FP+ and Last Minute Trips

[Laketravis]

We're staying at USO next week but DW wants to taxi over to WDW a couple of times. With no days or FP's currently planned I suppose we'll see first hand exactly how this spontaneity concept pans out. If the tired old strategy of "get there early" is the only advantage left (and at risk of quickly losing any benefit as more and more utilize it), we're doomed because I don't see us getting to any WDW park until after 10am.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

So you would not be making any FPs at all until after 10 am? That is going to narrow your possibilities especially at a park like Epcot with few "headliner" attractions. You would find some attractions but maybe not the most popular. Of course if you arrived after 10 am, especially with parks opening earlier during the week after Xmas, then your options for paper fastpasses wouldn't have been so awesome either.

 

[wisblue]

We're staying at USO next week but DW wants to taxi over to WDW a couple of times. With no days or FP's currently planned I suppose we'll see first hand exactly how this spontaneity concept pans out. If the tired old strategy of "get there early" is the only advantage left (and at risk of quickly losing any benefit as more and more utilize it), we're doomed because I don't see us getting to any WDW park until after 10am.

it will be interesting to see what you find in terms of FP availability.

But, arriving after 10 AM during the week between Christmas and New Year's has never been a recipe for riding a lot of attractions with short waits or getting FPs for the most popular attractions.

Because I think you said you have APs for WDW you do have the option of picking a park and making FP reservations. If you decide not to go to WDW that day, or choose a different park, you haven't lost anything.

I'm not convinced that the "tired old strategy" of arriving early is losing its advantage or that more people are arriving early than ever before. While some people may be more inclined to come early to take advantage of shorter standby waits or to (foolishly I think ) burn through their first 3 FPs, that may be offset by people who take advantage of their FP+ reservations to arrive later. Following the wait times at MK this morning they look very much like what we have experienced in past years at Christmas and Easter. With 7 AM openings you can do a lot in the first 3-4 hours. Between 10 and 11 AM the lines have always grown very quickly at all of the popular attractions.

 

[Disneylover99]

Yesterday, Dec. 23, At about 3pm, I changed my Space Mountain FP to 6:40 pm

About an hour later I switched the Space Mountain FP to a Big Thunder FP at 9:40pm.

I wouldn't hesitate to book a last minute trip.

 

[johde]

On the highest peak days, you could still get legacy FP's at RD and you could do SB with shorter waits. So, if you decided to go to WDW spur of the moment you still had the ability to get Fast Passes. Nowadays, don't surprise anyone with a spontaneuous trip during a busy time of year unless they don't care about any headliners.

Mom2rtk was talking about visiting during MLK. But changed her mind because there weren't any 7DMT FP's available. I think it's still true that for 7DMT, E & A, FP+ reservations are booked out at 60 days.

I realize FP+ is only for 3 rides, but if you go to the parks during really busy times, you are shut out of all FP+ 's for popular rides. With Legacy FP every day was a clean slate you always had a chance at getting at least 1 FP for a popular attraction.

The way I see it, it's a catch 22. You can't please everyone. Looking at the busiest of busiest situations. New Years Eve at EPCOT. 1 Week and 1 day out I could book FP+ for 2 (I needed to overlap times though) for Soarin, Mission Space, and Spaceship Earth. Test Track is also available for that day. Yes, for a couple of them you will be rushing between WS and FW if you want to see Illuminations at Midnight. But, they are available.

New Years Eve 2012, I had planned a trip for 11 months, as soon as DVC booking came open, with that being arrival day. My flight didn't arrive until the afternoon. By the time I got there, my FP choices were Living with the Land, Living with the Land, and Living with the Land. Everything else had been gone for hours. Soarin' and Test Track were both listing posted wait times of over 6 hours. I ended up waiting 30+ minutes for Imagination and Nemo and caught Test Track in the single rider line right after Illuminations at Midnight.

 

[LetsTalkWDW]

I was just looking at the wait times at MK at 9AM EST, one hour after park opening and 2 hours after EMH opening.

7DMT had a posted wait of 60 minutes and an actual wait of 37 minutes. Long but not ridiculous for someone who really wants to ride.PP had a posted wait of 40 minutes and an actual wait of 27 and everything else had a posted wait of 20 minutes or less and an actual wait of under 10 minutes.

In other words, everyone who was willing to get to the park by 7AM, or 8 AM if staying offsite, had a golden opportunity to enjoy several of the most popular attractions in the park with minimal wait and no FPs. Then if those guests made their FP+ reservations for later in the day they would have the opportunity to enjoy 3 more major attractions at a time when standby lines are much longer.

People who don't want to get to the parks early, but still made their FP reservations, will still be better off than they would have been arriving later when paper FP was in place.

