Best strategy for FP+ book early/book late...

[edk35]

Is it better to book headliners for at night? Go to rope drop and ride as much as possible before it gets crowded? Should we book fast passes in the morning in hopes to book a 4th or 5th later?? Can we utilize rope drop like in the OLD DAYS (aka last year ) and still ride a lot???

 

[edk35]

you who anyone have any advice??

 

[rammh]

I dont have first hand experience but I have been hearing you cant get quite as much done at RD as in the past as the FP's start right away at park open. I have also heard that really MK is the best park for the 4th+ FP. The other parks dont have headliners available by the time your 4th is open. Of course if you are going at a slow time that might be different but that is "the word on the street"

 

[Surfinpiratee]

I'm not SUPER experienced, we went in January, they still had regular FP( we never used the paper FP)

Animal Kingdom we didn't use any FP for. And we were there the Saturday after New Years! everything we did had pretty short waits (Dinosaur, Safaris..)

Epcot we only used our FP for Soarin, it was all we needed to use, everything else was walk on. We didn't get to do TT...if I thought about it, I would have got to Epcot at RD and did TT, then we had our FP for Soarin sometime between like, 1:30 and 3? I don't remember the exact time

Hollywood Studios our FP were all later..we only used the ones for Toy Story, which was a little later in the afternoon, and Star Tours, which we went on 2 other times, so we didn't even need that FP, but I believe that one was somewhere around noon.

Magic Kingdom we had FP for Pirates, Peter Pan and Buzz. They were all in the afternoon ish area. We got there a tad after RD and did Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Buzz (we ended up doing it twice), Laugh Floor, then I think we had our FP for BUzz around 11am or so, Small World, PhillharMagic, I think we had our FP for Peter Pan around 2-3pm or something like that, and our FP for Pirates was like, 4-5. We ended up riding everything we wanted! We waited to ride Under the Sea and Winnie the Pooh after it got dark for shorter waits

My plan is to start reserving FP for after 11 or 12, and really any time after that. Unless it's a ride I HAVE TO RIDE I wouldn't get FP before noon.. My plan is to also get FP for main rides but also save a main ride (or more depending on the park) for RD. I probably won't even plan to make use of the 4th FP, unless I just went to see what's available for fun?

 

[MinnieMe129]

In May, at MK we made FP selections between 11 and 2. We were able to do a lot before 11 and still book a 4th FP for the evening.

 

[edk35]

In May, at MK we made FP selections between 11 and 2. We were able to do a lot before 11 and still book a 4th FP for the evening.

That is my thinking...... book them for afternoon/evening and try and get as much done in the early morning as possible.

 

[wareagle57]

I honestly think it's best to forget about the possibility of a 4th FP. I MIGHT make an exception for MK, but even then I think it's more valuable to have 3 headliners booked for mid-afternoon or evening rather than using them in the morning getting very little benefit from them in hopes of getting a 9 pm Space Mountain FP or several afternoon FPs of rides that only have about a 20 minute wait anyway.

You spend 5 of those minutes walking to a kiosk and waiting in line and booking them when you could have been standing in the standby line. And then your FP wait is still 5 minutes. So sure, maybe you saved 5-10 minutes on 4 or 5 rides. So say you saved 50 minutes because you got 5 additional FPs.

But your first 3 were at 9-10, 10-11, and 11-12. You probably saved no time with the first FP, the second one at best you saved 30 minutes, and the last one maybe you saved 45. (Yes, every park has an exception to this but MK is the only one that has 2.) So all in all, with your 8 FPs, you saved a little over 2 hours. Book those same 3 FPs for 1-4 and save conservatively 30 minutes each, plus getting just as much done during rope drop as the person who made FPs during that time. So for all that extra trouble you went through booking extra FPs, you saved maybe 45 minutes.

 

[edk35]

I honestly think it's best to forget about the possibility of a 4th FP. I MIGHT make an exception for MK, but even then I think it's more valuable to have 3 headliners booked for mid-afternoon or evening rather than using them in the morning getting very little benefit from them in hopes of getting a 9 pm Space Mountain FP or several afternoon FPs of rides that only have about a 20 minute wait anyway.

You spend 5 of those minutes walking to a kiosk and waiting in line and booking them when you could have been standing in the standby line. And then your FP wait is still 5 minutes. So sure, maybe you saved 5-10 minutes on 4 or 5 rides. So say you saved 50 minutes because you got 5 additional FPs.

