Should there be a Fastpass wait time?

[Castlequeen5]

We were at WDW this summer, and several times the fastpass line was backed up well past the entrance. It happened enough, that the same question came up repeatedly. "How long is this going to take?" Some of my kiddos thought it would be faster, if we moved to the standby line. Which of course we didn't. But I can see from the entrance, why they may think that. In most cases, the line did move quickly and there wasn't much of a wait. Once at RNRC the FP line was so long, I was concerned that we would miss our ADRs. But the line moved very quickly and we had no problem getting over to Sci Fi. However, we did have a long wait at TOT(I know 1 elevator is down) and at K Safaris. Both waits were at least 30-45 minutes, which were still shorter than standby.

I don't really expect Disney to put up a wait time, but I did wonder OFTEN how long the fastpass line was actually going to take. I know there are so many factors that can contribute to a longer than normal wait in the fastpass line...ride malfunction, weather, a large group of people at once, etc. But it is nice to know what to expect, IF it's going to be an extended wait. Did anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[mesaboy2]

We were at WDW this summer, and several times the fastpass line was backed up well past the entrance. It happened enough, that the same question came up repeatedly. "How long is this going to take?" Some of my kiddos thought it would be faster, if we moved to the standby line. Which of course we didn't. But I can see from the entrance, why they may think that. In most cases, the line did move quickly and there wasn't much of a wait. Once at RNRC the FP line was so long, I was concerned that we would miss our ADRs. But the line moved very quickly and we had no problem getting over to Sci Fi. However, we did have a long wait at TOT(I know 1 elevator is down) and at K Safaris. Both waits were at least 30-45 minutes, which were still shorter than standby.

I don't really expect Disney to put up a wait time, but I did wonder OFTEN how long the fastpass line was actually going to take. I know there are so many factors that can contribute to a longer than normal wait in the fastpass line...ride malfunction, weather, a large group of people at once, etc. But it is nice to know what to expect, IF it's going to be an extended wait. Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Not sure they need to post wait times for FP queues, or what real purpose it would serve. “Extended waits” in them are extremely rare.

 

[Meglen]

Went around this time last year and never had longer than 15 min wait for FP. maybe stuff was just down? weather? idk but thats not normal

 

[FCDub]

No, in my opinion

 

[Thecouch]

Fp line will always move faster . 7 mines os like that . Fp line can be long but you almost always moving . When you get to junction with stand bye you can see many more they let fp threw compared to stand bye

 

[brockash]

We were at WDW this summer, and several times the fastpass line was backed up well past the entrance. It happened enough, that the same question came up repeatedly. "How long is this going to take?" Some of my kiddos thought it would be faster, if we moved to the standby line. Which of course we didn't. But I can see from the entrance, why they may think that. In most cases, the line did move quickly and there wasn't much of a wait. Once at RNRC the FP line was so long, I was concerned that we would miss our ADRs. But the line moved very quickly and we had no problem getting over to Sci Fi. However, we did have a long wait at TOT(I know 1 elevator is down) and at K Safaris. Both waits were at least 30-45 minutes, which were still shorter than standby.

I don't really expect Disney to put up a wait time, but I did wonder OFTEN how long the fastpass line was actually going to take. I know there are so many factors that can contribute to a longer than normal wait in the fastpass line...ride malfunction, weather, a large group of people at once, etc. But it is nice to know what to expect, IF it's going to be an extended wait. Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Before this trip (leaving tomorrow), I would have said no, but honestly after this week I see a reason for it. The Space fastpass line on Thursday evening was insane, rode twice with fastpass and it took over 45 mins. both times. -I had never experienced that before and def. threwa wrench into our plans.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Interesting, have never experienced a fast pass line of over 15 minutes... although I must say I am aware when a fast pass line has an extended wait time due to a previous closure of the ride and avoid that line until it shortens a bit.

 

[Magical2017]

I have never experienced this type of wait with FP. Even with FoP or 7DMT, the line has never been more than about 10 minutes when we have visited.

 

[starrysky]

I think it depends on the ride and generally how busy it is overall. Some rides like buzz you zip through the fas t pass line. the safari we have found can take a long time to get to the boarding area but it’s a long line distance wise and then there’s always a bottle neck at the stroller drop off, if there is a delay with the animals or loading unloading then the line backs up.
I am not sure the ratio used per ride for say every 15 fast pass people vs 6 non fast pass people get through to loading but that’s just guessing. On average though we’ve been on a ride and out again and seen people from the standby line we saw on the way in only just getting into the building for certain rides.

