FP+ matrix - many more things to consider

[bcrook]

With FP "+" there are so many more things to consider when planning and answering questions from people. The simple question of "What should I use my FP"+" on needs a lot of clarification now.

It is a great idea to start with Mesaboy2's list.

But even that has to be combined with information like park days, arrival time, in conjunction with parades etc.

Other things to consider:

1. Do you want to pull more FP after your first three?

• Then you have to choose your FP selections as early in the day as possible.
• If you really want to game the system. Pick your rides early, and as soon as you get past the second mickey head, change the times of your existing rides to earlier in the day (if available).
• Once you use your early three fastpasses, get to the kiosks and start grabbing others.
  
• Next you have to consider what might still have availability at the kiosk. For example, at DHS - Tower of Terror will likely have slots available.

2. Are you coming for Rope Drop? Are you staying in the same park all day? How late are staying (until close?)

• If you arrive at the opening of the park and don't plan on maxing out additional FP. Then you can schedule your FP+ for the busy part of the day (11-3) and try to get as many rides in the morning as possible.
• If you are staying until the park closes, you can take advantage of "lighter" crowds in the morning and lighter crowds in the evening especially during the evening fireworks show. For example, Spaceship Earth is a walk on after 6:00 pm. So are most rides except the Safari at Animal Kingdom.
• How do you sweet spot of where the benefit of rope drop advantage ends and when you schedule your rides.
• Do you want to take advantage of walking on the minor attractions for a few hours at rope drop before worrying about the headliners and using FP? For example, ride Star Tours, Great Movie Ride, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Dinosaur, Nemo, Maelstrom etc without waiting, and then start using FP when crowds build.

3. How late are you going to stay in the parks?

• If you are going to stay late, besides the advantage of the "lighter" crowds then you can count on more options for extra FP at kiosks for the evening.

4. Do you want to watch the evening fireworks show?

• If you want to watch the fireworks, do you want to use a FP+ for preferred viewing?
• If yes on preferred seating - you won't be able to get more FP throughout the day.
• If yes can you get a evening fireworks show FP+ at a kiosk for your fourth or fifth option? What are the chances during peak times?
• If you don't want to watch the evening show, the ride lines drop precipitously during the show. You can walk on rides like Little Mermaid, Jungle Cruise, Tower of Terror, Star Tours etc.

5. Do you want to hop?

• If you want to hop and still pull additional fastpasses, then you need to schedule your FP early at the first park, get as much done as possible and get over to the second park early so you have a shot at pulling additional FP at that park.
• If you don't care about additional fastpasses, then you can rope drop the first park, and have three evening passes waiting for you at the second park.

6. What if you are spending multiple days in each park?

• Do you want to experience a lot of different rides? or be able to re-ride your favorites often? Do you want to experience the rides at different times of the day? Splash Mountain is different at noon and midnight.

7. How do you plan for large groups and families with a wide range in kids ages?

8. Do adults burn FP+ selections to walk kids through a meet and greet line?

 

[bcrook]

How many things can we find to consider? share more, and I will add them.

The biggest thing to consider is what time of year you are going.

Off Peak - I don't you need to worry about any of this. Just show up, grab a few headliners the day before and enjoy.
Moderate - Plan ahead - you will have more flexibility.
Peak times - you need to consider all the above.
Ultra Peak times - get online in advance, grab the three you want and forget about it. That's all you are getting and good luck.

 

[kate_wdw]

This is incredibly helpful!

Could you explain what you mean by the following?

If you really want to game the system. Pick your rides early, and as soon as you get past the second mickey head, change the times of your existing rides to earlier in the day (if available).

 

[Daddy Mack]

Even if you want to get more FPs later in the day, it does not make sense to schedule your first 3 as early in the day as possible, at least at MK or AK when all options are open to you on the front end.

Your first three FPs are more valuable that any other FPs you can get later. Burning them when you do not need them, such as early morning when crowds are lighter, is giving away two dollars to buy one.

With HS and Epcot, burning them early makes sense because (a) the gates to certain FPs are locked on the front end and you want those gates opened ASAP and (b) the second-tier FP selections aren't as desirable at these parks anyway.

 

[bcrook]

This is incredibly helpful!

Could you explain what you mean by the following?

You can change the times of your FP selections throughout the day. Once you clear the second mickey head your first FP selection is cleared, so you can go and move your second selection up to a sooner time.

For example you schedule Toy Story at 9:10 am, Tower of Terror at 10:10 and Star Tours at 11:10. If you get into the line at 9:10 and clear the second mickey, you can move your other two FP times up to 9:30 and 10:30 (or earlier). You could do the same for your third pick after you clear that second ride. You could be done in an hour or so and start collecting FP at the kiosk.

