Fast Pass Line Waits

[mdoc]

We were at Disney this past week and had a great time. I had a question regarding Fast Pass, however. When we went to use our FPs for Toy Story, there was a long line. Of course there was no FP wait time posted, but the CM standing at the end of the line told me to expect 40 minutes. When I expressed surprise at this, she told me it happened frequently at busy times, and that the FP line had been as much as 2 hours. Is that correct? I assumed she was wrong, but if she wasn't, that pretty much renders the FPs rather meaningless. It ended up being about a 25 minute wait to the stairs (where the lines merge), not 40, but still a lot longer than I expected to wait with a FP. Has anyone encountered this? Our other FP waits were pretty typical; it was just TSM. The only other negative of the trip was a number of breakdowns/closures at MK on Tuesday. Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion and Pirates were all closed when we tried to ride them very early in the day (at a time when lines would have been very short). We were able to ride Pan and HM later, but the lines were long. We never did do Pirates, although I wasn't too upset about that because I was worried about getting wet anyway. Except for these few attractions, we had great luck with riding everything we wanted with minimal waits, even during Christmas week. There's nothing like WDW during the holidays!

 

[drea21]

I've waited 25-30 minutes for a Peter Pan FP this past July and was also surprised.

 

[larryz]

I hope you're having a nice visit!

 

[yooperfan]

It seems like ever since they started handing out extra FP as a solution to any issue a guest had it has gotten worse...

 

[DebbieB]

When I was at DHS on 12/7, I think TSM fastpass time was about 5 or 10 minutes to the steps. I had about a 15 min wait for ToT but I think it had just come back up after being closed.

 

[Accident]

When we went to use our FPs for Toy Story, there was a long line. Of course there was no FP wait time posted, but the CM standing at the end of the line told me to expect 40 minutes. When I expressed surprise at this, she told me it happened frequently at busy times, and that the FP line had been as much as 2 hours. Is that correct? I assumed she was wrong, but if she wasn't, that pretty much renders the FPs rather meaningless.

During a trip in Oct 2014, TSMM was temporarily closed repetitively one day. By mid afternoon, there was no standby line and fastpass was almost 2 hours. It does happen, especially with this ride. It's just really easy to be distracted and with the way it moves around, things regularly fall onto the tracks with delays for a CM to pick it up.

 

[nherbert]

TSM is the worst we have encountered though the longest time from entry to ride was about 25 minutes with FP. The FP line for this ride (after 10am) always seems long to us. The only other one that seems a bit slow is test track, up to the merge we waited around 15minutes then we go to design car area another 10minutes as we always have to wait for one full design session before entering room, and then a further 5 minutes to get to ride and all that if it doesn't break down. So that ride can also take about 30mins with FP. All that her rides we have done have bee about 5 minutes maybe 10minutes.

 

[Disneylover99]

I had a question regarding Fast Pass, however. When we went to use our FPs for Toy Story, there was a long line. Of course there was no FP wait time posted, but the CM standing at the end of the line told me to expect 40 minutes. When I expressed surprise at this, she told me it happened frequently at busy times, and that the FP line had been as much as 2 hours. Is that correct? I assumed she was wrong, but if she wasn't, that pretty much renders the FPs rather meaningless.

Well, not meaningless if the standbye line is four hours and you really want to ride TSMM.

Anyways, I think a 2 hour wait is maybe just an inflated time the CM would tell people to discourage them from getting into the fp line when things get backed up. We have waited 30-40 minutes in the Soarin and TofT fp line a few times. Those are the lines that tend to get backed up for us. I know the elevators go down sometimes at TofT and that causes a longer wait then usual.

 

[larryz]

I know the elevators go down sometimes at TofT and that causes a longer wait then usual.

Well, of course they do. And then they go right back up again.

 

[mom2rtk]

Well, of course they do. And then they go right back up again.

What would we every do without you here Larry!

