I haven't seen a post about the using the special on-property special fastpasses yet. Just got back from a stay 6/3 - 6/6 at the Grand Cal. We were issued 2 fast passes/person at check-in, though we had to remind the person checking us in to give them to us. Almost walked away without them, but my brother reminded me to ask before I did. Whew!
Passes are good until 9/11/11 and work on any fastpass ride plus the Little Mermaid. According to the passes, you do not need to show a room key to use them so we saved some of ours for later in the summer.
I think the best use is Star Tours. On Monday, a non magic morning day, they had the fastpass line available for hotel fast passes right at the open. Since regular fastpasses aren't issued yet, this meant pretty much no waiting. So a good strategy would be to line up at rope drop on a non magic morning day and make a bee line for Star Tours fastpass line with your hotel fastpass in hand. This is significantly different than the standby line, which on Monday started by the corn dog wagon. In fact, it may be best to send one person to check if the fastpass line is open before you commit to getting out of the standby line. We did go for Sunday's MM, but it didn't seem like the fastpass line was open during MM. On a MM, best to get there about 20-30 minutes early so you can be one of the first people on. Of course, I add the disclaimer that the way they operate the hotel fastpass could change at any time. We checked the fastpass wait on Sunday evening about a half an hour before the fireworks, and it was around 45 minutes. It's not altogether a bad thing to wait in at least the queue inside the building, as it's thoughtfully done, and there are lots of interesting things to see.
For us, we didn't use the special fastpasses on Little Mermaid at all as the ride was open for hotel guests starting at 9am (for a 10am open, need to show a room key), and the ride was a walk-on until around 9:30am when they started letting non-resort guests onto the ride. So unless you can't get over to DCA by 9am, I would save the special fastpass for other rides. The special fastpass is definitely worth using if you can't get there by 9:30, at least it was this weekend. The line looped through the paradise pier WOC viewing area and had multiple switchbacks. Very exposed and was running 2+ hours throughout a lot of the day. I doubt that will continue the whole summer though. It's a very fast loader and doesn't make you want to ride it over and over again like the Star Tours ride with it's different scenario possibilities. We all did think it was very cute and rode it a couple of times. When the line dies down, we'll probably ride it every DCA visit.
ETA: Nonsuch reports that although regular guests line up at 9:30 for LM, they don't let non hotel guests on the ride until 10am. You need to show a room key to get on, and you will bypass the line. I hadn't noticed that they weren't actually letting people on--I was totally overwhelmed by the crowd and skedaddled after riding to make it to TSMM rope drop.
Passes are good until 9/11/11 and work on any fastpass ride plus the Little Mermaid. According to the passes, you do not need to show a room key to use them so we saved some of ours for later in the summer.
I think the best use is Star Tours. On Monday, a non magic morning day, they had the fastpass line available for hotel fast passes right at the open. Since regular fastpasses aren't issued yet, this meant pretty much no waiting. So a good strategy would be to line up at rope drop on a non magic morning day and make a bee line for Star Tours fastpass line with your hotel fastpass in hand. This is significantly different than the standby line, which on Monday started by the corn dog wagon. In fact, it may be best to send one person to check if the fastpass line is open before you commit to getting out of the standby line. We did go for Sunday's MM, but it didn't seem like the fastpass line was open during MM. On a MM, best to get there about 20-30 minutes early so you can be one of the first people on. Of course, I add the disclaimer that the way they operate the hotel fastpass could change at any time. We checked the fastpass wait on Sunday evening about a half an hour before the fireworks, and it was around 45 minutes. It's not altogether a bad thing to wait in at least the queue inside the building, as it's thoughtfully done, and there are lots of interesting things to see.
For us, we didn't use the special fastpasses on Little Mermaid at all as the ride was open for hotel guests starting at 9am (for a 10am open, need to show a room key), and the ride was a walk-on until around 9:30am when they started letting non-resort guests onto the ride. So unless you can't get over to DCA by 9am, I would save the special fastpass for other rides. The special fastpass is definitely worth using if you can't get there by 9:30, at least it was this weekend. The line looped through the paradise pier WOC viewing area and had multiple switchbacks. Very exposed and was running 2+ hours throughout a lot of the day. I doubt that will continue the whole summer though. It's a very fast loader and doesn't make you want to ride it over and over again like the Star Tours ride with it's different scenario possibilities. We all did think it was very cute and rode it a couple of times. When the line dies down, we'll probably ride it every DCA visit.
ETA: Nonsuch reports that although regular guests line up at 9:30 for LM, they don't let non hotel guests on the ride until 10am. You need to show a room key to get on, and you will bypass the line. I hadn't noticed that they weren't actually letting people on--I was totally overwhelmed by the crowd and skedaddled after riding to make it to TSMM rope drop.