 

[mom2rtk]

And they said legacy FP was too complicated for most guests and that it advantaged those with "inside information".

Sounds like a great premise for a thread. I don't have a trip to WDW planned, so haven't kept up with the myriad of little tips. Have a couple places to stop and update myself when I'm ready will be great.

 

[kate_wdw]

What do you mean by "clear the second mickey head"? Do you scan your Magic Band twice in rides queues?

 

[bcrook]

Even if you want to get more FPs later in the day, it does not make sense to schedule your first 3 as early in the day as possible, at least at MK or AK when all options are open to you on the front end.

Your first three FPs are more valuable that any other FPs you can get later. Burning them when you do not need them, such as early morning when crowds are lighter, is giving away two dollars to buy one.

With HS and Epcot, burning them early makes sense because (a) the gates to certain FPs are locked on the front end and you want those gates opened ASAP and (b) the second-tier FP selections aren't as desirable at these parks anyway.

I don't know about that. Rock and Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania fill up very quickly at DHS.

You could get one Rope drop ride in then burn the three quickly.

It really matters if you want to ride headliners or not.

I am not advocating for any of these options, they are simply things to consider.

BUT - I will add your comment to the list above. Thanks!

 

[bcrook]

What do you mean by "clear the second mickey head"? Do you scan your Magic Band twice in rides queues?

Yes, two check points.

 

[Daddy Mack]

I don't know about that. Rock and Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania fill up very quickly at DHS.

You could get one Rope drop ride in then burn the three quickly.

It really matters if you want to ride headliners or not.

I am not advocating for any of these options, they are simply things to consider.

That is why it make sense to burn at HS or Epcot, not but AK or MK. The tiering changes the strategy to use.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

Yes, two check points.

exception I've found on a regular basis is the Safari - often they just wave you through the second point.

 

[ArwenMarie]

What about canceling two (lets say in Epcot or DHS) so you can jump right to pulling your 4th and on for more tier 1s? I read somewhere that this worked for someone, but I can't figure out when you would cancel them.

 

[bcrook]

What about canceling two (lets say in Epcot or DHS) so you can jump right to pulling your 4th and on for more tier 1s? I read somewhere that this worked for someone, but I can't figure out when you would cancel them.

Does that work? Wicked. That actually would be the most interesting thing I have read in a long time.

 

[bcrook]

exception I've found on a regular basis is the Safari - often they just wave you through the second point.

They need to do it at the first check point!

 

[bcrook]

That is why it make sense to burn at HS or Epcot, not but AK or MK. The tiering changes the strategy to use.

It is definitely two different games at tiered parks versus the untiered.

Plus Magic Kingdom has about 250,000 FP to distribute a day, while Animal Kingdom only has about 78,000. Epcot and DHS about 100,000 each. Only MK has enough FP to actually give out three per person.

We will see if that makes a difference this summer during extended peak times.

Additional Fastpass at Kiosk availability is still an unknown during peak time. There may be absolutely nothing to grab, and then all the strategies of early burning becomes a moot point.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Does that work? Wicked. That actually would be the most interesting thing I have read in a long time.

I read that it did, but I need someone down there to test it for me to tell me exactly when to cancel them I did pick up that you need to cancel them on a web browser, not the app, even using the web browser on your phone if you have to.

 

[clsteve]

A couple of things it might be beneficial to add:

After you schedule 60 days in advance, how often do you want/need to continue to check MDE for better times and/or rides?

If better rides and/or times do show up, is it worth it to change your plans, your times in-Park, or even the Park you had scheduled for the day?

If you have a party of mixed ages or ride priorities, do you schedule Tier Ones or hard to get FP's on all bands to share in order to double up for some in the party. Vice versa, for M&G's for the little ones in the party?

For getting more than 3 FP's, do you schedule 1 or 2 throw-away rides to expire early while you ride stand-by at RD (as long as this still continues to work)?

​

 

[johde]

And they said legacy FP was too complicated for most guests and that it advantaged those with "inside information".

Sounds like a great premise for a thread. I don't have a trip to WDW planned, so haven't kept up with the myriad of little tips. Have a couple places to stop and update myself when I'm ready will be great.

I guess the way I look what Disney has done is to look at the old catch phrase from Othello "easy to learn, difficult to master". The fact that Disney is not reporting that over 85% of guest are using FP+ compared to 50% show that most people find it easy to get online or go to a kiosk, pick their 3 and be happy with their day.

