Disneyland Line-Cutting Test a Quick Hit

A system to eliminate the bane of theme park fans--tedious waits for popular rides--was tested Thursday at Disneyland’s Space Mountain roller coaster to rave reviews.

Riders who insisted on doing things traditionally were allowed to simply work their way through a regular queue with a wait of up to 40 minutes. But urged on by Disney employees, many tried Fastpass, a system that assigned them one-hour windows of time later on. During that hour, the visitors could use a separate priority line of about five minutes.

The system, also called virtual queuing, drew only one complaint: that it wasn’t available elsewhere in the park.

“They should try to have it on all the rides. It would be a lot quicker,” said Ray Converse, 17, of San Diego, who rode the Matterhorn roller coaster nearby during the time he would otherwise have been standing in the Space Mountain line.

Converse and his friend Joanna Dorado, 19, spent less than 10 minutes in line for Space Mountain at noon, a time when the wait for Splash Mountain was listed at 50 minutes and for Indiana Jones Adventure at 60 minutes.

Both of those rides also are potential candidates for the Fastpass system if the tests prove it can be used successfully.

After several brief tryouts earlier this week, full-day tests of Fastpass were scheduled Thursday through Sunday at Space Mountain, where lines are generally among the longest in the park, Disneyland spokesman Tom Brocato said.

Users of the system feed their park admission tickets or annual passes into a machine, which spits out a voucher assigning them the computer-determined later hour to return for the short line.

There is no additional charge.

Fastpass already is in place on high-demand rides at three of Walt Disney Co.’s four theme parks near Orlando, Fla. Officials said Disney hopes to use it eventually at all its parks, including California Adventure, which is under construction beside Disneyland and is scheduled to open in 2001.

Disneyland officials had hoped to have virtual queuing in place at several attractions for the Fourth of July weekend, but software snags and difficulties in finding space for two waiting lines have pushed back full implementation.

The theme park hopes that by early 2000, it will have have Fastpass available on a regular basis at Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones, Brocato said.

After the current tryout, no additional tests are planned at Disneyland, and indeed the Space Mountain machines will immediately be sent to France to be tried out at Disneyland Paris, he said.

Surveys of customers consistently rank long lines as the worst aspect of amusement parks.

The lines also reduce the amount tourists spend on souvenirs and food, because they don’t have time for shopping and or leisurely meals.

So the rest of the industry is watching closely as Disney, so often the market leader, tries to address the problem.

“We’re all kind of waiting to see how it plays out for them,” Six Flags Magic Mountain spokesman Andy Gallardo said. “The jury is still out.”

Gallardo and Disney workers alike said one potential problem area is how to handle customers who return at the assigned time and find the ride has broken down--an event that occurred more than once this week on Space Mountain.

During a 10-minute shutdown about noon Thursday, employees simply told disappointed riders to return later in the day and their tickets would be honored despite it being outside the one-hour window.

One side benefit of Fastpass was a marked shortening of the regular line, particularly early in the day.

Monica M. Rogerson of Los Alamitos, visiting Disneyland with her daughter and granddaughter from Texas, waited only about 15 minutes in the regular line before riding Space Mountain just before 11 a.m.

Rogerson said virtual queuing sounded even better, particularly if it can be applied to several popular rides.

“By the time you wait in three 1 1/2-hour lines, most of your day is spent,” she said.