Fast Pass at Honey I Shrunk the Audience...What a joke!

[diznyfanatic]

We just returned from a FABULOUS 10 day Christmas/New Years stay at WDW!!! Although it was packed...and I mean packed...at all of the parks, we were still able to manage pretty well and get a lot done each day primarily because of using Fast Pass and EMH.

It was our experience, that each attraction managed its Fast Pass lines really well with one horrible exception. The fastpass lines at Honey I Shrunk the Audience in Epcot were a total joke.

Upon returning at our designated time, we were directed to the FP line. The closer to the entrance you get however, the FP lines just disappear and what is supposed to be a "handicapped only" line and entrance was being used by the stand by line creating a lot of cutting and arguing.

At one point in the FP line, I actually thought a fight was going to break out between the people cutting and the people waiting in the FP line! The pushing, shoving and cutting were the absolute worst I have ever seen on any attraction at WDW!!!

Their were no CM's monitoring the lines at all except at the FP entrance but that isn't where the problem is.

Due to the chaos with the lines, we still waited about 40 minutes with a Fast Pass for this attraction!

Anyone else ever experience this at this attraction?

 

[seashoreCM]

Go to Guest Relations and report the situation including the time of day.

Before leaving (G.R.) ask for a round of extra fastpasses for any ride of your choice for the family. Actually two rounds would be appropriate given the wait you quoted.

(The latter is primarily to make the complaint less likely to be immediately discarded.)

DIsney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[diznyfanatic]

seashoreCM - Thanks for the info. Didn't even think to do that so it's definitely good to know.

 

[Got Quattro?]

Go to Guest Relations and report the situation including the time of day.

Before leaving (G.R.) ask for a round of extra fastpasses for any ride of your choice for the family. Actually two rounds would be appropriate given the wait you quoted.

Things didn't go my way...give me something for nothing....brilliant solution.

Sometimes things don't go as planned...it's called life. No one should be entitled to free any ride fast passes just because they had to wait. Give me a break. It's the most crowded time of the year. Things happen. Just deal with it.

I would agree that reporting the issue is a good idea, but reporting it with the intention of getting something free is just wrong. It's like a 4 year old running to tell mommy someone wont shre a toy.

 

[diznyfanatic]

Things didn't go my way...give me something for nothing....brilliant solution.

Sometimes things don't go as planned...it's called life. No one should be entitled to free any ride fast passes just because they had to wait. Give me a break. It's the most crowded time of the year. Things happen. Just deal with it.

I would agree that reporting the issue is a good idea, but reporting it with the intention of getting something free is just wrong. It's like a 4 year old running to tell mommy someone wont shre a toy.

Ummm, not sure why the nastiness was needed, but speaking for myself, had I thought to report it, it would have been for one reason only...the way it was set up was causing big problems and aggressive behavior by some. We were standing in that line with my three year old granddaughter and I worried that it might quickly get out of hand as arguments were breaking out around us.

It would NOT have been reported in order to "get something for nothing" and as I mentioned in the first line of my post, I was NOT complaining about the crowds in general as I expected them to be exactly the way it was and we "dealt with it" just fine.

 

[Got Quattro?]

I was NOT complaining about the crowds in general as I expected them to be exactly the way it was and we "dealt with it" just fine.

I agree you did fine...relax.

It was seashores instruction to go ask for a hand out that upsets me. He must be a lawyer or something.

 

[d4est]

Things didn't go my way...give me something for nothing....brilliant solution.

Sometimes things don't go as planned...it's called life. No one should be entitled to free any ride fast passes just because they had to wait. Give me a break. It's the most crowded time of the year. Things happen. Just deal with it.

I would agree that reporting the issue is a good idea, but reporting it with the intention of getting something free is just wrong. It's like a 4 year old running to tell mommy someone wont shre a toy.

This from the guy that said he was going to use his child's cuteness to try for a free upgrade at his resort.

 

[cleo]

I believe the OP is asking if anyone has a similar experience, not 'how to get something for nothing', not 'moral lessons toward living a better life'.

Please bear in mind seashoreCM is NOT a Disney Cast Member. Any advise given is not 'Disney recommended' advise toward a solution, and the solution given is NOT necessarily how Disney will handle a complaint.

Can we get back to the OP's question and stop the nastiness please?

 

[PooohBear]

This from the guy that said he was going to use his child's cuteness to try for a free upgrade at his resort.

 

[UrsulasShadow]

You should have seen the mess outside of Indiana Jones during Christmas week...the FP line was doubled around on itself outside of the attraction, not a CM in sight, no clear lines, folks hoping to get in a standby line had to try to find it, folks in the FP line throwing elbows and shoulders, trying to keep people from cutting...what a nightmare!

Seems a more likely problem for shows...never saw anything close to this on a continously-loading ride.

 

[seashoreCM]

Hmmm. What would happen if the CM further in who took the fast passes (not the CM out front who just checked the return time on fast passes) was taken short and rushed off to the rest room?

When there are backups in the fast pass line, that usually means a recent malfunction with the ride or show. Generally when this happens, people with fast passes are allowed to go away after just looking at the long fastpass line, and come back later in the day or occasionally, if it is late, the next day.

 

[basas]

Fastpass is a bad thing at the best of times (on all attractions...and this is just my opinion- lets not debate if Fastpass is good/bad (for the 10,000th time)) but this is just another example of how it is a waste of space/time/money/whatever at 3-D shows (HISTA, Philharmagic, ITTBAB), and shows like Indy.

 

[UrsulasShadow]

Fastpass is a bad thing at the best of times (on all attractions...and this is just my opinion- lets not debate if Fastpass is good/bad (for the 10,000th time)) but this is just another example of how it is a waste of space/time/money/whatever at 3-D shows (HISTA, Philharmagic, ITTBAB), and shows like Indy.

