Fastpass+(To plan or not to plan?)

[BekahBelle]

Okay, so this might be a crazy question, but does anyone have any tips on how to use Fastpass+ for families who do not typically plan ahead what park they are going to be in on what day?
My family plans most things ahead - dining, what we want to do most, etc. However, part of the fun for us is waking up in the morning and deciding what park we want to go to that day. We have been 15+ times, so we know the parks well enough and have done enough to manage pretty well this way.
We like MyMagic+ and Fastpass+ in many ways, but do not like that we may have to change the way we "do Disney" because of it.
I know you can book your fastpasses the morning of, but since we're going in the summer I'm worried nothing will be available.
Suggestions/tips? Does anyone else share this problem? I know many Disney-goers are minute-by-minute planners and swear by it. Is my family alone in enjoying doing Disney on the fly?

 

[xlsm]

I think you can definitely do it because it seems like you already know the "risks". You can pick your parks the day of AND do the rides you want if you use rope drop and go to the rides it's harder to get FPs for first. As long as you are aware of potential limitations (which it seems you are) and go in with a positive attitude, you'll be fine. When you get up for he day and decide, check for FPs right away, and you might get lucky! Or, if you want, check out a crowd calendar and make some FPs ahead of time...you can always change them if you decide to go to a different park on any given day, but they're there and planned just in case.

Good luck and HAVE FUN on your trip!!

 

[Hootch]

This is where rope drop is so helpful. Hitting the headliners early in the morning will reduce the wait times.

There is some evidence that wait times for headliners has gone down a bit and waits for mid tier attractions have increased.

This site is helpful in planning. It shows what has availability but not the times available. For the MK, most of the attractions are available tommorow. The parades, Wishes and Anna and Elsa are the only things not showing availability tomorrrow. If you decide on your park the night before, you can make your FP+ ressies then and get a lot of your top choices. (I looked at Toy Story, RNRRC, Soarin' and Test Track and they are ashwing availability for tomorrow.)

http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/fastpass_plus_availability.php

 

[Patsydust]

I wouldn't worry about availability morning of! I have gone on a few trips now where we arrive early in the morning and don't use some fast passes! With the phone app you can change a fast pass instantly! My last trip two months ago, we changed our fast passes like 4 times a day depending on how our schedule changed! App is amazing and there is a good list of options, because it is updated to that moment a bunch of fast passes are constantly opening up from other people using the app and doing the same thing you are.

 

[Belleandtinker]

You have to plan your fast passes. If you don't use them, great but you would rather have them in your back pocket.

 

[Lucius Best]

7DMT is a ride where FP+ are gone 30+ days in advance. TSMM would be another ride where you could find no FP+ available the night before. And even though popular rides like Soarin and RnRC might have availability, it's possible the available times don't fit your schedule. The bigger the crowds, the less likely you'll find what you want.

We used to have days we would go to the bus stop and get on the first park bus that rolled in, or we would completely change our plans last minute because of weather. Last month was our first trip with FP+, and I did not enjoy having to lock in what day we were going to what park months in advance, and figuring out what rides we wanted to FP. I also found the MDE app clunky and buggy, but it usually worked. You can also book and change your FP at the kiosks in the parks.

On our trip, we lost a lot of flexibility with FP+, but gained some different spontaneity. For example, we had our FP+ reserved for the morning, and got to park at rope drop. By lunchtime we had used our first 3 FP+, and we could totally wing it for the afternoon. Stay in the same park and get additional FP at kiosks, hop to a different park, go back to pool, go play mini-golf, go eat at a resort, etc.

My suggestion would be to plan some days, but leave other days wide open. If you have restaurants you want to eat at in the parks, you already need some ADRs. Maybe plan your first days at MK/Epcot/HS, reserve ADRs and FP+ for 7DMT/Soarin/TSMM. Then the second half of your trip, leave your plans wide open, but book FP+ just in case.

We had no problem tweaking our FP times the night before (except 7DMT and TSMM). But that was the end of our trip with park levels 3-4. Just to give you an idea: on days with crowd level 3-4 last month, we could swing by FP kiosks, and get FP for just about everything, often with return times only 5-20 minutes away. But we had other days with predicted crowd level 5, but they felt like a 7. On those days, at kiosks, FP return times were 2-3 hours away for headliners, 1-2 hours away for secondary rides.

 

[maryandtyson]

We were there recently (April) and only used a few of our FPs. I had them set up but we only used 7DMT, Peter Pan (though we rode both stand by as well) TSMM. Everything else was stand by and taking our chances. We've been enough times and know we will be back, so it wasn't a big deal.

I'd book the super headliners for a couple of days and wing the rest.