How do YOU fp+?

[sharona]

Assuming MK and a mid-high crowd level, what's your strategy on when to plan your 3 fp's? If you plan to arrive at RD, what time do you want your first FP to start? Do you use them early and try to get more or save them for the most crowded time?

 

[DisneyFive]

Before and after lunch, in the 10:30 am - 2 pm time frame. We'll probably be shooting for 7DMR, Space Mountain, and either Splash Mountain or or BTMRR.

Dan

 

[sherezada]

I'm wondering the same thing. Do you try to book them for early times to see if you get a chance to book a 4th FP at the park? Or do you book them for the afternoon and try to hit other things in the morning without FP?

 

[disney world dreamer]

at MK i get FP+ for splash mountain, BTMRR, and space mountain.
i like to make splash mountain and BTMRR FP+'s for early afternoon and try to make it one right after the other so for example 12pm-1pm and then 1pm-2pm and then go the first one close to the end of the window and the second one close to the start of the window.
then i like space mountain for the evening.
this means i probably won't end up with a 4th FP+ but i'm fine with that.

 

[DisneyFive]

Well, the reason we do it as I posted is because you still get time right at park opening to go standby on popular rides if you can. ...or if you want to sleep in a little, that's still o.k. ...and you are done by early afternoon to start looking for that 4th+ FP.

Dan

 

[Hootch]

With a stiff drink in my hand

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Assuming MK and a mid-high crowd level, what's your strategy on when to plan your 3 fp's? If you plan to arrive at RD, what time do you want your first FP to start? Do you use them early and try to get more or save them for the most crowded time?

I prefer to hold my passes until later morning/afternoon as a rule of thumb. But if there is a hard to get attraction, I will take that at whatever time I can get--the earlier the better. (Specifically mine train.)

We have not really been utilizing the 4th FP much. So overall, we tend to reserve the use of our first 3 for the afternoon.

ETa: we utilize rope drop to hit has many attractions as possible with minimal wait.

 

[sharona]

With a stiff drink in my hand

Thanks! Now the boss knows I'm not working.

 

[sharona]

I prefer to hold my passes until later morning/afternoon as a rule of thumb. But if there is a hard to get attraction, I will take that at whatever time I can get--the earlier the better. (Specifically mine train.)

We have not really been utilizing the 4th FP much. So overall, we tend to reserve the use of our first 3 for the afternoon.

ETa: we utilize rope drop to hit has many attractions as possible with minimal wait.

Where do you go at RD? I'm torn because I'm not sure whether we should go to Frontier Land and ride BTMRR and Splash a few times before the lines build up or if we should FP those for later and head to TL and do Space and then FanL for the classics. I'm hopeful to get a FP for 7DMT so we're not stuck wasting our RD time waiting in line...

 

[Sybernova]

Assuming MK and a mid-high crowd level, what's your strategy on when to plan your 3 fp's? If you plan to arrive at RD, what time do you want your first FP to start? Do you use them early and try to get more or save them for the most crowded time?

Usually depends on how many days I get there. One day and I schedule 7DMT, Peter Pan, and Splash. The others I would try to do closer to closing time with the "anytime" attractions during the heavy afternoons. No way on Space Mountain. I still have whiplash from last June.

 

[canadiandisneynut]

I agree with @DisneyFive - we don't normally have our fps booked until 10-1030 am, we ride with short lines until then. I never book FPs for mid afternoon because I find it is too crowded with the park accommodating the longer stand by line as well.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Where do you go at RD? I'm torn because I'm not sure whether we should go to Frontier Land and ride BTMRR and Splash a few times before the lines build up or if we should FP those for later and head to TL and do Space and then FanL for the classics. I'm hopeful to get a FP for 7DMT so we're not stuck wasting our RD time waiting in line...

I have mixed ages and heights and conditions (I am pregnant) in my family.

So for our recent family vacation in December, since we only bought tickets 2 days prior...

EPCOT-- we did not RD as we hopped to it. Typically TT is our go to and will be so long as tiering for FP+ is in place. (We always FP Soarin' when we opt to ride.)

DHS: split strategy. TOy story wasn't available via FP, so I booked other rides. I and my youngest could not ride those and I was able to change to Toy story giving us FP+. So the rest of my party did Toy story at RD while my youngest and I headed to voyage of the little mermaid after a cupcake snack. Then family proceeded with their fast passes.

MK: both days, family vote was to RD Mine train. I had planned on taking the youngest to A&E, but she loved mine train and opted for a second ride at RD the next day.

AK: we had FP for Everest. Kids opted to try it at RD while we waited for other families we were traveling with to arrive for our 10am Safari FP. Slow season--so two rides on that at RD and jungle trek before our Safari FP.


Subsequent attractions options, we use MDE to check wait times close by and hit the shortest waits or known to get longer but are now short. No rhyme not reason, really.

When I was growing up and prior to kids, as liked hitting Frontierland first. But I usually book a mountain or two, and a popular ride everyone can do and rounding that out with family choice on FP. We book with respect to proximity so we are not zig zagging.

Hope this helps a little. Traveling pregnant with adult sized children down to a pipsqueak throws us some planning curveballs. But we generally travel the same way regardless.