 

[PrincessP]

Had a 1 day trip July 17th. It was the first time I have experienced lengthy FP lines as well. Buzz (11am FP)and Peter Pan (10:00am FP). At one point in Buzz line, I questioned whether we had entered standby instead of FP. It was bizarre and I hope an anomaly rather than a result of tweaking (lowering) staffing/ride capacity.

 

[SillySallySews]

We rode the Frozen ride with FP right after it opened and waited over an hour and change. The wait was so long was because the ride had gone down multiple times during the day and lots of people were showing back up to use their FP from earlier. I think Disney does a pretty good job of distributing FP so that the FP line will move quicker than standby, but they can’t plan for unforeseen problems. If we show up at a ride and the FP line looks a little ridiculous, I just ask the CM at the entrance if there’s an estimated time. Usually they’ll explain if there’s a reason in the line looks like that. I would especially make sure to ask about it if I was cutting it close to an ADR or some other commitment.

 

[DisneyOma]

I think it depends on the ride and generally how busy it is overall. Some rides like buzz you zip through the fas t pass line. the safari we have found can take a long time to get to the boarding area but it’s a long line distance wise and then there’s always a bottle neck at the stroller drop off, if there is a delay with the animals or loading unloading then the line backs up.

We walk straight past the stroller drop off area - if people are blocking that path while putting their strollers away, a polite "excuse me" gets us through. If it's really crowded, and people are waiting for their turn to put their strollers aside, we've been able to still get through.

 

[gharter]

TouringPlans has an option when you put in wait times for standby or FP line and can time the actual wait.
I find that helpful when people use it.
But FP line will always be shorter than standby.

 

[yaya74]

Could the long wait be related to the bad stormy weather? I think we are all spoiled by FP and have an expectation of "not waiting" in the FP line. Last summer the only FP that had a **longer* waittime was at SDMT because of a bad storm earlier that day. We were in line for 20 plus minutes comparing to the 70+minutes wait in standby.

As mentioned by others, I have found the TouringPlans planner really helpful in figuring out how much time I need to schedule all the activities.

 

[Disneylover99]

I’m used to long fp lines. You should see some of the fp lines Christmas week! Lol. They don’t bother me anymore, because I know that they move way faster then standby.

I find the K Safari fp lines can be pretty slow when they only run the ride at half capacity.

 

[dachsie]

On one of my trips this year I had a FP for Buzz. The FP line was backed up to past the entrance to Monsters inc, almost to the bridge. CM said they give out too many FPs and they sometimes back up.

 

[Chrisizzle]

This happened to us in January.

Toy Story Mania lost some of it’s capacity and caused a backlog. To compensate, they gave Fastpasses on other rides. We were already committed to Mania and stayed until we got on (maybe 30-mins for us, but the stand-by line was completely stationary).

Anyways, this had a cascade effect on other rides. We went to redeem our ‘extra’ FastPass at Tower of Terror and changed our mind. The FP line was maybe 30-mins (still acceptable in my opinion) but would have overlapped with our lunch reservation.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

We rode the Frozen ride with FP right after it opened and waited over an hour and change. The wait was so long was because the ride had gone down multiple times during the day and lots of people were showing back up to use their FP from earlier. I think Disney does a pretty good job of distributing FP so that the FP line will move quicker than standby, but they can’t plan for unforeseen problems. If we show up at a ride and the FP line looks a little ridiculous, I just ask the CM at the entrance if there’s an estimated time. Usually they’ll explain if there’s a reason in the line looks like that. I would especially make sure to ask about it if I was cutting it close to an ADR or some other commitment.

Similar thing happened to us on Kali River Rapids in April. We were in fast pass line about an hour and we figured it had something to do with a ride being down earlier and people redeeming at once. We have a 3 year old so it was a little challenging with him since we weren’t expecting to be in line that long and I just kept praying he wouldn’t need the potty.

 

[SaintsManiac]

The biggest reason I've seen for FP lines being backed up was confusion at the taps. Whenever we saw back ups it was because there was ALWAYS someone trying to tap in without a FP. CMs were much better about this a couple of weeks ago compared to March, when they just let everyone go whether the Mickey reader turned blue or not.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Happened to me in June at HM. Waited in the FP line for 30 minutes. It had rained and a lot of people got anytime FP’s, so it overwhelmed the system. I have a feeling they will be tweaking the FP system to account for the growing lines.