Earthquake? Are we at Universal Studios?

Have you ever been in Disneyland during an earthquake? After Sunday I can answer yes to that question. From the time of the quake, 10:29 AM, and the fact that we were in line for Small World at 10:45 AM I know I could have felt it. I just didn't.

We exited Small World and headed down to the rest of Fantasyland and noticed that Matterhorn was closed. Since the crowds were out of control on the Fantasyland dark rides we headed straight on through and around the Big Thunder Trail. At the end of the trail we noticed that Big Thunder was closed too. Our next choice was Pirates. This was also closed.

Sine there was no escaping the heat at Disneyland we were going to head over to Disney's California Adventure and our lunch reservation at the Wine Country Trattoria. We stopped at the Main Street Wait Time kiosk and this was when we were told that there had been an earthquake. It was good to know that Disney takes safety seriously and closed the attractions to make sure that everything was working properly. I would have never had a clue that there was an earthquake if I had not been told. I would have just found it very odd that every attraction that we tried to ride was closed.

Here is a link to the LA Times article on the earthquake.

To Fastpass or Not to Fastpass, That is the Title

Fastpass. This one word can cause a lot of emotion in the Disney Park fan community. When I first learned of this system I thought it was the greatest idea I had ever heard. You would only have to wait for 10-15 minutes and then the E-ticket of your dreams is all yours. There have also been a few downsides to skipping the wait.


When it comes to Space Mountain I can't imagine that I would like to wait outside during the hot summer months. It would be crazy to stand in line for an hour or two when you can grab a fastpass then sit down, have some lunch, and cool off. After an hour or three you come back, walk up the ramp and into the building.


At the same time that Space Mountain is a great time saver the fastpass has ruined half the fun of Indiana Jones Adventure. You miss out on most of the greatest queue in a US Disney park. When you run to the safety movie room you don't really take in all the little details that are packed in this queue. The decoder card that used to be passed out to you made the time a lot easier to deal with. Now you wouldn't even have a chance to look at the glyphs let alone translate them.

Big Thunder Mountain is still a different situation. The standby line could have a 20 minute wait and people are still getting fastpasses. There is no real reason to have fastpass here. So maybe there would be a 20 to 30 minute wait. Who can't wait that long?


I have heard people moaning about both the fastpass system in general and the lack of fastpass on certain attractions. You often hear Matterhorn, Peter Pan, and Dumbo mentioned as attractions that should be fastpass enabled. I have even seen posts mentioning Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Tours as possible attractions.

I laugh every time I see Star Tours since it used to have fastpass but they took all the machines out when it didn't prove worthwhile. Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the fastest moving line in the park. If you had to deal with taking fastpasses and separating the queue would only slow the entire attraction down.

Peter Pan and Dumbo have issues that can't be solved by fastpass. They need to increase capacity for those attractions before they could even consider an option like this.

I think that Disneyland would be just fine without fastpass and you would still enjoy yourself. As long as it is still there I am going to continue using it though.