FastPass CRAZINESS at MK!

[f16]

Before I went to the Magic Kingdom last week, I thought I had the FastPass system at least somewhat figured out, but I ended up coming away VERY confused about what seem like some BIG inconsistencies with the system.

I went to the MK Thursday and Saturday, and the park opened at 8:00am both days. (I had actually planned the Thursday visit around the fact that it's normally an EMH day, but for some reason Disney decided to do EMH at Disney-MGM Thursday instead of MK.)

They actually opened the park a bit early on Thursday, and I decided to head for the Mickey's Philharmagic FastPass machines first thing. I got a FP at 7:48am, with a return time of 9:05-10:05, and it indicated I could get another FP after 9:10. So far, so good.

I had remembered reading somewhere that the Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise FP machines were different from the others, and that they allowed you to get FPs on those rides earlier than what is actually shown on other FPs you hold, so I headed for the HM FP machine and sure enough, at 7:54 it let me get one there. Here's where the confusion started for me, however, because it said I could get another FP at 7:59 -- just 5 minutes later. (I had thought it would still show I couldn't get another one until 9:10 -- the time printed on my Philharmagic FP.)

Are you still with me?

At this point I decided to head for the Jungle Cruise and at 8:03 was successful in getting a FP
there too, and it said I could get another one at 8:08. I still thought I wouldn't REALLY be able to get another one until 9:10, but on something of a whim, as I went back over to Fantasyland I put my park ticket in the Peter Pan FP machine and voila! It gave me ANOTHER FP! What's more, it said I could get another one in just 5 minutes! This despite the fact that my Mickey's Philharmagic FP said I wouldn't be able to get another one for more than an hour still!

Well, at this point I decided to really have some fun, and I went merrily around the park grabbing FPs. In all, by 8:40am I had collected FPs for the following rides (these are listed in the order I picked them up -- I know, because I still have a set of most of them):

Mickey's Philharmagic
Haunted Mansion
Jungle Cruise
Peter Pan
Space Mountain
Buzz Lightyear
Winnie the Pooh
Splash Mountain

All of these FP's, except for the original Philharmagic FP, said I could get another FP 5 minutes later than when I picked it up.

I wanted to get another Splash Mountain FP, but the first Splash FP had a return time of 9:25, so I knew I wouldn't be able to get another one until 9:30. When I went back over to Splash at
9:30 and attempted to get the second FP, however, it gave me a "Not a Valid FastPass" ticket instead. The reason? It said I already had an active FP for Space Mountain, and that I couldn't get another FP until after 10:10, 5 minutes after the "ride time" for Space began. The strange thing about this is that printed right on my Space Mountain FP, it said I could get another FP after 8:22!

In all, I found this VERY confusing! Why did my Space Mountain FP tell me I could get another one after 8:22, yet at 9:30 the Splash FP machine told me I couldn't?

By now, the "normal" FP rules seem to have kicked in, and I wasn't allowed to get any more "5 minutes apart" FPs.

Later in the day I grabbed a FP for Big Thunder, then immediately went over to Jungle Cruise, and sure enough, I was still allowed to get a FP there too, along with the Haunted Mansion. So that part of the picture still seemed consistent with what I had read.

That is, until I went to the park on Saturday!

I arrived on Saturday before the park opened, and decided to try the same "trick" I had learned on Thursday. This time, I headed straight for the Peter Pan FP machine and grabbed the FP.

At 8:19 I went over to Haunted Mansion, thinking it would be no problem getting a second FP, but imagine my surprise when this was DENIED! It said I couldn't get another FP until 5 minutes after the ride time for Peter Pan. This despite the fact that on Thursday I had never had any problem getting "overlapping" FPs on Haunted Mansion or Jungle Cruise! I tried another FP machine (Winnie the Pooh), and was told the same thing!

Well needless to say, I came away *very* confused about the whole FP system at the MK! Why on Thursday was I allowed to get FPs for everything right off the bat, but was denied this on Saturday? The crowds were actually busier on THURSDAY than Saturday, so the difference in crowd levels don't explain the difference. Did it have something to do with the fact that Thursday is normally EMH? Is this "normal" behavior for the FP system on an EMH day?

The really weird thing on Saturday was that later in the day, it did allow "overlapping" FPs on HM and Jungle Cruise -- just not first in the morning when the crowds were at their lowest.

Does anyone have any insight on why there was such drastically different behavior of the FP system between the two days?

I'm really confused!

 

[wdwdvcdad]

i did the same thing on thursday. did whatwever we wanted whenever we wanted...very nice

 

[seashoreCM]

Seems like the system had not been fully turned on (initialized; coordinated). I would not be surprised if this "problem" occurs during early entry mornings. If machines are not all interconnected, the time for next Fastpass could be quite unpredictable.

When your first Fastpass had a next Fastpass time of 9:10 and your second Fastpass had an earlier next Fastpass time of 7:55 that suggest that machines were not properly interconnected.

Also, trials and experiments get done from time to time.

