Computer Snags Delay Fast Pass

Computer glitches have delayed testing of a Disneyland program to eliminate long waits for top attractions by assigning riders times when they can bypass queues and board immediately, a park official said Tuesday.

The program, designed to address the biggest complaint at theme parks, “was supposed to start this week,” spokesman Ray Gomez said. “But there apparently were some software problems.”

Disney employees begin training next week for Fast Pass, also known as “virtual queuing,” another park source said. The program will be tested first for about a week at the Space Mountain roller coaster, probably this month.

Assuming all goes well, it will then be tried out at Indiana Jones Adventure and Splash Mountain, and perhaps later at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Animazement show in Fantasyland and Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

The program, tested successfully at Walt Disney World in Florida, allows guests to feed their tickets into a machine that returns the ticket along with a boarding pass.

To get their places held in line, guests are told to return within five minutes of the time shown on the pass, although workers at Disneyland will honor the pass up to an hour late, the source said.