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Big Thunder Mountain RailroadImage via Wikipedia

An article on the Orlando Sentinel this week reported that Disney Officials are going to crack down on eBay auctions for expired and counterfeit FastPass (FP) tickets. I’ve always been amazed at the gall of people who even try to auction these things and slightly perturbed that people pay for something they can obtain for free!

John Frost has posted over at The Disney Blog stating his negative views of Disney’s FP system – and as my thoughts couldn’t be more opposite I thought I’d post a response here.

First of all – for those of you new to the subject of FPs check out my Guide to FastPasses article. In simple terms the FP system allows you to insert your park admission ticket into a machine and obtain a pass which lets you return to the attraction within a specified time frame and not have to stand in the stand-by line. At the height of the day – when some attractions can have wait-times of 90 minutes or more your journey through the FP line – pass in hand – shouldn’t be any more than ten minutes.

Now where is the negative in that?

Of course you can’t go around the park willy nilly collecting passes. You can only hold a FP for one attraction at a time, and can’t usually collect another pass until your return window has begun. However, if you plan your day and use your FP options wisely you can maximise your time in the parks.

Let’s say you want to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain.

Option 1 – you wait in the stand-by line for both attractions which might well be 45 minutes each. So by the time you’ve waited in line, experienced the attractions and then exited two hours have passed.

Option 2 – you obtain a FP ticket for BTMRR and you go stand-by for Splash. If you’re really lucky your return time is within the hour – so you wait/ride/exit Splash and then hit BTMRR all within an hour and fifteen minutes – leaving you with 45 minutes to go and experience something else. And if your return time is more than hour you have time to browse the Laughing Place store, let the kids let off some steam in the Splash playground area or even head over to Tom Sawyer’s Island and back.

I certainly know which option I prefer.

I remember visiting Walt Disney World as a kid (before FPs were invented), and we would always arrive at the parks an hour before opening and follow a touring plan, yet still spent hours in long tiresome lines. Now we arrive a little before park opening follow a touring plan but throw in some strategically placed FPs and never wait more than 20 minutes.

If you want to know what life would be like without FPs just go to Universal Studios – when they removed their Universal Express system I vowed never to set foot in the park again.

If you don’t mind spending your vacation time standing in lines getting hot and bothered feel free to take the stand-by route, if however you want to maximise your fun then it’s FPs all the way!

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