Supposedly the time for next Fastpass can also change during the day (as well as be different for each ride). So if you went to Peter Pan at 8:10 and its magic number (minutes before next Fastpass) was 60 minutes the Fastpass says next Fastpass at 9:10. Then if at 8:30 you come back to Peter Pan and if its magic number had changed to 15 minutes you will succeed in getting another Peter Pan Fastpass.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/fastnext.htm

(comment added later)

Hmm... If there is a limited period of time at the beginning of early entry days when the Fastpass system allows five minute fetch intervals, that may cause the system to approach the level of Universal Studios's special front of the line privileges for on site guests, since only on site guests are supposed to be in the park this early. Your strategy would be to tour the park grabbing Fastpasses, then use them not too slowly since they do expire one by one.

 

[GeorgeY]

This happened to us a couple of Sundays ago. We got to the park around 2pm, and I was able to get a fastpass for the entire list of fastpass rides within an hour. I know it wasn't the way it was supposed to work, but it was allowing it. I asked a few CM about it.
The first CM, actually would not accept the fact that I was able to do it. Even after I showed him the tickets, he just would deny that I was doing it.

Later in the day, I tried to get anther Buzz, and I was denied. I asked and showed the CM, the last ticket I got with the next available time. She gave me the explanation that the links between the servers went down and that it allows it, but it takes a couple of hours to re-establish. But then it all works itself out. But the longer they are out, the faster fastpass runs out, as people start to realize. She said it takes longer on Weekends than on weekdays to fix. Now that sounds like it could be true, but we all know how CM's like to talk about things they may not know about.

George

 

[seashoreCM]

If the Fastpass machines used 60 minutes rather than 5 minutes as the "default" to compute the next Fastpass time (during disconnects from the system) , then the Fastpasses won't become "sold out" as fast during a day when a malfunction occurred.

 

[buzz2400]

Thanks for the info. I am going to try it when I go. I always "abided" by the rules figuring that I would be denied another ticket before the time elapsed. I hope it works for me. Wonder if it works at the other parks.

 

[momof2inPA]

The exact same thing happened to us at Universal Studios one time. My BIL, the marathon runner, got fastpasses for our whole group to many of the rides before they shut the system down.

 

[Cruise04]

So, the thing I want to know is did you ride all the rides that you got FastPasses for???? It sounds like you didn't which means that you wasted those passes that someone else could have used. I was just wondering.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by Cruise04
So, the thing I want to know is did you ride all the rides that you got FastPasses for???? It sounds like you didn't which means that you wasted those passes that someone else could have used. I was just wondering.

Actually it sounds like anyone else in the park during that time would not have had a problem getting a FP for any of these rides, and I suspect the OP kept a few of them to aid her in inquiring about it when she got back.

 

[disneyjunkie]

Originally posted by Cruise04
So, the thing I want to know is did you ride all the rides that you got FastPasses for???? It sounds like you didn't which means that you wasted those passes that someone else could have used. I was just wondering.

They weren't wasted, she can use them on a future trip.

I was also in the MK on Thursday. Something was very wrong with the FP system that morning. I didn't know it until I tried to get a FP for Big Thunder Mountain. According to the time on our Buzz FP it was time to get another. When I put our passes into the FP machine, I got a ticket saying we had to wait until a later time to get another FP. I showed both tickets to the CM standing by the machine and she said the system had gone off line and they were working on it. She reached into the back of the machine and gave us our FP.

I then went to Splash Mountain and HM and was able to use our park passes for FP.

 

[my3kids]

I just wish theyd offer a ticket with unlimited Fast Passes like we had at DL. That was great!

 

[krissy3483]

"They weren't wasted, she can use them on a future trip."

You can bring back old fastpasses and use them? I have a few from years ago that I grabbed as mementos. It just seems like they would certainly check the dates on them to make sure they were from the correct day. Just wondering.

 

[disneyjunkie]

Originally posted by krissy3483
"They weren't wasted, she can use them on a future trip."

You can bring back old fastpasses and use them? I have a few from years ago that I grabbed as mementos. It just seems like they would certainly check the dates on them to make sure they were from the correct day. Just wondering.

I was able to use several from 2001.

Also during our trip there were times we were not able to get back to the ride during our return time. I used the FP later in the day or a few days later. Each time I told the CM at the FP entrance that I had an old FP and they all said that was fine.

 

[Joyciemc]

Something similar happened to us in January at MK. All day long, we only had to wait 5 minutes to get another fastpass. The only problem with this (as the OP stated) was that as always, we could only have 1 active FP for an individual attraction. So even though we were able to get another FP after 5 minutes, it had to be for a different attraction.

My BF went around and got a FP from all the attractions, and we had a crazy day of no waiting. We ended up giving some away, but we also used some that had 'expired'. We asked if we could use a FP from earlier in the day and it was no problem. I've never tried with a FP from a different day, though.
Strange thing- FP machines were still giving out passes well into the day. I thought they'd run out because of this glitch, but they seemed to last as normal. It was a nice little bit of magic for us, though!