Just Back (Dec 3-11). Refreshing for 7 & HS FP Drops

[stuartsong]

Thanks for sharing. Some good information to utilize for the future trip.

 

[JETSDAD]

Just be careful with this strategy. An anytime FP will not be good for the most popular rides, unless your original FP was also for said popular ride. IOW, you can't have a journey into imagination FP become an anytime FP that could be used on Frozen.

But a Magic Carpets FP becomes a Big Thunder, Splash, or Space Mountain. A Primeval Whirl becomes an EE or a Safari, etc. While sitting out the rain a Test Track FP is still good for TT when the rain stops and still allows you to then grab another FP. Getting multiple anytime FP's for when the rain stops is a nice bonus.

 

[JETSDAD]

Hi. Thanks for the information about the HS TSL FP drops. If you say you are seeing the drops approximately 11 am -12 pm, Im guessing I need to be done with my three FPs by the drop time in order to pick up SD or TSM, is that correct? Thank you so much for this new (to me) information.

Happy you had a great trip!

The drops are happening at 9:31 and 2:31. The 9:31 drops will be for FP's starting between 11 and 12. If you have another tier 1 selected you would need to be modifying it or drop it ahead of time. I had AS2 the one morning which we happily dropped for SDD. The afternoon drop we then added SDD again for around 4:00.

 

[shocker]

Thanks so much! That was great to move it up!

I hope you enjoy & get to use this strategy. It is infinitely easier to 'modify' and change the time on your FP, than to get it the first time. So, its a bit slower to scroll up after each refresh to see if SDD is there. If you see one take it for any time, even if you won't be in the park then. Then you can 'modify' the one you got looking for times that fit your schedule. The system will move SDD to the top of the results page instead of being alphabetical & you can increase your refreshes from say 10 times per minute to 50 times per minute. You will find what you're looking for.

Also, be careful your FP windows are what system can search in. It must have a full avail. hour to offer you a new FP. So, if park opens at 9 and you have a 9:45-10:45 FP, and another from 11:30-12:30, the system will not show you any times for any rides before 12:30 because you've blocked the system from doing so. What I do, if the 9:45 FP is easier to get, I will 'modify' it to after 12:30, opening my search window to 9-11:30 for the hard to get. Once I get it, I modify the 2 later ones up closer to the hard to get so there's room to get a 4th & then 5th & then usually 6th.

Happy refreshing! This will be your new line game!

 

[shocker]

But a Magic Carpets FP becomes a Big Thunder, Splash, or Space Mountain. A Primeval Whirl becomes an EE or a Safari, etc. While sitting out the rain a Test Track FP is still good for TT when the rain stops and still allows you to then grab another FP. Getting multiple anytime FP's for when the rain stops is a nice bonus.

Ahh, yes. MK is the only park that currently doesn't tier FP. And probably the park rain would most effect, per your PP. Good tip!

 

[JETSDAD]

Ahh, yes. MK is the only park that currently doesn't tier FP. And probably the park rain would most effect, per your PP. Good tip!

It would block 7DMT and PP but it's an easy way to add some good rides once the rain stops.

 

[pammydw]

Just got back from another great trip. I was nervous going into this one because I rely heavily on refreshing for FP's night before and day of but normally for only 3 people....this trip was 7 people so I didn't know what to expect. Here are some pointers from my trip.

Absolutely break it up into groups of 3 & 4 when refreshing and go for overlapping times when looking for anything popular. Stuff like Dumbo just look for 7, it will be fine. I usually work on the group of 4 first as it will be a bit more difficult and then do the group of 3 to match/overlap.

Will this work for rides such as FOP & SDD? YES! I had the start of the days all nicely laid out with FP's selected and AK planned for 2 days near the end of the trip. After 2 days everyone decided they wanted to do AK the next day! My heart kind of sank a bit knowing that FOP would be the highlight and assuming the odds would be low. That night I was able to get overlapping FP's for the 7 of us for an AM time slot for FOP. One of the things I personally wanted to do this trip was ride SDD at night but of course I was not willing to hold up an entire day of refreshing for 1 evening FP. During the rain one afternoon I managed to get SDD for that night for the 7 of us. The only ride that I didn't look to add day of was 7DMT because we did it once standby right before our MVMCP night and everyone preferred other rides. All other rides we were able to add with reasonably short waits (sometimes we would just go watch a show or grab a snack to fill some time).

It does take more patience and more flexibility than refreshing for a smaller group but it does work.

