I discovered a pleasant surprise with the Haunted Mansion FASTPASS this summer.
New FASTPASS Reminder for the Disneyland Haunted Mansion FASTPASS
I was recently at Disneyland and was fortunate enough to try out the new FASTPASS system at Disneyland. This is a much-needed upgrade to an almost 20-year-old system! It has remained virtually the same since 1999 when Disneyland first introduced the system. Back then, they hoped it help with the lines and allow their guests to have more time to shop and buy food instead of standing in line. It did help with that some but over the years, Imagineers have learned that the system was not nearly as efficient in its goal as it could be.If you have ever used the FASTPASS for a ride at Disneyland, you know that you have to walk all the way over to the ride, then come back to the ride much later to redeem your pass. You often find yourself walking all the way from one end of the park to the other, just to get and redeem your FASTPASS. Disneyland learned that many of its guests were spending a lot of time walking all over the park, just to ride rides, instead of spending money on merchandise and food. On top of this, the FASTPASS holders were adding to the enormous and unnecessary foot traffic all over the park. On heavy days, the traffic can be so bad that it can take you an hour just to make your way from one end of the park to the other.
So what’s the improvement?
The new FASTPASS system now lets you scan your park entry pass or annual pass and the ticket you receive is now simply a reminder of your return time, instead of being your actual FASTPASS to get you on the ride. When you go to redeem your FASTPASS, you now scan your park entry pass or annual pass at these really cool looking scanners, at the FASTPASS entry.
Why scan the park entry passes and annual passes?
The whole reason for this is so that Disneyland can also utilize the new MaxPass, a premium FASTPASS experience. The MaxPasses are going to be sold for $10 per pass, per day and will allow you to use the Disneyland app to schedule your whole day of rides in the park. My assumption is that you will be able to load multiple passes (everyone in your party) onto one device and only need to scan that device once per redemption. There are also going to be add on options for annual pass holders to purchase the MaxPass for the whole year.
There are a couple of things this new system changes and it took me a while to get it.
• When you reserve a FASTPASS slot, the system now knows immediately when you redeem it. Therefore, another slot opens up.• Because you no longer get a ticket, you can no longer give them away to other guests. No chance to “pay it forward” to other guests when you know you have to leave the park before your FASTPASS return time. This is kind of a bummer but because of it, it takes more people out of the mix.
So what makes new FASTPASS system so awesome for the Haunted Mansion?
So now, certain rides in the park that have very fast line queues to start with have very quick FASTPASS return times. Like literally 2-3 minutes after you get your pass! What’s crazy is that you can get a FASTPASS, immediately redeem it, ride the ride within a few minutes and then go get another FASTPASS for the very same ride right away! That’s because now, the system knows you just used up your last FASTPASS. You can ride the Haunted Mansion on a fairly busy day 3, 4, 5 times in a row without hardly waiting at all!I’m guessing that when the MaxPasses are added into the mix these return times will get a little longer. Hopefully not by much, though!On rides that are more popular and/or rides with slower line queues, FASTPASSing them will force you to wait until that FASTPASS return time and it will also prevent you from riding rides with the quick return times, over and over, consecutively. (Until the time stated on the bottom of your reminder. Usually, this is quite a bit sooner than your currently held FASTPASS return time.)For now, the list of rides, other than the Haunted Mansion that have these fast return times are Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Goofy’s Flight School, and California Screamin’.
So why are there still people in line? How is this still working?
The thing that took me a while to understand was that all of those people that were standing in the regular line for the Haunted Mansion were only there because they had used their FASTPASS reservation for one of the more popular rides in the park. My kids and I were able to ride a whole bunch of rides in the park many more times than we used to on a super busy day, in the summer. What a fantastic improvement!I definitely plan to add the MaxPass to me and my kids’ Disneyland Resort Annual Pass, so long as it is reasonable. Even for just one day, on a busy day, $10 is well worth the extra cost. What a dream it would be to practically walk on every ride on a busy day and spend the rest of the time enjoying the park!