I would make the argument that FP+ makes visiting MK at the busiest times of the year more enjoyable for a high majority of guests. I am still waiting for someone to report that they tried to make FP reservations for MK the day before their visit, or upon arriving at the park at opening and were not able to get anything good. If the only things not available are 7DMT, A&E, and parades and fireworks (all things that were not around or didn't have FPs before this year) that sounds pretty good to me.

How do you get the actual wait times? Is there an app for that?

 

[wisblue]

What hotel are you staying at?

The Fairfield on Harbor Drive. We stayed there on our last two visits in the 2000s and the location served our needs well.

 

[Laketravis]

So you would not be making any FPs at all until after 10 am? That is going to narrow your possibilities especially at a park like Epcot with few "headliner" attractions. You would find some attractions but maybe not the most popular. Of course if you arrived after 10 am, especially with parks opening earlier during the week after Xmas, then your options for paper fastpasses wouldn't have been so awesome either.

In the truest sense of "spontaneous", we don't know yet what days next week we might venture over to WDW, nor what park, so we haven't reserved any FP's.

 

[Laketravis]

How do you get the actual wait times? Is there an app for that?

You can visit this site, built by one of our very own DIS'ers:

DisneyWaitTimes.com

Keep in mind the "Actual" was the last sampled wait time and could have been either the SB line or the FP line. If you see a high Wait time and a relatively low Actual time, chances are the Actual was an FP queue sample.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

In the truest sense of "spontaneous", we don't know yet what days next week we might venture over to WDW, nor what park, so we haven't reserved any FP's.

That makes sense, but it doesn't sound an actual test of the new system versus the old to arrive after 10 at a crowded time and only then try to reserve any passes. I guess I'm not sure what the odds would have been of getting paper FPs for headliners that late, since they would have gone faster than usual.

 

[Laketravis]

...it will be interesting to see what you find in terms of FP availability.

In MK, for example, we normally would only get FP's for SM, HM, and BTMR. A quick check just now showed FP availability for those three on New Year's day.

Of course, it wouldn't be very spontaneous of me to reserve any of them now, so we'll wait until we can determine how our days are progressing at USO before we decide what we will do at WDW. I'll probably check the night before we think we'll go to a WDW park to see what availability there might be.

We've never been to USO, have no plans other than to show up (no dining reservations, no attraction reservations, etc.) so it remains for us to see how it all best works together. Especially over one of if not the busiest times of the year.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I'm not sure you need dining reservations at Universal anyway - although I usually go there in September when it's pretty dead. And it's much easier to go "offsite" to dine at Uni.

 

[Laketravis]

That makes sense, but it doesn't sound an actual test of the new system versus the old to arrive after 10 at a crowded time and only then try to reserve any passes. I guess I'm not sure what the odds would have been of getting paper FPs for headliners that late, since they would have gone faster than usual.

We'll probably decide a day before that we'll head over to WDW, so we can look at FP availability the night before to help determine which park would be the best option - as well as what time to go based on remaining FP distribution.

I think any speculation about paper FP's really isn't relevant since that hasn't been an option for a long time. I'm more interested in seeing what could be accomplished between USO with Express Pass and WDW with FP hitting both during the busiest season of the year with a minimal amount of planning.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

That sounds like a good way to do it - from what I've seen the attractions you prefer are almost always available the night before.

 

[Laketravis]

That sounds like a good way to do it - from what I've seen the attractions you prefer are almost always available the night before.

Yeah, lucky for us TSMM, 7DMT, and Soarin' take a back seat to other attractions in each park. And since the only interest DS9 has in waiting in line to see a character is no interest at all we don't have to endure any of that.

 

[LetsTalkWDW]

You can visit this site, built by one of our very own DIS'ers:

DisneyWaitTimes.com

Keep in mind the "Actual" was the last sampled wait time and could have been either the SB line or the FP line. If you see a high Wait time and a relatively low Actual time, chances are the Actual was an FP queue sample.

Pretty cool. Thanks!

Actually formats pretty good on my phone.

 

[4disneyfreakazoids]

Just made FP+ for everything I wanted except 7 dwarves ride for 12/28! Yay!

 

[Disneylover99]

I just switched my MK FP's around for tomorrow (Christmas Day). There was availability for most everything. No Mine Train or Anna and Elsa, but I was pleasantly surprised with the availability and times for other attractions.

 

[jade1]

Grabbed S Tours, RNR and TOT at 7:30 tonight for tomorrow evening Christmas Day.
MK was our other choice and all the mountains were available as well as P Pan and a bunch of others but hitting the Boardwalk for a bit first.

Probably qualifies as last minute I suppose.

 

[mjhannaf]

Actually formats pretty good on my phone.

That was the idea