Fastpass 30 days vs 60 days - What's the difference?

[tucky]

I want to thank everyone again for such great helpful information on these boards. I'm trying to decide how much of an impact having a 60 day FP window will have on my vacation vs. 30 day FP window.

I know there are a few new popular rides like Avatar ride that are hard to get even if you try to book them at 60 days. But otherwise, do you think it really makes a big difference?

Would love to get some opinions on what the difference is? Like what other rides do you think I really have to book 60 days in advance or I probably won't get them? And is it worth considering in deciding where we stay?

 

[mesaboy2]

Availability

The vast majority of the 63 FP attractions at WDW have FPs available as late as day-of.

Guests participating in the FP+ Pilot Program, who have access to FPs at 90 days in advance, can assume wide availability for all attractions.

- Attractions listed here are the most difficult to get. Onsite guests can expect limited availability even at 60 days in advance, while offsite guests are unlikely to get much availability (if at all) at 30 days. Acquiring these attractions less than 7 days in advance may require frequent monitoring of FP availability via the MDX app or website. Same-day FPs are most unlikely, but possible with constant monitoring via MDX.

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (Magic Kingdom)
• Frozen Ever After (Epcot)
• Avatar Flight Of Passage (Animal Kingdom)

- Attractions listed here can be difficult to get. Onsite guests can expect good availability at 60 days in advance, while offsite guests can expect limited availability at 30 days. Acquiring these attractions less than 7 days in advance will likely require regular monitoring of FP availability via the MDX app or website. Same-day FPs are possible with constant monitoring via MDX.

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Magic Kingdom)
• Peter Pan's Flight (Magic Kingdom)
• Space Mountain (Magic Kingdom)
• Splash Mountain (Magic Kingdom)
• IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth (Epcot)
• Soarin' (Epcot)
• Test Track (Epcot)
• Toy Story Mania (Hollywood Studios)
• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (Hollywood Studios)
• Navi River Journey (Animal Kingdom)
• Rivers of Light (Animal Kingdom)

- All other attractions are relatively easy to get. Onsite guests can expect wide availability at 60 days in advance, while offsite guests can expect good availability at 30 days. Acquiring these attractions less than 7 days is likely, but availability may be limited. Same-day FPs are likely, but may require frequent monitoring via MDX.

- Success at getting FPs depends primarily on two factors: the size of the group and how often one is willing to “refresh” the available FP list for that attraction. Constant refreshing, patience, and persistence can result in getting even the most difficult FPs as late as day-of.

- The MDX system can be used to check availability at any park, even if FPs are selected for a different park that day. However, guests are advised to be careful not to confirm any selections offered, or existing FPs will be affected. See the FP FAQ Addendum for more information.

- In general, day-of FP availability for most headliners--particularly outside of Magic Kingdom—is typically low and approaches nonexistent as choices for 4th FPs since several hours must pass until guests are eligible for 4th FPs.

- There is little evidence that different “pools” of FPs are maintained for different booking windows. In other words, the full slate of FPs available for any particular attraction is released at one time, some 70+ days in advance, and none are saved for offsite guests or those who wait until they arrive in the park.

- If maximum choice and times of FPs is desired, then reserving them at the earliest opportunity is highly recommended.

 

[kwdw]

Headliner rides - FOP, 7DMT, Frozen - are difficult to get 30 days out. I'm sure the new coaster in TSL will join this list. You will have to hunt, and hope for some luck. I think for most other rides - as long as you are flexible in your planning (time of day, which park on which day) - you can get them. Having perfect planning takes more trying, IMO, when 30 days or less out. But you can still end with great selections as you want them. Yes, I've booked the day before and been thrilled.

But for me - I LIKE the better access at 60 days out. I don't like it when FP availability ends up driving which park I plan for on a particular day - I like to pick my FP park for the day on different factors. I also greatly dislike having pre-planned FP late in the evening - and the mid-day ones I want tend to be tougher to get as it gets closer. I don't like having to try multiple times - to check keeping - to improve my FP plans. I plan everything on the one day - and forget it. I might tweak a few days before my trip - but between 60 days and just a day or two before leaving - I never even look - I don't have time in my life for that.

So - 60 vs. 30 days DOES impact my resort planning for the reasons above. I tend to like to stay on property - though the price increase with the parking fees at the resorts is something that helps negate an on vs. off property cost for me. The cost of parking at the parks when off-property vs. paying to park the resorts offsets about $20 per day that favored on-property before - the "resort and park free parking perk" is gone. But I also like to be on property because my resort is closer - and I despise driving to my resort after a late night at a park.

But - really - you can end up with great plans 30 days out.