This thread and some of the other "super user" thread are delving into the "difficult to master" side of FP+ with the new rolling 4th FP+. My gut impression is especially as crowds build FP+ is going to be extremely "difficult to master" but the rewards for mastery could be even greater than with FP-.

To the OP things to think about. Another thing to consider, If you're planning on hopping and pulling FP+ from multiple parks is there an advantage of one direction over another.

Right now, I'm contemplating a 1 day 3 or 4 park adventure. If I do all 4 parks right now I think the plan would be:

RD AK No FP+
Hop to DHS for prebooked TSMM, ToT, and probably GMR.
Hop to EPCOT and try to book probably Maelstrom and/or Spaceship earth
Finally Hop to MK, FP+ non headliners until after the fireworks ride the headliners SB after fireworks (hopefully during evening EMH).

In this case for example, swapping DHS and EPCOT would give me Soarin, but I'd may lose both TSMM and TOT.

 

[skier_pete]

Even if you want to get more FPs later in the day, it does not make sense to schedule your first 3 as early in the day as possible, at least at MK or AK when all options are open to you on the front end.

Your first three FPs are more valuable that any other FPs you can get later. Burning them when you do not need them, such as early morning when crowds are lighter, is giving away two dollars to buy one.

With HS and Epcot, burning them early makes sense because (a) the gates to certain FPs are locked on the front end and you want those gates opened ASAP and (b) the second-tier FP selections aren't as desirable at these parks anyway.

This is all very interesting. We won't be going until October though, and I wonder if further changes will occur.

It's a good point that the tiered parks should be treated differently from the non-tiered parks. I especially find Epcot an interesting selection, because any time we go (admittedly at slow times) the Tier 2 selections would never ever have a line.

Therefore, it seems to me a good way to work Epcot (slower season) would be.
1) Get your FP+ for two worthless rides 9 AM and 10 AM, and Soarin' for 11 AM.
2) Ride Test Track and M:S at rope drop.
3) Ride Soarin' as close to 11 AM as possible.
4) Now use your additional FP+ to book Maelstrom or repeat one of the above later in the day.

You could use this method even if you don't show up at the park until 11 AM, "waste" those first few before you get to the park, use the Soarin' pass, and then get one for Test Track later.

And they said legacy FP was too complicated for most guests and that it advantaged those with "inside information".

Sounds like a great premise for a thread. I don't have a trip to WDW planned, so haven't kept up with the myriad of little tips. Have a couple places to stop and update myself when I'm ready will be great.

Here's my opinion: What we are talking about here is working the system to your best advantage. 90 % of parkgoers aren't going to sweat it, they'll book their three FP+ and use them and be happy if they can get a fourth. The average user probably rarely used more than 4 a day anyways.

It's those of us that want to take best advantage of the system, and the new system DEFINITELY makes it more complicated. It used to be "Get your as many FPs as you can, whenever you can." It was that simple. Now, if you want to take advantage, you really have to think about it.

 

[wisblue]

I guess the way I look what Disney has done is to look at the old catch phrase from Othello "easy to learn, difficult to master". The fact that Disney is not reporting that over 85% of guest are using FP+ compared to 50% show that most people find it easy to get online or go to a kiosk, pick their 3 and be happy with their day.

I agree with this, and I think that if you broke down what you had to do to really master paper FP to maximize its usage, the steps would be very similar. Sure, it was easy to walk up to a machine, put in a ticket, and get a paper FP. But, if you wanted to maximize the value of those FPs by getting ones with quick return times so you could get another one in less than 2 hours, or get them for rides for which the FP had the greatest value, or get them for times that you could actually use, you had to know a lot about how the park was laid out and how lines build up.

On the last statement, I disagree that it's a matter of "pick their 3 and be happy with their day" if what you mean by that is that they don't care if they do anything else other than use their 3 FPs. I think it's more a matter of picking 3 things that are at the top of their priority list and relaxing with the knowledge that they will be able to do those things with short waits, and then they go from there. I know that's how we look at it.

I could use the mine train as a perfect example of this. With paper FP, the only way you would be able to get a ride on the mine train without a wait of well over an hour would be to get to the park at opening and hustle right to the attraction hoping to (1) ride standby immediately, or (2) get in a line to get a FP and be happy with whatever time you got, even if it clashed with the lunch or dinner reservation that you made 6 moths earlier. Or you could hang around the park until it is getting ready to close and hope that the line will drop enough by then.

With FP+, once you select your time, you can relax in the days and weeks leading up to your trip knowing that you will be able to enjoy the ride (and at least 2 other favorites) without participating in the early morning dash. If they give out 10,000 FPs a day, that's 10,000 guests who have the opportunity for that advantage.