Paid Premier Access Replacing Free FastPass at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris has officially announced Disney Premier Access, which replaces free FastPass in those two parks. In this post, we’ll share details & pricing, how the upcharge line skipping service will work, and discuss the potential implications for Walt Disney World, where a paid replacement for FastPass+ feels like all but an inevitability at this point.
In a number of app-related updates, Disneyland Paris shared that the free Standby Pass is returning. This is essentially a hybrid system that combines a virtual queue with a physical standby line. It allows guests to spend the first part of their wait time for select attractions outside of the queue, and then joining the line for the home stretch.
Standby Pass is available at Disneyland Paris certain times of the day, subject to availability and dependent upon operational needs of the parks. Essentially, it’s offered when Disneyland Paris is running out of physical queue space–so during peak times of busier days. When available, guests can use the Disneyland Paris app to book the next available time slot to enter the physical queue line of an attraction, return within the allocated 30-minute time slot, present the Standby Pass QR code, and stand in the queue for the remainder of that time.
You might recall that late last year, there were rumors that Walt Disney World would implement virtual queues for Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run and Jungle Cruise. Other attractions, like Peter Pan’s Flight and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, actually cut their queues at some points when demand was high. At Disneyland, Indiana Jones Adventure actually did use a virtual queue for several weeks post-reopening.
This was for precisely the same reason as the Standby Pass is offered–those physical queues were running out of space at certain times. While it has ceased being an issue since physical distancing was dropped, it’s also worth pointing out that Walt Disney World is still capping park capacity. So physical space in standby queues could once again be an issue, albeit for different reasons, come October 2021.
Back to Disneyland Paris, those parks will also give guests the option to purchase Disney Premier Access on the Disneyland Paris App. This digital service allows guests to pay to skip the regular queue line for popular attractions, including Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours: the Adventures Continue, and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
From anywhere inside the parks, guests can use the Disneyland Paris App to purchase an assigned time slot for the aforementioned attractions. Pricing for Disney Premier Access will be per ride, ranging from €8 to €15 (~$10 to $18) depending on the attraction and day of visit. Think of it like Express Lanes on toll roads–dynamic pricing that increases with demand.
This is not Disneyland Paris’ first foray into paid FastPasses. Three years ago, those parks rolled out “Disney Access One,” which allowed guests to purchase what was essentially an instant FastPass, bypassing the standard multi-hour wait associated with drawing a traditional FastPass and redeeming it. These Access One passes cost €15 per person per attraction, with discounts for Annual Passholders.
A few months after that, Disneyland Paris debuted two new paid FastPass options: the Super FastPass and the Ultimate FastPass. The Super FastPass bundled together thrill rides or family-friendly attractions for one-time line skipping with no set return times. The Ultimate FastPass granted both immediate and unlimited access to all FastPass attractions. The pricing on these options ranged from around $30 for the Super FastPass during off-season to $175 for the Ultimate FastPass during peak season.
It’s also worth noting that the new Standby Pass and Disney Premier Access combo that Disneyland Paris has unveiled is nothing new. Shanghai Disneyland has been using this exact same system for a little over one year.
However, free FastPass still exists at Shanghai Disneyland, which is obviously a critical distinction.
I’m going to guess that there are a fair number of Walt Disney World fans–who have absolutely zero intention of ever visiting Paris or Shanghai–reading this post with bated breath. There’s understandable, as the writing is on the wall. Some form of monetized FastPass is almost certainly coming to Walt Disney World in the not-too-distant future.
Over the course of the last three-plus years, we have heard a number of rumors about paid FastPass coming to Walt Disney World, ranging from preposterous to highly credible. In the last couple of months, the rumblings have become more frequent and detailed, with some major commonalities as well as minor inconsistencies among them.
At one point, the most credible rumor for Walt Disney World was the per-ride Access One system at Disneyland Paris plus various packs (e.g. “Magic Kingdom Mountain Range”) but no unlimited option. Keep in mind that this was years ago–it even predates the announcement of the Disney Genie app.
Given its use at two other resorts, the combo of Standby Pass plus Disney Premier Access is a plausible route for Walt Disney World. Or at least, that same general infrastructure. If current rumors are accurate, branding would likely be different at Walt Disney World but the mechanics would be more or less the same.
Trying to distill all of the FastPass replacement rumors for Walt Disney World and square those with the above announcement for Disneyland Paris is not difficult. In addition to a lot of similarities, it’s likely such a system will be announced in the near future (July or August) and be implemented shortly thereafter (September or October).
