Get a load of this! A reader's comment about Fastpass to AAA Home and Away magazine

[time101]

This Readers Respond comment is in the March/April 2004 issue of Home and Away, the magazine of AAA. It's a hoot! In the previous issue, they ran an article about WDW vacation planning, including an explanation of Fastpass.


"While I appreciate the information you provided on having a better time in 'Disney Done Right' (January) I can't believe you encourage Fastpass. We had the awful experience of waiting in line for the Winnie the Pooh ride for an hour and watched while Disney World employees allowed the Fastpass people on and ignored our line. My children, then ages 3 and 6, said to me, 'Those children are cutting in line, and we don't want to wait here for this ride.'"

Mark and Elsie Burgess
Fishers, Indiana


They even included their names!

How do people like this even manage to find WDW to begin with?

 

[Tigger&Belle]

LOL Poor people, they really don't have a clue! The more people who don't use fastpass, the better for the rest of us that do.

T&B

 

[Micca]

Do they believe everyone should stand in one line, making it even longer?

 

[Bill From PA]

A reasonably intelligent chimp would learn from this one experience and go straight from the Winnie the Pooh ride to a FastPass machine. There are some people who resist anyone gaining an advantage even if doing so is within the rules. I hope there's a lot of them at WDW next week.

Bill From PA

 

[nativetxn]

Bless their hearts. It doesn't sound like they had much fun, huh?

 

[keypooh90]

Too funny! LOL and ROTFLMPO ! Bless their hearts!

 

[Tagrel]

While the number of people I hear complaining about the fast pass line has decreased since we started going to WDW in 1998, I still hear rumblings every year when we stroll past the hour wait using our fastpasses. Space and Splash mountains immediately come to mind!

For all the people that do their homework and actually prepare for a WDW trip, there are 10 x that number that think its just like any other amusement park!

Like anything else in life, you get out what you put in!

 

[funhouse8]

While we were at epcot going down the fastpass line my dh overheard two guests talking.
1st Guest- "Hey, where are those people going?"

2nd guest, "Oh they must have those fasspass things."

3rd guest, "Wow, I wonder what disney charges for those!"

4th guest, " Yeah Right!"

Too Funny!

 

[Doug Wolfe]

First of all, have mercy. They are Hoosiers from Indiana.

I however am in Illinois where I can count to ten without using my toes.

Someone should look up their address and send them a nice letter, using small words, explaining how fast pass could have saved them a lot of time and headaches creating more fun for their family.

The good news is, I hear Indiana will have talking pictures and running water in a year or two!

 

[WDSearcher]

OK ... just my opinion, but just because people don't quite understand Fast Pass doesn't mean it's open season on calling them names and taking shots. If someone new to Disney planning were to come to the board to ask a Fast Pass question and see this thread first, my bet is that they'd be afraid to ask anything for fear of being called stupid.

Everyone here was a Disney novice at some point ....

 

[Mskanga]

That's ok, there are still a lot of people out there who think that you cannot take out another fastpass until you use the first one, but if they read the fastpass, it tells them exactly when another one will become available for them, you don't have to wait until you use it.

 

[Bill From PA]

WDSearcher,

The post refers to a couple who read an article in the AAA travel magazine, I get that mag too, in which the ins and outs of making the most of WDW were explained. It's not clear whether they read the article before or after the Winnie the Pooh trauma, regardless, they had the knowledge of FastPass mechanics in hand when they wrote the letter condemning the recommendation of FastPass use. They knew how it worked, knew they were eligible to use it, they knew there is no inherent unfairness to it. If they continue to have, 'the awful experience of waiting in line for the Winnie the Pooh ride for an hour and watched while Disney World employees allowed the Fastpass people on and ignored our line.', it's their choice. This is not an issue of ignorance vs knowledge, it's a matter of not using what one knows is there. Yes, everyone was a Disney novice at one time. That doesn't apply to the letter writer.

Bill From PA

 

[RamseyTrio]

Those poor people totally missed the point of the article and a very good learning experience too I guess. We've all been "newbies" and it's fine to ask questions, people are always happy to answer them but that family completely missed the point after experiencing it at the world and reading the AAA article!

I can certainly see why people who wait in lines get annoyed at Fastpass people walking right in BUT after you're stuck in a long line once and see everyone else walking past don't you learn your lesson and get a fastpass next time around??? WDW employees and other guests are certainly willing to share their wealth of info as to how they work!

That family should be glad and appreciative that they now know about the BENEFITS of fastpass thanks to AAA and their Pooh ride experience. Guess they are the type of people who are overly dramatic and whose glasses are always "half empty".