 

[CAS239]

30 days out I pretty much know it's slim chances at Pandora rides, 7dmt, and frozen. Everything else is fairly easy to get

 

[Cee]

Any attraction that has a single rider line, I don’t bother to get a fast pass for since those waits are minimal. I always get one for Soarin’.

 

[Klayfish]

Right now, the only one that's hard at 30 days is FoP. Everything else is no big deal. I'm guessing that will change with Toy Story Land opening.

 

[DWillowBay]

For us, it's not just the mere fact of "getting" that FP at 60 days...but what TIME(S) I can get those FPs. PP is correct that most FPs can be achieved at 30 days, but the times available may be more limited. This would shape our days negatively sometimes.

 

[Babs1975]

I'm gonna be honest, last trip we couldn't even get fp's for Frozen or 7DMT at 60 days out. Even with trying over and over, refreshing, etc....So relying on the 60 days doesn't always work either!

 

[kathy884]

As I have only stayed offsite since the new FP+ system came into play and have only visited the Magic Kingdom, but I have done that a few times, different times of year, I can only comment about what you usually can get / can't get there at the 30 day mark.

7DMT seems to be an impossible FP to get except for during fireworks at the 30 day mark. And the line for trips value ticket time has been really long like an hour to an hour and 1/2, not worth doing w/o a FP IMHO. Also, the way touring plans recommends to get a popular fastpass at 9, 10, and 11 and then get more doesn't work well at 30 days. It's more like 11, 12, and 2 or certain popular one you might want like Peter Pan might not be available till even later in the day.

The other thing that I've found is that if we do that 7DMT with the long line, we don't want to do any more long lines, and although we can get good fastpasses for some of the key attractions, we can't for everything. What that means for us is that something like Peter Pan that we don't want to waste a fastpass on usually has a line of 45 minutes to an hour and we skip that.

Our crowd levels for the MK days I'm talking about were level 7 and level 8.

 

[cygnusx1jg]

My apologies in advance, but someone's got to do it. The difference between the 30 day and 60 day Fastpass is, well, 30 days.

I'll be here all week and please don't forget to tip the wait staff. Thanks.

 

[Surgie2]

I want to thank everyone again for such great helpful information on these boards. I'm trying to decide how much of an impact having a 60 day FP window will have on my vacation vs. 30 day FP window.

I think you also have to consider how many travelers in your party. Husband and I visited in January and stayed off-site. So at 30 days we were able to get FP for Navi and FEA but not 7DMT or FoP. That was just for 2 people. We ended up getting a 6:00 p.m. FP for 7DMT a week before arrival but nothing for FoP, even with repeated tries.

For our May trip we need FP for 9 people. Luckily we have a longer stay and are on-site so everything at 60 days was a breeze, even being a large group. (FoP on day 60+5). I think it would have been trickier to get 9 sets of multiple FP at 30 days out and we would had to have split parties and overlapped times for some rides. This was one of the deciding factors for us to stay onsite. We will likely have zero late nights in the parks...and by late I mean staying past 5:00 pm LOL! So the FPs that come up for evenings and the advice to wait until the end of the night to ride FoP just won't work for our family.

 

[gharter]

As others have mentioned, if you want FPs for the really popular rides, you need to do those at 60 days, and even then FoP may not be available. At 30 days, FoP, Navi, 7 dwarfs mine train, Frozen ever after, soaring, Toy story mania are not likely to be available. I suspect when Slinky Dog Dash opens, if you don't get a 60 day FP, you won't get one.

 

[unrequited23]

Last year I planned a family trip--my family, my parents and my in-laws. Only my in-laws were staying offsite. I had offered to make the FPs for everyone since I get up early with the kids and the grandparents are retired. The 60 day FPs went exactly to plan, got every ride we wanted at pretty much every time we wanted give or take 20 mins. The 30 day FPs were not fun to try to coordinate. There was minimal availability for headline attractions and most time slots were in the late afternoon or early evening. The difference in what was available at 60 vs 30 days was so great I told my DH we would always be staying onsite as long as the FP system was the same (this was last year before some of the DS hotels got 60 windows.)

To summarize, the 30 day window will have time slots much later in the day than the 60 day window and your selection may be limited to the non-headliners.

 

[rg35]

I'm surprised that Frozen is still a FP+ hot item. But then again, I guess that overall the choices at Epcot are somewhat limited.

 

[ashleyr409]

Can RD help with these hard to get attractions if you choose to stay offsite? This will be my family first trip and I am still debating if we should stay onsite or offsite.

Stay onsite is really expensive for my family, so we looked into offsite options and we found so many good choices but we will have fastpass+ 30 days.