Unless they start handling it differently, and practice better crowd control at these venues, I agree with you.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

Entering HISTA with my younger children was downright scary. We visited on Christmas Day had much the same experience as this thread originator. After being crammed into the pre-show area (Yes, there ended-up being more guests than seats in the actual theater; so we were literally packed-in like a can of sardines.), I picked up my 2 yo and held her close. While entering a row of seats behind my dh and 2 ds, a large man literally pushed my dd and me out of the way (elbowed me in the face -- there's absolutely NO WAY he coudn't see that I was with the rest of my family and that he had pushed me hard out of the way). When my dh and 2 sons attempted to move back to dd and me, the man refused to let him past. Finally, my dh (who is quite large but NOT at all a pushy person) made it clear to the "gentleman" that had BETTER move out of his way so he could rejoin his wife and young daughter. Things did not improve much after this. There were not enough seats for all the guests who had entered the row. The last people entering the row grabbed the last couple of seats and refused to budge. They wouldn't even make way for those of us who just wanted OUT at this point. This was an absolutely horrible experience for my entire family. After this, we returned to our resort to chill-out for a bit. The only CMs I saw were at the very perimeter of this mob scene and did NOTHING to ease any of the problems. Fortunately, this was the only really bad crowd experience during our stay. Guests seemed more rushed and pushy this trip; but, overall, our holiday experience was quite good.

 

[diznyfanatic]

SqueakyMouse - Wow, we were there on New Years's Day and experienced almost exactly the same thing. So one week had passed since your visit and ours and the same thing was still happening.

After the horrible scenes outside, we too were then crammed to the gills into the stupid preshow stable, forcing people who had just been threatening each other to stand back to front with each other, and there weren't enough seats in the actual show either.

As people were literally shoving people out of the way in order to get into the theatre, we were attempting to find enough seats for all of us and just kept being pushed in different directions. After kind of just flowing towards one row with the crowd, one whack job standing at the end of the row actually put her arm across my son's chest barring him from the row and yelled "Wait, stop! You can't have these seats!!! I'm saving them!" It wasn't even like we had been headed there intentionally which she could clearly see.

Disney better address this issue before someone is seriously hurt. Had we not had a firm hand on my 3 year old granddaughter and actually carried her the whole way through that horrific line, she would have just disappeared or possibly been trampled.

 

[Piecey]

I've gotten a few of those priority fast-pass things. The ones that are good for anything.

We flew into WDW after a night of no sleep (day after finals week ended-both of us college students), we were stressed because the dryer broke and we only got to the airport an hour before our flights. we were Just happy to just be at the Resort but then we ran into problems checking in, they couldn't find my brothers 6-day park hopper.
Told us we'd have to go to the conceirge desk..?? So I just took the room key and let my exhausted brother crash out and I went back and waited in line for 45 minutes for the concerige desk at POP.
Well after a half hour they "located" the ticket (after I gave them ALL the credit card information all over again and kept giving them the names of everyone in my family it might be under- it finally showed up under my dad's name, who has never even gone to Disney with us!! They'd gotten his name from the Credit card used on the room when I went in March.. made NO sense to me.
Happy to just finally have a ticket in my hand I went back up the room and unpacked and woke my brother up about 3 so we could head to MVMCP.
the next day we get to MGM, I'm already in the park (I have an AP) whenever he tries to get in but it doesn't let him. I love my brother and all but he doesn't really like to deal with things like that so the CM just opened the gate and let me out to go back to Guest Service with him. Waited in line there for 20 minutes (making us late for our ADR at Sci-Fi) when they had to call Pop, spent 10 minutes on hold to get someone to confirm that we WERE supposed to have the ticket, so they gave us some special 1-day emergency pass? thats what is said. She said we'd have to deal with it when we got back to our resort that night.
So we have to go back and wait in line to get into MGM again, and there is a problem with my AP apparently. The guy looks at me really funny and he's all "It says you just enetered the park" and he wouldn't let me in. I was annoyed and my brother had to go get the CM that had just let us ou.
After we finally got into MHM we just had to get stuck behind the parade and are REALLY late for ADR but luckily they still sat us when we told them what th ehold up had been (We still waited another 45 minutes once we got there)
So I go back to my resort that night- really perturbed, I guess you could say. I'd lost at least an hour and a half that day dealing with something I'd already spent an hour + on the day before-- and I was supposed to be on vacation? So I wait in line at the POP counter for prolly 20 minutes when the CM says she can't help me, conceirge has to do it. What? Conceirge is closed- She tells me she knows, but she can't help me.
So I asked for a manager- I didn't want to spend a third day on this problem.
The manager took about 45 minutes to correct the problem, kept leaving to do stuff and coming back and didn't even fully listen to the problem-- just gave me a new room key for him, which she SWORE had the ticket on it and 4 priority entrances for our "lost time"
I was still ticked off at the crappy way everything was handled (What was so hard??)
But I was rather pleased with the priority entrances. We used them for Soarin' as we never got out of bed before 12 and knew we had no chance for a Fastpass.

Anyway, my point is that I think Disney has those passes just for this reason- for people who lose time-- just like me and just like the OP. Knowing they exist, you better believe I'll expect to receive them if something like this happens to me again.

 

[basas]

You'd think after nearly 15 years of running HISTA, they'd have figured out how to control the crowds by this point! But really, FP is just an un-necessary annoyance that is rarely, rarely warranted at HISTA. It’s not too often anymore when most folks can’t get directly into the next show with no wait. If it’s still a problem, maybe they ought to build up the queue outside the show like they used to do (extended queue…unless they’re still doing this). What’s also funny is that while we’re complaining about HISTA over-crowding, they’re probably struggling to get 40% of the theatre full over at DL.