What’s unclear is whether Walt Disney World’s replacement for FastPass will debut with or ahead of the Disney Genie app. Nothing I’ve heard directly indicates the two are tied together, but that has been rumored elsewhere–and appears possible. (Disney has brought up the Genie app on a handful of occasions over the last 6 months, suggesting that app is not dead.)
Don’t be surprised if whatever Walt Disney World launches is more convoluted, has its own branding, and more options. As a general matter, all of those things are safe guesses since that’s just how Walt Disney World does things. It’s more of an extended vacation destination than any of the other worldwide resorts where the average guest only visits for a day or two at a time.
At a minimum, it’s likely that Walt Disney World will offer paid line skipping on a per-attraction basis, with a limit on how many ride reservations can be purchased and return time windows that guests can select. That system would undoubtedly use the former FastPass+ line, and likely have a lower adoption rate than free FastPass.
Paid FastPass with lower utilization would in turn necessitate Standby Pass or some form of virtual queue at select attractions. This is because there simply is not enough physical standby queue at many attractions under normal full capacity scenarios.
In the past, FastPass+ caused standby wait times to balloon, which resulted in more guests balking and not queueing up. This was due to the ballpark 80:20 FastPass-to-standby ratio, which meant far fewer guests were in line for a 30 minute posted wait than would be without FastPass. (Without FastPass, standby lines constantly move and are much more pleasant–but they also take up much more physical space.)
Assuming Premier Access is used by fewer guests (a very safe bet if it’s only directly monetized), the ratio will be more balanced or favor standby lines. That would also mean standby queues would see higher utilization levels and regular wait times wouldn’t be as long. Thus, more guests would queue up and additional standby space would be needed.
That still leaves many unanswered questions, perhaps most significantly whether on-site guests at Walt Disney World would receive any kind of access included as part of their resort stay. There has been a lot of chatter about this–not just recently, but over the course of many years. I have not heard anything credible about whether on-site guests might receive anything, but it strikes me as plausible that they would–perhaps based upon the resort tier. However, that’s entirely speculative on my part.
Whether on-site guests receive some level of line-skipping access likely depends upon the degree to which Walt Disney World feels the “need” to incentivize on-site resort bookings. Given how strong those are right now and with early entry and extended evening hours perks debuting this fall, Walt Disney World might go solely for direct monetization on the FastPass replacement.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Walt Disney World hold off on additional on-site benefits until resort occupancy rates drop. In which case, we might see Disney Premier Access (or whatever Walt Disney World calls it) debut this fall and something more beneficial to guests (Disney Genie?) debut towards the end of the 50th Anniversary. Again, entirely speculative.
With that said, it’s still possible that Walt Disney World and Disneyland will borrow features from the MaxPass system that was in use at Disneyland pre-closure. We really liked MaxPass and would love to see that expanded to Walt Disney World, albeit with a free component.
It remains a possibility that the systems rolling out at Walt Disney World and Disneyland will differ from Paris and Shanghai, as well as from one another. All of these parks have their own unique wrinkles, and Walt Disney World in particular is a more complex operation than the other parks, so it might merge multiple systems.
I don’t want to over-emphasize it, but Walt Disney World switching to this system would also have potential upside for guests who were not FastPass+ power users. Far fewer guests will use the ride reservation system if it costs money, which in turn means standby lines will move faster and those wait times will generally be shorter. There’s no way the ratio will be 80:20, because there’s no way that many people will pay to skip the line.
It’s hard to say what the ratio will be, but I’d be surprised if it’s over 20:80 most days. (Unless some access is included for on-site guests, which would totally change things.) By how much will almost certainly depend upon the day and season. If crowds and wait times are lower, fewer people will likely purchase the paid option to avoid long waits. That in turn will mean even shorter standby lines. Conversely, more people will buy on busier days, exacerbating the problem.
With all of that said, we’re opposed to Walt Disney World charging for something that was previously included free of charge as a matter of principle. Regardless of how we feel about individual changes, Walt Disney World’s overall direction is more than a little concerning, and there has been a proliferation of nickel & diming, cutbacks, and price increases over the last several years. It would be one thing if additions and subtractions netted one another out, but Walt Disney World has been burning the candle of fan goodwill at both ends, so to speak.
FastPass+ was not without its faults, but the system also was not broken. The new system probably won’t be as bad as many fans are envisioning, but it’s also an unnecessary “solution” to a nonexistent problem–and one that, like so many other things, will be monetized. There might be minor upsides to this, but the only real winners here will be Disney and those for whom money is no object.
