FP+ and Park Hopping Strategies

[spartankid34]

Hi all,

I will be taking my first trip with Park Hoppers this summer, and I'm a little lost on my planning when it comes to my FP+ reservations. I am familiar with FP+ and have used it before, just not with PHs. If you could please help me out with any tips or suggestions that would be really appreciated. Also any changes you might make to my plans for which park, which day?

If it helps, here are my rough park day plans, with afternoon breaks around 2:00/3:00:
8/29 (crowd level 5) - AK morning/MK night
8/30 (crowd level 5) - EP all day or EP morning/HS night
8/31 (crowd level 3) - MK morning/EP night
9/1 (REST DAY)
9/2 (crowd level 3) - Attempting an easy going 4 Parks, One Day (ANY TIPS ON FP+ here??)
9/3 (crowd level 2) - HS Morning/EP night
9/4 (crowd level 3) - AK Morning/MK night

 

[FTM22]

Unless they have changed things, you can't use the FP+ in more than one park per day. So that means you have to choose what you want for that day parkwise in relation to FP. I am a park hopper person too and we just decided on a park to use the FP eah day and then took our chances otherwise.

 

[Monykalyn]

I used hoppers on our recent trip (much higher crowd levels too- jealous of the 5s and below) and did RD for an park, break, FP for headliners at evening park.
AK morning not needed for FP- can hop to Epcot anytime to stroll WS or do single rider test track, studios TSMM needs FP for afternoon - but even ToT goes fast with a high crowd.

I'd actually consider doing all of AK in one day then hop to WS in Epcot and do MK for a full day-with FP for MK starting late morning to get best chances on picking up more.
My oldest daughter and I did 3 parks one day-Ak am (early EMH day)Epcot (single rider TT and WS -snack time)) then MK for FP in evening. If you stick HS in before Epcot probably doable but that's lots of transportation time. We chose MK for FP that day simply because there's more choices in MK

 

[CAS239]

Unless they have changed things, you can't use the FP+ in more than one park per day. So that means you have to choose what you want for that day parkwise in relation to FP. I am a park hopper person too and we just decided on a park to use the FP eah day and then took our chances otherwise.

Prepicked FP's all have to be in the same park. But 4th, 5th, etc passes after that can be at any park your in and for any tier.

 

[CAS239]

We're AP's, so we park hop daily.

If we know what park we'll be at later in the day, we'll pick fast passes for the night time park. You don't need fast passes for about the first two hours of a park opening, so we hit what we can in the beginning. Then later in the day when lines are long, we have our fast passes. Yea you miss out on most good rides as a 4th or 5th having passes later in the day...but I'd rather have guaranteed passes when the lines are long, and by the time you can even get extra passes, the top rides are already long gone.

However if we don't know what park we're going to later, we book passes for the morning. For those days we decide what park we're going to at night by looking at the wait times on MDE

So if you know what parks you want to do at night, and you can get there about rope drop to get rides knocked out in the morning, I recommend booking for the second park

 

[cakebaker]

Your plan is similar to what we do. I would suggest you schedule your fp+'s for the evening parks, do the secondary rides on your mornings- arrive at opening for the shortest lines and the longest amount of time before lines build.

For example: Epcot morning with no FP- Ride Soarin or TT. On your evening visit, ride the other with FP+. Personally, I'd ride TT with no FP+ on a morning visit, Soarin in the evening with FP+. Same for the headliners at HS. MK is a goldmine of secondary rides with no waits in the morning. We never use a FP+ before noon. Evenings are when we catch headliners. You can do headliners in the morning, but that means giving up a lot of walk on rides and having to join the huge crowd rushing towards SDMT and A&E.

AK is the one park we always go only mornings and schedule our fp+'s there. In the summer it's just too hot in the afternoons and it's hard to catch Everest, Roaring Rapids and Safari without some waiting in line. We usually do AK on a day when we have MK as an evening park that has EMH's. We do dinner, less popular shows and fireworks, then catch rides during EMH's. Either that or a day we have Epcot for an evening when we do the World Showcase and Illuminations.

 

[DonaldDuck77]

9/2 (crowd level 3) - Attempting an easy going 4 Parks, One Day (ANY TIPS ON FP+ here??)