 

[soniam]

We had good luck in late July and got a 4th, 5th, & 6th FP+. We did RD with AM EMH at 8am. We had passes at 9am, 10:05am, and 11:35am and got 4th early afternoon. Mid-March trip I have 9:50am, 10:50am, & 11:55am. We will do RD, and AM EMH starts at 7am

 

[sharona]

We're off site and visiting on a non EMH day that currently has the park opening at 9am. That doesn't give us much time before the sleep ins arrive.

 

[ellie05]

We always arrive RD. Usually we use all our FP by 12-1 and then go to get more. Feb 13 was a busy day at the MK and we had a group of 14, yet we were able to get 5 fp that day and we didn't wait for anything more than 20 min.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

We're off site and visiting on a non EMH day that currently has the park opening at 9am. That doesn't give us much time before the sleep ins arrive.

We planned parks to not go to those without EMH to avoid it. But when we chose to go to those parks, you still have a little lead time.

 

[seelyt2]

Generally speaking....I book our must-do rides starting around 10:30 or 11 a.m. and schedule them every hour thereafter leaving time for counter service lunch. We still arrive rope drop to ride either ride the must-do's (so as to ride twice) or our second tier rides that we enjoy. Anything we ride in the afternoon is a bonus.

This is all shot to hades if we arrive late, or plan on hopping to a park where we have an event to attend in the afternoon. For instance, we went Candlelight Processional and our plan for that day was to start the day at rope drop at HS, wherein we saved our FP+ for the afternoon in Epcot.

We weren't very successful in getting FP+'s onsite for the evening hours, but it didn't impact our trip, really. Overall we liked how it worked for us.

 

[Ladcassidy]

At MK, I prefer to schedule the three advance FP+ back-to-back starting about 11:00. We take advantage of RD to visit rides and attractions that are likely to have long lines later, and try to get additional FP+ on a rolling basis once we use the first three. In mid February, we managed to get 7 FP+ one day at MK and used them all.

My plan for the other three parks is generally the same if we are planning to spend the entire day in the same park. If we are hopping, I try to evaluate whether the second park will have any FP+ left for the attractions that interest us once we get there. If not, I reserve advance FP+ in the second park, and we tour the first park without FP+, beginning with the most popular attractions at RD. Ah, the joys of riding Everest twice in a row. . . before breakfast!

 

[eeyoresmom]

We always do an early afternoon break at the resort so I have been scheduling FP+ like this: ( This is for a day that MK opens at 8 am): BTMRR 9:30-10:30, Splash 10:30-11:30, HM 11:30-12:30. We will do other popular rides from 8 AM until our first FP+is just about expired at 10:30. Ride BTMRR at 10:30 then hop right on Splash using our second FP+. Break for a cs lunch in the area and then use our third FP+ for HM around 12:30( or just before), and head out of the parks for our resort break. Haven't wanted to get 4th or 5th FP's in previous trips but we are bringing a first timer next month and probably will.

 

[JZCubed]

Assuming MK and a mid-high crowd level, what's your strategy on when to plan your 3 fp's? If you plan to arrive at RD, what time do you want your first FP to start? Do you use them early and try to get more or save them for the most crowded time?

Before our first trip to Disney as a family, I read some guide books that suggested two things I've always used in my planning process:
1.) "The hotel swimming pool," was the response of children to the question of favorite part of their Disney vacation.
2.) Most children have a four-hour window of time to give to a Park before wanting a serious alternative.

We Rope Drop (9am) most days with an expectation of leaving by 2pm - after a small'ish lunch and possibly our last FP+.

To accomplish this goal, we often get FP+ for 9:15, 10:15, 11:15am - with lunch plan before noon to be completed sometime around 1pm. Also gives us time for another attraction, to stroll into shops on bad-weather days (utilizing those coupons we received from Qwik Service that morning), or scurry back to the pool on warmer days. Parades, dinner plans and/or nighttime (Park hopping) activities can also impact this block of time that might also include travel to/from a resort. We don't rush out of a Park, we decide if leaving offers a better alternative after having accomplished our 'must-do's' for the day.

We start at E-ticket rides after Rope Drop and utilize that 9:15FP closer to 10:15. That's a little over an hour of low crowds and 3-6 rides in any Park. Then, get on standby until that 10:15FP starts to expire at 11:15 (at least 2 more rides). Sometimes our 3rd FP will be before lunch, sometimes afterwards. By and large, we do not do roller coaster rides immediately after eating. Magic Kingdom is the only Park that has enough rides that we ever feel as if we could have stayed much longer and sometimes we do. We can take a 4th FP+ to just about anything at that point if we think it possible we are remaining in the Park or we can just pop into Country Bears or Monsters Laugh in the typical 10 minute wait period.

We utilize a similar strategy for evening FP+ selections. We start with our ADR's (because those are 180-day advance for all of us) and work backward from how late can our child stay out before that 4-hour window becomes meaningful.

Don't get me wrong, on some days, we are certainly capable of 6- or more hours in a Park, but we plan around those days with that 'Hotel Swimming Pool," and 4-hour window in mind. We no longer find ourselves dragging along at any point of our vacation. We try to front-load the vacation with long days so that we can double-back to anything we missed the second-half of our vacation. We leave more relaxed (sorry, some of us leave Disney relaxed).

FP+ has allowed my family the ability to enjoy as many rides as we need in a day and also enjoy our vacation to the fullest.....but it does take some planning.