Finding FP+ very annoying...

[itchin2go]

No I think OP means they have to use all 3 FP+ in same park. OP just wants 1 in Epcot but if they book in Epcot they don't get to book the other 2 in MK.

Sounds like OP wants to park hop MK in a.m. to Epcot in p.m.

As others suggested, prob best to RD at MK and use FP+ at Epcot for p.m. even if they only really want 1 ride at Epcot.

Of course we won't know until OP comes back to the thread.

I agree, but my point is:

Sure you could potentially GET FP- (old school FP) in multiple parks, but how good were they if you did? If you did the morning in MK, and then hopped to EP in the afternoon, there were no FPs left for Test Track and Soarin, right? Same if you did EP in the morning and then hopped to MK .... there weren't good FPs left, were there? I never did that, so I legitimately don't know, but i don't think the situation was much different. There were far less FP attractions then ...

I just don't get how the new system is that much worse than the old system ... in that regard anyway.

 

[disney world dreamer]

sounds like you did not select one of the four options and then modify your times.

if there's only one FP+ you want at epcot then why not RD epcot and book your FP+ for MK?

i wish people wouldn't judge it until they actually use it in practice in the parks.

 

[Chitownpeeps91]

I think it is ok to just judge the process before you go to the park. Maybe once you get there it is better but the process may have been very bad.

 

[U-No]

I agree, but my point is:

Sure you could potentially GET FP- (old school FP) in multiple parks, but how good were they if you did? If you did the morning in MK, and then hopped to EP in the afternoon, there were no FPs left for Test Track and Soarin, right? Same if you did EP in the morning and then hopped to MK .... there weren't good FPs left, were there? I never did that, so I legitimately don't know, but i don't think the situation was much different. There were far less FP attractions then ...

I just don't get how the new system is that much worse than the old system ... in that regard anyway.

We could pull legacy FP's in the MK in the afternoon, no problem. Epcot was a different story. I think most of the FP's for Soarin' and TT were gone by 1 pm, but those were really the only popular FP rides in the park both then and now.

 

[itchin2go]

We could pull legacy FP's in the MK in the afternoon, no problem. Epcot was a different story. I think most of the FP's for Soarin' and TT were gone by 1 pm, but those were really the only popular FP rides in the park both then and now.

Interesting ... we mostly tour in the morning - early afternoon and were never pulling FPs late in the day.

OP may not realize that she can book 4th FP (day of) in the second park, provided the first 3 have used/expired. Even if you don't want 3, go ahead and book them - I would say as early as possible - then when you hop the next park, you'll be ready to book your 4th FP.

 

[Angel Ariel]

The thing about that complaint is - was it really any better with FP-? If you did MK in the morning, did you find decent FP- at Epcot in the afternoon or vice versa?

If we hopped between those two under legacy, we did epcot in the morning and hopped to mk. We never had issues getting mk fastpasses in the afternoon. Mk was always our "hop to" park for that reason.

 

[cakebaker]

We could pull legacy FP's in the MK in the afternoon, no problem. Epcot was a different story. I think most of the FP's for Soarin' and TT were gone by 1 pm, but those were really the only popular FP rides in the park both then and now.

You can pull fp+ in the afternoons at the MK- and for the headliners such as the mountains. Of course during the busiest times, that may well not be the case, but it would've been the case for paper fp as well. I do agree with you about the afternoon availability at Epcot and HS- wasn't there before, isn't now for the most part.

With only 2 days in the park, the OP is going to have to make some tough choices and always would have had to. I'd suggest as others have, Since they only want 1 ride in Epcot, I suggest go there in the morning, ride at rope drop and schedule afternoon FP+ for the MK. Or as others have suggested, do MK in the morning without FP+, schedule afternoon for the other park with FP+. Personally, I'd do it with the MK as my afternoon park.

 

[Stacey012345]

Now that I read it over, I think she meant that it's "annoying she CAN'T book in multiple parks".

The thing about that complaint is - was it really any better with FP-? If you did MK in the morning, did you find decent FP- at Epcot in the afternoon or vice versa?

No I think OP means they have to use all 3 FP+ in same park. OP just wants 1 in Epcot but if they book in Epcot they don't get to book the other 2 in MK.

Sounds like OP wants to park hop MK in a.m. to Epcot in p.m.

As others suggested, prob best to RD at MK and use FP+ at Epcot for p.m. even if they only really want 1 ride at Epcot.

Of course we won't know until OP comes back to the thread.

You both could be right, too, but that wasn't my initial read based on how it was written. I guess OP will let us know when back on the thread.

 

[grecorj]

What dates and times are you looking for?

I booked FP for June 20-26 on Monday evening with no problem. We are a family of 5. All of our times are between 10 AM and 1 PM. I even went in in just this morning to move my times to fit with Josh's cheat sheet a little better and there were TONS of availability for every major attraction at every park for every day of our stay.

They key for me was to just pick the rides I wanted and then fiddle with times. You should have no problem doing that at your 60 day mark...

The Dibb's FP+ site supports this -- most everything "green" for that week at this point (no A&E). But again, we don't know what attractions/times the OP wanted.

