Meryl's Notes Blog

4 comments

• Posted by: Steven on February 8th, 2002, 12:50 PM

  Walt Disney World was actually first, I believe, with it’s “FastPass” system, though I could be mistaken - Universal Studios Florida’s got a system similar to FastPass which may have been out a few weeks earlier. Unlike “Q-bot” though, WDW’s (and, I think, USF’s) costs the guest nothing. They, of course, have more time to spend money in shops and restaurants, but most people see it as adding flexibility to their vacation.

• Posted by: Steven on February 8th, 2002, 12:57 PM

  A little more digging, since I couldn’t remember how far back FastPass went. It looks like late 1999 was when FastPass was brought out (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=wdw+fastpass&hl=en&selm=83ts7n%24sra%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=9) which seems right to me, looking back through my dusty memory (we visited “The World” ~7 times in the ‘96-’00 timeframe).

  for those really interested, http://www.ultranet.com/~steerr/wdw/fastpass.jpg has a (large) image of FastPass tickets from 2000
  and http://laughingplace.com/Info-ID-WDWFastPass.asp has some details (though perhaps not current).

  -Steven

• Posted by: Todd on February 8th, 2002, 8:24 PM

  I’ve used the FastPass. When it first came out, only Annual Passholders could use it, but now I think anyone can. It’s simple. You walk up to a kiosk, get a FastPass time reservation, and then you return to the ride at the time on the Pass. Easy Peasy.

• Posted by: Gretchen on February 10th, 2002, 7:55 PM

  We’d been to Disney and Universal Studios a couple years ago and were very pleased to find the FastPass (and I’m not sure what they called it at Universal) thing. It’s free, but there are a limited number of FastPasses for each ride each day. So, they may be gone already for those popular rides by the afternoon.

  We had our first Six Flags experience this past fall (well, I did anyway; my husband has been to one before) at Marine World in Vallejo, CA. We’d gone for the Halloween celebration on the last weekend that they were open for the season, which was not the best idea we’d ever had—the lines were outrageous and since we were on a limited schedule we only got to ride 3 coasters.

  We were quite disappointed to find out that they charged for this same privilege, and by the time we got there to indulge in this luxury, they were sold out anyway. It would have been worth it for us since we were on a rather limited schedule, and some nice person in the ticket line gave us a 2 for 1 couple anyway. But yeah, it still stinks when you know other places offer it for free!!

  Interestingly, when we were at Six Flags Marine World my husband said “Wouldn’t it be great if they had something for wireless devices that could tell you how long the lines are at each ride?” Guess someone already had thought of that!

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