But your first 3 were at 9-10, 10-11, and 11-12. You probably saved no time with the first FP, the second one at best you saved 30 minutes, and the last one maybe you saved 45. (Yes, every park has an exception to this but MK is the only one that has 2.) So all in all, with your 8 FPs, you saved a little over 2 hours. Book those same 3 FPs for 1-4 and save conservatively 30 minutes each, plus getting just as much done during rope drop as the person who made FPs during that time. So for all that extra trouble you went through booking extra FPs, you saved maybe 45 minutes.

WE love the parks at NIGHT.. and that is when we always had a hard time getting a fast pass for the big headliners with the old system. So I think I am going for Evening fast passes and then hit rope drop or close to it for stand by riding.

 

[eggraid101]

I think it depends how many headliners you want to do and what you consider headliners. For magic Kingdom, I would get a morning FP for both SDMT and Space Mtn between 11-1, and then hit splash and BTMR at RD, and you could then use 4th FP for Haunted Mansion or Pirates for later in the day. The trouble comes if you want to do A&E M&G like we did, that you need a FP for otherwise that's what you want to do at RD.

What rides in particular are you thinking of doing

 

[edk35]

In the summer we usually head out from MK by 2. We like to return by 6 or so in the evening. We like the mountains, Pirates, HM of course the Mine Train is on the list. It looks like it is easy to get Mine Train at night. I mean..we will ride anything. We love it all. LOL

 

[itchin2go]

It depends on when you like to tour and when you're planning to be at the parks.

We like to tour in the morning, through lunch, and then go back to the resort. It might be "smarter" in many people's opinions to book FP+ for the afternoon, but we'd be forcing ourselves to do what we don't like to do.

For that reason, I'm going to try to book ours late morning - 2:00 pm-ish (at the latest) most days. We'll be there at rope drop, so we'll get a lot done. In the past, we never pulled too many FP- anyway ... maybe 1 or 2 per park, so it's not critical for me to start pulling the 4th FP+ early.

I would look at how YOU want to tour and go from there.

The longest wait times are in the middle of the day, so assuming you're in the parks from open to close, that would be the best use of FP+. However, if you're planning on pulling the 4th FP+ (and 5th, etc.), it may make sense to plan them a bit earlier. Of course, you're banking on good availability for rides you want once you're able to pull the 4th FP+, which is an unknown factor.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

You may be better off scheduling FP+ for late morning/early afternoon then riding standby at night when the lines are much shorter.

On a recent visit, we scheduled FP+ for 10:30, 11:30 & 12:30 and were still able to get 3 more during the afternoon. Then we accomplished the following between 8 pm and midnight without any Fast Passes.

Big Thunder 3x
Splash Mtn 2x
Space Mtn 2x
Mine Train (10 min wait right a closing time)
Pirates
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion
Pooh
Peter Pan
Speedway
Barnstormer 2x

 

[edk35]

You may be better off scheduling FP+ for late morning/early afternoon then riding standby at night when the lines are much shorter.

On a recent visit, we scheduled FP+ for 10:30, 11:30 & 12:30 and were still able to get 3 more during the afternoon. Then we accomplished the following between 8 pm and midnight without any Fast Passes.

Big Thunder 3x
Splash Mtn 2x
Space Mtn 2x
Mine Train (10 min wait right a closing time)
Pirates
Jungle Cruise
Haunted Mansion
Pooh
Peter Pan
Speedway
Barnstormer 2x

What time of year was this?? Was it an off peak time?

 

[itchin2go]

Posted in the wrong place, oops!

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

What time of year was this?? Was it an off peak time?

Early June. Just a few weeks ago.

The parks were pretty busy during the day, but dropped off significantly in the evenings. I find that to be true anytime we go.

 

[lions1995]

You may be better off scheduling FP+ for late morning/early afternoon then riding standby at night when the lines are much shorter.

On a recent visit, we scheduled FP+ for 10:30, 11:30 & 12:30 and were still able to get 3 more during the afternoon. Then we accomplished the following between 8 pm and midnight without any Fast Passes.

I am going to be shooting for late morning/ early afternoon. My thinking is 10, 11 and 12. The 10 FP would allow us to jump on that ride ( example mine train ) at 11, then immediately jump on the next FP (example Belle). At that point it would be around 11:30. Then lunch and the third FP at 1. That means by 1 ish I can grab a 4th. There are many attractions that have almost instant FP times. Some seem to be out an hour or two, so my plan is to grab them before dinner.

I would agree that AK is more difficult. But I think grabbing FPs for the headliner early in the day is still the way to go.

 

[edk35]

Early June. Just a few weeks ago.

The parks were pretty busy during the day, but dropped off significantly in the evenings. I find that to be true anytime we go.

Friends of ours are there now....they went to AK this morning and didn't need their fast passes at all. They had no problem riding the headliners and some they even repeated. SO my plan for AK is to use the FPs elsewhere in the evening.