Fastpass+ strategy when taking advantage of EMH

[nuttyliser]

Hi all! I've scrolled through many fastpass+ posts and cannot find this question, though I'm sure it's been asked. There are just a LOT of fastpass+ posts to scroll through! We are not new to Disney, but this is the first time we will be there with this new system in place. We are going the first week of August and plan on taking advantage of the EMHs at each park. I am thinking if we hit the parks that early we can get all the major attractions done first thing and then book our fast passes for a different park in the afternoon. Does that sound like a good strategy?

Our first park day would be an EMH morning for Epcot. We could go and ride Soarin and Test Track right away, then enjoy the rest of the park, have lunch and head back to the resort to get out of the heat for a bit, then head to MK and have fastpasses ready for that park. I think the only day we would want fastpasses for a park we were already starting the day in would be our MK day. Has anyone done it this way? How did that work for you?

 

[Metz172]

I am also interested in hearing a response. I do have some of my fast passes set up this way for my trip in June. Hoping its a good plan.

 

[Doug M]

Normal recommendation is to FP the second park of the day as morning crowd levels are usually lower and SB lines are manageable. We did this last summer and it worked very well.

 

[dbramer]

I will also be there the first week of August. Most of my plans rest around utilizing EMH then jumping to another park. TP has me a little bummed as they are now predicting crowd levels 8 and 9 for our entire trip where historically they have been between 5 and 8. As far as FP's go, for MK, we are planning to use them first thing in the morning on our first day (hoping to get A&E at RD after an 8:00 am CP ADR). For the other parks, we are planning to RD then hop using our FP's for the afternoon.

 

[skuttle]

This is what we did during our trip this past week. For example, we committed to going to early emh and knocking out tomorrowland so we didn't need to use any fp for that land. It worked well for us. Just confirm that the attractions you want to hit are open during emh. Frontier land isn't open for morning emh.

 

[g-dad66]

I think morning EMH is a good strategy, especially during the heat of summer.

We did morning EMH every day it was offered during our mid-March trip, but Epcot is still a bit problematical. Whether you do Test Track or Soarin first at Rope drop, the other ride is likely to have a substantial wait by 8:30 (like 40 minutes or more).

 

[soniam]

At Epcot, Soarin' and Test Track wait times can balloon really fast after park opening. It's not quite as bad with AM EMH. In late July, we did TT at RD on an AM EMH day. We did child swap, so that took some time. We had an FP+ for Soarin', but the wait didn't look bad. So, we rode SB with ~10min wait and then did our FP+. When we got back in line for our FP+, the posted wait was already above 40 minutes. I think at this point the park had opened.

 

[wisblue]

To the OP, we are leaving today after a week at WDW, and did just what you are thinking about. The approach worked very well for us on some extremely busy days several with crowd level 10, according to Touring Plans.

After I get home and regroup, I hope to prepare a trip report focusing on the approach I used for planning and selecting FP+ reservations and then how the days actually played out. But, in a nutshell, we did 3 AM EMH, 2 at MK and 1 at EPCOT, and were able to do the major attractions we wanted to do during the EMH and in the 2 hours after without FP+. At DHS and DAK we were able to do the major attractions without FPs on days with no EMH. So, on every day of the trip, we were able to use our FPs in the late afternoon and early evening to enjoy some major attractions that otherwise had long standby lines.

The approach should work even better in early August when the crowds are not likely to be as large as they were this past week. We happened to be at WDW in early August last year and were able to use EMH to do the major attractions without FPs. On that trip, we were using one of our daughters' CM gate passes and could not make FP reservations in advance.

 

[wisblue]

Epcot is definitely the most challenging park if you want to do both Soarin and TT without a FP.

On a couple of previous trips (one in early August and one in early November) we were able to do both Soarin and Test Track within about 45 minutes after park opening (not EMH) by arriving about 30 minutes before opening, going directly to Soarin and then going directly to TT and riding single rider.

On this trip we planned to do the same thing for an 8 AM EMH. We arrived at the bus stop at WL at about 7 AM, just as a bus was pulling out of the stop. Despite one of my daughters running out and waving for the bus to stop, and people at the other stop also waving at the driver, the driver refused to stop. So, we had to wait for the next bus, which came about 15 minutes later. No big deal because that should still have gotten us to EPCOT a good 20- minutes or so before the 8 AM opening. But, when the bus arrived for the stop at Fort Widerness, it had to wait about 5 minutes for other buses to clear the stop area, and then had to load 2 scooters and stuff in about 2 bus loads of riders. It took about 15 -20 minutes from the time the bus entered FW until it actually got back on the road to EPCOT. With those delays, we did not get to the gate at Epcot until about 7:55, and by then they had let people in and were holding them by ropes alongside Spaceship Earth. So, when we got to Soarin, instead of being on one of the first rides of the day, we had to wait for a couple of cycles, and were not out of the building until about 8:40.

By the time we got to TT, the single rider line was out the building and, though the posted time said 25 minutes, we knew it would be longer than that. Somebody behind us said they changed the posted wait to 45 minutes just after we entered. Our actual wait was about 35 minutes, and we did not exit the ride until about 9:30. So, instead of the usual 45 minutes, doing those 2 attractions took twice that, in part because of the bus issues and in part becUse of the extremely large crowd at Epcot that day.

I should add that we had a FP for Soarin that we used on our arrival day, something we would not have had with paper FP, so we got 2 rides on that during our trip. We also had a FP for TT on another night, though we ended up not using that one because, after spending the day at Universal, my daughters decided just to go to DTD for shopping and something to eat instead of going to Epcot.