Hi all.
Sitting here on my last night at WDW. I had quite a big break (for us) between trips this time around so this was our FIRST trip with the FP time enforcement. I thought I'd share my experience for those, like me, who weren't sure how significantly this would impact our touring and trip.
I'll start with a summary- YES, it did impact it and definitely not in a positive manner. But it wasn't quite the pain in my side I anticipated.
Honestly it just made my trip more stressful...I was SO CONCERNED with the exact time at all times (if you're like me and don't like to wear your phone right on you on rides - you might want to wear a watch - I CONSTANTLY had to be checking the time on this trip and calculating in my head - do we have time for a bathroom break AND walking over and doing Star Tours and gettign back before 1:20?). It was difficult to figure out what you CAN do in between rides. For example, you just get off TOT and your FP for RNR start time is in 20 minutes...We decided to walk over and do standby at Great Movie Ride. Great movie ride wait time is 35 minutes...By the time we got over there and on the ride...Assuming the estimate is either exactly right or too high...It meant hustling over (and checking my watch constantly to see if we would make it still) to make sure we got there in time for the FP's. We wanted to wait for the next show to do the Cowboy theme but would have been VERY close to missing our window so had to skip that. We ended up running across the park at least 3 times. I knew we'd end up criss-crossing more...and we did - I just didn't expect it to actually be tough to make it back in time as much as it was.
Ended up having to leave Nemo the Musical early....Was cutting it close with the end time of the show - then they had a few technical difficulties that delayed the show at the beginning by a few minutes...Between that and trying to get through the bows and getting through the crowd - we wouldn't have made it, so had to leave early to get to the Dinosaur FP's in time. We only had 2 Nemo shows to choose from that day because we had to leave the park for a lunch ressie.
Speaking of lunch - that was the other tough part. Since we get a lot of FP's in the morning...between trying to go get the next one and needing to use them within the time - Some days I found it tough to squeeze in lunch.
With the extra criss-crossing the park and needing to get somewhere to get the next FP's - I would say we were able to get almost as many FP's per day as our 'usual' - but it maybe went down by 1 fewer. But this is moot with FP+ coming around the corner anyway. I guess on the bright side when we're only getting 3 - 4 FP's per day there will be PLENTY of time to eat lunch and wait in long standby lines before the next FP window.
Definitely will take some getting used to.
Sitting here on my last night at WDW. I had quite a big break (for us) between trips this time around so this was our FIRST trip with the FP time enforcement. I thought I'd share my experience for those, like me, who weren't sure how significantly this would impact our touring and trip.
I'll start with a summary- YES, it did impact it and definitely not in a positive manner. But it wasn't quite the pain in my side I anticipated.
Honestly it just made my trip more stressful...I was SO CONCERNED with the exact time at all times (if you're like me and don't like to wear your phone right on you on rides - you might want to wear a watch - I CONSTANTLY had to be checking the time on this trip and calculating in my head - do we have time for a bathroom break AND walking over and doing Star Tours and gettign back before 1:20?). It was difficult to figure out what you CAN do in between rides. For example, you just get off TOT and your FP for RNR start time is in 20 minutes...We decided to walk over and do standby at Great Movie Ride. Great movie ride wait time is 35 minutes...By the time we got over there and on the ride...Assuming the estimate is either exactly right or too high...It meant hustling over (and checking my watch constantly to see if we would make it still) to make sure we got there in time for the FP's. We wanted to wait for the next show to do the Cowboy theme but would have been VERY close to missing our window so had to skip that. We ended up running across the park at least 3 times. I knew we'd end up criss-crossing more...and we did - I just didn't expect it to actually be tough to make it back in time as much as it was.
Ended up having to leave Nemo the Musical early....Was cutting it close with the end time of the show - then they had a few technical difficulties that delayed the show at the beginning by a few minutes...Between that and trying to get through the bows and getting through the crowd - we wouldn't have made it, so had to leave early to get to the Dinosaur FP's in time. We only had 2 Nemo shows to choose from that day because we had to leave the park for a lunch ressie.
Speaking of lunch - that was the other tough part. Since we get a lot of FP's in the morning...between trying to go get the next one and needing to use them within the time - Some days I found it tough to squeeze in lunch.
With the extra criss-crossing the park and needing to get somewhere to get the next FP's - I would say we were able to get almost as many FP's per day as our 'usual' - but it maybe went down by 1 fewer. But this is moot with FP+ coming around the corner anyway. I guess on the bright side when we're only getting 3 - 4 FP's per day there will be PLENTY of time to eat lunch and wait in long standby lines before the next FP window.
Definitely will take some getting used to.