The Fast Pass line is reserved for people who reserved their spot on the attraction ahead of time. You do this and you are guaranteed a spot in line in a time slot (one hour) say I want to ride Toy Story Midway Mania in the afternoon (which btw has a 30 minute wait for people in the Stand By Line right now) I get my Fast Pass for 1:30 and I have up to 2:30 to get in the Fast Pass Line by scanning my Magic Band and I would wait maybe ten minutes tops. Sounds great!
For people with a Walt Disney Resort reservation you can reserve your Fast Passes up to sixty days in advance of your stay. You can reserve three per day using your My Disney Experience app on your phone, tablet, and/or PC (or Macs for you Apple users). If you are using a travel agent they can take care of this for you. When you are finished with your Fast Passes for the day you can even sign up for more at any of the kiosks at the park you are at. You can only make Fast Pass selections at one park per day which means you cannot make selections for say Toy Story Mania and Soarin' on the same day because TSM is in DHS and Soarin' is in EPCOT. This only comes up with the Park Hopper option.
If you have the Park Hopper Option I would, now this is an OPINION, make selections for the park you plan to be in for the afternoon, because that is when lines are usually at their longest.
Some things I consider when choosing Fast Passes:
1. The actual queue. There are some really cool queue lines at WDW which are interactive whic the Fast Pass line by-passes, The Haunted Mansion for instance is a neat queue line which if you had a Fast Pass for you would miss (cool photo ops). Use your My Disney Experience app to keep track of wait times to decide when to go and experience the Stand By. (It is a thirty minute wait as I type according to my app)
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| might miss this with a Fast Pass |
2. This goes about the Park Hopper opinion I gave you earlier, no when you'd like to ride and plan accordingly. I would like to ride Kali River Rapids in the afternoon while I would like to experience the Safari in the morning hours when the park is less crowded and the animals are more awake so I would definitely be more inclined to Fast Pass Kali River Rapids (which right now is a 70 minute wait.) compared to Kilimanjaro Safari.
3. Fast Pass new attractions compared to ones that most people have already been at. Frozen Ever After at EPCOT is the new flavor at the Norway Pavilion and every little princess and their family will want to flock to it (90 minute wait as I type) Compare that to It's a Small World where you have only a 25 minute wait.
4. Fast Pass your must do attractions, you know best. If Space Mountain is a must Fast Pass it. Same goes to any ride and or attraction that is important to you or your family. Toy Story Mania is important to us so we make sure we won't have to wait long by getting a Fast Pass to it.
5. Now this one is a tricky one...I say this, know where you want to be for the fireworks at night and you can use a Fast Pass for preferential seating during the fireworks (at least for Wishes, MK and Illuminations, EPCOT) and the Festival of Fantasy parade at the MK. I usually do not have a problem finding a good spot but that is me. The Fast Pass viewing area are in the newly renovated hub area between the castle and Main Street USA (in front of Crystal Palace Restaurant and the Plaza Restaurant). This may be worth it however I know that it still gets crowded and for me it would be hard to set up my tri-pod for photos. As for the parade the spot is right in front of the flag pole on Main Street USA. I like to go up higher if I can get up on the Train Depot platform which with a little planning is doable.
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| Good View |
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| Good View... But there are better... |
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| Got this from the platform for the train depot... walked up there a half-hour before parade time...
So should you use the Fast Passes on fireworks and parades? My opinion is YES on fireworks NO on parade, Remember it is an OPINION.
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