Ultimately, what Disneyland Paris has announced with the Standby Pass and paid Disney Premier Access replacing free FastPass is likely a window into what’s on the horizon for Walt Disney World. Nothing is official at this point, but we would strongly recommend bracing yourself for the (strong) possibility that Walt Disney World will likewise retire free FastPass and roll out something similar–but probably not identical.
Given the proliferation of rumors on the topic in the last couple of months (where there’s smoke…), plus Walt Disney World gradually scaling up park capacity, plus the World’s Most Magical Celebration starting October 1, it’s likely Walt Disney World will make an official announcement within the next month or two, and have the system ready to roll by sometime in September or October 2021. Who knows–maybe the rumors are all wrong and free FastPass+ will return! That’s not what we expect to happen, but we’ve been wrong plenty of times before.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you think Standby Pass and Disney Premier Access will be rolled out at Walt Disney World? Think it’ll be a similar system, but debut with the Disney Genie app and offer its own branding and unique wrinkles? Or, do you think this is all wrong–that FastPass+ will return unchanged later this summer or fall? Do you prefer fast-moving standby lines only, or the FastPass and standby combo? Interested in how Walt Disney World will implement the new system? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
However the passes shake out, I hope that there will still be a Disability Pass that allows my daughter to do most of her waiting virtually (28 yo princess and roller coaster lover with cognitive/developmental disability who really suffers waiting in a crowded line more than 20-30 min (and family suffers, anxieties and behaviors increase, etc). We don’t even mind coming back later- 2-3 hours of distraction, eating, enjoying can save a multi-generational family vacation.
As an almost 30 year DVC member, DCL multi-salings, and all of the family that worked there starting 40 years ago- boy things have changed. Although we are truly hooked on the magic of Disney- from the 91 yo to the 5 year old!!-chances are we would go to WDW less and enjoy Hilton Head resort more.
Hmm that seems like something they used to do. I seem to recall they had a tiered pass system for rides before… bringing back ticketbooks seems like a weird choice.
@Andy
Thanks for the shoutout and I agree with what you’re saying too. I really don’t think this will be utilized by enough people to make the standby lines significantly longer, and I prefer a bunch of mid-length lines to a day of mostly long lines with a few short ones. Once the system settles in I imagine one of two things will happen:
1. It gets SUCH low utilization that Disney decreases prices or comes up with a more appealing alternative…and everyone benefits, or
2. It gets enough utilization to stick around but still not enough to majorly impact standby lines, and everyone still benefits.
I can’t see it ever being option 3, where it gets a ton of utilization and causes long standby lines.
@Tom
You’ve got a great point. I’m coming from a position of never having experienced Fastpass, so I can’t be upset at it either going away or returning in a paid format since it was never a free ‘perk’ that I enjoyed. I do feel for those who were used to the old system and now have to re-adjust, but I personally like one less level of stress and planning in my vacation. Plus, I haven’t found the lines bad at all this last year. I may end up changing my tune when I’m there on Oct 1, but if this starts by then I’ll just splurge on a ride or two and enjoy the ambiance of the parks for the 50th anniversary otherwise.
Disney World is a business and businesses are created to provide a service to earn money. Walt would definitely not be rolling in his grave. He would be proud of what Disney has become. A great business that offers lots and those they don’t like what is being offered have the option not to frequent the business just like any other business. It kills me when I read stuff about what Walt would think, feel or do.
This is nothing but a money grab. Walt must be rolling in his grave. Park ticket prices are so expensive these days, the nerve of of the park execs looking for another way to grab visitors dollars when they’re bringing home millions of dollars a year. If they want to charge for attractions they should go back to the reasonable admission price and A-E attraction tickets. This would especially be attractive to Seniors.
It is if you’re a Disney exec!
Here’s a thought: Why not go completely retro? No admission and pay as you ride. In other words, bring back the E-Ticket! Sorry Rodent, but I’m not in favor of paying to stay, paying to enter and then paying to ride. I can afford it but that’s not the point. It’s greed will out, plain and simple. What happened to all of Disney’s new “Woke” mentality? Think how this will impact the economically disadvantaged, or do Disney’s morals end where profit begins?
Interesting article… as a DVC member, we already pay nearly $3k in annual taxes and condo fees, add in the park passes, special event tickets and now the privilege of not waiting in line and “pay”? As some have already stated, the added benefit doesn’t add up… is this really the happiest place on earth?!
Whatever they do, I hope they remember that not everyone has a smart phone…especially the seniors
If FP+ is replaced by a paid system, will that mean that rides not popular enough to warrant a Fast Pass (like in the days before FP+) will be standby only? Would you really want to implement a system where, say, it was $5pp to ZippyDeDoPass Splash Mountain and a mere $1.50 to skip the line for the Jungle Cruise? That seems preposterous on it’s face…how complicated do you want this setup? Would they credit my FP “bank” if I went on Hall of Presidents?
