Fast Pass strateg - almost certainly this has been asked but....

[Pluto777]

It's on the timing of fastpasses.. Is it a BETTER fastpass strategy, to book all 3 in the am of your first park (so that you can hope to get a 4th, 5th etc in the pm?) OR should you try to rope drop for a few rides and THEN start your fast passes?

 

[mesaboy2]

Asked all the time, and the answer is mainly personal preference. From the FP FAQ Strategies post:

- If staying in a single park for most of the day and arriving at park open, the best time of day to schedule FPs is often late morning to mid-afternoon. This approach balances the competing desires to have useful FPs (when lines are longest) with the ability to get additional FPs (when they may still be available).

- If a guest is interested in getting as many FPs as possible, then they should be scheduled as early in the day as possible. Wait times are usually shorter in the first 2 hours after park open however, making these early FPs not as beneficial as they would be later in the morning or afternoon. The advantage to this approach is that more FPs for headliners may be available after these early FPs are used.

 

[Davey Jones II]

If you're going to be there for rope drop, start your FPs at 10 or 11, so that you're done by noon or early afternoon. And your earliest FP should be for a headliner, like 7DMT.
If you're going to AK, just get a FOP FP for as early as you possibly can.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Our personal preference...for any given 9AM park opening....

Start the first FP window 9:30-10:30 (ish) and schedule them back-to-back. We RD for 1.5 hours (ish), then use FP #1 at the end of the window, then FP #2 & #3 at the beginning of the window. My theory is the quicker I can get to my 4th+ (which I look for as soon as I tap #3), the better.

This can vary, of course, but that's more or less a 'normal' day for us.

 

[Pluto777]

The thing is there are very young, and very old in our party, and we will be walking very s-l-o-w-l-y... I just don't see us running from attraction to attraction at rope drop. Is it 100% certain that there will be NO lines (or very short ones at RD? Also, because of the toddlers, we will likely be skipping rides that are popular, but too scarey for kids like 7DMT etc..

 

[mesaboy2]

The thing is there are very young, and very old in our party, and we will be walking very s-l-o-w-l-y... I just don't see us running from attraction to attraction at rope drop. Is it 100% certain that there will be NO lines (or very short ones at RD? Also, because of the toddlers, we will likely be skipping rides that are popular, but too scarey for kids like 7DMT etc..

Nothing is certain. Day in and day out, however, the shortest lines of any day will be found as soon as the park opens.

 

[ChristineOH]

The thing is there are very young, and very old in our party, and we will be walking very s-l-o-w-l-y... I just don't see us running from attraction to attraction at rope drop. Is it 100% certain that there will be NO lines (or very short ones at RD? Also, because of the toddlers, we will likely be skipping rides that are popular, but too scarey for kids like 7DMT etc..

There will be short lines at rope drop and park close. If you don't want to do a mad dash, choose your attractions accordingly. I wouldn't try 7DMT, Test Track, FoP, or TSMM, but it sounds like you won't be interested in most of those.
For your group, you could make good use of FP and not stress about rope drop. We like to roll in right as the park opens, so any ride that would require being there an hour early and belly up to the rope is out. We either get a FP for it or skip it.
If you're not going to split up or use rider swap, I don't think you need to rope drop at AK or DHS. You'll be able to do what you want with FP. For Epcot, you could walk to Soarin' at RD without craziness so you can FP FEA. And MK is super easy to rope drop with lots of good leisurely destinations at RD. At MK, you could do Peter Pan, Pooh, Dumbo, Barnstormer, and Little Mermaid easily. Or Buzz, Astro Orbiter and Speedway. Or Jungle Cruise, Flying Carpets, and Pirates.

 

[kalynn]

I book my FP 45-90 minutes after park opening. getting anything sooner is a waste, IMHO, as the lines aren't that long and you don't save a lot of time. This means I'm done all my fast passes around 1pm. I then get a FP for the evening, return to my hotel, and return to the park around dinner time for the evening. Personally, I think this is the optimum strategy for keeping wait times to a minimum.