I felt like a "coach" explaining FP+ and touring plans to my family.....

[edk35]

minus my husband ....... he is on a business trip. He is the type that just wants to know the dates we are going and on each day of the trip what park we are going to. Other than that....he just lets me do my thing. So after dinner I was going over the NEW SYSTEM with my 23 year old dd and 15 year old ds. I have to admit by the time I got through it...we were all laughing hysterically. Now my kids are NOT DISNEY PARK ROOKIES at all..but watching their faces was pretty funny. I was reading touring suggestions from easywdw and it was quite comical. My 15 year old was like "I hope you don't expect me to remember this". LOL

Man this dvc trip is going to be SO DIFFERENT.

They said they can't wait for me to try and explain this to my hubby. I feel like I need a white board and laminated cheat sheets for all.

 

[bwvBound]

My 15 year old was like "I hope you don't expect me to remember this". LOL

They said they can't wait for me to try and explain this to my hubby. I feel like I need a white board and laminated cheat sheets for all.

Equip everyone with a whammy-jammy smartphone, load up the MDE app and problem solved! Everyone will know where to be, when to be and what to do when they get there.

 

[edk35]

Equip everyone with a whammy-jammy smartphone, load up the MDE app and problem solved! Everyone will know where to be, when to be and what to do when they get there.

We all have iphones.....but man....this new system seems like a lot of work.

 

[catherines_mama]

My 13 yo is very seasoned as well and when I sat my fam down she said "this is so cool! You don't have to run and get FPs and run back to meet us". She gets the benefits. But we will all see how it works out. I think since she's all gung-ho, i'll try to get her to help me arrange our day.

The hard thing to follow Josh's plan is we don't need A&E at all. So we follow him but plug big kid things in place of the little kid things.

 

[wdrl]

Here are some tips for staying organized with FP+ and ADRs, at least for guests with smartphones:

At the start of the trip, I sign on to My Disney Experience and bring up My Itinerary. It shows, by date, all the FP+ selections, ADRs, and room reservations. I save it as a PDF and move the PDF to the iBooks section on my iPhone. When I'm in the Parks, I can quickly bring up the PDF and see the times for my next FP+ or ADR. Usually, its faster to bring up a PDF then having to sign on to MDE, which requires access to the internet.

On our last trip in May, we got into the habit of doing a Screen Capture each day of just our FastPass+ selections for the day from the MDE display, and then using that Screen Capture as the photo on our iPhone lock screens. The advantage of having the FP+ displayed as an image on the lock screen is that I can very quickly check the FP+ times without having to actually bring up a file or an app on my phone.

Both of these tips help reduce battery usage on my smartphone.

I have an iPhone 5C, but I think this should work on Android phones as well.

One thing to keep in mind: Using PDFs or Screen Captures works well, but you have to remember they capture your itinerary at a specific point in time. During our last trip, we made changes to a couple ADRs and we tweaked our FP+ times and selections a number of times, sometimes more than once on the same day. The master MDE PDF I made before we left home was out-of-date by our second day and had to be updated. Also, our FP+ Screen Captures had to be redone every time we tweaked our FP+ for the day.

 

[edk35]

Here are some tips for staying organized with FP+ and ADRs, at least for guests with smartphones:

At the start of the trip, I sign on to My Disney Experience and bring up My Itinerary. It shows, by date, all the FP+ selections, ADRs, and room reservations. I save it as a PDF and move the PDF to the iBooks section on my iPhone. When I'm in the Parks, I can quickly bring up the PDF and see the times for my next FP+ or ADR. Usually, its faster to bring up a PDF then having to sign on to MDE, which requires access to the internet.

On our last trip in May, we got into the habit of doing a Screen Capture each day of just our FastPass+ selections for the day from the MDE display, and then using that Screen Capture as the photo on our iPhone lock screens. The advantage of having the FP+ displayed as an image on the lock screen is that I can very quickly check the FP+ times without having to actually bring up a file or an app on my phone.

Both of these tips help reduce battery usage on my smartphone.

I have an iPhone 5C, but I think this should work on Android phones as well.

One thing to keep in mind: Using PDFs or Screen Captures works well, but you have to remember they capture your itinerary at a specific point in time. During our last trip, we made changes to a couple ADRs and we tweaked our FP+ times and selections a number of times, sometimes more than once on the same day. The master MDE PDF I made before we left home was out-of-date by our second day and had to be updated. Also, our FP+ Screen Captures had to be redone every time we tweaked our FP+ for the day.

Oh those are great ideas. I have a 5s. However...isn't it FUNNY... that we have to do any of these things in order to vacation at Disney as far a getting on rides.

 

[wdrl]

Oh those are great ideas. I have a 5s. However...isn't it FUNNY... that we have to do any of these things in order to vacation at Disney as far a getting on rides.

Here is an example of an experience we had during our visit to Disneyland in October 2013.

As you know Disneyland doesn't have MagicBands and still uses the legacy FastPass system. Riding Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure was our #1 priority. Since we were staying at the Villas at Grand California , we could get into California Adventure an hour early on Monday morning. We lined up for rope drop about 40 minutes before CA opened at 8:00 AM, and there was already a number of guests ahead of us. Apparently, RSR was the #1 priority for most guests visiting CA.

Now, Monday morning at 8:00 AM is also when DVC holds it Welcome Member get-together at DLR. I wanted to go to it, too, but there was no way to do rope drop and attend the get-together, so I chose the rope drop.

Once we were admitted to CA, the CMs walk the crowd toward Radiator Springs. As we were walking toward Radiator Springs, I noticed some guests were rushing over to the FP kiosks for Radiator Springs Racers. Since FPs for RSR wouldn't start being distributed until 9:00 AM when the CA opened to the general public, these guests would be standing in line for about an hour just to get FPs.

We rode RSR after being in line for about 30 minutes. I then rushed back to the FP kiosk for RSR, got there by 8:40 AM, and stood in line for another 30 minutes before I got two FPs. Our FP return time was around 10:30 AM. I asked a CM how long FPs would be available and she said that RSR FPs are usually gone within an hour. By the time I got the FPs, the StandBy time for RSR was in the 60-70 minute range.

If MagicBands were available to California Adventure, I could have planned my day much differently. By reserving a FP+ for RSR ahead of time, I could have attended the DVC get-together at 8:00 AM. I would not have had to stand in line for 30 minutes to get a paper FP. I could have slept in, or hit the VGC pool in the morning and then gone to CA in the afternoon.

So, sure, at 60 days out I start planning my FP+ experiences. But I'm not wedded to the plans I make at 60 days; if I change my mind at 10 days, or 2 days out, or the morning we visit the Park, I check and see what's available and go from there.