We are trying this on 10/10. Looking at your date (and knowing nothing about which rides you want to do, but seeing you have multiple days everywhere), here is what I would do: AK (start at EMH), EP, HS, MK with FP+ (maybe even typical low value FP+ like Wishes or MSEP if you want).

 

[Baptist]

I agree with most posters. Save your FPs for later in the day at your second park. I would make an exception for your MK/Epcot day. I think FPs are more valuable at MK than Epcot since it's tiered. On that day, I would look for 11-2 FPs instead of morning FPs. I might make the exception on your 9/3 HS/EP day as well. At that point, you have already been to EP 3 times. A Toy Story FP would be more valuable to me than your 5th ride on Soarin.

 

[spartankid34]

These are all wonderful tips, thank you so much! I am still really playing around with my park days, and don't have a set schedule, so I enjoy all the thoughts you are throwing out there. I really makes sense to get AK done in one day!

We are trying this on 10/10. Looking at your date (and knowing nothing about which rides you want to do, but seeing you have multiple days everywhere), here is what I would do: AK (start at EMH), EP, HS, MK with FP+ (maybe even typical low value FP+ like Wishes or MSEP if you want).

I am so excited to try this, but we aren't really going to stress about it, or go crazy with it. My mom won't be able to go so fast, so it truly will be a relaxed but packed day. I am doing pretty much exactly as you've said AK(EMH), HS, EP, and finally MK. I don't plan on getting too many rides in each park, maybe just 1 or 2, but I am excited to try all the different modes of transportation, and getting a picture in each park!

 

[Nohal]

I agree with everyone. We also go in September and do rope drop for each park and take advantage of EMH. We make our FP's for the park that we hop to. If you get in at rope drop you should be able to do a lot in the first 2 hrs. I will say that Soarin, 7Dwarfs Mine Train, and Toy Story are very hard to do without a wait if you don't have fast pass. But getting the the park at rope drop really helps. Last year we were able to get 7DMT on the day of as our 4th FP. I think we looked right after someone cancelled theirs and got lucky.

 

[juliekzp]

I usually save FPs for the evening park, although sometimes I'll use FP+ in the late morning/early afternoon at either Epcot or HS and then hit MK later, since MK always has the most availability and options for 4th FPs and beyond (plus parade and fireworks, of course).

 

[Lucius Best]

I am so excited to try this, but we aren't really going to stress about it, or go crazy with it. My mom won't be able to go so fast, so it truly will be a relaxed but packed day. I am doing pretty much exactly as you've said AK(EMH), HS, EP, and finally MK. I don't plan on getting too many rides in each park, maybe just 1 or 2, but I am excited to try all the different modes of transportation, and getting a picture in each park!

It depends on how long you stay at each park and what rides exactly you want to do, but I wouldn't save my FP for last park MK. There are enough rides at MK, you could get FP at kiosk when you arrive, and lines for headliners will shorten before park closing. I would make my 3 FP+ reservations at either HS or Epcot, whichever one you want to do more rides at.

Also, it sounds like you aren't driving if you're going to be trying all the different modes of transportation. You can take the bus between parks, but you might have a long wait for a direct bus going from AK to HS before 10am.

 

[spartankid34]

It depends on how long you stay at each park and what rides exactly you want to do, but I wouldn't save my FP for last park MK. There are enough rides at MK, you could get FP at kiosk when you arrive, and lines for headliners will shorten before park closing. I would make my 3 FP+ reservations at either HS or Epcot, whichever one you want to do more rides at.

Also, it sounds like you aren't driving if you're going to be trying all the different modes of transportation. You can take the bus between parks, but you might have a long wait for a direct bus going from AK to HS before 10am.

That's another good option, it makes sense that lines will start dying down in MK later at night. You are right, we aren't driving, so hoping to have good bus mojo...if the bus for MK looks long we'll hop on a Boardwalk area bus as a back up and walk.

Not going to be doing this full steam ahead, and definitely not rushing or stressing. Just want to say we've done it!

 

[Ava]

We're trying park hopping for the first time in many years on our upcoming trip. We're not hopping every day, but on the days we are we've planned FP+ at the 2nd park except for the day we are doing AK in the day time and then going to Epcot just for dinner and Illuminations. On that day we got the FPs at AK, since we're only planning to do WS at Epcot. (We have another full Epcot day on which we have FP+ for rides in FW.)