Fastpass

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FASTPASS logo

FASTPASS is a system created by The Walt Disney Company, introduced in 1999, that allows guests to avoid long lines at its theme parks. At an attraction featuring FASTPASS, guests can use their park admission ticket to obtain a FASTPASS ticket (essentially a reservation) with a return time later that day (an hour-long window) printed on it. If the guest comes back to the attraction during the specified return times, the guest can wait in a special line called "FASTPASS Return" and be able to ride on the attraction with a much shorter wait time than normal queue.

FASTPASS tickets are dispensed by machines outside each attraction that uses them. A guest inserts a park ticket and a FASTPASS ticket (or other informational ticket) will be printed. At first, a guest could only hold a single FASTPASS at a time; if a guest tried to insert a park ticket into another FASTPASS machine before the time shown on their previous FASTPASS, the machine would generate a ticket with a message printed on it stating that it was not yet time to obtain another FASTPASS. Since the initial rollout of FASTPASS, the rules have been relaxed a bit, and now additional FASTPASSes can be had sooner after one another (maximum 2 hour interval between obtaining two FASTPASSes), but still only one FASTPASS per attraction per park ticket in every interval.

Vacations to Disneyland which are booked through AAA Vacations in 2006 come with park admission tickets which can be used to collect FASTPASS tickets from multiple attractions at one time. Under this exclusive program, a guest can hold multiple FASTPASS tickets per park ticket for multiple attractions at the same time.

A bug in the first implementation of FASTPASS allowed guests to get a pass by using anything with a bar code. Old tickets and even passes for other parks would result in the machines printing up another FASTPASS. This has since been corrected; a ticket will come out stating "This card has not been scanned for admission".

Epcot's Mission: SPACE was the first attraction built with FASTPASS in mind, with a specific queue area for it. Earlier attractions were given FASTPASS by rerouting the queue area to allow a shorter line near the boarding area.

FASTPASS is used mainly on the most popular park attractions, such as Test Track and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror; therefore, which rides offer FASTPASS varies over time. Smaller attractions would not benefit from FASTPASS due to short or fast-moving lines.