Are these decent FP+ choices?

[Delphinidae]

This whole "plus" system is new to me and I just want to know if I could make better or more efficient choices. Most of them are scheduled later in the day due to either breakfast reservations or because I have read several times that lines are more tolerable earlier in the morning and FP may not be needed. Please let me know your thoughts! There are 4 of us, me, my husband, DD13 and DD10. Traveling in August.

Monday, HS:

• Arrive at RD, head to Jedi Training Academy sign up for youngest DD.
• Star Tours FP+ at 10am. (Picked this one because I didn't know what else to pick as our 3rd, wasn't sure of what time to choose but I was thinking this would be near the Jedi Training Academy signup area?
• Tower of Terror FP+ at 11:30
• Lunch Mama Melrose 1:15
• TSMM FP+ at 2:25
• Fantasmic at 9
• We do want to fit in the Frozen Sing Along and a couple other shows, and of course the JTA show provided my daughter gets in, but I have no idea of times for all of that.

Tuesday, MK:

• 8:15 breakfast at Crystal Palace, but I may be cancelling this because I believe Disney added the paid event for this morning
• The plan is to arrive at RD and TRY to get an early start in Fantasyland, mainly Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and then whatever doesn't have a long wait.
• SDMT FP+ at 11:20
• Enchanted Tales with Belle FP+ at 12:20
• 1:15 lunch at BOG
• 3:00 parade (if it's worth it and we feel like it lol)
• Splash Mountain FP+ at 4:25
• MSEP and Wishes
• There are a LOT more rides we are hoping to fit in, mainly Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Pirates, Jungle Cruise

Wednesday, AK:

• Arrive at RD, either head straight to Safari or just take in sights and possibly meet characters on our way there
• Safari FP+ at 9:25 if we didn't go earlier
• 10:45 breakfast at Tusker House
• Kali FP+ at 2:15
• EE FP+ at 3:35 (really wanted one for after dark but I guess they aren't offering those? Have the wait times been awful at night?)
• No other set plans until 1st show of Jungle Book (dining package)

Thursday, Epcot and possible hop to MK:

• Arrive for morning EMH and do Soarin' and maybe TT
• Frozen Ever After FP+ at 12:10 (earliest available for me)
• Decide whether or not to stay all day or hop to MK

Friday, Epcot:

• 8:00 breakfast at Akershus, after which I am HOPING the waits for both the meet and greet and FEA are tolerable enough that we can do them both, or at least one.
• Soarin' FP+ for 11:45
• Turtle Talk with Crush FP+ for 1:25
• Spaceship Earth FP+ for 2:55
• 7:00 dinner at La Hacienda de San Angel
• 9:00 IllumiNations

Obviously I didn't put every individual thing we want to do, and I don't know specific times for the different shows yet, but if there's a better way or more efficient times, or if I just have made some massive mistake, please advise!

 

[Delphinidae]

Anyone? Is this the wrong board for this post?

 

[Aliceacc]

Sorry, somehow I'm one of the people who missed your request.

I think your FPS look great... but I would make a huge change anyway.

We ALWAYS take a mid day break. Always. Florida in August is HOT... and I'm one of those people who adore the heat!! But we need that mid afternoon break, to swim, to nap, to have a pina colada by the pool.

You seem to have 5 days straight of walking and sweating and being in crowds from 8 am until 11pm. I can pretty much predict that your kids will mutiny.

What we do, for what it's worth, is start with rope drop. We tour like crazy for about an hour and a half, then our FPs kick in. We do one at about 11, 12 and 1, squeezing lunch in between the last two.

Then, at about 1:30 or so, we head back to the resort until our dinner ADRs at about 6 pm. We stay until fireworks.

The most important tip I can offer anyone is this: no one ride, no one attraction, no one FP, is worth making anyone in your family miserable. Your whole family will only be as happy as the least happy person there. So if your youngest really, really wants to go back for a swim, please, go back to the resort. I can promise that, even if you miss a great ride, you'll remember a great swim instead of a surly 10 year old.

