My wife and I have been to Walt Disney World many times and love all of the rides. We don’t enjoy lining up for them, however, so usually pick our timing very strategically! If we have to spend more than 1 hour in line, we move on to a less crowded attraction.
In what seems like ancient times now, we would on occasion avail ourselves of a little piece of magic paper that enabled us to walk (almost) to the front of the line:
That being said, we usually found that when we returned at the time shown on the front of these tickets, the standby line was usually short enough to make the Fastpass unnecessary. And so, many of these extinct pieces of ephemera ended up in my disneyana collection.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Fastpass probably has one of the best taglines of any attraction: Fear every drop. But may I submit my coffee-inspired variation?
ToT: Good to the Last Drop!
OK, remember being busted when the machine spit out a Not a Valid Fastpass ticket? The only tricky thing about the Fastpass system was remembering when you were allowed to get one. There was a limit, per person, on how many you could get in a specified period of time.
And there was also another type of Fastpass issued for a very special reason:
If you had a child who could not, or would not, ride an attraction, but mommy and daddy still wanted to, you could wait at the FastPass gate. One parent would ride while the other parent waited with the child. Then when Parent One was done, they would switch off with Parent Two who would then ride the attraction. This was a nice option!
Of course, the Fastpass system took some of the fun out of just showing up and having fun where you could find it. And now the spontaneity of a day at Disney has been further damaged with the introduction of the MagicBand bracelet. You can read all about this innovation, and how to use it, over at the Disney Mamas site or if you’re already a convert and have one for each wrist, read how you can personalize your MagicBands by reading this loop from the Magical Blogorail.
Call me a traditionalist. Call me lazy. But I miss the days when a Cast Member helped me to obtain a little piece of paper that had the power to sweep me past long lines and onto my favorite attractions!
Am I alone?
