Fastpasses Were Still Free!
It started when Magic Kingdom began offering alcohol. I remember thinking: Wait, this isn’t right. This isn’t a Disney-like thing to do. But in 2018, Magic Kingdom started selling alcohol.
Walt Disney never wanted alcohol in The Happiest Place on Earth. It just doesn’t fit. Disney was headed down a slippery slope.
But Disney World has been my favorite vacation spot since we visited in 2009. So when I realized that Shane and I were going be five minutes from Disneyland – the original most magical place on Earth – I started planning our trip.
What I’ve learned is: sure enough, Walt Disney’s vision is no longer in charge.
On our prior trips, we enjoyed many of the biggest attractions with something called a Fastpass – a free paper ticket – free! – that would allow us to skip most of the wait. I would race from one side of the park to the other, grabbing Fastpasses for the whole family. I logged about 20 miles per day. But we rode a ton of rides and had very short waits in spite of overwhelming crowds.
Unlike Six Flags and Cedar Fair, who gouge customers by charging a fortune for Disney’s Fastpass service, Disney World included the Fastpass option in every ticket. Yes, Disney World tickets cost more – but it was worth it since everyone could ride virtually everything without much wait.
Later the Fastpass system went online: no more paper tickets! We could just log into our app and get our reservation times for each ride. We rode a gazillion times on the rides we liked. I only logged 10 miles per day on those trips. And Fastpasses were still free!
But during the pandemic, they discontinued the Fastpass system.
Now they’ve decided that – like Six Flags – they are going to charge a fortune for the pleasure of riding without waiting in line.
And for the pleasure of getting substantially less and paying substantially more, you can ride your favorite rides exactly one time without the wait. So if you want to ride Space Mountain twice, you are stuck in the standby line for three hours. The ride itself takes less than three minutes.
At Disneyland, even if you want to pay $20 per person, per day for the once-free service, the three most popular rides in the parks aren’t even included. You have to pay extra for those: up to $20 per ride for the biggest, best rides in the park.
But you’re only allowed to pick two of them. You will have to wait in the three-hour line for the other one. You literally can’t even buy your way out of the standby lines – which are obscene.
So for Disneyland, you pay $104-$164 per person, per day – yes, REALLY – just to enter the park. If you want the previously free option of skipping the line (only once per day!) that’s an additional $20 per person, per day. And if you want to ride two of the three biggest rides without waiting all day, add another $40 per person.
And if you’re going to Disneyland specifically, and you only have one day to see two parks like we do, you have to pay for the Park Hopper option – an option we never used at Disney World. This is another $60 per person for the privilege of walking out of one gate, crossing the sidewalk, and walking in through another gate.
All told, we will pay about $600 for two people to spend one day at Disneyland.
For me, a whole lot of the magic is already gone.