How necessary is FP?

[Lucijoy]

Been reading a lot about the magic bands and FP+. DH and I might add a couple of days at the parks before a cruise in September. It'll be just the two of us, and we're fairly laid-back, wing-it people when we do Disney, so I'm just wondering how important it would be to use FP+. Are the standby lines outrageous? (it would be September, so that will make some difference.) Also, we don't have smart phones, so changing/updating on the spot won't work for us. Just not sure I want to have to plan out my park day way ahead.

 

[soarin_over_nj]

You do not need to make FP+ reservations in advanced. Around the theme parks you are able to visit special kiosks and make FP+ for that day. If you get into a park and notice it is crowded, this could be a good option. If you do decide to make your FP+ reservations online in advanced, the kiosks could be used to change your reservations as well.

 

[cygnusx1jg]

Please keep in mind those Fastpass+ Kiosk lines have been very long themselves. Schedule your three a day based on your best guesses and if you have to change them fine, if you don't use them fine. But if you do, write down what the times are if you don't have a smart phone. I have seen so many people lately try to go through the fastpass line only to be told by a castmember that they still have 20 minutes or so before their time is valid.

 

[kiford]

I've never been in September (we're usually there in early December) so I don't know what the crowds are like but I've been told that they aren't too bad. When we go at the low times in December, we've rarely used fastpasses either before or after they introduced FP+. I did select my allotment in Dec 2013 but only used one for TSMM (first time ever been able to do it!!), one for Test Track, and one for Soarin in six days. We went on all of the headliners but standby was perfectly acceptable.

We don't spend all of our time on the attractions and under no circumstances will we ever do rope drop. As far as I'm concerned, I'm on vacation and I want to relax and sleep in. We watch parades, shows, performers, eat, wander through the shops, wander through the different resorts, etc. I would say that this last trip was one of the best we've ever had. While there's always stuff that we want to do that we don't get around to, I certainly didn't feel like my days were either overscheduled or that we missed the bulk of what we wanted to do. Just finally getting to do TSMM without having to get there at RD or waiting in line for ages just to get a fastpass to come back five hours later was a winner in my view.

 

[wallrock]

You tour the parks exactly the same way I do.

I can't speak to September crowds as I go around the end of October and into November. Throughout the years I've never used fastpass and don't recall a time that it would have benefited me had I chosen to use it. I've been a few times during the spring (most recently two weeks ago) and haven't used it during that time either. During my last trip I did notice how quickly the kiosk lines queued up and thought that the time used there could have been used to stand in the standby line instead.

Aside from scheduling one or maybe two for the duration of the trip (thinking Toy Story Mania and Soarin') I think you'll be able to navigate the parks just fine without them.

 

[KelleyK75]

Just got back yesterday and was there all last week. I have been in Sept before, and crowds weren't as bad as last week (really only Magic Kingdom was bad crowd levels for us). But I would suggest if you are able to get FP+, get them. Everyone told me don't worry about rides like It's a Small World and Winnie the Pooh, and every ride we passed in MK had a 70 minute stand-by line, including those two. We were so thankful for FP+ and not having to stand in that line. Of course it depends on crowd levels, but for us, I am now a FP+ fan. It gives you so much more time to do things in the parks when you aren't spending 70 minutes waiting on a ride. Things like Toy Story Mania and Peter Pan we walked right onto with our FP+, and with a stand-by line would have waited 1-2 hours.