The dis saved my life... just returned Mar 21st

[AustinTink]

I thought I had read a post on these boards that if you go too far out of the "fastpass hour time window" that the park attendants could deny you access onto the rides. My gf and I want to use the same system where we ride standby all morning, collect FP's along the way, take an afternoon break back to the hotel and return in the evening to use all the collected FP's. Has anyone recently had any issues with using the FP's several hours after the FP window of time passed?

They don't expire, you can use them anytime after their window.

 

[AustinTink]

Hey AustinTink, Did you have any written plans with you? Such as what to do in what order? If so I would love to see them.

Glad you had a good time!

Nothing written, I had the tips from the dis burned into my memory! But, I can tell you what worked really well for us. Arrive at rope drop, of course. Get to your number one attraction and FP, then ride stand-by. For example, we did this for Space Mountain. Then, we stayed in tomorrowland and rode Buzz twice, Rode the Indy cars, did some pin trading. Then we went to Toon Town.

Here's a big tip for Toontown.... If you're looking to see any of the characters (fairies, princesses, mickey,minnie) you have to get to the Toontown rope by 9:30. Officially, the Toontown rope drops at 10am, one hour after the rest of the park. However, someone told us they actually drop the rope at 9:45. And sure enough they did. The crowd was already assembled at the rope, but since we got there early we were in the front. We were actually the second family to get in to see the Fairies!! This was for me, of course, but my DH and DS were good sports. The fairy line is at 90 minutes plus all day, so we were very pleased with ourselves at our good fortune.

Make sure to be at your next desired ride as soon as it's available for Fast pass. We noticed the FPs were spaced closer together this year. At Mk, we were fastpassing every 90 minutes, or so. So, we were staked out at the FP machine waiting for our time to come, counting down.

We also chose to eat at slightly off hours. Breakfast in the parks at say 10:30, lunch at 1:30, dinner after 7:30. This helped with the lines at CS which were very long.

At AK, my son and I rode Dinosaur twice at 9am, while my hubby went to get the FPs for EE. Don't be afraid to split up. That helped up many times. By the time he returned with the EE passes, we were on our third Dinosaur ride.

Also, by going to the hotel for long breaks in the afternoon for swimming, napping etc, we were able to stay at the parks until they closed. One night, we rode BTMRR 3 time from about 30 minutes until closing time. We were actually the very last family let in that night for the last ride. We did a little begging That was awesome. The last hour at the parks gets really empty, it's great fun.

We did the shows and pin trading while we waited for our next FP time. We also took that time to hunt down photopass photographers. We pre-ordered the cd. And, we came home with 304 pictures. Another great tip from the dis... order the cd!

I have so much more to share... including food pics!

 

[4forMe]

Thanks for all the tips!! If anyone has any questions about the parks last week, feel free to ask.

I was wondering if you stayed onsite. If so, what was the bus situation like? It sounds like the buses were overly crowded at some of the resorts this past week.

 

[AustinTink]

I was wondering if you stayed onsite. If so, what was the bus situation like? It sounds like the buses were overly crowded at some of the resorts this past week.

We stayed at the beach club and, the busses we not great. The MK busses ran often, so that was good. But we stood many times on the bus, more often than not. They were very crowded. The AK busses very very irregular at our hotel. We waited longest for those. MK busses would lap through three times to one AK bus! The boats were always on time every 20 minutes, but they too were crowded. We stood on those, too. Epcot was literally over the small bridge from our room. It took less than a minute to get there!! We went there late a few nights after swimming.

 

[Fairyxena]

The Sword in the Stone is still in front of the Carousel in the Magic Kingdom. In fact I got pictures of my sons (8 & 10) last week acting as if they were trying to pull it out.

OH Yay! Thank you so Much TN Hockey Mom! I can't tell you how happy you have just made me!
Thank you thank you thank you.
I know this seems like an odd item to be happy about, but my eldest is so infatuated with the whole Camelot/ King Arthur thing, and my husband his dad is a High School English Teacher, so this kind of thing is normal in our house. Our Two year old can only focus on meeting Mickey, and I don't have to ask if he is still around.

 

[teddygurlkeekee]

Thank you so much for sharing this! I sent this to the hubby because he didn't believe me when i told him we need to get at each park when it opens.

Question about that.. rope drop is right when it opens, correct? If we are staying on resort (ASMo), how early (on average) should we be leaving our resort to be at the gates at rope drop?

