Going to Disneyworld, Any advice?

[Doppel]

With the fast passes, is there still a line, just shorter like 15 minutes? Or do you go by everyone and only wait a minute or two?

With fast pass your wait can be as little as basically instantaneous or longer, like 15 min, but it's always going to be much faster than others. There is a chump line and the fast pass line. If the wait for others is 45 minutes probably you'll wait about 10. If they are waiting 15 you'll more or less just walk right up.

Also, don't try and be clever and jump the FP line because there is a final check point at the very end and if you don't have it you get to get laughed at by everyone as you're turned back to the chump line. I saw this a couple times

You'll feel like royalty when you use FP and the chumps are waiting in their normal line. Just don't make eye contact with them because they are shamed and know it and don't want to feel belittled as you're steaming past them!

 

[Fingolfin269]

I only ever saw one time on the fastpass ticket--the time I can go _back to that particular ride_. However, for some high-popularity rides if you get a ticket at 11:00 am it may say you cannot even come back until 5:30 PM or something, but if you run your park ticket through again it will spit out a reject receipt saying come back at, say, 12:30-1:00 (and you'd probably use it at some other ride).

It has been over a year since I was there so I cannot remember this exactly so...

The ticket told us what time we could come back for the ride we just got a fast pass for. It also told us somewhere in smaller print, can't even remember if it was on the front or back, what time we were eligible to get another fast pass. So sometimes you could generate a ticket at say 11AM that would be usable from 3PM-5PM but would also indicate we could get another fast pass beginning at 1PM.

 

[John P]

With fast pass your wait can be as little as basically instantaneous or longer, like 15 min, but it's always going to be much faster than others. There is a chump line and the fast pass line. If the wait for others is 45 minutes probably you'll wait about 10. If they are waiting 15 you'll more or less just walk right up.

Also, don't try and be clever and jump the FP line because there is a final check point at the very end and if you don't have it you get to get laughed at by everyone as you're turned back to the chump line. I saw this a couple times

You'll feel like royalty when you use FP and the chumps are waiting in their normal line. Just don't make eye contact with them because they are shamed and know it and don't want to feel belittled as you're steaming past them!

Hehe, I've been to Disneyland twice in the past 3 years and totally agree. I can never figure out why those people are waiting in those huge lines, they obviously can't take an hour to google and figure out how fast passes work. Or if there is one certain ride you want to get on first - show up early and literally sprint to that ride, grab a fast pass for it, then get in the regular line and use the fast pass later to ride it again. Works for rides like X2 at Magic Mountain as well, show up early and get close to gate - sprint to ride and get on with no wait. Once we got off X2 the line was 45 minutes long but we waited anyway and rode it again(awesome ride), after we got off the 2nd time the line was probably 2 hours long.

A few more things to keep in mind:

1) Disney World is more about the experience than the rides. The rides don't compare to something like X2 or Tatsu at Magic Mountain. Soak in the atmosphere and also be sure to stop and enjoy the parades, shows (like Aladdin if they have that), fireworks, etc... Don't pass up an opportunity to get a picture with any of the characters, you may not run into another. We lucked out our last night at DL last year and got some pics right before closing with Mickey and Minnie. That was the first time we had seen them and we had a 5 day pass! Ask the park employees where the best place to catch a character may be, some seem to show up randomly, I think others may be planned. On the back of the brochure they give you at the ticket booth will list all the shows and parades and what time they are.

2) Check to see - but I know Matterhorn at DL didn't have fast passes. Check at DW to see which rides don't and do have fast passes.

3) Have fun, relax, and go with the flow. I don't know how old your kids are but don't be afraid to hit the reset button. They may get crotchety from the heat and you haven't got on all the rides you wanted to get on etc... If need be take a break and leave the park for a while. We had a rental car and our hotel was a short walk from DL. We happened to be there for that heat wave of 100+ degrees they had back in June of 2008. We would hit the park for the morning, then head out around lunch and get into the air conditioned car and head over to Red Robin and sit in the wonderful AC for a nice lunch. Then chill in the room for a bit and head back for the evening refreshed.