Question about FP plus

[Betsytacy812]

I have been to WDW at least 20 times, but not in the last 5 years (a lot of changes in that time!) We are taking a family trip to FL at the end of January (weekday, value day) and including one day at MK and staying on property. We are big on getting there early & getting as many rides done as possible before the crowd picks up. That being said, I’m having trouble deciding how to schedule our FPs for the day. I know I won’t “need” any in the morning, we are having a sit down lunch at Crystal Palace, and then will probably take it down a notch so kids can rest/nap in the stroller, and we will watch the parade. The rides I know we will want to ride again in the later afternoon/evening are Big Thunder, Pooh, and the Snow White Mine Train. So should i just book those as our FPs for the day (I know we won’t get any additional FPs until we use the first ones up) or do i select rides earlier in the day so I can get more FPs later (but not be guaranteed to get the ones I want- like the Snow White Mine Train for example)? Would appreciate any input! Thanks!

 

[Shanti]

I have been to WDW at least 20 times, but not in the last 5 years (a lot of changes in that time!) We are taking a family trip to FL at the end of January (weekday, value day) and including one day at MK and staying on property. We are big on getting there early & getting as many rides done as possible before the crowd picks up. That being said, I’m having trouble deciding how to schedule our FPs for the day. I know I won’t “need” any in the morning, we are having a sit down lunch at Crystal Palace, and then will probably take it down a notch so kids can rest/nap in the stroller, and we will watch the parade. The rides I know we will want to ride again in the later afternoon/evening are Big Thunder, Pooh, and the Snow White Mine Train. So should i just book those as our FPs for the day (I know we won’t get any additional FPs until we use the first ones up) or do i select rides earlier in the day so I can get more FPs later (but not be guaranteed to get the ones I want- like the Snow White Mine Train for example)? Would appreciate any input! Thanks!

You are extremely unlikely to get a FP for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train the same day. That's why you need to book your FP for that in advance. Sometimes people can't get it even at 30 days out. Since you're staying on property, you'll get to book FPs at 60 days out, and that's what you should do.

Book 7DMT for the afternoon if that's when you plan to ride it. 7DMT will have a very long line right from park opening, so it's an important one to FP for any time of day you plan to ride it.

Big Thunder can be easily ridden within the 1st hour without a FP, but with small kids you're probably better off using that precious 1st hour in Fantasyland. If you know you'll want to ride Big Thunder in the afternoon without a long wait, you'll need an advance FP for that, too, as on most days a Big Thunder FP won't be available day of for the afternoon.

A lot has changed at WDW in 5 years: bigger crowds at most times of year (except summer), and most guests now use the advance-booking FP+ system, which means that same day FP's for top rides are very hard to get.

 

[mousehouse23]

I think the benefits of booking your FP+ reservations early in the day at MK are too great to pass up, especially on a low-crowd day at the end of January. You have the potential of grabbing multiple "rolling" Fastpasses for attractions like The Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Buzz Lightyear, etc., if you stack your most desirable FPs early on. I'd probably make my first FP for 10:00 or 10:30 on a day like this, after doing as much as I can in Fantasyland that first hour after park opening. Some of that will depend on when you're able to book Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, but as an onsite guest, you should be able to nab one for somewhat earlier in the day, I'd think.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a great time!

 

[DavidNYC]

I get 3 in before the mid-day break ideally getting 7DMT as early as you can. We just got about 10-12 FP in during a day at MK during Jersey week and you'll have lower crowds than us. Especially if you keep refreshing, during a lower crowd time you're pretty much going to be able to keep getting them as long as you're a little flexible with what you do when. 7DMT being the main exception. Not sure how late your lunch is but I'd make 1-2 before lunch with one right after. (If lunch is for example at noon, I'd make one FP for about 10:30 - 11:30 and one from 11:30 - 12:30 and do both of those rides (ideally not too far apart in distance) between 11-12 and head to lunch and then get your last one from 12:45 -1:45 aiming to do it right after lunch and then search for add'l FP rest of day. From 9-11 you'll be able to get a number of rides done as you noted without FP.

 

[Hook326]

I get 3 in before the mid-day break ideally getting 7DMT as early as you can. We just got about 10-12 FP in during a day at MK during Jersey week and you'll have lower crowds than us. Especially if you keep refreshing, during a lower crowd time you're pretty much going to be able to keep getting them as long as you're a little flexible with what you do when. 7DMT being the main exception. Not sure how late your lunch is but I'd make 1-2 before lunch with one right after. (If lunch is for example at noon, I'd make one FP for about 10:30 - 11:30 and one from 11:30 - 12:30 and do both of those rides (ideally not too far apart in distance) between 11-12 and head to lunch and then get your last one from 12:45 -1:45 aiming to do it right after lunch and then search for add'l FP rest of day. From 9-11 you'll be able to get a number of rides done as you noted without FP.

Wow, 10-12 fp in a day would be awesome for our upcoming trip! I was hoping to just get a couple after our initial 3. You’ve given me hope!

 

[DavidNYC]

Wow, 10-12 fp in a day would be awesome for our upcoming trip! I was hoping to just get a couple after our initial 3. You’ve given me hope!