 

[Surgie2]

Can RD help with these hard to get attractions if you choose to stay offsite? This will be my family first trip and I am still debating if we should stay onsite or offsite.

Stay onsite is really expensive for my family, so we looked into offsite options and we found so many good choices but we will have fastpass+ 30 days.

RD and a plan will definitely help with these attractions. You would likely need to RD 7DMT unless you get a FP at some point before your park day, which is entirely possible even if not available at 30 days.

We did FoP with no problem arriving at the AK parking lot at 7:30 on a 9:00 park opening. It sounds (and looks in pics) much worse than it actually was. We were past the turnstiles well before park opening and we finished FoP by 9:10. And we are 60+ years old and did not sprint

If you are able to reserve BOG breakfast around 8:00 on a day that has EMM scheduled (often on Sundays and Tuesdays), then you could be ahead of the crowd since park opening hours won't change on EMM days. Finish breakfast and be ready to scoot over to 7DMT right at 9:00 and you'll be ahead of the RD people on Main Street.

 

[tlmadden73]

-- Availability .. and choice of times.

Even at 60 days (thanks to the "length of stay" bonus) - some attractions are near impossible to get. I anticipate Slinky Dog Dash will be impossible to get at 30 days versus 60 days.
At 30 days, you will have plenty of Fast Passes available, but less choices of times. (There may be a Peter Pan FP available, but not until 5:00 PM, etc.)

Can RD help with these hard to get attractions if you choose to stay offsite? This will be my family first trip and I am still debating if we should stay onsite or offsite.

Stay onsite is really expensive for my family, so we looked into offsite options and we found so many good choices but we will have fastpass+ 30 days.

RD is a good strategy for ANY theme park, not just Disney. While more people (than say Six Flags) get up early to be there at the rope drop, you still have much less people there

I've done both and besides the "headliner" attractions, I've felt I've had no issues with feeling I am missing out on key Fast Pass. You just have to look at it as Fast Pass is a bonus -- so if you get to skip a huge line, bonus, if not .. well .. there will be lots of waiting at WDW no matter what.

Some people (especially here on the forums) have gone so many times they like to maximize their Fast Pass usage. So don't let 30 versus 60 worry you. You will be able to skip lines and still have a great time! Save the money by staying offsite and spend it on a extra keepsake or something.

Just remember when calculating the cost off off-site hotels to factor in parking costs - $22/day. So no matter what the offsite hotel costs, it actually will cost you $22/more a day.

 

[ArielSRL]

Last year I planned a family trip--my family, my parents and my in-laws. Only my in-laws were staying offsite. I had offered to make the FPs for everyone since I get up early with the kids and the grandparents are retired. The 60 day FPs went exactly to plan, got every ride we wanted at pretty much every time we wanted give or take 20 mins. The 30 day FPs were not fun to try to coordinate. There was minimal availability for headline attractions and most time slots were in the late afternoon or early evening. The difference in what was available at 60 vs 30 days was so great I told my DH we would always be staying onsite as long as the FP system was the same (this was last year before some of the DS hotels got 60 windows.)

To summarize, the 30 day window will have time slots much later in the day than the 60 day window and your selection may be limited to the non-headliners.

Just an FYI: you could have booked their FPs with yours. As long as an onsite guest is in the booking group, it works.

 

[unrequited23]

Just an FYI: you could have booked their FPs with yours. As long as an onsite guest is in the booking group, it works.

Good to know, thanks...They did not show up in the list of people I could chose to make FPs that morning, so I didn't question anything.

 

[Klayfish]

Can RD help with these hard to get attractions if you choose to stay offsite? This will be my family first trip and I am still debating if we should stay onsite or offsite.

Stay onsite is really expensive for my family, so we looked into offsite options and we found so many good choices but we will have fastpass+ 30 days.

Yes, there's no doubt with rope drop you can get onto a popular attraction with little wait. However, you have to decide if you want to get up that early, etc... We have the luxury of many trips under our belt and are experienced, so that does help. We are died-in-the-wool offsite people, we LOVE it. Would never stay onsite, it would be horrible for us. With very limited exception (FoP), you will not have a problem getting FP+ for the "big" attractions like 7DMT, the Mountains in MK, TT, RnR, etc... You won't have the full pick of time slots, but it's still pretty good at 30 days. If you want to really learn the FP+ system before you go, you'll find that you can get pretty much anything (again, FoP being a possible exception) "same day", even the big attractions.

If you want to stay onsite, go for it!! But don't be afraid to stay offsite. You'll still be able to get on plenty of the most popular rides.