hardcore planner a little overwhelmed with fastpass +!

[girls]

I am one of those planners who shows up with detailed itineraries down to the hour on our trip. Even I am overwhelmed by booking things!

We just booked a trip, and are already within our 60 day booking window. I started to make fastpasses, but the times aren't at all what I want (all afternoon and evening options.) Do I just keep trying? And we have a 3 yr old who can't do all the big rides - I don't need the same fast passes for her as I do the big kids.

Overwhelmed!

 

[Yellowstonetim]

I am one of those planners who shows up with detailed itineraries down to the hour on our trip. Even I am overwhelmed by booking things!

We just booked a trip, and are already within our 60 day booking window. I started to make fastpasses, but the times aren't at all what I want (all afternoon and evening options.) Do I just keep trying? And we have a 3 yr old who can't do all the big rides - I don't need the same fast passes for her as I do the big kids.

Overwhelmed!

With FP+ you will have to be flexible to some degree, just like you had to be flexible with regular FP. Do keep trying. Use the app and check every day, maybe even several times a day. A lot of people will make their FP reservations early but change or cancel them a few days or weeks before. Even the day before visiting a park and during that same day you are in the park, keep checking. I was able to change FP+ an hour prior to the time I wanted a few times.

If you will go at rope drop, don't use a FP, you can get a few rides in without waiting lines. Actually, FP for afternoon isn't bad because that is when it will be hardest to get rides.

We found that our planning changed. We got FP for the few rides we knew that were "must do's" and very popular and then worked our plans around them. We also park hopped a lot using FP. We would rope drop and ride then leave for lunch then use our FP at another park in the afternoon & evening.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I am one of those planners who shows up with detailed itineraries down to the hour on our trip. Even I am overwhelmed by booking things!

We just booked a trip, and are already within our 60 day booking window. I started to make fastpasses, but the times aren't at all what I want (all afternoon and evening options.) Do I just keep trying? And we have a 3 yr old who can't do all the big rides - I don't need the same fast passes for her as I do the big kids.

Overwhelmed!

You can reschedule times. It may mean bumping other selections around to open the window you are trying to get for one of the selections. (Don't have time to explain, but others may be able to.)

For the tiny person--I schedule our entire party for the same attraction and then change the selection for the tiny person and accompanying grown up if said grown up plans to skip. If grown up is not skipping the too tall/too scary attraction, then tiny person is stuck because tiny person would not be a me to use a FP+ alone. In that case, we search a nearby attraction with short wait once we are there. Or window shop. Or have a snack. Etc.

Example--Space Mountain. Tiny person and I could not ride, so I put is all in for it, and once time slot was booked, I went and changed the attraction selection for the two of us to something relatively nearby (not necessarily same land). If I could have ridden (I don't typically due to my neck and not being able to see the track in the dark), then we would have baby swapped (I always made sure to have a FP anyway as I did during legacy) and then she and I may do the People Mover or have an ice cream while we wait.


As far as knowing what to book, we too book our most important rides that trend popular. But we also try not to waste the selection. So if we arrived at our time and a FP+ was clearly not needed, we would change that selection to something else. That does require some flexibility. But if you know that at 2:00, your scheudke has you doing X--you could check if a FP was available for that if yiu find you need to switch our one that wasn't needed.

 

[mesaboy2]

Answers to FP FAQs can be found in the green link in my signature.

 

[nkereina]

Are you sure it's not what you want? We've been twice now with FP+ and I STILL don't know how and when I want to book my FP+ for. We always end up changing them on the fly. Last trip, we found that the non-headliner attractions had waits of 20+ minutes due to FP+, so we ended up doing the headliners at rope drop and changing our FP+ to the less popular attractions (Pooh, Figment, Great Movie Ride, etc) for around mid-day. On our first trip, we went at a less busy time of year, so we rode most things in the morning with a minimal wait, took a mid-day break, and then went back early evening and used our FP+ reservations for the headliners. Both worked fine but unfortunately we didn't know how it was going to go until we were there so it makes it difficult for me to book them ahead of time.

 

[davkata]

I am also a planner so I feel your pain there! I would recommend you RD if your party can be up and out early and then save your FP+ for later in the day or evening at the same or another park depending on whether or not you have hoppers. That will give you time to rest or swim back at your resort mid-day, which with a little one you will probably want. This worked for DD and I last February during a busy week. We were able to hit all the headliners at the park we RD'd and then hit more headliners at another park with our FP+ later in the day (after 4:30/5 usually).