FP+experience in 3 weeks, and

[disneyseniors]

I've been reading all the fp+ reports on this board, and others, and it's a little scary for someone who doesn't have a smart phone or ipad. But that's not the issue. I'm apprehensive about the effect fp+ will have on old quick standby lines, like POC. Ive been going back and forth on the fp issue, etc.
I've finally come to the conclusion that: we will do what we have always done in the past. We try to go to WDW once a year, just the 2 of us adults. We are early risers, and get to the parks at RD and walk onto TSM, etc and then use fast passes for all the rides we want. I have booked my 3 fp's 60 days out trying to guestimate when and where I will be We have decided we will do exactly what we did before fp+. Rope drop, walk on to rides, and I've set up my fp's for 2 or 3 rides I REALLY want to do. The rest of the fp's are in case we want to do them. So, I'm not goiing to get tied down rushing to preplanned fast passes at certain times. We are going to do the few that we really can't miss and use the rest as "back up" fp's. We will do all this in the am and go back to our resort to rest up, recharge our batteries, and go where want to for the pm without fp's. Don't know how that will work, but that is the way we are going to do it.
I will let all the dis'ers know how this works out after we get back in mid-November. Guess what I'm trying to say (rather poorly is that we are not changing the way we do touring, and using fp's as back up with exception of the 2 or 3 we really must do We'll see just how not changing your touring plans works out, or not.

 

[rinnythepooh]

This is how my husband and I did it on our trip in January 2014. I was very worried about fastpass plus before we left but it worked out great. We hit rope drop every day, walked on what we could, then used our prebooked fastpasses in the morning for the couple of other rides we really wanted and did not worry about the other fastpasses. It fit in perfectly with our ADRs and we had plenty of time to go back to the resort and rest in the afternoon.

 

[disneyseniors]

Thanks for saying that, rinnythepooh!(love your name) That makes me feel much better. Did you try for fp's in the evening when you went back to the parks? or did you just wing it? We are just going to go where we want to and take our chances. We love DTD and can get a great relaxing boat ride from POR. We do this 2 evenings while there thanks again.

 

[KnJ]

We toured the same way this October. Had the FPs scheduled but not worried if we didn't make it to the attraction. We are also rope drop people and still accomplished a ton with it. Not one day did we ever use three FPs bc there wasn't a need for them. We were able to accomplish everything we wanted plus more. Usually we only ride Soarin once a trip. This year we were able to ride it three times. We did use many more passes than in the past. Our trip in October 2013 we only used three total over 7 days.

 

[catra121]

That's really the right attitude. No sense worrying about things like the standby lines being longer. It will be what it will be and you just need to go in with positive thoughts. Everyone tours differently and it's hard to know from boards like this if you will have the same experience as someone else (positive or negative) because you don't really know how they tour, what their expectations were, what their perceptions of a "long line" is, etc.

I have had two fantastic trips with FP+. I did not concern myself with getting "extra" FPs throughout the day or stress about making particular FP reservations (though we only skipped 2 FPs the entire 9 day trip and one was a parade FP because the parade got rained out and we left the park after that). I was at the parks for rope drop every day and got plenty done before anything got crowded.

Sounds like you are going to have a great, stress free trip if you go in with the attitude you've got. Just take things as they come and don't worry ahead of time. It's going to be great...you're going to be in Disney World!

 

[chelseabun76]

As of our plans right now, I have fp+ picked out that I want according to what we absolutely do not want to miss. Our favorites. Are they everyones favorites? No. But they are mine. So that works for us. I am going to try to get them all for the afternoon aside for 7D which I'll take whatever they give me and try to tweak it to the best time possible. We'll be doing RD, so we'll ride as many as we can that have shorter lines first thing, and then we know we'll have our favorites 'booked' for us in the afternoon.

 

[GOOFY D]

Each time I go, I detest the new FP+ system even more. It really has taken some of the joy out of planning the trip. We recently had to decide between purchasing park ticket or fast passes as we were not sure which would make the most sense. However, you cannot book FP+ without having already paid for your tickets (even though you have paid for the room). So, we decided on the AP at 58 days out because we were getting worried with the new system, it may limit some of the times we could chose. We were wrong, it eliminate many of the popular attraction such that we could not get a FP at any point in the day. It is absolutely ridiculous. The old FP system allowed for more flexibility and was much easier to use. I cannot stand that you have to finalize everything about your trip, including which park you will be in each day, at 60 days before you even arrive!

 

[rinnythepooh]

We did not use fast passes in the late afternoon or evening. They did not have the 4th fast pass available in January. We spent a lot of time at World Showcase and DTD or our resort pool during that time. Also played mini golf. We will be at F&W for first time in November and will be going to MVMCP for first time. Can't wait.