Disney Secret! The Swan and FastPass+

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, but my guy, right here, is both.

Frank is the one on the left.

Frank is the one on the left.

My husband Frank is a vacation planner extraordinaire. We have first class experiences because he always manages to find a deal to stretch our vacation dollars pretty far. For our fourth family trip to Walt Disney World in Florida, he found us a great room rate at the Walt Disney World Swan. The Swan and Dolphin are talked about pretty much interchangeably, but heads up, The Swan is the one with two queen “Heavenly” beds per room as opposed to the doubles found at The Dolphin. Six inches of bed can mean the difference between your spawn bleating, “Mom, her bony elbows are touching me!” all night long versus Princess Aurora worthy slumber for all.

And the hotel is gorgeous!

Walt Disney World Swan Resort

It was also a short walk or boat ride to the two parks we wanted to be the closest to–Epcot and Hollywood Studios.

Friendship Boats

Friendship Boats

Plus, we always like to try someplace new. Frank and I have stayed in The Contemporary, The Polynesian, The Yacht Club, The Boardwalk Inn, and The Caribbean Beach Resort in the past. We like to stay on the property so we can take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours.

Okay, so these were the reasons from our Frank’s  research that had us choosing The Swan. But here is where the luck came into play. Guests of The Swan and Dolphin have the opportunity to participate in a test of Disney’s FastPass+, the next generation of FastPass Service until January 12, 2014.

This meant we had our very own Cast Members at the entrance of each park ready to load our passes with three FastPasses! If you’ve been to Disney since 1999, you know the FastPass service gives you the ticket to the express lane for getting on an attraction. BUT, you have to go to the ride to hit up the kiosk, only so many are given out per hour so you can get assigned a ride time that is hours away, and you have to wait until you reach the one hour time window on your current FastPass before you can get another one. Also, if you miss your ride window, too bad, you just wasted a FastPass.

None of these “buts” seemed like a big deal to me, that is, until I experienced the glory that is FastPass+.  With three FastPasses loaded right on our tickets at the entrance, mad dashes to the back of the park to get to the kiosk of the preferred ride were eliminated. The times were so much more desirable and flexible too. The Cast Member just kept scrolling through options on his tricked out iPad until they worked out for us. And as long as we didn’t activate our FastPass+ at the ride, we were free to change the times or the ride selections even if our time windows had passed.

But hold onto your mouse ears for the best part. You know what happened when the computer said all of the FastPasses for Toy Story Mania had been distributed? WE GOT GOLDEN TICKETS! OOOOOOOOOOOOO! AHHHHHHHHH!

Golden Ticket FastPasses

No waiting in the 90 minute standby line for us! I have to admit, we felt pretty powerful, almost like The Hulk if he weren’t the property of Universal Studios. Also, we didn’t smash things and we may have employed skipping to express our glee.

In fact I was so gleeful, I just wanted to give the internet a heads up about all of this. If you’re planning a Disney vacation before January 12, 2014, you may seriously want to stay at Disney’s Swan and Dolphin. Now the FastPass+ service has been in testing for over a year, so I can’t guarantee your experience would be the same, but now you know to ask about it, right? WE wouldn’t have known about it had we not seen the discreet little sign by the shuttle stop.

If you stay somewhere else on the property, ASK ABOUT THE SERVICE! There are automated FastPass+ kiosks around the parks and it looked like some of the other guests were using them. You may be able to use the service through your My Disney Experience Mobile App, which in and of itself was FABULOUS with its interactive maps and attraction standby times, but we were not able to do that. We had such personalized service with our own dedicated Cast Members that we would not have done it that way anyhow. Pretty sure the app would not have coughed up those Golden Tickets.

Knowledge is power, so go out there and get the Mouse! I’ll just be here digging out my thermal underwear because after the balminess of Florida, I’m freezing.

-Ellen

Disney Secret! The Swan and FastPass+ Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

Even though it would seem this is a sponsored post, it is not. All opinions and glee are purely my own and no compensation was received. I paid for my $9.00 hamburgers just like everyone else.

 

Check out this Disney secret too!

The Secret Oasis in Animal Kingdom

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Share it real good . . .
Share on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Google+Share on StumbleUponShare on RedditEmail this to someonePrint this page

Comments

comments

2 thoughts on “Disney Secret! The Swan and FastPass+

  1. This Mom Said It

    Great to know about the Swan – 2 queen beds! Thanks for the tip! Amazing that you got those golden tix for TSM.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge