How much time do you recommend leaving in between your FP+ selections?

[mindygirl5238]

I'm a couple weeks out from the 60 day mark, & just want to get my ducks in a row for my FP+ selections. How much time do you DIS veterans leave in between your FP's? For example, if I schedule one from 9:00 - 10:00, when would you schedule your next one?

Just throwing these two things out there in case it would factor in the way you vets would schedule:
We are going in early September, so I'm hoping even with free dining, the crowd levels will still be low. Also, if the FP is for 9:00 - 10:00, we would probably be there around 9:00...I'm type A-punctual like that.

TIA for once again helping out a newbie!! I would be lost without this site!

 

[PrncessA]

It depended on the park and how close in proximity the attractions were. For example we would schedule Big Thunder Mt. Railroad for 9-10 then Splash Mt. 10-11. We would ride BTMRR at around 9:45-9:50 then go over to Splash and ride it at the beginning of the window.

At Animal Kingdom we spread them out a bit since we knew our standby wait for most of the other attractions wasn't going to be long. We added in time to watch shows, rest, etc. between FP+ times.

 

[mesaboy2]

I'm a couple weeks out from the 60 day mark, & just want to get my ducks in a row for my FP+ selections. How much time do you DIS veterans leave in between your FP's? For example, if I schedule one from 9:00 - 10:00, when would you schedule your next one?

Just throwing these two things out there in case it would factor in the way you vets would schedule:
We are going in early September, so I'm hoping even with free dining, the crowd levels will still be low. Also, if the FP is for 9:00 - 10:00, we would probably be there around 9:00...I'm type A-punctual like that.

TIA for once again helping out a newbie!! I would be lost without this site!

Back to back to back, if you want to maximize FPs. You will have no trouble getting from each FP attraction to another in an hour's time.

 

[nkereina]

If you have a FP from 9am-10am, the earliest you'd be able to schedule the next is 10am. You can only do them in hour increments, and the pre-scheduling doesn't allow for hour overlapping. However, when you get to your first FP at 9am, you can log into the app and move up your 10am FP to 9:30 (or whatever time). You can edit them like that on the go, after you've used one, but not ahead of time.

 

[mindygirl5238]

Back to back to back, if you want to maximize FPs. You will have no trouble getting from each FP attraction to another in an hour's time.

If you have a FP from 9am-10am, the earliest you'd be able to schedule the next is 10am. You can only do them in hour increments, and the pre-scheduling doesn't allow for hour overlapping. However, when you get to your first FP at 9am, you can log into the app and move up your 10am FP to 9:30 (or whatever time). You can edit them like that on the go, after you've used one, but not ahead of time.

So, looks like general consensus is to do them back to back & knock them out, then worry about the rest of the park. So theoretically, you would meet Anna & Elsa, do Seven Dwarves Mine Train, run over & do Space Mountain (your 3 FPs), then do the rest of Tommorowland since you're already there, then go back to Fantasyland & meet Rapunzel & Cindy, etc. etc. go about your day.

 

[AmyB2006]

I'm a couple weeks out from the 60 day mark, & just want to get my ducks in a row for my FP+ selections. How much time do you DIS veterans leave in between your FP's? For example, if I schedule one from 9:00 - 10:00, when would you schedule your next one?

Just throwing these two things out there in case it would factor in the way you vets would schedule:
We are going in early September, so I'm hoping even with free dining, the crowd levels will still be low. Also, if the FP is for 9:00 - 10:00, we would probably be there around 9:00...I'm type A-punctual like that.

TIA for once again helping out a newbie!! I would be lost without this site!

Depends on what it is, and where it is. If I know I'm only going to go for a few hours and don't mind hiking between rides, I'd schedule them back to back, each hour.

But if I'm going to be there the whole day I wouldn't necessarily schedule BTMR right after Space.

But... LOL, also, once you use your first 3, you can then get more, if they're available.

But if the rides I'm scheduling are close in proximity to each other I would schedule them back to back.

 

[HM]

We did ours pretty much back-to-back. We could almost always get one more attraction done in between doing our FPs.

 

[ampc3]

We returned from 8 park days earlier this month, our first experience with fp+. I booked all of our fps back to back at every park, and totally regretted it!

The theory of doing that was to be able to get those extra fps... Well the thing is on that, that the size of your party absolutely matters.. We were a party of 7 and anything that we were interested in, was hours and hours away. Just didn't work for us.

The other thing, was b/c we had a larger party(including small kids) even a small 15 min set back somewhere can mess up your fps times b/c we NEVER, NOT one time could change our fps time for ANY headliner to later in the day. So we always felt rushed to get to the next fp, or we would lose it. Was not enjoyable that way.

The one thing I walked away feeling, that if I had to do it over again, I would NOT schedule them back to back unless they are all with in the same land/area. I am not sure how big your party size is, or how often you get to go to WDW, but we always felt rushed. I am sure like everything else here, you will get many different view points, but that is the ONE thing I wished I could have changed. Someone with a smaller party size I am sure will/would have had a different experience fwiw.

Also as far as those "extra" fps total crap shoot.. Good luck and have fun in your planning...

 

[cfriend416]

Do you plan on being at the parks for rope drop? If so, using a FP+ for that early is usually a bit of a waste. You can ride most headliners with little to no wait in the first hour of operation, and several others in the second hour. I agree that it's fine to schedule them back to back, but I wouldn't schedule one until 11 or so.

 

[msupulski]

Like others said, it greatly depends on where you are in the park. We didn't really think about that when we went in May and we spent a lot of time running around that we could've spent riding rides. Plus, it made our feet tired.

What I would personally do is schedule your first three in the same area. I don't know exactly what the crowd levels are/will be like when you're there, but in some cases, after you use your first FP+ you can move the time up on your next one if there are times available. We did that when our FP+s were close together. So if we had BTMR at 10-11, and we finished it at 10:30, we might move Splash Mountain to 10:30-11:30 if there were some available. In theory, that should allow you to get extra FP+s more quickly, but I can definitely see that not working during higher crowd times.

I also wouldn't bother scheduling any FP+s until around 10:30-11. Before that, the rides have lower wait times.

 

[MomOfWesAndNorah]

Do you plan on being at the parks for rope drop? If so, using a FP+ for that early is usually a bit of a waste. You can ride most headliners with little to no wait in the first hour of operation, and several others in the second hour. I agree that it's fine to schedule them back to back, but I wouldn't schedule one until 11 or so.

Ditto! We had A&E early 9-10 since that's all I could get. Otherwise use touringplans and set up a rope drop strategy and hit the FP later!

 

[DrHfuhruhurr]

We returned from 8 park days earlier this month, our first experience with fp+. I booked all of our fps back to back at every park, and totally regretted it!

The theory of doing that was to be able to get those extra fps... Well the thing is on that, that the size of your party absolutely matters.. We were a party of 7 and anything that we were interested in, was hours and hours away. Just didn't work for us.

The other thing, was b/c we had a larger party(including small kids) even a small 15 min set back somewhere can mess up your fps times b/c we NEVER, NOT one time could change our fps time for ANY headliner to later in the day. So we always felt rushed to get to the next fp, or we would lose it. Was not enjoyable that way.

The one thing I walked away feeling, that if I had to do it over again, I would NOT schedule them back to back unless they are all with in the same land/area. I am not sure how big your party size is, or how often you get to go to WDW, but we always felt rushed. I am sure like everything else here, you will get many different view points, but that is the ONE thing I wished I could have changed. Someone with a smaller party size I am sure will/would have had a different experience fwiw.

Also as far as those "extra" fps total crap shoot.. Good luck and have fun in your planning...

This is a very good point. Finding a big block of FP+ reservations later in the day for a large party is probably tough. We had a party of 5 and rarely had trouble shuffling stuff around in early June, but anything more than that (or a different time of year) may cause problems.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

The short answer is generally back-to back. For us, an hour is plenty of time to get where we need to be.

The last time we were there, FP still had 3per day limit. The whole system is in flux. What worked just two months ago, isn't necessarily the right thing now.

So that's my advice to anyone. Simply put, don't turn your brain off when you enter the gate. Look for easy ways to "zig" every time the crowd "zags." (and obviously legal moral ways. Line cutting is obviously out, as is being rude...but looking for the turnstile with the shortest line is fair game.


What made sense for us on several days was to schedule our first one for say 10-11, but then actually Use it more to the end of that time frame, rather than using it right away.


What still seems to be true, is that LOTS of folks leave the parks once their FP are done.

Our family usually does not mind crossing the park to take advantage of shorter lines. Summer heat is a different matter! Also, if your family is not into lots of walking, then you don't want to max the walking.

Another consideration is that summer often means afternoon thunderstorms. A thunderstorm ='s half of AK shuts down (all animals, EE, water ride Kali). So keep that in mind.

I don't envy first timers. there is no way to know in advance what will work best for your family. I think the thing to do is just to avoid beating yourself up over any 'mistakes.' No matter how many times we go to WDW, we always find things we can improve upon. I think thats' why so many DISers are complaining about FP; they have to rethink all their strategies!

 

[mindygirl5238]

Thank you everyone for your input!! We do plan on being there for rope drop, but I'm planning on using that 1st FP for A&E. As early as I can get it. I just want to see them, and get it done & over with, LOL. I think what we will probably do is schedule that & Seven Dwarves back to back, then schedule the 3rd for after lunch.

 

[illinidp]

I would do 10, 11, & 12. Then you can eat lunch and start adding more one at a time wherever you are. If your first one is 10-11, you have until 11:15 to check in. If you get there before 10, just walk on until 10:30 or so.

 

[Momof2Singers]

We have been following you guys on here and I just changed a few of mine today for our July 5-13 trip

After many have said FP+ is hard in Epcot, I spaced mine out. We are also getting there at 11am due to EMH at MK the night before. We plan to work in shows, lunch and character meets in between.

Magic Kingdom we booked back to back

Depends on your family and how you want to visit each park.

We have never been in July, and since it is very crowded we decided to chill, and enjoy what we can