It's True!

[d1gitman]

Paying if forward works!

In past trips, we never thought to get fast passes and hand them out just before leaving the park for the day. Not out of selfishness, but rather, it never occured to us. Well the last 3 times going to DL, the light bulb went off and we started making it a point to get FP's at the end of our day and hand them to people on our way out.

Well, we are just amazed that in the last two trips to DL, we have been the unsuspecting recipients of FP's in the most unusual ways. 2 Trips ago we found a valid FP for space mountain on the ground. Then immediately after finding that, i went to FP Buzz Lightyear and the machine spit out an extra FP ticket. then while standing in line for pirates of carribean, my son found a space mountain FP on the ground. All of these chain of events happened consectutively on the same day and actually allowed us to have a fantastic time with planning out the attractions we like the most.

Then today we were walking in to DL around 10 am and my wife went to throw some trash away and low and behold, on top of hte trash can was 6 Fastpasses for Space Mountain! We usually FP spacemountain first but since we just scored 6 FP's, i went over to FP buzz lightyear, on the way, a person handed me another FP for space mountain!

At the end of our day, we only used 4 of the 7 SM FP's so i handed 3 passes off to a group of 3 in line for SM.

I've heard of giving and getting back, but holy cow! the Fastpass thing just blew us away. While we don't expect to score such valuable prizes everytime we go to DL, it was amazing to us that we just started handing out FP's ourselves and almost immediatley, the kind act was being done to us, in weird ways.

just thought i'd share the story.

 

[TheaKim]

How cool!

When we went to WDW last Feb, we returned to the parks late on our last day to ride Toy Story one last time. A very kind man handed us 5 FP (there were 4 of us) to Toy Story as went entered the park! Come to find out, all the FP's for Toy Story were gone and the line was over an hour!

 

[kailuagirl]

That is awesome!! What a great story! And sounds like you had a great day!!

 

[Had2stopLurking]

VERY nice!

We purposely get extra FP's we know we won't use and hand them to people on our way out as well.

Way to go on the extra passes! Paying it forward is a great thing!

 

[radiatorsprings]

I never thought about giving unused FP to others until I read about it on DIS. I have 6 left over from my 2008 trip that I could've gave away.

Has anyone that was giving away their unused FP ever been seen by a CM and told that they were not allowed to? Just wondering because I saw on the back of one of mine that they are nontransferable.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

We did this at Halloween. The day we went to the trick or treat party we had 6 FPs for SMGG. Due to timing we weren't able to use them prior to the party. We handed them off to a group heading into the park. It made their evening since the wait times were at like 2 hours and FP ran out about 4 hrs prior.

 

[Karlzmom]

I don't quite understand the whole "get fastpasses I won't need/use" to hand out thing....doesn't that just ensure that the fast passes are all gone for some unlucky person who go to get one at the machine? :confused

OTOH, I am completely of the belief that if I have a FP still in my pocket for a ride I didn't get back to then pay it forward is the only way to go....even if DH doesn't get it.

 

[Disney Dider]

I agree, I don't get them JUST to give away. Because that takes them away from others. But if its time to go and I have some left, I always hand them out.

 

[Mazzy]

I don't quite understand the whole "get fastpasses I won't need/use" to hand out thing....doesn't that just ensure that the fast passes are all gone for some unlucky person who go to get one at the machine? :confused

OTOH, I am completely of the belief that if I have a FP still in my pocket for a ride I didn't get back to then pay it forward is the only way to go....even if DH doesn't get it.

Yup, I was just thinking that, why would you get fastpasses just with the intention of handing them out to people coming into the parks? Surely that's taking away from the people already in the parks who may not be able to get a fastpass because others have got extra ones to give out. Can't see the good in doing that at all, it's just taking away from those who have got to the park earlier than the people just coming in.

 

[geekypeach]

We gave out some FP's for California Screamin' on our way out last time- our kids were done for and they were not going to tolerate another 20 minutes for us to ride. At the time, the wait was sooooo long. The couple was so appreciative. Just seeing their gratitude was enough for me. It's part of the Magic.

 

[mareed]

We've also given away fastpasses at DL & WDW, but it can be a hassle to try to explain to the recipient that the fastpasses ARE still valid even though it's past the time shown on the pass. It can also be tricky to find the right size group for the # of fastpasses we have.

We've also conducted a non-scientific experiment and found that people will take them better from a woman than a man. I guess people are just naturally more suspicious of men!

 

[toddbushman]

Our favorite experience doing this was giving away 3 Dream Fastpasses our group had received earlier, that we didn't have a chance to use (we were heading home and that day was also the day we got multiple re-ads for our group due to Peter Pan breaking down while we were over the Mountain, and Space Mountain breaking down right after we left the station, re-ads allowed our entire group on any ride except Toy Story Mania, so when we won Dream Fastpasses we didn't end up using all of them...). The family was so surprised that we would give them away (like I said it was our last day in the park and it was December and the CMs said they could be used until January, they weren't restricting them to the day anymore). We felt a little bit like a Dream Team ourselves due to the excitement it caused in that family.

Right after we gave them away, we ran into another Dream Team handing out Mickey Ears that we wore on our drive home. It was a lucky trip for us.

 

[WonkaKid]

There have been a few occasions when I've been given front-of-line passes for four people. My mom and I would find a deserving mom/dad and child that really wanted to ride Peter Pan but the line seemed prohibitive. We'd pass on a little Disney magic and help to make their day at the park (hopefully) all the more special. It's always worked out well .