I heard a few days ago from my friends at Animal Kingdom that the Fastpass operations department is being eliminated. For those of you who don't know, about a year and a half ago all of the Fastpass positions (in Dinosaur they are at the distribution machines, at the fastpass entrance, and the rotunda) were taken over by a new department separate from those running each ride. The theory was that it would be cheaper to run this way. A Fastpass only department could run those three positions at a ride with one breaker (4 total people or 1.3 person per position). In contrast, the Dinosaur Operations team, which would have those 3 positions plus the 10 other normal positions, would normally run with about 19 or 20 people (about 1.5 person per position). Basically, the more people you have in an operation, the more cumbersome it becomes, so the idea was to split things into smaller departments. Plus, as they were still working on perfecting Fastpass in all the different buildings, it made sense to have people specializing in Fastpass.
The most noticeable aspect of all of this is that the Fastpass people never wore the proper area costumes because they were part of a park-wide department. This is especially noticeable in some rides like Tower of Terror. I have no idea if any of the other parks are eliminating their Fastpass departments, but I heard October is the date for Animal Kindgom to lose theirs. It will be nice to see all the positions manned by properly costumed cast members again.
The most noticeable aspect of all of this is that the Fastpass people never wore the proper area costumes because they were part of a park-wide department. This is especially noticeable in some rides like Tower of Terror. I have no idea if any of the other parks are eliminating their Fastpass departments, but I heard October is the date for Animal Kindgom to lose theirs. It will be nice to see all the positions manned by properly costumed cast members again.
This would be a great move! I am sick of seeing unthemed costumes in things like ToT and Haunted Mansion. It seesmr ediculous to spend millions themeing an attraction, and then blow it by having non themed costumes.
