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.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
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!
I welcome the paid fastpass, because I’m getting too old and decrepit to wait in line for long periods. I just wish Disney has a unlimited pass available so that I don’t have to go through the buying process every time. Unlimited, but still somewhat restricted so you can only ride each popular ride once, but can repeat rides that have low wait times.
I can pay for it simply by going to the parks less often and do more hotel only stays so that my total Disney budget doesn’t change.
I do miss the good old days when we ran all over the parks looking for fastpasses. It was a fun activity in and of itself, even if we didn’t end up using all the fastpasses.
I’m old and I remember running around the parks early morning to collect fast-passes for many rides; then, we were limited as to how many we could get. Then more changes and more and more until we got to where we are today. Each change making WDW more frustrating than before. Now they’re going to make us pay in addition to restricting our time and movement. I’m Not usually glad to be getting old, and I pity the young families but I’m grateful to be looking at only 2 or 3 non-consecutive premium annual passes in my lifetime. We’ll pay for the best but we won’t encourage others in our family like we use too. We fortunate and blessed not to be retiring on a small fixed income. It’s getting more and more rigid and more snd more frustrating. Pity. WDW use to be just fun and reasonably priced. (It was my first ever trip paid for and planned just by me when I started working in 1973!)
@adam. What if you don’t get up and go to Animal kingdom until an hour after it opens and all the paid Fast Passes are gone for FOP, Safari and Everest and the lines are all 75+ minutes for each?
Great article. If it were not for the Florida resident discounts I just don’t know if we made the right decision buying into the DVC plan. We bought two contracts and take several trips per year only an hour away from the parks. We enjoy the immersion of WDW. We use all our FP+ rides and it’s really concerning to have to pay for what we were sold as included with our AP and DVC memberships. When we were there in May it was so different not having FP+. The standby lines were long and we just opted to skip a lot of the rides because of it. Did we have fun? Sure we did but it felt like something was missing without the major rides we always enjoy.
Kim, you couldn’t be more wrong. The VIP passes were never free to everyone like Fast Pass. Your logic couldn’t be more flawed
Hey Tom
Thanks to you folks for your always informative comments. My Wife and I like I am sure many others keep saying that we wonder what Walt Disney would say? We have had some good Disney fun but have had our share of frustrations as well. We are Canadians and thus know that a Disney Vacation will be expensive but can’t believe what is happening these days, prices up, value down. It is sad for Disney Lovers to face the reality that they may not get to enjoy Disney Again. Tom do you have any thoughts about how we might influence the decision makers to help make Disney available to all the everyday folks?
Thank You
Mike and Darlene
Very well explained, Kim, and I whole-heartedly agree that customers will reconsider future trips should a paid Fast Pass be introduced. I don’t even want to think about the cost of a Park Ticket + Park Hopper + Fast Pass.
I agree with so many of these comments. I’m planning our first trip to WDW in about a decade and I cannot believe the nickel and diming. If I had not already promised this trip, it very likely would not be happening. I honestly don’t know how most families can afford this. Seeing as how Disney lives on supply and demand, I can only hope when Revenge Travel is done, Disney is forced to re-examine how they have completely fleeced their customers. Then again, maybe those who don’t know what has been taken away (Magic Express, Magic Bands, shorter wait times, just to name a few) or how the prices have been hiked, will visit Disney blissfully. The very idea of having to pay extra to ride an attraction that I’ve already paid to ride with the purchase of my park ticket (not to mention a Park Hopper ticket) feels as if someone just took my wallet. As a child, my family could not afford a trip to Disney. It appears my inner child has a lot of good company.
Honestly, the VIP tours that are already in place are practically the same thing. Not every guest can afford those either. This is just another version of that. The magic is what you make of your time there.
Tom, didn’t WDW have a paid fast pass situation before covid where they gave you one big ride and a couple dinky ones for a fee?? Maybe it was only at deluxe tier resorts? I think it was in addition to the 3 fast pass+ you could book ahead? Feel free to tell me I’m crazy (we were in lockdown for 5,000,000,000 years with two teens here so my brain cells have definitely been dying off… 😉 ) If I’m not crazy, I’m wondering how well that did. That would be a hard no for my family as would any pay as you go fast pass. We struggled with MaxPass when it came out in Disneyland but at least that was one flat fee per person, you knew the cost ahead of time, and passes were basically unlimited so we used to get tons of them with it. We still struggled with the extra cost but since we were no longer APs and only visited once a year it seemed “worth it”. We only go to WDW once every few years and use the heck out of Fast Pass+ but paying ~$10 per person per ride would be way out of our league. We have a trip later this year pushed back from last year and I am really hoping regular fast pass+ comes back…
Whew. I so want FP to return. Standing in long lines with a child is tough. On everyone. That being said, the thought of a paid FP makes me nervous. The only reason we have visited WDW more than once lately is due to being an active duty military family. We get a discount. Even that barely makes the trip affordable. I’m super anxious after reading this. We are spending nearly a week at the parks and I pray there are reasonable line waiting times or free FP returns. To have to spend even more money to not wait in lines after spending so much on tickets, airfare, hotel, etc. makes this far too expensive.
Jaynee they can’t charge for the DAS, that would be illegal. The only impact this should have on DAS is potentially the length of the line you stand in, and possibly an increase in people trying to get the DAS when they don’t actually need it (to avoid having to pay for shorter lines). That last part is always the worst for us as we have a son who’s literally a football player and looks the part, but is also autistic and cannot wait in long lines in crowds without melting down and having to leave. We already know people look at him like he’s gaming the system. I really don’t need them having even more reason to do that.