 

[Cruise04]

This is interesting. I just talked to my friend this morning who has been down there since last Wednesday and she said the most they had to wait for rides was 40 minutes. And those were major rides. She did say they utilized FastPass once. But the one thing she said they were really happy about was utilizing the early magic and late magic hours. They were at MK last night until 3am (this morning) and it was dead by 1:30a.m. She said it was great. It was them and about 50 other people leaving MK at 3. So perhaps that would be a good strategy to think about. They did DHS early yesterday, went back to their room and rested for a couple of hours and then did MK late.

Just some thoughts.

 

[AprilJ26]

We were there 3/13-3/20 and it was very crowded! I felt like it was just as crowded as our July 2003 trip! At DHS, by 9:30 it was a 70 minute wait for Toy Story Mania and the fast pass line was so long. I heard it was a 20 minute wait for fp, but I'm not sure if that was true. It certainly looked that long.

Wow! We also just got back and I guess I was expecting MUCH worse! I had myself so hyped up and worried that when I got there I actually thought the crowds weren't bad! We had a great trip and never felt crowded. We even stayed at Epcot ALL DAY on Thursday with no break. We were there from rope drop and left around 8 pm and the crowds never bothered us. I guess I was just expecting shoulder to shoulder so was pleasantly surprised we could walk easily and not lose our child
Anyways, we had a fabulous trip! We will probably return for spring break next time we go also!

 

[AustinTink]

This is interesting. I just talked to my friend this morning who has been down there since last Wednesday and she said the most they had to wait for rides was 40 minutes. And those were major rides. She did say they utilized FastPass once. But the one thing she said they were really happy about was utilizing the early magic and late magic hours. They were at MK last night until 3am (this morning) and it was dead by 1:30a.m. She said it was great. It was them and about 50 other people leaving MK at 3. So perhaps that would be a good strategy to think about. They did DHS early yesterday, went back to their room and rested for a couple of hours and then did MK late.

Just some thoughts.

I honestly believe it comes in waves. We asked the CMs that work the rides and they said definitely it ebbs and flows throughout the day. If the ride was down for any length of time, which happened to us multiple times, it pushes the wait times to the max for some time. Then it eases back up. Some people have all the luck and don't ever have to wait long, like your friend. I'm not lucky at all, so I have to have a game plan.

We've done the late night EMH before it does get very empty after 1am. Kind of cool and creepy at the same time. My DS and DH weren't up for those long nights this time around.

 

[KSDisneyDad]

They don't expire, you can use them anytime after their window.

That's good to know about fastpasses. I knew this was the case at DLR, but didn't realize that WDW stopped enforcing the FP windows so that they don't expire.

 

[taycreekcropper]

Can someone tell me where the thread is that tells you the tips and tricks to being a savy WDW go'er? I have read about going early, come back to resort, stay late but is there more, what are the secrets I am missing?

This will be our first trip! I want to be relaxed and not upset or stressed.

 

[Nik's Mom]

I used Tourguide Mike to figure out the best days to go to each park. Also, Ridemax and Unofficial Guide are good resources of information.

The best advice I can give is to make good use of your fastpass options. Oh, and get to the parks early.

 

[kadesha]

I am glad that you were able to have a good time despite the crowds!

 

[mickaholic4077]

A bit of a caveat about the Fast Passes. 99% of the time you can use them after your window expires,but there will be that 1% of the time when the passes are stricly enforced,like at the major major rides.

 

[Pesika]

Are the crowds due to the 4/3 offer? I would think that with the shape of the economy that it may not be as busy. Of course, this also means that Disney is pulling out all of the stops so that people come.

 

[Dopeys twin Dippy]

yeah my dd and friends just got back to. she said it was as busy almost as our august trips. they still had a great time though.

 

[Dopeys twin Dippy]

did i lose my post???

 

[mmmears]

Glad to hear that the early am, midday break, back out at night plan worked.

That's what we always do, and that's what we're planning to do in April.

I hope it's not horrendously crowded then, but it sounds like it will be...

... at least we'll have our plan.

 

[teddygurlkeekee]

Glad to hear that the early am, midday break, back out at night plan worked.

That's what we always do, and that's what we're planning to do in April.

I hope it's not horrendously crowded then, but it sounds like it will be...

... at least we'll have our plan.

MMMears, looks like we will see you there! We are also crossing our fingers that it won't be too crowded...

 

[NiniMorris]

A quick question about the 'crowds'.

Are there really more people there, or does it just seem there are more people due to staffing issues...like less people to work the rides, less 'passengers' on each ride, etc. This can inflate the ride times and the perception of 'crowds'.

I keep hearing about the crowds being worse this year...but Disney's bottom line shows the opposite. Just wondering.

Nini