All of that FP+ Planning out the window

[jomass]

As much as I don’t like the new FP+ system, from the poor to no selection 30 days out, to the waking up at 1:00 AM just get a chance at the coveted hard to get ones, I took it for what it is and rolled with the punches. After many many hours of constantly refreshing my FP selections, splitting party members, swapping times, rearranging park days, park times, ADR’s, I finally for the most part got what I wanted, when I wanted. I stress the word “MOST”, not all. But I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve put about 35 plus hours into this trip in the last month.
Well as luck would have it, we are in for some severe storms and pretty much a total wash-out day our first day at MK. My wife (who has no clue about the stringent planning aspect other than my misc grumblings) suggested that we go to MK on our arrival day instead, or entertain some other sort of shift in schedule for the parks. I almost fell out of my chair. That poor misguided fool. If she only knew that it would be easier to walk into Rao’s NYC on a Friday. So we either break out the ponchos and duck the lightning, or we kiss those harder to get than a Honus Wagner baseball card, A&E 12:30 PM Fast passes goodbye!
You see, the fatal flaw in my chess match, war strategy, super bowl game plan, was lack of a contingency plan for bad weather. Unless I can somehow master some sort of Nostradamus-esque powers to predict the weather, then that proverbial wrench hangs in the heavens precariously waiting to be tossed into my well-oiled machine. Perhaps I should have bought consecutive 10-day tickets to give us a 20 day window, or better yet bought multiple no expiration passes back in 1987 with the foresight that they’d be worth more than Plutonium 239 in 2015.

Whatever the case may be, at least in the good ol days we had some flexibility. Today, not so much

 

[Ktwirls]

so so sorry for your plans being messed up. but thank you so so much for the laughs I got from your post. I would probably say "heck no, we are sticking to the plan!"

 

[Robo]

How do you know that there will be severe storms?

 

[rajak73]

I'll have to agree with Robo...How do you know it's going to be a complete washout day? By the extended weather forecast? We were there in Dec and the extended forecast showed rain 6 out of 7 days, reality, rained 1 out of 7 days. Don't put too much faith in extended forecasts.

 

[mom2rtk]

I never assume the forecast is accurate. I sincerely hope in your case that the forecasters get it wrong and you have nice weather.

That said, I totally understand the concern that prescheduled FPs cannot consider the conditions on the ground the day you are in the park. One of my greatest disappointments with FP+ is the loss of the "clean slate" every day that allowed you to regroup if weather (or sickness, or a myriad of other things) changed your plans on a given day. You can change now, but certain headliners are hard to get back if you miss your scheduled time.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

I will add that as our DL trip approached last year there was rain in and out of the forecast for weeks ahead. But there was one day that just never changed. Rain. Rain. Rain. I hoped it would disappear but it never did. So I packed umbrellas and ponchos. And the forecast was right. It POURED. As in BUCKETS. There was a tornado in LA that day. Not only did we go to the park that morning, but we had and awesome time. The rain kept the crowds away. Some of the rides closed. Toy Story was flooded for the first couple hours. But once it opened we rode it twice with a minimal wait.

Go with it. I bet you'll find a silver lining.

 

[jomass]

According to the forecast, all of those destructive storms moving through the south are due to hit the area Tuesday and Weds. Of course I don’t know for certain as weather forecasts are a crap shoot. But so far every indication points that way.

 

[loves to dive]

Hate that your bummed about your plans but loved your post, good sense of humor there.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Unless it's a named tropical storm, I wouldn't worry until you are there. We have found Dark Sky is a great iPhone weather app for Orlando, with its nutty weather. We have used it to duck into the MK even on the worst of days once we see a clear window of weather. It also gives an interesting 7 day outlook on radar.

Good luck! The weather in Orlando in the hot/wet season isn't the best, that's for sure, but all you can do is hope for the best!

 

[cakebaker]

Unless we were stopped from going to our pre-selected park- we never changed our plans due to weather and we've experienced some pretty heavy rain at WDW from time to time. The only time our plans got changed and scrapped was when they virtually locked the doors at the resort and stopped all transportation out for the evening.

Rain affects what we do in every park and other than avoiding a water park on a rainy day, we don't find a lot of benefit from changing up due to rain. It's just a risk you take with a vacation that is focused mainly outdoors.

 

[jomass]

Perhaps I should be clearer than the forecast. The point of my post was not that my vacation is definitely ruined because I am 100% certain the day will be a washout. And I am not going to let it ruin my week even if it is. It’s just a tongue-in-cheek musing of the whole FP+ planning aspect of the trip and being tied down to an inflexible plan.
To those that are trying to inject some optimism into the what the weather could be and cheer me up, thanks I appreciate it. But it’s not necessary; I am not going off the deep end entirely. LOL
Silver linings it is!