Now to the Hollywood Studios FP drops. I posted about it a few weeks ago but kind of tucked it away into another thread....didn't want to jinx it for my trip. It is something I watched for weeks leading up to my trip and now can say that for at least 5+ weeks it has worked including during my trip. Every day that I have checked I have noticed 2 FP drops for HS for all of the TSL rides. Same times every day. At 9:31AM it opens up a lot of FP times for all TSL rides including SDD for FP's between 11-12 (start times). At 2:31PM it drops FP's for TSL for 4-5. We used these drops both times one day for SDD. Again we broke it up into 3/4 because I didn't want to risk it not working on a larger group so I do not know how well it works for groups larger than 4. I watched again this morning at 9:31 and it worked. To note, if SDD is down in the morning there is a chance it might not be included in the FP drop (noticed this 1 time a couple of weeks ago). I also do not guarantee this will continue to work but it has been consistent and it did work for us.

I just wanted to post because I do tend to promote refreshing as a great way to plan a trip but also know that many groups are larger than my normal group.

Thanks for the fast pass drop notes. We arrive tomorrow morning and are going to HS on Sunday. SDD is a fastpass we couldn’t get. We’ll try this strategy for sure!

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

I tried this during my trip in November with no luck. Glad it worked for you though. The other thing that I found was that I was disappointed in myself being on the phone so much looking for the next thing. The refresh strategy takes A LOT of time and I was missing what was happening at the moment.

Wow, that’s surprising. We followed Jets advice for a trip in June and were able to refresh pretty much anything we wanted. We’re a family of 5 and I never spent more than 5-10 minutes looking for our next attraction.

The only thing I just flat out couldn’t get was Navi River. Everything else popped up pretty quick.

I think we used 10-12 FPs every day, including our prebooked 3.

 

[DrFacilier]

But a Magic Carpets FP becomes a Big Thunder, Splash, or Space Mountain. A Primeval Whirl becomes an EE or a Safari, etc. While sitting out the rain a Test Track FP is still good for TT when the rain stops and still allows you to then grab another FP. Getting multiple anytime FP's for when the rain stops is a nice bonus.

I got really into this strategy on a stormy day last trip and at one point had about 9 FPs in MK. We didn’t even have time to use all of them lol.

 

[JETSDAD]

I got really into this strategy on a stormy day last trip and at one point had about 9 FPs in MK. We didn’t even have time to use all of them lol.

We ended a day with Anytime passes wasted in 2 parks lol. We took a break for a long storm and didn't know where we wanted to go when it stopped so I lined a couple up in the other 3 parks.

Another note is that if you have an Anytime FP for a park but are going to hop to another park, stop by guest relations and they may switch them over for you. We did this twice this trip.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

It would block 7DMT and PP but it's an easy way to add some good rides once the rain stops.

Have they stopped giving you a cluster of ride options for the MK rides when it rains? We had several turned to anytime a couple years ago (non on this last trip) and it would give you options for about 5 rides that were similar so a Barnstormer FP gave us the option of Dumbo, teacups, Aladdin, something else, and BTMR. There was really only one ride that was a hard-ish to get FP even though MK isn't tiered.

Wow, that’s surprising. We followed Jets advice for a trip in June and were able to refresh pretty much anything we wanted. We’re a family of 5 and I never spent more than 5-10 minutes looking for our next attraction.

The only thing I just flat out couldn’t get was Navi River. Everything else popped up pretty quick.

I think we used 10-12 FPs every day, including our prebooked 3.

This is very variable person to person independently of crowds and other variables you think would effect it. I've been refreshing for as long as you have been able to (the change to the system to allow you to get 4th FPs from your phone happened about 3 weeks before one of our trips). I cannot get the biggest rides in anything less than 30 mins of constant refreshing. FEA, FOP, Navi, 7DMT and I'm going to assume the same will be true of SDD (haven't been yet). I sat at dinner one night trying to get FEA for my son and DH one night and timed myself and it took half an hour. For a party of 2. I won't do that often because it does take me out of the moment.

I can get TT, Space Mtn, EE level rides in 10-15 so I totally consider refresh a great strategy and use it all the time (even got teacups for my kids just so we could go on the ride before our ADR). But it does take more time for me than some other people experience. And from the number of likes on @5DisneyNuts post and others who have posted things like that, I'm not alone. I can't figure out why. I've tried different browsers, etc, etc but it seems more tied to the person than things like crowd level. JETSDAD always has the ability to get headliners in 10 mins or less. It always takes me significantly longer than that (even during the insane number of hours I spent playing with this pre trip last year with different party sizes and on different crowd level days).

