I would have to say that Fastpasses have made a very positive impact on our vacation experience and I noticed that even more so this past trip. My family and I went over the 4th of July weekend and spent the morning/afternoon at MK on a Saturday July 2nd. I knew going in that the park would most likely be crowded because it's a Saturday and because of it being 4th of July weekend. Having my 1.5 year old son with us, we knew what rides we wanted to accomplish and what rides we were okay with missing. We got there at park opening, immediately got fastpasses for meeting Mickey and Minnie and which had a short time to get another set of fastpasses so my mom and brother got fastpasses for Jungle Cruise while I stood in line for our longest wait of the entire day Dumbo which was about 15 minutes at a little after 9 in the morning.
Although I must say that if we are not in a huge hurry and we have time to kill, I often don't mind waiting in the stand-by line for some rides (if its under an hour wait), especially Toy Story Mania. I think sometime a lot of creativity and imagineering are in those lines and Fastpasses rushes you through them and sometimes by passes them all together.