 

[jomass]

Unless it's a named tropical storm, I wouldn't worry until you are there. We have found Dark Sky is a great iPhone weather app for Orlando, with its nutty weather. We have used it to duck into the MK even on the worst of days once we see a clear window of weather. It also gives an interesting 7 day outlook on radar.

Good luck! The weather in Orlando in the hot/wet season isn't the best, that's for sure, but all you can do is hope for the best!

Dark Sky? I’m going to have to check that out. I never heard of it. Hot/Wet is so much better than frozen wet!
Thanks

 

[disneyseniors]

As much as I don’t like the new FP+ system, from the poor to no selection 30 days out, to the waking up at 1:00 AM just get a chance at the coveted hard to get ones, I took it for what it is and rolled with the punches. After many many hours of constantly refreshing my FP selections, splitting party members, swapping times, rearranging park days, park times, ADR’s, I finally for the most part got what I wanted, when I wanted. I stress the word “MOST”, not all. But I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve put about 35 plus hours into this trip in the last month.
Well as luck would have it, we are in for some severe storms and pretty much a total wash-out day our first day at MK. My wife (who has no clue about the stringent planning aspect other than my misc grumblings) suggested that we go to MK on our arrival day instead, or entertain some other sort of shift in schedule for the parks. I almost fell out of my chair. That poor misguided fool. If she only knew that it would be easier to walk into Rao’s NYC on a Friday. So we either break out the ponchos and duck the lightning, or we kiss those harder to get than a Honus Wagner baseball card, A&E 12:30 PM Fast passes goodbye!
You see, the fatal flaw in my chess match, war strategy, super bowl game plan, was lack of a contingency plan for bad weather. Unless I can somehow master some sort of Nostradamus-esque powers to predict the weather, then that proverbial wrench hangs in the heavens precariously waiting to be tossed into my well-oiled machine. Perhaps I should have bought consecutive 10-day tickets to give us a 20 day window, or better yet bought multiple no expiration passes back in 1987 with the foresight that they’d be worth more than Plutonium 239 in 2015.

Whatever the case may be, at least in the good ol days we had some flexibility. Today, not so much

Yes, thanks for the chuckles But the underlying statement is that there is ALOT of preplanning which can be messed up simply by the weather, or heaven forbid, your wife wanting to do another park! Help! That's just not allowed with the new fp system. You MUST be a mind reader and weather expert to simply set up your fp's. Adr's are easier because you don't get rained out of adrs! You mentioned the fact that storms are called for while you are there and made funny comments about that. Much appreciated, BUT we were at WDW last year with our coveted fp for 7dmt on our last day. It rained buckets! Of course we were assured we could just use it anytime that day, but it never stopped raining all day. Coveted fp for 7dmt? out with the rain water! These are very valid complaints, oops, statements. My attitude this year is to set up fp's for the guessed at days for parks, and just do what we can. That means we will probably not get to do everything, but if you don't make some kind of fp, you are throw to the wolves (the rest of the people)! I don't know what the answer is, but with the rising costs of WDW vacation, something has to be done with all the upset and disappointed families who spend a lot of time and money on their trips to WDW, and I'm including us seniors who can come and go when we want to. Good luck with your trip! and keep your sense of humor, cause you will need it. Also get your flame retardant armor on, cause now the same posters who are well known, will surely make an appearance because you don't think like they do

 

[Tomh]

We visit Disney World in August . . . it rains EVERY day with few exceptions, and we deal with it. We were there in 2008 during Hurricane Faye. Probably the best day we have ever spent in the MK. Crowds . . . there weren't any. Lines, no, not so much. We probably rode Haunted Mansion about 12 times, same with Buzz Lightyear. Pretty much everything was a walk on. It rained pretty well the whole day, but it was a very light rain, with some breeze, and a bit cool for Florida, but not enough to make us NY'ers put on anything heavier than shorts and a "T" shirt.

 

[Cee]

Just fly by the seat of your pants. It's fun!

 

[jomass]

Yes, thanks for the chuckles But the underlying statement is that there is ALOT of preplanning which can be messed up simply by the weather, or heaven forbid, your wife wanting to do another park! Help! That's just not allowed with the new fp system. You MUST be a mind reader and weather expert to simply set up your fp's. Adr's are easier because you don't get rained out of adrs! You mentioned the fact that storms are called for while you are there and made funny comments about that. Much appreciated, BUT we were at WDW last year with our coveted fp for 7dmt on our last day. It rained buckets! Of course we were assured we could just use it anytime that day, but it never stopped raining all day. Coveted fp for 7dmt? out with the rain water! These are very valid complaints, oops, statements. My attitude this year is to set up fp's for the guessed at days for parks, and just do what we can. That means we will probably not get to do everything, but if you don't make some kind of fp, you are throw to the wolves (the rest of the people)! I don't know what the answer is, but with the rising costs of WDW vacation, something has to be done with all the upset and disappointed families who spend a lot of time and money on their trips to WDW, and I'm including us seniors who can come and go when we want to. Good luck with your trip! and keep your sense of humor, cause you will need it. Also get your flame retardant armor on, cause now the same posters who are well known, will surely make an appearance because you don't think like they do

 

[disnut1149]

Just fly by the seat of your pants. It's fun!