Make sure you read some threads about how to quickly refresh FP on the MDE app. That's key. The main things that let us get that many were (1) I spent 5-10 minutes after we redeemed each FP doing quick refreshes to see what was available and (2) we were willing to a little more walking than ideal if, for example, a FP for a ride we wanted popped up for 15 minutes in the future but was half way across the park. But in general, what you want to be doing is looking for a FP that opens as soon as possible after you finish riding one ride (remember you can start searching immediately after you scan into one ride so I often had my next reservation planned in between the time I scanned and the time I actually boarded a ride. Unless we had something like a meal or parade where we knew we be stopping for a while, we pretty much never took anything more than a hour (90 minutes if one of the big rides) from when we were looking.

We routinely saw rides with FP within 15 minutes of when we were looking. IASW was a 25 minute wait and we happened to have one pop up for 6 minutes from the time we looked as we walked past it. We grabbed it - scanned basically immediately since you can get in 5 minute early, and had our next one planned before we got on the boat for 40 minutes later.

 

[Haley R]

I might be in the minority on this, but we just get to the park at RD and ride lots of rides at the beginning. Then we save our FPs for 10am-12pm and refresh after that. I think it's a waste to use them right away in the morning because you can walk on a lot of rides or have a very short wait. We were on the first train for 7DMT, walked on Peter Pan, pretty much did all of Fantasyland, then did BTMR and by that time used our first FP at Splash Mountain. We had ridden almost everything by noon and used 2 FPs.

 

[Gehrig1B]

We never fastpass before 10:00 am. Generally hours 1 and 2 without Fastpasses and then try to go FP+ back to back to back, done by 1:00 with the first 3 FP's then start going for more. I see no need to Fastpass before rope drop + 2hours.

 

[Hook326]

Make sure you read some threads about how to quickly refresh FP on the MDE app. That's key. The main things that let us get that many were (1) I spent 5-10 minutes after we redeemed each FP doing quick refreshes to see what was available and (2) we were willing to a little more walking than ideal if, for example, a FP for a ride we wanted popped up for 15 minutes in the future but was half way across the park. But in general, what you want to be doing is looking for a FP that opens as soon as possible after you finish riding one ride (remember you can start searching immediately after you scan into one ride so I often had my next reservation planned in between the time I scanned and the time I actually boarded a ride. Unless we had something like a meal or parade where we knew we be stopping for a while, we pretty much never took anything more than a hour (90 minutes if one of the big rides) from when we were looking.

We routinely saw rides with FP within 15 minutes of when we were looking. IASW was a 25 minute wait and we happened to have one pop up for 6 minutes from the time we looked as we walked past it. We grabbed it - scanned basically immediately since you can get in 5 minute early, and had our next one planned before we got on the boat for 40 minutes later.

Great tips, thank you! I’ll be using them!

 

[dwheaton]

The MK is different than the other parks in that you can do a lot with the rolling FPs. With that said, I wouldn't rush to get them done either. Like others have said, my suggestion is to do FPs for the most popular attractions (7DMT, Peter Pan, and Space Mountain) in the 10-12 range. After lunch, you can then pick up FPs for a lot of the mid-tier attractions (Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Pooh, and even Big Thunder if you're lucky). Many of those have longer lines now because of FastPass Plus. It's even impacted former walk-ons like It's a Small World. The extra FPs on the app are so helpful regardless of the crowds.

 

[Boardwalk III]

Great thread - I’ve been a few times over the past couple years so have used FP+ but havent made much use of it other than the first 3 FP’s each day. I do have a related question however. I’m in charge of a trip coming up in March and there will be 8 of us. I plan to use the strategy mentioned here re booking FPs from mid-morning till about noontime.

However with a party that large is there any chance of getting additional FPs together or are folks going to have to just split up and do their own thing in groups of 2 or 4? Tks!

 

[mousehouse23]

Great thread - I’ve been a few times over the past couple years so have used FP+ but havent made much use of it other than the first 3 FP’s each day. I do have a related question however. I’m in charge of a trip coming up in March and there will be 8 of us. I plan to use the strategy mentioned here re booking FPs from mid-morning till about noontime.

However with a party that large is there any chance of getting additional FPs together or are folks going to have to just split up and do their own thing in groups of 2 or 4? Tks!

In March, I'd think it likely that you're going to have to split up your group and hopefully get some overlapping FP windows (one group having a 1:30-2:30, the second having a 2:15-3:15, for example). You can try booking a smaller party first, and then adding other group members by "modifying" the FP reservation to include more people. Might be challenging for a group that size, though, especially on a consistent basis.

Good luck!

 

[dwheaton]

Great thread - I’ve been a few times over the past couple years so have used FP+ but havent made much use of it other than the first 3 FP’s each day. I do have a related question however. I’m in charge of a trip coming up in March and there will be 8 of us. I plan to use the strategy mentioned here re booking FPs from mid-morning till about noontime.

However with a party that large is there any chance of getting additional FPs together or are folks going to have to just split up and do their own thing in groups of 2 or 4? Tks!

I think it's only going to work for attractions that have a lot of availability if you want all 8 to get FPs. The trick of refreshing the app (especially the MK) is going to be less effective because you won't take advantage of smaller groups cancelling. With that said, I think there should still be a way to do it. It just may be trickier at times and require more trial and error on the app.