@Bec – There are many who likely agree with your thoughts. I’m remembering planning WDW trips with ADRs 6 months in advance, FP+ 2 months in advance, special events months in advance, etc. We were able to anticipate what would the trip would be like. The whole trip was planned so that when we arrived the only thing to do was to “be in the moment living the dream.”
Joe Rhode recently made a comment on Twitter about how the Parks provide a “sense of transport, of being moved magically into another place or another time.” Perhaps being forced out of the “place and time” by being required to frequently use your cell phone is part of the reduction of the magic.
Love the explanation of how FP should work. We have used it very successfully for years and really didn’t love the tiered FP that took the place of the original paper slips. but we adapted. Seems that this new paid system is kind of reverting to the old ticket book, where you needed to buy tickets to attractions in order to get on them. The E ticket rides were more expensive, so people had to choose where to spend their money. But, it was a way of thinning out the crowd for those E ticket rides.
I feel Sorry for poor creator WALT DISNEY !! He must be so tired of Turning Over and Over in his Grave with all these changes going on Now and the last few years !!! I think he would be in Shock about all the things they Have and are taking away for people who visit or are trying to visit Walt Disney World in Florida. Every time you get upset about something else they are taking away from the Disney visitors, they do something worst ! I have been going there since it opened from New Jersey and have been there over 40 times And have Always stayed at a Disney Hotel. Started every year at the Polynesian and Contemporary Hotels for $ 75.00 a Night !! and then went from one hotel to the other as the Prices went higher and higher. Isn’t there anyone that can make the Disney Executives see how all these changes are hurting all the Families that Want to come to Disneyworld and Stay at a Disney Hotel, ETC. — But they are just making it impossible for Families to do SO ! Really a shame when you think of ALL the things they have taken away, and of all the constant higher prices they are putting on EVERYTHING. START giving your Hotel guests more NON-PAYING Perks , instead of taking More and More Away.
I wish that I had read your posts and checked what the modern WDW were doing before I’d promised to take the family when the grandchidren were of suitable age (We are booked for May 2022). Perhaps I should have realised they would harness the current adiction to smart phones, but, as someone who doesn’t use a mobile, it seems they are now essential at WDW. Is life really down tapping away at a screen to try and get on a ride before anyone else. Had I been aware of this current theory that there will be an option to pay to queue jump I would not have booked the holiday at WDW. I thought that the travelling from the UK, staying in WDW hotel and buying park tickets would, mostly, only leave food and drink to pay for. Now it seems the park tickets (which are expensive enough already) may only be to get you through the gates, paying extra to get on a ride is money grabbing that many will not be able to afford, especially if the rates are anything even close to the rates you say are charged at Paris.
To anybody thinking of booking a WDW holiday, I’d say wait until it is clear how much more you need to budget for on top of a park ticket.
This was a helpful read! I’m disappointed in the spirit of nickel and diming that’s becoming commonplace. But I’m also ever so slightly relieved to think an entire vacation might not be so beholden to three daily choices made under maximum stress sixty days before the trip.
What will happen with the disability access pass? Will this not happen now unless it’s paid for?
Also worried about what this will do to DAS and how many more folks will abuse it. As a family who couldn’t do Disney without it, and solely does Disney vacations because of the ease it lends to our ASD son, it’ makes me nervous.
There always seems to a lot of confusion surrounding fast pass plus and how it worked or didn’t work. I’d like to briefly clarify its original intention, why it hasn’t worked as well as it used to as the years went on and what the purpose of this new potential paid fast pass option is. The original purpose of fast pass plus was to provide more guests with more time and opportunities within the parks, thereby leading to more positive guest satisfaction ratings and repeat visits. When you hold a fast pass, you are technically still in the line for a particular attraction. The difference is you don’t have to physically stand in a the line and can do other things. Think of it this way: if a particular attraction has an hourly guest capacity of 2000 guests, and if that number of guests physically waited in the entire standby time, then the wait for the entirety of that group will be long and the entire group will be able to do nothing but wait in that line the entire time. But let’s say that attraction designates that 25 percent of their hourly capacity (in this example, 500) could get a fast pass. Then those 500 people per hour are technically waiting the line but they are moving about freely in the park, able to ride another attraction, eat or shop. The number of people who in total are able to ride the ride per hour has not changed, only how the people wait. Now, the important thing about executing fast pass well is something called the merge point, where the fast pass line and standby line meet. When done properly, both lines should be constantly moving, but from watching live streams of the parks pre-pandemic, it was clear that it was not being done properly in most locations any more. The 80/20 ratio was literally supposed to apply to individual parties (four parties to one party). That would keep both lives moving. What was happening and causing those frustrating stilted moments in the standby waits was that cast members were instead taking large swaths of people because, quite frankly, that is easier. It is not any one person’s fault but rather just a gradual erosion of the execution because there has not been a fast pass team to help and teach. This new paid fast pass is, in my opinion, completely the opposite goal of the original fast pass plus and, if implemented in the US is very likely intended to be a short term money generator at the expense of long term guest satisfaction. In other words, the company plans to sacrifice their future for their present. There seemed to be a number of people here who have said they have either reduced the number of their visits or plan to reduce them due to increasing costs, lower standards, etc. If they choose to implement the paid FastPass I actually think people will pay for it for a short time, but they will quickly reconsider their future trips.