And we manage an entire week like that, with no days off. The kids get pool/nap time--- and all 3 are teens, and we have some down time to relax.

 

[Delphinidae]

Sorry, somehow I'm one of the people who missed your request.

I think your FPS look great... but I would make a huge change anyway.

We ALWAYS take a mid day break. Always. Florida in August is HOT... and I'm one of those people who adore the heat!! But we need that mid afternoon break, to swim, to nap, to have a pina colada by the pool.

You seem to have 5 days straight of walking and sweating and being in crowds from 8 am until 11pm. I can pretty much predict that your kids will mutiny.

What we do, for what it's worth, is start with rope drop. We tour like crazy for about an hour and a half, then our FPs kick in. We do one at about 11, 12 and 1, squeezing lunch in between the last two.

Then, at about 1:30 or so, we head back to the resort until our dinner ADRs at about 6 pm. We stay until fireworks.

The most important tip I can offer anyone is this: no one ride, no one attraction, no one FP, is worth making anyone in your family miserable. Your whole family will only be as happy as the least happy person there. So if your youngest really, really wants to go back for a swim, please, go back to the resort. I can promise that, even if you miss a great ride, you'll remember a great swim instead of a surly 10 year old.

And we manage an entire week like that, with no days off. The kids get pool/nap time--- and all 3 are teens, and we have some down time to relax.

Thanks! So you think the times we have for the FP are ok? I also just read somewhere that the Norway pavilion will open for EMH, so now I'm second guessing those plans and wondering if I should try to head there for EMH or keep to my FutureWorld plans and my FP for Frozen.

Midday breaks. This is something I have never done, not because I refused to, but because no one has ever needed it. That being said, I am not going to force everyone to stay if the kids are miserable and asking to swim. It's just not something I plan on doing if no one really NEEDS to leave. I'm afraid we would never make it back! Lol. While we do always enjoy the resorts and the pools, that's not what we are paying so much money for lol. Now, my family never took breaks on our childhood trips, but we always went in May or early June, so not as hot as August. And the trip I took my kids on (they were 6 and 9), we didn't break either, but that was September, so probably not as humid as August either, so if it is REALLY bad (we are from Louisiana so no stranger to humidity, but been living in Texas for so long it may hit harder than expected lol) then we will definitely do it. I'm hoping that doing a show or two or a meal or just some inside air conditioned breaks will help. However, we are staying at Coronado Springs, and the kids are pretty excited about the Digsite Pool, so I can see us spending a good bit of time there! I am a little concerned about the rain in August keeping us from being able to get in the pool as much as we'd like.

 

[Aliceacc]

My mistake; I wasn't sure you had ever been to WDW before.

If you've been, then you're the best gauge of your family's comfort level.

As to the FPs: I wouldn't cancel any FP for Norway, hoping for a better time; you may very well end up with nothing at all. Like you, we ended up with a Frozen Ever After time a little later than I would normally like-- ours is something like 2:30, at a time when we would normally be in the pool. But we're at the Boardwalk; it's 15 minutes from Norway to our room, so we'll make it work.

In my opinion, if you'll be in the parks all day, then ANY times after about 11am is great for the rides you really want to see. That way, you're making the best use of rope drop for all those second choice rides.

You got Frozen, the new Soarin, 7DMT, Toy Story, Kali, Splash, EE-- I think you did fine!!!

 

[Wanderer72]

MK-. If you plan on being there for rope drop, your best bet for accomplishing all the things you mentioned is to head for adventure land first and FP+ Peter Pan later in the day. There is a minimal line for splash mountain during that first hour so we like to hit that then and then you have all day to dry off. (We do the same with Kali in AK). You can easily knock out jungle cruise, pirates, splash mountain and haunted mansion in the first hour without using a FP+ if you head that way first.

