Disney World Fastpass System Changes

In case you have not heard, the Disney Fastpass System will be making some changes in the coming month. Disney has long had a Fastpass System, free to all guests with a paid admission to one of their theme parks. The Fastpass System allows guests the ability to reduce the amount of time they spend in a line by first getting a Fastpass ticket from one of their Fastpass distribution machines.

Guests wishing to get a Fastpass do the following:

Visit a Fastpass distribution machine,
Enter that day's theme park ticket into the distribution machine,
Receive a Fastpass ticket.

Printed on the ticket is name of the attraction from which the Fastpass ticket was generated, the from/to time the Fastpass is available (i.e. Fastpass available from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM) and the time when a guest can get another Fastpass ticket. If you attempt to get another Fastpass ticket before the available time to receive one, you will get a ticket that is not a valid Fastpass ticket.

Changes to the Fastpass System:

The Fastpass tickets printed return times have never been fully enforced. Rather, if a guest returned to the Fastpass line for entry anytime after the printed "from" return time on their Fastpass ticket, they were allowed entry to the Fastpass line no matter what time was printed in the "to" portion of the Fastpass. However on March 7, Disney World will begin to enforce the entire from/to times listed on their Fastpass ticket.

What the Changes Mean:

If you have been to Disney World in the past few years, perhaps you have noticed that the lines are tremendously long for some of the rides with a Fastpass system at certain times of the day. Often times, the lines are even longer than the wait times shown outside of an attraction. This is in part due to waves of returning Fastpass ticketholders returning to the attraction all at once, making the regular queued lines much longer.

With the enforcing of the Fastpass times, the returning of guests to the attractions with Fastpass tickets will be received more evenly throughout the day. This (hopefully) should reduce the waves of longer wait times in the regular lines.