Fastpass strategy with extra extra magic hours?

[fujamaga]

Hi! I'll be going to disney at the end of September, and I had all of my fastpass plans, but then realized since I'll be there during the extra extra magic hours, is there something I should be doing differently?

For example, AK, I wanted to do
9AM FOP
10AM Safari
11AM Dinosaur

But should I instead at rope drop go straight to FOP instead? I have this issue with all of the parks and I'm not sure if I need to change my thinking for the fastpass selections.

Also, let's say I keep to the plan, does that mean I should just do everything else and circle back to use the fastpass? If anyone can give suggestions as to how the day should go, that would be greatly appreciated. For example:

7am rope drop - go to FOP and Naavi, forget fp for those rides.
8am safari
walk around the trails
9am FP Everest

Thanks!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Are you EMH eligible? Generally speaking, I like to do FPs mid-ish morning like you have them, and rope drop like crazy to cover anything else. It seems to me these abundant extra extra magic hours and constant early park openings will on some level lead to some pretty stellar park touring time if you can stomach the early hours. Then let the FPs kick in and do your normal day, or adjust/refresh anything you might have already covered.

 

[fujamaga]

Yes, I'm EMH eligible. So you wouldn't go to the really popular ones first? Since I can't do fp for both FOP and Naavi, I'm not sure I would rope drop one and then not do the other, but instead wait until I have a fp for it. It seems like I would be re-tracing my steps.

Are you EMH eligible? Generally speaking, I like to do FPs mid-ish morning like you have them, and rope drop like crazy to cover anything else. It seems to me these abundant extra extra magic hours and constant early park openings will on some level lead to some pretty stellar park touring time if you can stomach the early hours. Then let the FPs kick in and do your normal day, or adjust/refresh anything you might have already covered.

 

[only hope]

FOP is still a nightmare to rd. I’d rd Navi instead. SDD and 7DMT are also crazy at rd, though SDD could change after SW opens.

Generally speaking, backtracking as little as possible lets you get more done. FP should be back to back and starting by 9:30 so that you can get 4th+ Fp and avoid all standby lines longer than 15mn. There’s just no point in waiting longer than 15mn when you can get a fp, and nearly everything most days will have a wait longer than that by 10:00, which
is why fp should start early. This is most important at MK where there aren’t any animals to watch and few shows to do between fp, unlike AK and HS.

Of course, the 3 i mentioned above are difficult to get passes for even with expert refreshing, so they require being at the front of rd or going right before close for a shorter wait if no fp can be got.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Yes, I'm EMH eligible. So you wouldn't go to the really popular ones first? Since I can't do fp for both FOP and Naavi, I'm not sure I would rope drop one and then not do the other, but instead wait until I have a fp for it. It seems like I would be re-tracing my steps.

If it were me and I was feeling like getting there well early, I’d probably try to rope drop FoP then use your FP later to get two rides in.

I don’t tour DAK efficiently - I inevitably end up back tracking at times, but I also don’t mind that (I love the park) so don’t necessarily purposely try to avoid it. So I’m probably not the best person to give practical efficiency advice. ;-)

But I’m really curious to see rope drop conditions for FoP during these daily EEMHs. I’d maybe keep an eye one reports as we getting into that run of EEMHs and see what things are like.

 

[fujamaga]

If it were just me and the hubby, I wouldn't mind back tracking, but I can already hear my kids complaining... lol

If it were me and I was feeling like getting there well early, I’d probably try to rope drop FoP then use your FP later to get two rides in.

I don’t tour DAK efficiently - I inevitably end up back tracking at times, but I also don’t mind that (I love the park) so don’t necessarily purposely try to avoid it. So I’m probably not the best person to give practical efficiency advice. ;-)

But I’m really curious to see rope drop conditions for FoP during these daily EEMHs. I’d maybe keep an eye one reports as we getting into that run of EEMHs and see what things are like.

 

[Castlequeen5]

I would definitely keep the FP for the long wait rides like FOP and SDD. Then for the EMH or rope drops, do all the low wait rides that you want to ride. If one of your FP rides has a low wait, ride it twice!

We were at AK this month and went to EMH. We had FP for FOP, Everest, and Dinosaur. We went straight to Navi river and it was a walk on. FOP was 120 and it wasn't even 8am yet. So we bypassed that and rode Dinosaur twice and Everest once before 9. Afterwards we used our Everest FP to ride it again and then went to the bugs life show. Next we used our FOP FP. After that we were done and were out of AK around 10. We didn't even use our third FP. We ended up switching it to another park for later. So we did have to backtrack a little, but it wasn't that big of a deal. For us, we wanted to use our time to do as many rides as we could with little wait.

 

[shocker]

I like FOP so much that I want to ride it twice. Currently to RD FOP it means walking thru the front gate by 6:15 (may change after Star Wars opens...have to wait & see) for that 7am EMH.

So I would (& have) RD FOP at 6:15, I would then ride FOP again close to the end of FP time around 9:50.

You'll roughly have from 7:15-9:50 to ride whatever you want w/o FP. Good time for Navi. I would also used the Touring Plans app to make a plan of everything I want to accomplish (list FOP 2 times) and it will build a plan for you. You can have the plan built around whether you'll be there for EMH or not. You can also have the plan build around your willingness to backtrack... or not.

Last time I used TP it would not allow a start time before official opening, so just stay the course & click "complete" wherever it appears in the plan & hit "optimize" when you get off FOP the first time. The plan will recalculate for you after the park opens.

This same strategy works at every park. You just have to decide if you want to ride the headliner twice or head for a headliner you don't have a FP for & use FP's later.