 

[DavidNYC]

First - a bit skeptical that at 60 days out they had trouble getting morning FP for "any of the rides" they wanted (unless all they were talking about is 7DMT and A&E). Have seen almost no complaints about problems overall at 60 days. As for Epcot if there's only 1 FP you want and want to use FP at MK too, there's a very simple solution (which is exactly what I did last trip). Go to Epcot at rope drop and do the 1 ride you wanted the FP for. You will have almost no line and then can use FP+ at MK in the afternoon. In fact, FP+ is now a huge benefit to you because under the old system if you did that, by the time you got to MK, you'd probably have to wait several hours until the return time for your first FP. [Actually, if you get there right at RD you can do Soarin with almost no wait and then hop to TT and still have probably no more than a 30-40 minute standby. You can get both headliners in during your first hour and have the rest of the day.]

FP+ isn't perfect but there's lot you can do. But you have to have a little flexibility. You couldn't pick your times under the old system either.

 

[grecorj]

My experience this morning at midnight at 60 days out:

Wow. Just....wow.

Thanks to the hard work of @mesaboy2 and everyone who contributed to this thread (and others, including the easywdw forums, esp micah008 for his FP+ booking tutorial), I was uber-prepared for making my FP+ selections at midnight today (i.e., 30 minutes ago!).

It took me 29 minutes to book 8 days worth of attractions. It went smoothly and I got the rides and times I wanted. I booked 7DMT on 3 days, including our departure morning. The times were all within 20 minutes of my rough plan. Choosing initial times furthest away from the general times I wanted -- genius! Makes so much sense, allows the flexibility to change times.

Can't wait! T-minus 60!

We weren't doing A&E but I checked just now and there was a.m. availability on our last day. And tons of early p.m. Sorry the OP couldn't find a time but it's not impossible.

 

[itchin2go]

We weren't doing A&E but I checked just now and there was a.m. availability on our last day. And tons of early p.m. Sorry the OP couldn't find a time but it's not impossible.

It sounds like OP didn't know she couldn't book FPs in 2 different parks on the same day until she tried to book them for the first time. I think that was a case of expectations getting in the way.

Like you, I read up on FP+ before I booked for the first time, and I had little trouble.

 

[Xennia]

What we do is rope drop with no FP's and book our FP+ for later in the day.

Ditto. It's the best way.

 

[cakebaker]

Ditto. It's the best way.

Same here- it surprises me that a lot of people say fp+ availability runs out for earlier times when I read about so many people who do just like this. I guess we're just a drop in the bucket, but it really does work great.

 

[tup1830]

A thought...

I'm reading a lot of angst and a lot of good suggestions about booking and then changing. I do NOT like that they only give you 3-4 choices of time of what Disney thinks is best.

Why can't you pick 3 attractions and then it gives you a list of all open time slots and you go and pick (based on availability for your entire party).

I see it happen so many times with the hotels too, they give me their top 3 suggestions of hotels...why can't you just give me a list of all hotels in a category (value moderate deluxe) and starting prices...then i can click and see the other room/pricing options.

I don't know why they do it and i don't want to make this a discussion of theories, just that it makes the "shopping" experience, either fast passes, rooms, etc. so much easier to read and decide.

 

[huckabear]

This is exactly what we do. I pick the evening times and then one by one move them into the morning time slots I want. I had zero issues with getting what we wanted when we wanted it at 60 days out this way.

This is exactly what I did and I got everything we wanted at the times we wanted earlier in the day (late morning/mid afternoon) - even Anna and Elsa!

 

[Robo]

A thought...

I'm reading a lot of angst and a lot of good suggestions about booking and then changing. I do NOT like that they only give you 3-4 choices of time of what Disney thinks is best.

Why can't you pick 3 attractions and then it gives you a list of all open time slots and you go and pick (based on availability for your entire party).

I don't know why they do it...

Because when faced with too many initial choices, some folks just give up.

 

[rwdavis2]

What we do is rope drop with no FP's and book our FP+ for later in the day.

I think this is the best use of FP+. At rope drop you don't need FPs for many of the rides.

 

[ArwenMarie]

A thought...

I'm reading a lot of angst and a lot of good suggestions about booking and then changing. I do NOT like that they only give you 3-4 choices of time of what Disney thinks is best.

Why can't you pick 3 attractions and then it gives you a list of all open time slots and you go and pick (based on availability for your entire party).

I see it happen so many times with the hotels too, they give me their top 3 suggestions of hotels...why can't you just give me a list of all hotels in a category (value moderate deluxe) and starting prices...then i can click and see the other room/pricing options.

I don't know why they do it and i don't want to make this a discussion of theories, just that it makes the "shopping" experience, either fast passes, rooms, etc. so much easier to read and decide.

I agree. It doesn't seem like it would that hard to show everything. I think they make it complicated to push you towards certain rides and times.

I agree on the hotels too.

 

[grecorj]

I agree. It doesn't seem like it would that hard to show everything. I think they make it complicated to push you towards certain rides and times.

I agree on the hotels too.

How does it push you to a certain ride? It shows every available ride in park for that day.

I'd have to guess that the reason they only give you 4 time options is b/c they hold those slots until you choose one. If they gave you all available times at once they couldn't do that. And then if you waited too long to choose maybe one of those slots is no longer available and the system would make you choose again. It would be more frustrating than the way it is.

It's not hard to choose a group and modify.