Disney World without FP?

[Chabby]

Hi guys:
I am hoping to go on the 2nd week of January 2025, after 12 years since my last trip. I'm staying on property and doing RD. Could I successfully do this without FP's? Or is it worth to pay for it not to be stuck in lines? We are a party of 3 adults and a teenager, on a budget.
TIA
Chabby

 

[LuvindisCruiser]

We will also be there the second week of January, at the end of the week, the 8th-14th.
We realized starting the 9th is the marathon, we will definitely be getting LL for those dates.
I would think the beginning of that week would be lower crowds, take advantage of those days.
Have fun !

 

[jeankeri]

Returned to WDW this September for the first time since 2017 (when FP were still a thing but scheduled FPs were just being trialed). As a long standing believer in showing up early and taking advantage of RD, that is what I did last month. I did manage to get a VQ for Guardians, and for the last day did get a LL to ride again.That being said we did stay onsite, so we were able to enter the parks 30 minutes prior to offsite guests. We would pick our headliner ride (RotR, MRT, Tron) and then plan our day based on what wait times the MDE was posting. On principle will not pay for LL passes-Guardians was our exception after riding VQ. But from our observation- most MLLPs were never much faster- and most times equal to - the standby line.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Lots of people have successful trips without buying LL. Watch wait times, learn about best strategies here on the boards. Be at your bus stop 90 mins before early entry to be at the front of rope drop in order to get in a morning headliner. Another great time to do a headliner is last thing at night- you can hop in any line up until park close (and the waits are often grossly exaggerated late at night).

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Our last trip was week before Memorial weekend May 2024. We were there 7 days and only did LL once at MK. Did not park hop either.

 

[_19disnA]

I think you will be fine without paying extra for some of the rides. The most popular rides tend to have the longest wait times, so there is no mystery or secret insight in that regard. Ride lines tend to be shorter early or late in the day. Typically, later in the day some of the early morning visitors have run out of steam and are snoozing back at their hotel. That is one way to take advantage of those rides without paying extra.

 

[Mikey15]

All of WDW is definitely doable without LL, but what time of year it is and what you really want to do can make a real difference in the experience.

Example: Magic Kingdom. For some reason, Peter Pan’s Flight has some of the longest wait times in the park. If you want to ride it without waiting 45 minutes to an hour, you’re probably going to want to pay for an LLMP. But my family probably wouldn’t care if they never rode it again, and it’s certainly not worth $20+pp to us (you need to pay for the MP for the whole park, not that one ride). Other rides we’re more interested in like Pirates, Big Thunder, HM, can also have really long wait times or can practically be walk-on. There’s more variation throughout the day and an ability to follow the path of least resistance.

That being said we 100% bought G+ on our last trip, because we had another couple and their 5y/o with us on her first trip. Bought memory maker too. There’s occasions where you just want to make sure everything is as good, fun, and pain-free as possible.


Generally I’m going to say if you’re coming back after not being to WDW for 12 years, don’t worry about LL. Do your Virtual Queues for anything you’re interested in them that has them. Otherwise just explore and find the magic of the trip organically. If there’s something you feel you must do like Flights of Passage and you can’t either Rope Drop it or wait until the end of the day when it’s shorter, pay for that. But I wouldn’t for the parks as a default.

 

[iwannabdduck]

It is so hard to advise someone else what to do about this. Personally I've never paid for LL, FP, or whatever it's called these days, but that's just me. Some people love it, but we just stand in line and "enjoy" the wait without spending the extra $$$. The last time we were at WDW we went on the popular ROR at Hollywood Studios for the very 1st time. Posted wait time was 70 minutes. As I was walking out the exit after our ride I looked at my watch. It was 60 minutes after we first stood in line. One never knows. Good luck deciding.

 

[elvispursley]

I think it depends on how long your trip is, what you want to get done, and your tolerance for waiting in line is. When I was there last month on a 9-day trip, we did LLMP for probably 4-days and bought probably 6 LLSP for guardians (as well as getting the VQ—LOVE that ride). We did rope drop for the first time in 20 years to get the bigger rides done or did them towards the end of the night. The longest we waited in line was 45 min for Frozen.

 

[Choirmom]

We were in the parks the middle of July. We had 6 park days: 2 MK, 2 Epcot, 1 HS & 1 AK. We only bought LL for our AK day, only because it was a short day. We rode everything we wanted to at all the parks. Never did rope drop, but stayed until park closing. The lines weren't too bad.

We are going again the beginning of May and I'm debating on whether or not we need LL at all!

 

[disneygolfer1985]

We will be going over thanksgiving and we intend to not buy LLs and just rope drop. We have 2 girls under 6, so they can’t ride all the rides; thus, I don’t see the value in paying extra at some parks. DHS and AK would not be worth it for us. Epcot maybe but frozen and Remy are tier 1 so we could only get 1, so I would rather rope drop those. Also, we are DVC members so we will be back in 1-2 years.

 

[loves to dive]

Worth it is subjective and depends on a lot of factors. How long the trip is, your tolerance for standing in lines, what you want to get done, whether Mars is in retrograde, if the moon aligns with Mercury (those last two to just let you know there is no way anyone can predict what the crowds are going to be like and what rides are going to cooperate and what ones are going to go down).

Personally, we never buy Multipass or single lightening lanes. I think my son and his family bought it for Tron the first time they went after it opened but only because they have a toddler so the virtual que was too much of a crap shoot. Having said that, I'll also say we go often (my grand daughter has been 4 times and she is just turned 3). We are not ride centric and we don't mind waiting in line. We also are not planners and did not use the old paper FP or the FP+, we just don't like to be tied down to a schedule and we always have had Park Hoppers so if a park is too crowded, we just move on. The longer the trip the easier to skip paying since you know you will be back to that park later in the trip and can catch anything you missed.