 

[Kaycee]

Originally posted by Bill From PA
WDSearcher,

The post refers to a couple who read an article in the AAA travel magazine, I get that mag too, in which the ins and outs of making the most of WDW were explained. It's not clear whether they read the article before or after the Winnie the Pooh trauma, regardless, they had the knowledge of FastPass mechanics in hand when they wrote the letter condemning the recommendation of FastPass use. They knew how it worked, knew they were eligible to use it, they knew there is no inherent unfairness to it. If they continue to have, 'the awful experience of waiting in line for the Winnie the Pooh ride for an hour and watched while Disney World employees allowed the Fastpass people on and ignored our line.', it's their choice. This is not an issue of ignorance vs knowledge, it's a matter of not using what one knows is there. Yes, everyone was a Disney novice at one time. That doesn't apply to the letter writer.

Bill From PA

As usual, Bill took what I wanted to say and said it much better than I could've. Thanks again, Bill!

Please know that we are not mocking people who are uninformed about Fastpass. If there's one thing we love on these boards, it's sharing information with others about WDW. What frustrates many of us is when someone becomes informed, but they are so set in their own way of looking at things, they refuse to see a better way. Then they go home and tell everyone how horrible their experience was.

 

[slp87]

I have a friend who is going to WDW for the first time next week. He's called many times asking about the ins & outs. I've explained FP, EMH, and other important info. I also recommended guide books that I thought would be helpful. About a week ago he called again asking about "that FP thing" and is it something he had to pay extra for, how did it work, is it something he should use. I'm not sure why it's so confusing.

 

[Kallison]

I tell all my newbie friends -- learn how to use Fastpass and that they will get dirty looks and comments but ignore them. They all come back with stories of someone giving them a hard time for using FastPass. I enlightened a stranger in K-mart that anyone can use FP at Disney, you don't need to pay extra. This was after she had returned from her trip and she kept insisting to me that she wasn't "elgible". Her son was freaking out - MOM we could have used it all week. It was kind of sad.

 

[time101]

Originally posted by Doug Wolfe
First of all, have mercy. They are Hoosiers from Indiana.

I however am in Illinois where I can count to ten without using my toes.

Someone should look up their address and send them a nice letter, using small words, explaining how fast pass could have saved them a lot of time and headaches creating more fun for their family.

The good news is, I hear Indiana will have talking pictures and running water in a year or two!

Hee, hee. You might notice that I, the OP, am also from Indiana. I was pretty much raised in Illinois, however, and used to take great delight in telling "Hoosier jokes". Now I find myself the butt of them. Maybe one day YOU will live in Indiana, too Doug!

 

[NotUrsula]

To play devil's advocate a bit, perhaps they were not so much complaining that FP was giving others an unfair advantage, but that CM's were not fairly managing the FP line in relation to the standby line. After all, the quote was, "...watched while Disney World employees allowed the Fastpass people on and ignored our line."

I've seen editorials by people who really know theme parks but hate FP. From their perspective, it diminishes the park experience because it unnecessarily pits guests against one another and makes ALL lines longer, b/c the 'standby' guests are not being admitted in the same ratio as the 'FP' guests.

I sort of see the point. Pooh has a pretty high load speed, but the most guests you are going to get into a car is 6. It's fair if you fill the front car from standby and the back from FP, and each line moves the same # of people onto the ride at the same time. However, I don't think that the distribution always works out that fairly. If there are people waiting at the FP collection point (second gate) most of them are going to get onto the ride before anyone from the standby line does, if only b/c there is insufficient waiting area at the FP entrance to let the line build to any degree.
I personally have noticed that this tends to happen at the top of a FP return time, especially if it is a round time, like 11:00 am.

 

[tjmw2727]

We were at WDW over Presidents day for a week and as always made great use of FP. While at Epcot we grabbed a fp for TT at a later time and decided to ride standby for MS as the wait was only listed to be 20 minutes. They had some technical difficulties prolonging the wait time and I could not beleive some of the conversations we heard.

One family was so dissapointed as their kids were asking why they couldn't buy the fastpass. Mom & Dad were trying to explain they barely afforded the park tickets and couldn't pay more for FP. Since it seemed they were at the start of the vaction I tried to explain to them how the system worked, they were very thankful. Luckliy I had my TT fp's for demonstration purpose!

It seems that they had just spend a few days at Universal where they do offer their fastpass for a price and this confused the famlily who were on a once in a lifetime Orlando Vacation.

Other people were very confused about the singles lines and how fast that seemed to be moving and why couldn't they do that?? Also many people in the singles line did not realize their party would be broken up? (That I don't understand, seems clear to me!)

I think that Disney needs to improve the explanation of FP for offsite visitors. When your in the WDW resorts you get a lot of info from the CM's at checking as well as on the resort channel. When you drive in from offsite I am not sure the message is getting across.

JM.02
TJ

 

[disneyjunkie]

I just pulled out a few park maps I have from our trip in 2001.

There's a section on the maps that explains FP. It says clear as day that FP is free. It goes on to explain how FP is used.

I recall a CM standing next to the FP machines. There's also a huge FP sign above the machines.

I'll never understand how someone can not know about the FP system.