 

[staceymay00]

We were at Disney this past week and had a great time. I had a question regarding Fast Pass, however. When we went to use our FPs for Toy Story, there was a long line. Of course there was no FP wait time posted, but the CM standing at the end of the line told me to expect 40 minutes. When I expressed surprise at this, she told me it happened frequently at busy times, and that the FP line had been as much as 2 hours. Is that correct? I assumed she was wrong, but if she wasn't, that pretty much renders the FPs rather meaningless. It ended up being about a 25 minute wait to the stairs (where the lines merge), not 40, but still a lot longer than I expected to wait with a FP. Has anyone encountered this? Our other FP waits were pretty typical; it was just TSM. The only other negative of the trip was a number of breakdowns/closures at MK on Tuesday. Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion and Pirates were all closed when we tried to ride them very early in the day (at a time when lines would have been very short). We were able to ride Pan and HM later, but the lines were long. We never did do Pirates, although I wasn't too upset about that because I was worried about getting wet anyway. Except for these few attractions, we had great luck with riding everything we wanted with minimal waits, even during Christmas week. There's nothing like WDW during the holidays!

I have a hard time believing the CM who said 2 hours with FP is common at busy times, but I can believe longer than expected waits if the ride is down part of the day.

We were at DHS on 12/23. My DH and son rode TSM standby twice at opening without too long of a wait, but they said some of the screens were not working, so the ride was not running at full capacity. The FP line was long when we returned around 10am to ride. We probably waited 30-40 minutes with FP, which is longer than we usually wait for attractions without FP. That was, however, the only attraction in five days where we encountered an unreasonable wait time for FP. The posted standby wait btw at TSM when we used FP was 225 minutes...as in almost four hours! I believe the long waits were due to the ride being partially down for a while.

 

[epcotty]

It seemed backed up outside quite a bit when we used our TSMM FPs on the 20th and I think it ended up being about 20 minutes (we didn't time it though). But the FP line seemed longer after we exited. Soarin' has always seemed to be a short wait with FP for us and we haven't used one for Test Track yet, we just get there early. Although Peter Pan seemed a bit long in July for FP, we had overlapping times and was worried that mine might expire before it was checked the 2nd time (before I knew that the first time was what it goes by)

 

[Planogirl]

We ran into this at Spaceship Earth of all places. It was mid-morning and the FP+ line was on the left and the standby on the right and both were long. It was hard to tell which was longer in fact. I had taken a Spaceship Earth FP just because we had to have another FP and this was weird. We left and came back later.

 

[BigFatPickle]

We just got back last night. Felt like we waited in FP lines for just as long as we used to wait in regular lines. I know the place is crowded during the holidays, we've been going this time of year for ages. But this year it seemed like the new system magnified wait issues instead of improving them.

 

[bcrook]

Worst places for me:

TSMM -30+ minutes. But the chaos of the sidewalk is worse than the wait. This will be fixed with the reconfiguration of toy story land i hope.

Peter Pan - nuts. No way around it.

Spaceship Earth from about 10-2.

Dinosaur - was appointment riding basically for all my visits. I spent a lot of time watching the line here and never riding. I kept leaving the line.

Expedition Everest CMs had a difficult managing their three lines. Not very efficient. Longer FP queue now too.

Soarin took us at least 30 minutes maybe longer.

And interesting enough. I rode the mine train 5-6 times, never waited more than about a minute. I can't explain that one.

Splash was always a walk on too.

Omg - I almost forgot. 35 minutes for Star tours in FP return lines. The line ran out in to the sidewalk and down the street. And that has a huge capacity to move people. And it was firing on all cylinders.

Spring break, second week of July and Columbus Day weeks.

 

[DoingDisney]

Of course, this isn't true at park opening, but as my wife said during out recent trip, FP+ = the new SB. Now, that was an over statement, but we found it to be quite accurate at least 50% of the time, maybe even more, I am trying to be as positive as I can. I really want to write up a trip report, but I just don't have the heart at the moment. came back a little over a month ago, haven't even come to the boards since then, it was ... disappointing.