Remembering the Dream Fastpass

 

Remember the Year of a Million Dreams promotion at the Disney parks? During the day, elusive Dream Squad cast members would show up at random locations and give out prizes to the next guests to pass their way.

Back in 2007, my family and I got just one prize out of that deal, but it was a good one: Dream Fastpasses for our group.

These were plastic cards with detachable tabs, which served as all-day Fastpasses for each Fastpass-enabled ride at Disneyland: Big Thunder Mt. Railroad, Indiana Jones Adventure, Splash Mountain, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear and Autopia. Valid only for the day of issue, the pass could only be used once on each ride, as a cast member would snap off the appropriate tab as you entered.

Not a bad way to save a few hours of waiting time, these great little bonuses remain my family's best memory of The Year of a Million Dreams...which, you may recall, actually lasted 27 months.

Indiana Jones Fastpass

Today we take a look at the Fastpass waiting time display tower for the Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye -- and what a wild, goofball, ramshackle-looking construction it is. Disneyland's Adventureland is more or less themed around the idea of Western civilization sticking its nose into places and situations where it doesn't belong, and that goes double for the Indy ride's entry area.

What a gloriously intentional mess this thing is. By all rights, it should look awful, but its crazy angles and mismatched materials make it all the more fun to look at. It's also a great foreshadowing of the chaos that awaits ahead, and a clue that the archeological camp you're about to enter is not run by the best-funded or most well-organized explorers on Earth. Call me paranoid, but if you put your trust in those guys, there's a very good chance something is going to go horribly wrong...

Don't Let This Happen To You

You see this? This is the line for the Radiator Springs Racers Fastpasses on June 30...five minutes after park opening!!!!!

The fastpass machines are located at the entry to A Bugs Land, and the line stretched from there back around the Carthay Circle Theater and nearly all the way down Hollywood Blvd.

This is insanity. It's also completely unnecessary. These people are spending their precious morning time standing in a slow-moving line for an hour or more to get a reservation they probably don't need.

If there's one piece of advice I can leave you with regarding Radiator Springs Racers, it's this:

SINGLE RIDER LINE.