Paid 'Fastpasses' come to Shanghai Disneyland

Last month, we showed you a report from a Theme Park Insider reader who said he had seen people selling Fastpasses inside Shanghai Disneyland . At the time, we wondered if the idea that other people were selling front of the line access to its rides would prompt Disney to get in the game and head off those deals by selling Fastpass-style access itself.

Guess what? Now the park is doing just that.

Here's the scoop, direct from Shanghai, courtesy Adriel Tjokrosaputro.

"Disney Premier Access" allows you a one-time Fastpass queue entry to each of seven top rides in the park, anytime you wish to visit during the day of your access. The cost for one Fastpass entry is RMB 120 (US$17.41) or RMB 150 ($21.77) on "peak" days, when park admission tickets cost more, too. But the cost for the set — all seven — is RMB 480 or 600 (US$69.71-87.14), which works out to about $10-12.50 per Fastpass, a price that I suspect many America visitors might pay.

[*Note: An earlier version of this story missed that the set price in the photo was the one for all seven Fastpass entries.]

Disney is providing a park-approved way for people to pay for extra access to attractions, without having to go through middlemen. Shanghai Disneyland is drawing about a million visitors a month, putting it behind the Magic Kingdom-style parks in Orlando, Anaheim, and Tokyo for annual attendance but ahead of Paris and well ahead of Hong Kong. Yet Shanghai Disneyland has fewer attractions than the Disney parks that attract more visitors, which means longer lines in Shanghai.

According to Adriel's earlier report, scalpers were charging around RMB 100 for a pair of Fastpasses, which means that Disney's charging more for its version, so we'll see if this has the presumably desired effect of drying up demand for middleman Fastpass sales.

This isn't the first time that Disney has sold preferred line access, of course. VIP Tours at its other parks around the world often provide that perk, and hard-ticket events such as the recent "Early Morning Magic" at the Walt Disney World Resort also provide much shorter waits than during regular operation. But those "line skips," if you will, come packaged with other perks and services. This is the first time I can recall that Disney has put a direct price on using the Fastpass return lines... and nothing else. (Disneyland's upcoming MaxPass charges for using the park's app to manage your Fastpasses — a benefit that Walt Disney World visitors get for no extra charge — but it does not allow you to hold more than the one Fastpass you can by using the traditional paper system.)

Paid line-skipping is standard practice at other companies' parks, of course, with Universal, Cedar Fair, and Six Flags parks all selling various passes and systems to allow you to spend less time in line.

Will Disney bring its Disney Premier Access to its US theme parks? Or is this a unique solution to a particular problem in Shanghai? Make your prediction in the comments.

Replies (18)

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.