Just Back - Stayed offsite this past week, my FP+ at MK experiences

[mrsr2ro]

We flew home this afternoon after staying 8 nights offsite at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. We were at MK Tues, Wed, Fri, and just late last night. Here is our FP+ experience.

Tues & Wed were very low crowd days. We were a party of 8; the 6 of us plus my parents and we're just NOT morning people. We got to the parks around 11:30/Noon those days. They gave us the FP+ handout where you pay for parking and it only listed about four places where the FP+ kiosks would be. The one I thought would be easiest to get to was by Stitch. I ran ahead to there while my party slowly went through Main Street. I realized later in the week that there are many other kiosk locations (including in where Mickey is, so I used that spot on Friday). ANyway, on Tues& Wed, people were just figuring out what it was and there was no line that late in the morning. On Tuesday I was able to get Peter Pan, Pooh, and Ench. Tales with Belle for later that afternoon. It all worked out. The park was so dead that night that after seeing Belle at about 7pm we walked over and saw the four princesses with ZERO wait - Cinderella, Aurora, Rapunzel, and Snow White. We were the only people in there! Unreal! Great interactions with my two daughters.

On Wednesday I tried something -- again, got there around noonish and booked PP again, Ariel's Grotto, and Thunder Mountain knowing that only my 9yo son and I wanted to do BTM. (sorry if I get the acronyms wrong; I'm tired!) Anyway, after seeing how the scanning our park tickets worked on Tuesday, I tried the following; he and I used two cards to ride it, and then used two other of our party's cards to ride it immediately after. It worked. We could have ridden in two more times, but we were running close to the end time of our FP+ Window because the FP+ line was still about 15 minutes The standby line was around 60min I think. It was about 3pm. I decided twice was enough for me and so we headed over to the Diamond Horseshoe kiosk and changed the four tickets we had NOT used on BTM to Under the Sea. Later that night, My mom and I took my two daughters over there and met LM with four of our FP+ (the other four essentially went to waste at that point - I didn't bother changing them to something my DH, Dad, and sons wanted to do). Then we used those four rescheduled FP+ to ride Under the Sea. So in other words; we were able to play around with who used which ones. Does that make sense? Nothing validated that the person using the FP+ was the name on the ticket.

Then the 8 of us used the last FP+ for Peter Pan (which I had booked at noon - I think it was around 7pm return time?). It was my first time riding it. We loved it.

Thursday was a rest day as some of us started getting sick

On Friday, only my parents and I went to MK with my two girls; and that day was MUCH busier. We got there around noon, and I went to the FP+ by Mickey in Main street (not actual kiosks, but ipads). On that day we got Jungle Cruise, Buzz, and Peter Pan again. The return times were late afternoon. We had no issues with all three. We left the park around 6 because it was just so busy.

Yesterday was a day scheduled to visit family who live in Orlando; and once they were gone around 7, My DH suggested my mom and I take the boys for a last night hurrah since they were feeling better and still had 1 park day on their tickets. Mom had missed an EP day earlier in the week and still had 1 day as well. I just had to pay about $10 to add an extra day to mine at Guest Services right by security. By the time we geared up and got to MK it was about 9:10 so I didn't even bother trying to get FP+. (side note; they did not charge us for parking that late she just waved us through) It was SUPER cold last night and we darted through the stores on Main Street to try and get to Tomorrowland. Wait times were very low there since people were watching the parade at 9, then the fireworks at 10. Once those were over it was a mob of people leaving. We swung around to fantasyland so we could ride IASM one lasttime then caught the 11pm MSEP right on Main Street. We walked up by the Casey's corner right as it was starting and got front row on the curb. It was in the low 40's Still, it was our only time to see it this week and a wonderful way to end our trip. Got back to our condo late and up early to pack up and fly home today (MCO was a zoo!).

Anyway - we didn't have any issues with FP+, in fact I liked the fact that we were able to get PP without having to RD. We're just not a RD family. That being said, we had planned multiple days at MK because it's my favorite so we had plenty of time to see what we wanted to. We arrived last Sat, did Epcot Sun/Mon (very low crowds as well), then MK Tues, Wed, Fri, and bonus last night.

 

[mrsr2ro]

I just started reading the other big thread already asking about FP+ at MK this week;

At noonish (I can't recall exactly the time) I waited < 5min at both the Stitch and the Mickey Theater locations; and about 5min at the Diamond Horshoe in the late afternoon. I did not pay attention or notice long lines at FP+ kiosks other times I was in the park. I bet they were much longer earlier in the morning when everyone first gets there.

I also did not purchase hoppers once I heard about the FP+ changes. Otherwise I might have considered it.

 

[Ametista]

Very interesting. I wondered about going with non-riders, if you could use their FP+es but I figured asking that question would start a huge argument on morality, fairness, double-dipping and what not. But you know, with FP- we could use non-rider's ticket to get extra FPs.

I am glad it worked for you off-site, I have been more than a little worried about that! Thanks for posting. Sounds like you had a great trip and I hope you are all over whatever crud you got.

 

[mrsr2ro]

One more observation about FP+.... The scans really keep you to the times. At EP earlier in the week, we arrived to TT about 15min early and the CM allowed us through, but when we tried that in MK with a FP+, they gave us the boot to come back after the time. No biggie; we went and rode one other low wait ride and came back.

 

[kcool]

Do you get to choose your fast pass rerun times or is
It simply next available slot?

 

[mrsr2ro]

At the kiosk, you select the 3 experiences you want, and then it brings up a screen with the 3 time slots... and there were a couple of options. The CM who helped me each time would be the one playing around with it to find a good option of times / places. The times were in the late evening but that did not bother me. We planned to stay through the whole evening anyway.