“Refresh” is my new favorite strategy

[nkereina]

I'm sticking to booking FPs where it best fits our schedule.

• Some attractions, I want to ride at night and prefer not to wait in line (Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, Everest, etc.). Sometimes you may be able to get these attractions as an extra FP, but it's not worth the chance in my opinion.
• We park hop. Rope drop Epcot, which has lousy Tier 2 FP options and then hop to any of the other parks? I'm using the FPs at the second park.
• I have to believe that constant refreshing results in more criss-crossing of the park. If a party of 4-5 gets off Splash Mountain at 11:00 and a Big Thunder opens up at 3 o'clock, do they turn it down, or are they leaving that part of the park only to head back over there 3-4 hours later?

I see why the strategy works for some, but I don't think it's the only viable approach necessary to have a good time.

Good points. To the bolded point, its my understanding from reading posts on t his topic that if you diligently refresh for up to a few minutes, the FP you want for the ride you want at that moment should appear in most cases. In other words, you should be able to snag an FP for the ride you're in front of and want to ride at that time if you're patient with refreshing. I'm curious how often that's not true though, because otherwise I agree that it could result in a lot of back and forth.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Some attractions, I want to ride at night and prefer not to wait in line (Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, Everest, etc.). Sometimes you may be able to get these attractions as an extra FP, but it's not worth the chance in my opinion.

Most of these attractions become walk-ons at night and don’t require a FastPass.

Big Thunder may have a short wait just before the fireworks start, but the other two probably won’t.

Everest is a ghost town after dark, and you should be able to ride that one as many timed as you want to. Just a few weeks ago, my kids rode it 6 times in about 45 minutes starting at 8 pm.

 

[JETSDAD]

Totally makes sense. And that's kinda the conclusion I came to..... But I thought I remembered last year doing this and it would state "you already have FP for this attraction".... or something of that nature... and still list the times, then tell you to modify that also.
Not sure if one of the many system updates changed that.
Or .... maybe I am thinking of MK that doesn't have any tiers?? I think it has to do with the tiers.... it can only modify one tier at a time.

Thanks for your explanation!

I believe what you may be remembering is when you are scheduling your first 3 FP's. It will show you all of the rides including ones you already have. When you are modifying it won't show them.

 

[Roxyfire]

Good points. To the bolded point, its my understanding from reading posts on t his topic that if you diligently refresh for up to a few minutes, the FP you want for the ride you want at that moment should appear in most cases. In other words, you should be able to snag an FP for the ride you're in front of and want to ride at that time if you're patient with refreshing. I'm curious how often that's not true though, because otherwise I agree that it could result in a lot of back and forth.

I mean, it can but it really just depends on what it is you want to do and when you want to do it. Often times while I'm in the FP return line for Toy Story Mania, I've gotten another FP for it 20 minutes after. So I go ahead and grab it and we can go again. If I'm in MK and I'm in line for Splash (for example) I'd probably prioritize things on that side of the park before trudging over to Tomorrowland. Once we finish in that area then yeah I'd probably take one across the park and then focus on that area for a while.

 

[nkereina]

I mean, it can but it really just depends on what it is you want to do and when you want to do it. Often times while I'm in the FP return line for Toy Story Mania, I've gotten another FP for it 20 minutes after. So I go ahead and grab it and we can go again. If I'm in MK and I'm in line for Splash (for example) I'd probably prioritize things on that side of the park before trudging over to Tomorrowland. Once we finish in that area then yeah I'd probably take one across the park and then focus on that area for a while.

Right. I'm just saying that the refresh strategy doesn't mean you're getting off Big Thunder and then have to haul it over to Space Mountain for that FP 30 minutes later. From everything I've been reading, we should be able to get off Big Thunder and go over to a FP for Splash with minimal time in between if we are patient with refreshing.

 

[evilqueenmindy]

Fun refresh story-
My nephew and I were going to HS for the day (we were planning on arriving at 11am-12pm, we don't live far and do easy days.) I booked FP's, everything was good. The night before, my SIL decided she wanted to go, so I go in to get FP's for her, can't get anything even remotely close. No TSM at all, no star tours. So I go to bed, annoyed, but meh, we'll figure something out. The next morning, around park open, while waiting for my nephew to wake up, I sat on the couch with my coffee and my ipad, and after about 10-15 min of refreshing, I got her FP's within 10 minutes of ours on all attractions. I've never sweated a FP since.

 

[Roxyfire]

Right. I'm just saying that the refresh strategy doesn't mean you're getting off Big Thunder and then have to haul it over to Space Mountain for that FP 30 minutes later. From everything I've been reading, we should be able to get off Big Thunder and go over to a FP for Splash with minimal time in between if we are patient with refreshing.

Yeah I'm agreeing with you. It's kind of like letting touring plans "optimize" the rides for you based on the shortest projected wait. Going fully on the side of shortest wait very well could send you across the park which may reduce wait times but can get tiring if you do it a lot. Partially patience and partially luck and just see what you can get, but if people don't want to then hey more for us right?

 

[jewels4488]

Our next trip is September 3rd week and I'm planning on using the refresh strategy. Kind of excited about it!

 

[bladiator]

I know I skipped a lot of pages, but I just got back on the DisBoards and I wanted to add my own experience here...

I went on a week trip with some friends that had never been in February of 2018. Granted, that's a nice quiet time of year although it was definitely bigger crowds than any calendar expected. I did almost NO FP reservations ahead of time I was so sure of the refresh scheme.