So I'm also very happy for the folks who don't have to spend much time on their phones to get exactly what they want. But it's also important for people to know that may not be their experience. And it may not be because the people trying to do it don't know how (although any one who has this experience should review the many posts with tips to make sure they aren't missing something). I think everyone has to try for themselves. And then decide how to best use the strategy to work for them.

 

[Dznypal]

I’m still learning the ropes and lingo but what and how do you do the refresh and how does it help. Also what is this all about when you check for FP it’s dropped. I’ve never heard of this sorry for the question. But thanks for the help

 

[JETSDAD]

I’m still learning the ropes and lingo but what and how do you do the refresh and how does it help. Also what is this all about when you check for FP it’s dropped. I’ve never heard of this sorry for the question. But thanks for the help

Refreshing is using MDE (app or website) to look for FP's especially day of and night before. Day of, if you only look once or twice the odds of seeing something good available for a time that you want is quite low. If you keep refreshing, that is looking over and over by clicking on the same time (Android) or a different time (iPhone) you see different results each time. People are constantly changing their plans and you are looking to grab FP's as other release them. By doing this you can get a lot of FP's in any given day. When I talk about the Hollywood Studios FP drop I am referring to specific times, day of, where Disney is releasing a wave of FP's. This is different than the normal moving around of FP's by people at the parks.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Wow, that’s surprising. We followed Jets advice for a trip in June and were able to refresh pretty much anything we wanted. We’re a family of 5 and I never spent more than 5-10 minutes looking for our next attraction.

This has been our experience as well. No need to spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone. We usually split time among family members and refresh while in a queue.

 

[Princess Katelet]

Yes (well, as far as I've noticed). Here are a few screenshots from this morning. They typically show up over a couple of minutes rather than all at once like some previous drops (such as FOP last year).


View attachment 369879 View attachment 369880 View attachment 369881 View attachment 369882

I don't understand why this would just be for day of. If FPs are added to the system every single day at 9:31 and 2:31, can't people at home who are thirty or sixty days out snag them or modify ones they have??

 

[Mom*3]

Thank you so much for the tips and info the info of the TSL FP drops! We will be there Christmas week with a party of 7. We do have FP+ booked for all of the big attractions, pretty decent times for everthing as well. But, I am hoping for some 4th FP+'s. I think I will assign the task of refreshing to the 4 college age people in our group.

 

[JETSDAD]

I don't understand why this would just be for day of. If FPs are added to the system every single day at 9:31 and 2:31, can't people at home who are thirty or sixty days out snag them or modify ones they have??

Because they are only being released for the current day and specific time periods at those times.

 

[mixmastertoy]

Pretty interesting ... the only fast passes day of I could never get is Flight of Passage! Who has gotten any luck to get that? I always have an easy time getting anything else at any parks! Its the best game to play in lines... actually the last day we were in Disney it rained all morning and I literally just kept searching the next closest times for Aladdin in MK and ended up with 7 anytime fast passes (minus 7D and PP). Heres an interesting fact... anytime fast passes will not block the three. I converted all 3 of mine in a few hours to anytime ... I was then able to book 3 fast passes for any park since I technically didnt use them!

 

[JETSDAD]

Pretty interesting ... the only fast passes day of I could never get is Flight of Passage! Who has gotten any luck to get that? I always have an easy time getting anything else at any parks! Its the best game to play in lines... actually the last day we were in Disney it rained all morning and I literally just kept searching the next closest times for Aladdin in MK and ended up with 7 anytime fast passes (minus 7D and PP). Heres an interesting fact... anytime fast passes will not block the three. I converted all 3 of mine in a few hours to anytime ... I was then able to book 3 fast passes for any park since I technically didnt use them!

For the 7 of us I was able to get night before for FOP but didn't bother day of. When it is just the 3 of us we do get FOP frequently. We had one day at the beginning of this trip with just the 3 of us (got in early). Night before we added an AM FOP FP. We then added another one day of. While in the queue for our second FOP FP I found another for 1.5 hours later but we were heading out after that ride so let it go.

 

[Dznypal]

thanks jetsdad for the great tips and explantion however one other question

how do I refresh for the FP is there a button that says refresh--I don't like playing around with changing things unless I know I wont wipe something completely out

thanks again