Fastpass, as a system, does need tightening up. At BTM, during peak season, when the lines were full, we were supposed to allow the lines to move 80-20 standardly, meaning for every 80 fast passes we let down, we should let down 20 standbys. There were times both lines were so out of control, with standby at over 2 hours that we would be asked to make it 95-5, just so fastpass can't complain, since they are supposed to get on within 20 minutes.
It didn't help that we're fully allowed to let anyone who's time expired go on afterward - which I understand and agree with, though I think it gets abused. What if you were on an attraction that broke down or you got seated late for your dinner reservations and got out late cause of it and missed your window? I never minded a few people using them late - it was when people had a blatant disregard that was a problem and would walk up at 9 pm with this 11 am Fastpasses. That got frustrating.
The another thing is the worst offenders for stacks of Fastpasses/Readds are CMs. Cause it's so easy for us, when in rotation to just pocket them, I knew a CM who had thousands. Literally. And CMs tend to not turn away expired Readds, in case its from someone's last trip or they were honestly given the wrong pass.
Another problem is the raging abuse of the childswap. Sometimes, when a parent comes up, and they have to ride one at a time, it's really sort of cute - I always thought it was a shame there was no way for them to ride simultaneously. But I'd get a group of like, 15 come up, where there's just one 3 year old who can't ride, and a grandma, and they'd be like, "We need childswaps to cover 13 people, please." WHHHHHHAAAAAAAT?
And also - REALLY hysterically bad ebay fastpasses that have no attraction on them, but rather say like "Frontierland" on the top and have the phrase "No expiration!" on the bottom. And of course, the people using them always say "Oh, I - uh, I don't know where I got them - I think uhm, an employee, one of those workers at Splash Mountain gave it to me. You should call. I just can't remember a name. Or their gender. Or where they where. Can we go up now?"
The fastpass collector CM, which is the second CM in the FP line isn't supposed to look at the FP. That's the CM out front's responsibility.
We were also was told we had to, to make sure someone wasn't told "Your Fastpass is expired/not valid yet/etc" and jumped lines once going in standby. We always had to.
I wish there was a way to make the fastpass system just go on your ticket. Like, the ticket gets encoded or something. And then they just scan your ticket. Then there'd be no question possible. It's there or it's not. Of course, imagine the day the system goes down or the problems with the tickets that won't scan properly, and we have to give out those fastpass cards. It's a terrific concept, with the best possible (at the time) system. I look forward to those cell phone fastpasses they were talking about forever ago. I love seeing the new tech Disney comes up with. They always try to make everything magical and exciting - even the fastpasses.
-Nicholas
