How realistic is changing fastpass?

[Paigesmom2013]

So I've heard the advice to not waste a fastpass if the standby line is short. So if that were ever the case, would anything good be available?

Or is it better to go standby then ride again with fastpass? I usually go by that "bird in a hand..." philosophy.

 

[DisneyPrince1982]

You should ideally be scheduling FP for rides that you know will have a long ride at a certain time of day. It's fairly easy to predict.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

We changed our FP selections constantly on the fly last September using the phone app.

 

[minnie mum]

Kind of depends on which park you're in, which rides you're looking for, how heavy the crowds are, and time of day.

 

[LaurenT]

Sometimes we'll ride twice, sometimes we'll go standby and change our FP.
TOT was a walk on this morning, so we got it out of the way after RnRC and then changed the TOT FP to a star tours one .... That ride is often a short wait, but now we don't have to worry about hitting it during a busy spurt ...

 

[Paigesmom2013]

I was thinking about Peter Pan at MK, as an example. I feel like that's a wasted fastpass, but everyone says use fastpass for it. But I suppose there won't be any short lines when we go.

 

[minnie mum]

I was thinking about Peter Pan at MK, as an example. I feel like that's a wasted fastpass, but everyone says use fastpass for it. But I suppose there won't be any short lines when we go.

Unless you're hitting PP at RD, its going to have a long standby line throughout the day. Nature of the beast, being a slow loader. I certainly wouldn't call it a wasted FP.

 

[ktlm]

I was thinking about Peter Pan at MK, as an example. I feel like that's a wasted fastpass, but everyone says use fastpass for it. But I suppose there won't be any short lines when we go.

In our opinion, PP would absolutely not be a wasted FP+. In fact, one of our FP+ problems, is that pre-FP+ we usually FP PP more than once in a day as it was DD's favorite when she was little and still remains so today, and now with FP+ we are limited to only FP it once a day. We have tried to get a 4th FP for it about every MK day we have had since FP+ started and it has never been available.

Unless you are there at rope drop, you can expect the PP line to almost always be 45 minutes or more. In fact, I would say pre FP+ it was 40 to 45 minutes a good part of the day, and now since FP+ we find it to usually be 60 minutes or even more. PP used to be about the only thing we even got a FP for at MK, because typically we could hit the other rides like Space Mountain at shorter line times. DD wasn't that much of a thrill ride kid anyway. We have gone from riding PP 3 or even 4 times a day with FP and maybe 1 once without FP, to being limited to 1 time a day with FP+ and with increased lines due to FP+ and the need to FP+ things we did not in the past- sometimes we do not even get to do it every MK day. If we are lucky we can catch a ride on it at rope drop and get to ride it on a non PP FP+ day, or to get an extra ride on the FP+ day. We aren't willing to stand in line for 60 minutes or more for it. So unless you hit PP at rope drop, I would not expect to not need that FP+. The line usually builds up to 40 or 45 minutes within 15 or 20 minutes of rope drop. Even if you hit PP at rope drop, if you really like it, you might want to keep that FP+ to get a second ride.

 

[mesaboy2]

I was thinking about Peter Pan at MK, as an example. I feel like that's a wasted fastpass, but everyone says use fastpass for it. But I suppose there won't be any short lines when we go.

Not in the slightest, since having a FP for Pan will frequently save you 45-60 minutes of your park day. This is why I rate it an A in the suggested priority list.

 

[hakepb]

Unless you're hitting PP at RD, its going to have a long standby line throughout the day. Nature of the beast, being a slow loads. I certainly wouldn't call it a wasted FP.

It's not unusual for PP to have a much shorter than listed wait during Wishes...but that would require wanting to miss part / all of Wishes.

 

[thornton0511]

Our plan of action since the roll out of FP+ has always been to do rope drop and do the big rides that tend to have longer waits in the afternoon due to slow loading or popularity, and save our fastpasses for night time park touring. We also usually go at slower times in the year so the waits are not too bad. We just got back today from a week in WDW and knew that the summer crowds would not be something we were used to and I thought scheduling our FP+ earlier in the morning/afternoon would be a better strategy this time so that we could have the option of getting more FP's at the kiosks after using our 3rd one. I can only speak from our experience but I will tell you after using our 3rd FP in MK around 12:00 there were slim pickings for future FP selections for the rest of the day and they were not the greatest selections. At that point I was disappointed that we had used our 3 when we could have used standby and saved our FP selections for later in the day or evening as the lines never really let up. IMO if you are going at a busy time then pick your selections for late in the day and evening and use rope drop for you advantage in the morning by using standby. If you are going at slower times you really will be fine either way. BTMRR had 40 min wait times this last week at 10am with 8am openings and that was just foreign to us. It was definitely a learning experience for us but we still had a blast even if the parks were more crowded lol!

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

It's depended on the park for me as to whether anything good is available later in the day for FP+. I had good luck in MK for 4th and 5th FP.

In Epcot - there was nothing available for TT later in the day. I didn't try for Soarin' since I don't ride that anymore.

For DHS I didn't find much available after I used my 3 FP+.
Animal Kingdom I was able to get a 4th FP+ for Dinosaur but turned out I didn't really need it. Fp+ was gone for EE and Safari when I was looking to get a 4th.

This was all in late March 2015.

You mentioned Peter Pan - I think it is totally worth getting a FP+ for that ride unless you are doing it first thing as soon as you enter the park. I've seen the line long even in September when it's lower crowds in the park.

 

[nkereina]

Last trip, we had a FP scheduled for Peter Pan but managed to get on in the morning with an ok stand by time, so we didn't redeem the FP. We were able to switch it to a Winnie the Pooh FP, which is not something we would have thought to schedule in advance but it worked out because the stand by was 30 minutes which was not worth it to us. IMO, it's hard to plan for that so its something we had to do on the fly. Just keep in mind that the headliners likely won't be available if switching on the fly.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

I was thinking about Peter Pan at MK, as an example. I feel like that's a wasted fastpass, but everyone says use fastpass for it. But I suppose there won't be any short lines when we go.

We rode standby on Pan just a few week ago just after Wishes. The posted wait was 40 minutes but the actual wait was 1 minute as there were only about 10 people in line. I'm glad we didn't waste a FP+ on that one.

 

[beck00]

We moved ours around a lot last May, using the app. There were several times we just rode StandBy, and others where we were done with 1 FP+, so we bumped the next FP+ to a closer time.