Long story short, my favorite part of the trip was our HS day. We both are couples with 1 year olds, so TSMM was one of the few things we could all do together. I was able to get 3 sets of 4 FPs from noon-1:30pm with just a little bit of work (grabbing in groups of two and having them start 10-15 minutes apart and then just waiting for the later one to go in altogether), and during that time we skipped a SB line showing 110, 85, and 115 minutes. We essentially skipped over 5 hours of SB line with about 15 minutes of refreshing all told. And let's face it ... it takes a while even in the FP line for TSMM to get to the ride, so I had most of the FPs for the next run through by the time I got on the ride.

One other thing I like to do now that I never would have before being able to get FPs on the app is making sure to clear out all FPs by the time I show up in Fantasyland in MK and then just getting FPs for whatever I'm closest to. Meaning, I start with IASW, grab FPs (usually for the time it actually already is), then go in (even IASW will have a 15-20 minute line midday that I'm skipping). Soon as I tap in, I grab one for Winnie the Pooh (usually for a time that is before we actually get off IASW), and then rinse repeat for Tea Cups, Under the Sea, then eventually roll all the way through to Dumbo, Barnstormer, and Buzz ... I can usually hit it all with FPs in about an hour and a half, and easily am cutting 150 minutes of lines.

 

[lilpiglet97]

Refresh has been on our side this trip, allowing us to move up our FP's or just change them completely. Also getting 4th FP and beyond has been very easy with the exception of the big rides

 

[kat_lh]

Can you switch a day of a FP with this? Or just times on the same day?

 

[Klayfish]

Can you switch a day of a FP with this? Or just times on the same day?

What do you mean switch a day? Do you mean move your Tuesday FP+ for Space to Wednesday? If so, then no, you can't do that.

 

[fbarker]

The good thing about Disboards is that we find out about secrets like Refresh the bad thing is this secret has now been reviewed by over 20,000 people (sure many are repeats) and the secret is not so much a secret now....but i am glad i now know about it

 

[sunsetbeachgal]

I just want to make 100% sure, this is a strategy you do on the day you are at each park, not in advance??

Do you have to wait until you have already used the fp’s you have made in advance??

 

[Klayfish]

The good thing about Disboards is that we find out about secrets like Refresh the bad thing is this secret has now been reviewed by over 20,000 people (sure many are repeats) and the secret is not so much a secret now....but i am glad i now know about it

Yes, potentially. I started using refresh about 2 years ago. Our most recent summer trip, I found it harder than I had before...it was even harder than it was at Christmas. I don't know if that was just random luck or more people catching on....

I just want to make 100% sure, this is a strategy you do on the day you are at each park, not in advance??

Do you have to wait until you have already used the fp’s you have made in advance??

Yes, you normally do it day of. You could do it in advance if you were trying to modify a FP+...so for example if you had TSMM but wanted to swap it for SDD. However, your odds of finding it 6 days out are far less than day of.

Yes, if you're looking for a new FP+ day of (i.e. a 4th), you have to use the other 3 first.

 

[Mome Rath]

Do you have to wait until you have already used the fp’s you have made in advance??

Yes, and no. The day of, you can move your FP's up if it works for you. So, say in MK you have SDMT at 9, PP at 10, and Pooh at 11. Once you tap into that first tapstile at SDMT, you can try to move PP up, if you move PP up, you can then try to move Pooh up, and then repeat after tapping into PP. So, you can use the refresh strategy before you use them up, you just have to use 3 before you go for a 4th.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

The good thing about Disboards is that we find out about secrets like Refresh the bad thing is this secret has now been reviewed by over 20,000 people (sure many are repeats) and the secret is not so much a secret now....but i am glad i now know about it

It's all over YouTube, and the bloggers, and I'm sure Facebook as well. It will likely get to the point where enough people know about it and use it that it will create a major bandwidth problem for Disney and then they will throttle it or make some other change.

FWIW, I've also been using it for 2 years and haven't notice a signification difference but I also never had the greatest luck with the biggest headliner in each park (works great for everything else though).

 

[Love Tink]

It's all over YouTube, and the bloggers, and I'm sure Facebook as well. It will likely get to the point where enough people know about it and use it that it will create a major bandwidth problem for Disney and then they will throttle it or make some other change.

FWIW, I've also been using it for 2 years and haven't notice a signification difference but I also never had the greatest luck with the biggest headliner in each park (works great for everything else though).

I have been doing it for years as well. I also wouldn’t really call it a “secret.” It is common sense.

I haven’t noticed it getting any more difficult. I helped a group of four at MK this Monday and they used 17 FP. Could have hit 25 but they decided to leave at 6:15.

 

[chilly2336]

How does the refresh strategy impact battery usage in iphones? I know the app is pretty slow to load on mine so I don't really want to open and close it all day while at the parks so that would mean leaving it open and refreshing throughout the day.

 

[Love Tink]

• I have to believe that constant refreshing results in more criss-crossing of the park. If a party of 4-5 gets off Splash Mountain at 11:00 and a Big Thunder opens up at 3 o'clock, do they turn it down, or are they leaving that part of the park only to head back over there 3-4 hours later?

I see why the strategy works for some, but I don't think it's the only viable approach necessary to have a good time.[/QUOTE]

Nah. Just look for geographically close fastpasses. I’m all for reducing cross cross. (See example from Monday.)

I definitely agree that this is not the only way to have a good time! Works for me for sure, may not appeal to others.