In all seriousness, it seems to me that Disney is betting that there enough people who will pay for this and they are probably right. But doing it per ride means putting it a price point low enough that people will have to think about it. A family of 4 facing a $40 upcharge is very likely to say no thanks, but what about $12? Even if you priced it low, I don’t really think charging per ride is feasible, unless you can bundle a payment upfront. Being constantly reminded of having to pay every you use it will result in a lot of very surly guests.
The first half of your comment is actually a potentially compelling argument for the second half: Walt Disney World could do paid FastPass bundles instead of single attractions. Give guests one attraction they actually want, then a show and something minor that doesn’t need FastPass and only had it added for the sake of sufficient FastPass+ inventory. That would create greater perceived value for guests and also address what to do with a bunch of FastPass queue infrastructure that wouldn’t be necessary.
This is a problem Paris and Shanghai don’t have, as those parks have significantly fewer FastPass attractions in the first place.
I tThe best part of FP+ was the advanced planning, knowing I was going to get on at least the 3 rides I wanted with no waits. This is why I don’t like MaxPass. If you don’t rope drop, you still miss out on the top rides even with old school fast pass or max pass. I’m not a fan of paid FP but if it allows me to advance book I will like do it to know i can got those highly coveted rides
Without FP the standby lines will be shorter, so I guess during the week and slow season it won’t be an issue.
During the week end and holidays, with longer lines, more people will give up and buy a paid FP. This will make the stand by line get longer, because more capacitywill go to the paid FP. If the standby wait time is greater, even more people will buy the pass and so on and so on. It’s a vicious circle, Disney will gain a profit from the service thanks to the longer lines that the service itself causes.
It’s the less guest friendly solution the could think of.
I see a lot of people are saying that will definitely not buy these new paid Fast Passes but didn’t we just see the same comments about the Boo Bash and then Voila!, half of the dates are already sold out and they have added extra tickets to some of the dates. Another example is the cost for some of their other extras like dessert parties and VIP tours. I have yet to get a reservation for a dessert party because they sell out so early and I did snag a VIP tour at Animal Kingdom but had to buy it almost year out because they are so popular. And those events are extremely expensive relative to what is offered.
People will pay for this, me included, as they will just add it into their budgeting as a “necessary expense”. I do agree that it would be better if they went to a Universal-style Express Pass as I think even more people would pay for that.
Eh, I think there’s a difference between a one-time splurge and making numerous up-charge transactions throughout a visit. For one thing, there’s the matter of scale–a dessert party might have a capacity of ~100 guests (or ~300 across 3 parks), VIP tours are also in the hundreds of guests per day, and Boo Bash is likely under 10,000 guests–but it’s also not every day of the week.
By contrast, the old FastPass system was used by tens of thousands of guests each day in all 4 parks. I’m highly skeptical they’ll get anywhere near those numbers to pay for its replacement.
I absolutely will not be paying 800 a night for a deluxe resort (Poly next trip) plus passhopper tickets for 5 of us and then paying on top of that for individual fast passes of any kind. I’m holding my breath for what they roll out…. And I’ve already researched universal and can stay at their top resorts with unlimited express pass and club level access while saving a couple thousand. We were almost ready to buy DVC and decided against it because of recent changes…if they keep making moves that reduce the on-site advantage and make it anymore expensive then we are tapping out completely.
I read this and thought, “Huh? Why make it so complicated, Disney?!” All they have to do is look to their neighbors and competitors who are doing it right and just do what they are already doing. Why reinvent the wheel? We LOVE Universal’s Express Pass. We choose to stay at the top tear resorts in order to get the Express Pass “free”. Universal makes you feel special. They understand that in order to get customers to stay on site, they need to make it worth it. To me, this perk alone makes it worth it. We know we are paying for it, but at least we are staying at a nicer resort and not shelling out the $ out of pocket to buy each member of our family an Express Pass for each day. On crowded days, we were still able to zip through the lines on almost everything. I can’t express to you (see what I did there?) how valuable that is.
Plus, I agree with you, Tom. This just sounds like nickel and diming people already paying crazy amounts of money and Disney trying to cater to the “elite”. It really rubs me the wrong way. They should definitely have something but this doesn’t sound like it.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out for WDW, but I don’t think I am a fan based on what we know so far. It just seems that Disney never stops trying to nickel and dime guests at every chance they get (pay to park at resorts, paid morning or evening events, fireworks parties, pay for airport transportation, lyfts because buses take longer and longer, etc) and it’s already extremely expensive for my family of 6 to go anymore and stay on site. We have been big fans of fastpass+ to the point that I don’t think I have ever stood in an actual standby line in 6 years unless it was short enough that we didn’t want to waste the fastpass or it was less than 20 mins or so. We even had a record day of using ~14 fastpasses in one day just using them up and looking for the next one. I will admit that it took time to plan and manage all of that (including ADRs), but to us it was part of the vacation and kept us excited about something that was still months away.
