The Disneyland Paris Resort is promoting its latest version of paid Fastpasses — a "Star Wars Experience +" pass that includes front-of-line and no-wait access to three of its parks' Star Wars-themed attractions.
The resort is selling the pass during its Legends of the Force: A Star Wars Celebration event, which runs through March 17. The pass includes Fastpass reservations for Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain and Star Tours: The Adventures Continue in Disneyland Paris, as well as a space in a reserved viewing area for the Star Wars: A Galactic Celebration show in front of the Hollywood Tower Hotel in the Walt Disney Studios Park. The pass, which sells for €59 per person per day, also includes a line-skip for the Darth Vader meet and greet.
Disneyland Paris' press release does not mention where or how to buy the pass, and it does not appear on the Disneyland Paris website, so we're going to assume that this is an upsell that must be bought inside the park. The release also mentions "Collector souvenirs" as a feature of the the pass, but it does not specify whether you actually get something with the pass... or just the opportunity to buy something not available to others.
Disneyland Paris last year introduced three new paid Fastpass ticket add-ons: a Super Fastpass with one-time front-of-line access to three rides and two Ultimate Fastpass options, with one-time or unlimited access to nine attractions. The Star Wars Experience is sort of a Star Wars-themed Super Fastpass, with a meet and greet and merchandise element thrown in to help boost the price.
TweetI wonder when Disney will just embrace the paid Fastpass system entirely and only give people a limited number of admissions to attractions with each park ticket. And to better distribute the crowd within the parks, Disney could assign the attractions into various tiers.
For argument's sake, let's just call the tiers with the letters A through E. (Quiet, old timers!) You'd get an assigned number of tickets in each tier with your day in the park, though you could buy extra A-E tickets for an upcharge.
I wonder if this system would work....
(Yes, I am being cheeky as heck with this response.)
Disney should have just limited the number of Fastpasses instead of doing Maxpass. Or they could limit the Fastpasses for the regular ticket and still keep Maxpass for unlimited Fastpasses. I wonder how many Fastpasses the serious Maxpass user can get in one day?
But don't put A-E Fastpasses on every ride, like the Main Street vehicles, limit it only on the E or maybe D tickets. I can totally see Disney offering a special ticket for front-of-line entry to SWGE, but they should also offer hard ticket parties prior to the grand opening. $1000 anyone?
I would not be one bit surprised to see upcharge Fastpasses come to the US parks in the very near future. While I doubt Disney would ever make anything upcharge-only, I could certainly see Fastpasses for Galaxy's Edge being restricted to Maxpass-users (or, in Florida, on-site hotel guests). Who knows...five years from now, perhaps free Fastpass will be a thing of the past and you'll need to buy Maxpass if you want to use the service at all. I'd honestly be all for that.
Now, limiting how many attractions a visitor could ride in a day...you'd either need to include a couple dozen attraction tickets or drop prices to $~60 for that system to work.
I wouldn't limit the number of attractions a visitor could ride, just the number of Fastpasses, of course they can get in the standby line after that. But maybe a limit of 5 Fastpasses for the day? Just off the top of my head. If they want more, they can buy the Maxpass.
Disneyland Paris Resort guests at their on-site hotels recently were upgraded to MagicPass RFID enabled cards- another nail on the MagicBand coffin.
You can find the Star Wars Experience on the Disneyland Paris French Website. https://www.booktickets.disneylandparis.com/tnsa64/live/shop/1/MAINFRCD/pluto/index.php?vld=1&affid=SECUTIX&tduid=32454335543R. They often add things to that site before it goes to the English site.
For me, I think that paid Fastpasses have been added at Disneyland Paris because they don't have the Fastpass + system, nor the infrastructure to support it (from my personal experience). As all the Fastpasse here are still paper and still reserved at the ride, it means that it is very difficult to get even 2 Fastpasses in a day, let alone 3. So, I am not sure that anything happening in Disney Paris can be extrapolated to mean anything for WDW. Just in mho..
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Waiting for this inevitable announcement from Disney -
"Experience the all new Star Wars - Galaxy's Edge* themed lands at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios"
* - not included with standard park admission