Fast passes for dummies?

[mrsabbott]

okay, it has been years since we have visited Disney. Last time we went, fast passes were little tickets you walked up and got.. Sort of a first come first serve sort of thing.

Now, we had to cancel this year's spring break vacation to universal. I am hoping that we can take a trip in February 2016. Kids would miss school but it is the slow time at work for Hubs and he can get off work a little easier. Our youngest is obsessed with Mickey Mouse. So, we are considering a Disney trip.

We would stay offsite and hopefully be using the military salute tickets.

The fast passes confuse the heck out of me. It seems like most rides and restaurants require them and I don't really want to have to plan our trip minute by minute. Are fast passes really necessary? Can you still ride the rides and visit with the characters without a fast pass? Do I really have to plan it all a month in advance?

I would hate for my kids to be disappointed that they couldn't experience something simply because mom couldn't get a fast pass or we missed the time frame because we got caught up doing something else.

Advice? Is it really as bad as it seems?

 

[Alesia]

I'll answer your last question first: No. It isn't that bad. Try to take every complaint you read here with a grain of salt.

Fastpasses are for rides, not restaurants.

For the rest of your questions, I'll refer you to this terrific thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3326057

 

[jitterbug]

I hope you got to read mesaboy's post -- lot's of helpful info there. As a first-time visitor, that post really helped me with understanding the FP+ system. FP+ are NOT REQUIRED, but can be really helpful to reduce your wait times.

We just returned from our week at WDW, and I appreciated being able to reserve the FP+ in advance instead of running over to a machine first thing in the morning. I did observe people using FP+ unnecessarily (e.g. when standby lines were only 5-10 minutes) and would say don't waste your FP+ that way. We were able to get to the parks at opening (with moderate crowd levels) and did multiple rides with minimal waits before even needing to use a FP+. Of course, there are exceptions (see mesaboy's post). We also used the MDE app to change FP+ once we found something that we didn't need it for. We used Josh's http://easywdw.com/waits/ to see what would make sense to change it to. Didn't want to select something that had a short standby wait anyway.

I felt like there were characters everywhere. Some had decent lines and yet others practically no lines. My kids weren't big into meeting characters, so we were saved from waiting in too many of those lines. We did do ones that didn't have any lines, but wouldn't necessarily stop otherwise.

Simplified version of my planning process...I checked crowd calendars to see which parks we should go to on which days. Then decided which table-service places we'd want to try in that specific park on that specific day. Because you can book ADRs for table service restaurants 180 days out, that was one of the things we thought about first. For us, a max of one table service per day was good. But I know that'll vary for each visitor, whether you want that 'break' or not, or if you feel it's a waste of time. I did have to play around with my ADRs, when EMHs changed, but at least our harder to get ADRs weren't affected. I then planned out our attractions strategies to get a sense of which rides to do when, and to help reduce our walking all over the parks. When your FP+ booking window opens, please reserve then, especially if you have your heart set on certain ones. Even if you don't get a FP+ for the attractions you want, please don't feel like you won't be able to do it. You just will need a different strategy (e.g. doing it first thing) to reduce your wait times.

A sample of our first Magic Kingdom day, we did BTMRR, PotC, Magic Carpets, Haunted Mansion, iasw all by 10:30 without FP+. We took a break by eating early lunch (10:30) at Columbia Harbour House. Let the kids run around Tom Sawyer Island, then used our first FP+ at Splash. Took a long break. Returned in the afternoon to catch the Festival of Fantasy parade near the hub, and made it to BOG for early dinner (4:00 ADR). From there, we used our 2nd FP+ at 7DMT, saw that Tomorrowland Speedway had a short line, so we did that before waiting in line to meet Tinkerbell. Spent some time on Main St browsing the shops. Our last FP+ was for Wishes, and we were able to enter the area early. Not a good view of the Electrical Light Parade, though. But great view of the Celebrate the Magic and Wishes. Lots of room too. Because the park was still open, we decided on the fly to go ride BTMRR one last time. Because we had another MK day planned, we didn't try to squeeze in everything on one day. So our 2nd MK day included PeterPan, Pooh, 7DMT (FP+), carrousel, barnstormer, ETwB, Splash (FP+ changed from ETwB while waiting in line), and Space Mountain (FP+). We left in the afternoon, because kids wanted more time at the pool.

And in response to planning it all a month in advance. Honestly, I used several months and thought it made it easier for me while at the parks. But I prefer to plan than to have the "what do we do next" confusion after every ride. We did have flexibility in our touring plans (who really knows how long anything in WDW will take) but from the planning, I at least had options in mind, whether it be places to eat at, or rides that typically have no waits. Websites that I relied on were easywdw, wdwprepschool, and touring plans.

Hope that helps!

 

[capegirl]

Just do a little research, and decide what attractions and restaurants are must do's for your family and take it from there. If you are staying off site you can book FP+ 30 days prior. You mentioned Military Salute tickets, so if you are eligible to stay at Shades of Green resort, do so, the location can't be beat. You can easily pre-order your Salute tickets through this resort, and they will email you the ticket numbers. It sounds overwhelming because there is so much information to take in, but you'll be fine.