We were there during Tropical Storm Faye also. It poured everyday, but we had so much fun in the MK. We were the only ones riding POTC and it felt kind of scary. No one else was around. The park was so empty. It was great!

 

[fly girl]

OP, that blows. No other way to say it. It stinks when you do all you can to prepare and Mother Nature decides to play a cruel joke. That *****!


And this proclaimed Type A who loves to plan even dislikes this new system. The flexibility and spontaneity (esp with park hopping) have pretty much gone out the window.


Love the comic twist you have, no doubt you'll have fun rain or shine! Enjoy your vacation!!!!

 

[robinb]

Unless it's a named tropical storm, I wouldn't worry until you are there. We have found Dark Sky is a great iPhone weather app for Orlando, with its nutty weather. We have used it to duck into the MK even on the worst of days once we see a clear window of weather. It also gives an interesting 7 day outlook on radar.

Good luck! The weather in Orlando in the hot/wet season isn't the best, that's for sure, but all you can do is hope for the best!

I love Dark Sky! We got it for free a couple of years ago but I think it's worth the $4 they charge for it now. I love that it tells you how hard it will be raining in the near future so you know if you should wait something out or if you should hunker down. I use it at home whenever it rains.

 

[ktlm]

But the fact remains, that while we will go to MK in a monsoon and have a great time, there are those who don't- or people that could easily just switch their MK day to a day when there was not predicted to be a washout. In the old days, you could just get there at rope drop and grab the primary FP you needed for the day. Plus, because they are not booked in advance and everyone was limited to one at a time (or at least a wait before the next), there would likely be another good one available when your time came up to get the next. Now, especially with the hard to get FP+ like A&E, you are stuck. I agree, I hate the lack of flexibility!!! We have felt so tied down and limited on our 2 FP+ trips. We were never FP super users either.

I have also been contacted, no less than 9 times in the last 2 weeks by my newbie/haven't been in years friends who are planning summer WDW vacations, and who are totally overwhelmed by the whole FP+ thing and know I'm a "Disney person". So, in addition to spending hours on my own last 2 FP+ trips, now I have spent HOURS trying to get multiple separate friends FP+ set up for them and get things linked and together on MDE. I had one friend going in a month who didn't even know what the MDE app, or MDE even was- she had booked through a travel website- so she had gotten no E-mails from WDW on magicbands, FP+ etc. It has been so much fun explaining to another friend that she can't take her one son on RNRC and her younger son on TSM with FP+, because of tiers where she can't have a FP+ for both.... and to yet another friend that since her DD's top priority at EPCOT is Soarin and her son's top priority at EPCOT is Test Track that they can not FP+ both --- either the family has to split up, or they have to pick one. The son is 6, so they can't do single rider at TT, so it is standby for one of those rides, or split up -- of course then she is upset that while her kids have their top picks, they are still going to be irritated if they split about not being able to ride the other one or if they pick one and standby another about their sibling getting FP+ for their top priority and them not. She is one that has been before pre FP+, and has always been able to get FP for both and is extremely frustrated that now that she has 2 kids that want to ride both and that their priority ride is different, that she is limited and will have to disappoint one of the kids or stand in what will probably be an hour or more standby line. Another total newbie is totally irritated because they did not do dining reservations months ago because they wanted flexibility and figured they could just do CS if they had to, and now they have found out that they have to book ride FP+ 2 months in advance and tie themselves down to a time that early, or they might not get FP at all for the rides they want. I could go on and on about the complaints I have heard from multiple people in the last couple of weeks, and as much as I hate FP+- when I talk to them, I try to keep it positive so as not to stress them out more or get them discouraged. Let's just say that the posts on here opining that newbies will not have issues with FP+ and will love it, are not accurate in my opinion. I didn't realize quite how bad it would be for a newbie or someone that had not been in years, until I started getting a ton of calls, texts and E-mails asking for help.

 

[RamKat77]

I'm wishing you well on the weather! That being said, if you're talking about dumping A&E FPes for next Tuesday (the 5th) I will be more than happy to co ordinate in an effort to obtain them. But you know, I'm hoping the weather holds out for you (and me both).