DemonLlama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2000
- Messages
- 4,021
Just some observations from our recent trip (1/1 to 1/7) on the FP+ bookings later in the evening.
I'd read it was the best strategy to do rope drop in the mornings and schedule the 3 FP+ for the evenings when the parks were likely fuller and standbys much longer than first thing in the morning.
We actually did a mix and moved some other things around on the fly while we were there, but it did seem like every FP+ line we encountered -- waiting just to scan in -- all happened at night, as though everyone else is trying the same strategy causing a good bit of lag to get through. None of the waits were comparable to the long standby times, though, and the longest we waited was Sunday night 1/5 for Toy Story. That FP line was out the building, down the block, and around the corner near the bathrooms and the area where you can currently take in the Jack Sparrow movie stuff. (And this was when it was in the 40s and there was next to no one at the 10:00 Fantasmic show and hour later.) It took us half an hour to get on the ride, twenty of those getting to the door to scan. Glad we didn't wait until the last few minutes of our window to try and hop in!
Most of the evening lines were more on par with what you see here, as we waited to scan through to Everest.
It seems that some CMs are watching for anyone with Magic Bands to approach legacy FP machines. DH got scolded by a CM at Tower of Terror and was told he could not pull old FP with our room keys because it wasn't fair to all the other guests. My daughter, who hadn't been there at the reprimand, snapped her band off, grabbed the room keys, walked around to the machines and got them anyway. Sorry, the window is closing, she hates elevators, and she wanted to boys to go ride so we could do Animation Academy without any complaints.
The only other time we utilized the old FP was on our first morning at Studios. We got there around 9:30 and pulled the nighttime FPs then. I liked that the CM made sure to point out this was going to be for 9:30 PM -- not right now! And seemed relieved when I didn't look surprised or act outraged.
Any time we used our FP+ for mornings, there was never any line at all to scan in that we encountered. Every evening FP+ typically did have a short wait and seemingly a lot more people trying to utilize their bands and slowing up the movement. Not sure how we kept running into that, since I would think you'd have a general number allotted for each hour of the day?
Just curious. YMMV
I'd read it was the best strategy to do rope drop in the mornings and schedule the 3 FP+ for the evenings when the parks were likely fuller and standbys much longer than first thing in the morning.
We actually did a mix and moved some other things around on the fly while we were there, but it did seem like every FP+ line we encountered -- waiting just to scan in -- all happened at night, as though everyone else is trying the same strategy causing a good bit of lag to get through. None of the waits were comparable to the long standby times, though, and the longest we waited was Sunday night 1/5 for Toy Story. That FP line was out the building, down the block, and around the corner near the bathrooms and the area where you can currently take in the Jack Sparrow movie stuff. (And this was when it was in the 40s and there was next to no one at the 10:00 Fantasmic show and hour later.) It took us half an hour to get on the ride, twenty of those getting to the door to scan. Glad we didn't wait until the last few minutes of our window to try and hop in!
Most of the evening lines were more on par with what you see here, as we waited to scan through to Everest.
It seems that some CMs are watching for anyone with Magic Bands to approach legacy FP machines. DH got scolded by a CM at Tower of Terror and was told he could not pull old FP with our room keys because it wasn't fair to all the other guests. My daughter, who hadn't been there at the reprimand, snapped her band off, grabbed the room keys, walked around to the machines and got them anyway. Sorry, the window is closing, she hates elevators, and she wanted to boys to go ride so we could do Animation Academy without any complaints.
The only other time we utilized the old FP was on our first morning at Studios. We got there around 9:30 and pulled the nighttime FPs then. I liked that the CM made sure to point out this was going to be for 9:30 PM -- not right now! And seemed relieved when I didn't look surprised or act outraged.
Any time we used our FP+ for mornings, there was never any line at all to scan in that we encountered. Every evening FP+ typically did have a short wait and seemingly a lot more people trying to utilize their bands and slowing up the movement. Not sure how we kept running into that, since I would think you'd have a general number allotted for each hour of the day?
Just curious. YMMV