We have a trip planned for Feb 2022, and I know it’s not going to be possible to do as much as we’re used to with the addition of 1-year-old twins to my family (other kids will be 4 & 6) at the time of the trip, but this is going to make it even harder to enjoy the few rides we may get to enjoy in a day. Kids get bored in lines quickly and when they are so young, there are rides they can’t enjoy yet, which means more time in line, or more time separated into riders vs non-riders on a “family vacation”. We have also used the rider swap program extensively, and maybe that will help, but I don’t see waiting in every stand by line with or without kids being a better use of my time. I guess the days of riding most/all of the main attractions in a day will be gone. We certainly won’t be paying for fastpasses, and the more I hear about the park reopening and what’s changed, the more I want to find another vacation. Prices continue to increase, and it seems we get less and less for it. It’s one of our favorite vacations and one we look forward to every year, but I know I’m not alone in feeling that Disney continues to price us out of going. $7k for the cheapest moderate resort for a week + park tickets is really hard to justify these days. Then we still have to eat for that week, souvenirs, etc.
I just don’t see many people at all paying for FP on a per-ride basis. If they do what Universal does, I can see that being popular with some. But there’s no way I’m spending that much money to get FP’s that were essentially free to me three years ago. We were those power-users you’re talking about, basically not riding anything unless we had a FP, and we would both 1) always book the big-ticket rides months out, 2) tweak and manage the days’ schedules for months leading up to the trip, and 3) once we used our last of the initial FP’s, get another as soon as we checked in to that last booked ride and then go from one ride to another doing the same thing.
So, yeah. Not a fan of this. My wife and kids went back in January and said during the week it was great, but that the closer to the weekend it got, the more people there were and the lines got absurd. So, with increasing the capacities back to pre-Covid levels, plus likely ongoing issues with staffing levels for at least a year or two, standby lines are just going to be a no-go. My rule of thumb is I won’t wait in a line longer than 10-15 min, and 10-15 is basically how long it takes to just walk through the line in the biggest rides (RotR, FoP).
I agree with Jeff’s comments about “pay as you go”. We see comments all the time about the DDP – for many (most?) people paying full price for DDP it does not work financially. But people like it for the convenience and in many cases the fact that it’s pre-paid. They can just sit down at a restaurant and order whatever they want off the menu and not worry how much it costs. This monetized fastpass is the opposite of that.
I already know that I won’t fall in the camp willing to shell out $10/person for a ride, on top of what is already a big entry ticket price. However, provided my experience isn’t degraded by not willing to pay to skip the line, this could work our okay. It will just require that standby lines move quickly. What I don’t understand is the new fear or expected problem with standby queues over-filling. If that is true, that’s a real problem – with too many people in the parks and/or not enough capacity built out/offered.
I hear your point that if standby lines are shorter, more people will get in line … but those same people were in some sort of line (either standby or Fastpass) in the old system, so why is queue space now going to be a problem?
FastPass was a form of virtual queue, so those guests were not physically in line. They were elsewhere–shopping, dining, or (yes) doing other attractions while waiting in line. Effectively in two places at once, which causes its own problems (which is precisely why FastPass+ was temporarily suspended when the parks reopened).
However, FastPass also meant fewer guests in the standby lines because of the higher posted wait times resulting from the 80:20 ratio. If roughly 80% of riders are pulled from the FastPass line, a relatively small number of guests in the standby line can still mean high wait times. That same ratio almost certainly wouldn’t be possible with paid FastPass due to a lack of demand, which is why the Standby Pass would probably be necessary–at least on moderately or busy days. Most guests look at wait times rather than line length–it doesn’t matter whether there are 10 people in line or 10 million–the posted wait is how people make the decision whether to jump into line.
As others have mentioned, the “pay as you go” method for this is a bit puzzling to me. If you built it into my room cost and I didn’t even notice it, great. If you charged me $120 for the entire day as I walk into the park I may do it and I may not. But it’s possible. But looking at my phone and seeing $90-100 for my family of 5 to skip the line for Seven Dwarves? For one ride? I am almost certainly just going to standby. I am assuming Disney has some data that tells them people will spend just as much, but that seems unlikely to me.