 

[Wanderer72]

Also it looks like with planning to stay the whole day, you could really utilize the extra fast passes. Make a fast past before your SDMT fast pass instead of your late afternoon splash mountain, and then once you do enchanted tales, you can get another fast pass for something your family wants to ride without waiting. Pooh, haunted mansion, etc.

 

[Delphinidae]

My mistake; I wasn't sure you had ever been to WDW before.

If you've been, then you're the best gauge of your family's comfort level.

As to the FPs: I wouldn't cancel any FP for Norway, hoping for a better time; you may very well end up with nothing at all. Like you, we ended up with a Frozen Ever After time a little later than I would normally like-- ours is something like 2:30, at a time when we would normally be in the pool. But we're at the Boardwalk; it's 15 minutes from Norway to our room, so we'll make it work.

In my opinion, if you'll be in the parks all day, then ANY times after about 11am is great for the rides you really want to see. That way, you're making the best use of rope drop for all those second choice rides.

You got Frozen, the new Soarin, 7DMT, Toy Story, Kali, Splash, EE-- I think you did fine!!!

Thanks! I hope I didn't come off as rude in my first reply to you; I certainly wasn't meaning to and reading it back I'm not sure if it seemed that way. I do appreciate all the advice ! That was kind of my thinking in making all the FPs later in the day.

Also it looks like with planning to stay the whole day, you could really utilize the extra fast passes. Make a fast past before your SDMT fast pass instead of your late afternoon splash mountain, and then once you do enchanted tales, you can get another fast pass for something your family wants to ride without waiting. Pooh, haunted mansion, etc.

What do you think would be a better option? I know Peter Pan gets long lines, but I guess I was hoping we could get a ride in before it got too bad. I also kind of want to go through the updated queue, LOL. My other line of thinking was to go to Fantasyland first thing (for PP and Pooh) and try to do most of the things there, hanging around until our lunch at BOG at 1 and then going to the other lands. Is that too much time? Or on the other side of things, is that enough time to do most things there? Could we realistically go to Splash as our first ride of the day and then back to my Fantasyland plan without much of a hiccup? What are our chances of getting to meet Rapunzel and Tiana without a crazy long wait?

 

[Aliceacc]

Not rude at all, no worries.

 

[Wanderer72]

You could easily go to splash mountain first if you end up keeping you CP reservation because you are right next to adventure land and could head right in and then head back to fantasy. But to do that you'd have to be able to switch your splash mountain FP to a 10:20 Peter pan if you could still get it. The peter pan wait will be 45 minutes+ within 20 minutes of rope drop.

But I would def fast pass something in that 10:20-11:20 block instead of splash so you can get another fast pass right after Enchanted Tales. You might still be able to get a splash FP at that time as your fourth. You'll definitely be able to get jungle cruise, pirates, haunted mansion, Pooh.

 

[Wanderer72]

I personally just like hitting adventure land first particularly for jungle cruise. It's just one of those rides that I love to ride, but hate to burn a fast pass on it or spend more than 20-30 minutes in the standby line for it.

 

[Delphinidae]

You could easily go to splash mountain first if you end up keeping you CP reservation because you are right next to adventure land and could head right in and then head back to fantasy. But to do that you'd have to be able to switch your splash mountain FP to a 10:20 Peter pan if you could still get it. The peter pan wait will be 45 minutes+ within 20 minutes of rope drop.

But I would def fast pass something in that 10:20-11:20 block instead of splash so you can get another fast pass right after Enchanted Tales. You might still be able to get a splash FP at that time as your fourth. You'll definitely be able to get jungle cruise, pirates, haunted mansion, Pooh.

My worry with keeping the CP reservation is that "early " access will be negated since they decided to add the paid event to that morning. I'm not sure how that will effect the lines or wait times. I know I've read before that it really doesn't make much of an impact on wait times, but I also read they may increase capacity of the paid event, so I'm not sure. I will check the FPs and see what's still available, and then I guess check with my family and see if they would rather try for Splash and JC first and then Fantasyland, or PP and Pooh and the rest of Fantasyland. Thanks!