to offer FastPass, although there will be slower weekdays in the off season when it is not offered at either attraction. Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear will both open in 2005 with FastPass. They plan to evaluate whether to keep FastPass on Buzz Lightyear later in 2006.
The changes at DCA have primarily taken place already:
The FastPass areas were shuttered at It's Tough to be a Bug and MuppetVision earlier this year, and the machines will be permanently removed this fall. Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It! will have its FastPass removed this fall, and the attraction itself may not last too long into 2005. All of the other DCA attractions will retain their current FastPass setups, however there will be slower days in the off season when it will not be offered on some or all of those attractions.
Those are some pretty big changes, don't you think? Matt and his executives are fully prepared to receive some fairly nasty complaint letters for a couple of months, but Matt is convinced that this is the right thing to do for the long term good of both parks. Especially at those big E Ticket attractions like Pirates that can consistently cycle through 2,750 riders per hour, it makes sense from just about any angle you look at it.
But it's just one more example of Matt and his hand picked executives being willing to make some tough decisions that will benefit the park and its patrons in the long term.
