"...Other guests may have to pay for Fastpass in 2006..."

[lynninpa]

Here is a quote from Birnbaum's 2006 WDW For Kids:
"Fastpass is usually free for guests staying at deluxe WDW hotels. Other guests may have to pay for it in 2006." Hmmmm...what do you think?

 

[grimley1968]

Well, by my calendar, today is the end of the 1st quarter of 2006, and FP's are still free to all. If they weren't free next quarter, you'd think they would have announced something to this effect. That gets us to the middle of summer. If they start charging non-resort guests for FP's in the middle of summer without more notice than this, there will be a lot of backlash, IMO.

Until I see something in writing about it from WDW, I don't put much stock in anything else. Anything else, to me, is pure speculation.

For the record: I strongly oppose such a park perk for resort guests. Offsite guests pay just as much to get into the parks as onsite guests. Resort guests already get enough park perks as it is, and this would just be an over-reach on Disney's part, IMHO. Rather than encouraging guests to stay in their resorts, I think it could have the opposite effect of driving guests away from WDW entirely.

Once you give something to someone for free, and then take it away or make them pay for it, the reaction to it would be much worse than if you never gave a freebie to someone in the first place. Well, that sounds convoluted, but I hope all get my meaning.

Anyway, it's still just speculation.

 

[Allison]

That quote has been discussed many times here. Nothing has come of it and it certainly doesn't appear anything will anytime soon.

 

[Quinn222]

That quote was officially discounted by Birnbaum as a mis-print. They were talking about Magic Express and even that is probably not true.

 

[bwbuddy5]

The authors have called it a "misprint".

 

[madalex]

Once you give something to someone for free, and then take it away or make them pay for it, the reaction to it would be much worse than if you never gave a freebie to someone in the first place. Well, that sounds convoluted, but I hope all get my meaning.

That is actually what Disney did with valet parking at the Deluxe resorts - it was free for many years and it has only been in the last several years (don't know when exactly) that they started charging a daily fee for it. When the fee first started, lots of people were up in arms and now no one even bats an eye (in fact, within the last month here on the boards, there were a few posts about how inexpensive Disney's valet parking costs was). So, I guess you never know what might happen.

 

[Steamboat Bill]

FYI...This concept has been used for awhile at Universal Studios, but they only have three hotels and the room keys are a permanent fastpass....they even sell daily fastpasses to non-Universal Studio hotel guests.

 

[wdwlovers5]

does not get anywhere near the number of guests that Disneyworld does, either on site or off site, so they can make it work for them. I don't think it would work for Disney UNLESS and only UNLESS they allow off site guests to purchase the fastpasses also. I would not hesitate to pay additional monies to have say a lenght of stay fastpass - it would be worth $100 for sure, it would just have to be an additional amount added on to savings for the trip.