Not A Plus For Us...Yet

The month of January tends to be a slower (meaning less crowded) one at Disney World so the perfect time to visit the parks.  We decided to check out Animal Kingdom on what looked to be one of their slowest days of the year because we wanted to try out the new FastPass+ system that was being rolled out gradually throughout the parks.  It had been in place at Animal Kingdom since mid-Dec.  The original FastPass system allowed you to save time not waiting in
long lines for many of the more popular rides and attractions.  By inserting your admission ticket into a machine at the ride, you were issued a paper ticket indicating the time to return.  The new system, FastPass+, moves into a more high tech realm eliminating the paper passes.  It’s supposed to moderate wait times and allow you to make reservations for certain rides/attractions.  Guests staying at a
Disney resort hotels can make reservations up to 60 days in advance on their computer. However, those staying elsewhere or folks like us with annual passes need to make their same-day reservations at one of the FastPass+ kiosks located inside the parks.  Another drawback - you can get only one FastPass+ per attraction per day with a max of 3 total. So if you wanted to ride
Kilimanjaro Safari twice, you could reserve one and would have to use the stand-by line for the other thus making the stand-by lines even longer than they normally are.  Disney also limits the combinations of FastPass+ reservations you can have which keeps guests from using all of the park’s most popular rides/attractions on the same day, a plus and a minus.  On this particular day we wanted to find out
more about the new system and give it a try.  Shortly after arriving we found a very knowledgeable cast member who answered all of our questions and pointed us in the direction of the nearest kiosk.  The line was a little long, but there were several cast members with tablets eager to assist since there were only 2 kiosks at this station.  The cast member did all the work which defeated the purpose of us to trying it out ourselves, but we got 3 booked.  The computer automatically picks your times, but you can make some changes/adjustments if availability allows.

 

After riding Kilimanjaro Safari (photos above), our next “reservation” was an hour away so we wandered around checking out the critters on the Tree of Life (previous post) and rode the Primeval Whirl (a first for us) located in the Dinoland area.  It’s probably geared more towards the younger set, but since there was barely anyone in line, we thought we’d give it a go.  Basically it’s a
roller coaster with cars that spin in circles while traveling on tracks (thank goodness it was a short ride!)  Each car holds 4 riders and we were crammed in with a father and son.  The ride is themed as a time travel machine taking you “back in time” to when the dinosaurs lived, and I managed to get a couple of photos before the spinning started including one from the top overlooking the area.










 

As we continued our stroll, we came upon a cast member who was there to offer information and answer every possible question you could have about the American Crocodile. Like we’ve said before, sometimes just being able to take the time to wander around with no agenda can be the most enjoyable, and this was one of those days.  Though we only used 2 of our 3 reservations (you have to pick 3), we’re not sure this new system is such a plus for us…at least not at this time.