Lack of FP+ options

[wilkydelts]

@yorkieteacher Since it is so easy to refresh/update and it does not effect changes long term, you should considering filling all your FP+ spots right now. You can find better as things change but it will generally be best at your opening day for FP+. It actually complicates things to get your 4th+ FP+ if you did not use your original 3 quickly or left open spots.

 

[tlmadden73]

Lesson learned if our trip gets canceled this time when we rebook I will put our Univ days to be up front so we can get a few extra + days on the FP booking.

To me, this is the issue with the "length of stay" bonus .. it causes you to WANT to back-end your park days (especially DHS and AK) to get the high demand fast passes .. which just keeps making it worse for the people who come next .. etc. etc. When you are making Fast passes a week or more before other people, they just keep getting gobbling up.

You should have the same availability to make the same fast passes whether it is the first day of your trip or the last.

I, for one, would be fine getting up every morning for the length of my trip and book fast passes exactly 60 days. if it means I can schedule my park days how I want . .rather than having them all at the end of my trip to get a FP for a Tier 1 DHS ride.

 

[Mzpalmtree]

To me, this is the issue with the "length of stay" bonus .. it causes you to WANT to back-end your park days (especially DHS and AK) to get the high demand fast passes .. which just keeps making it worse for the people who come next .. etc. etc. When you are making Fast passes a week or more before other people, they just keep getting gobbling up.

You should have the same availability to make the same fast passes whether it is the first day of your trip or the last.

I, for one, would be fine getting up every morning for the length of my trip and book fast passes exactly 60 days. if it means I can schedule my park days how I want . .rather than having them all at the end of my trip to get a FP for a Tier 1 DHS ride.

We usually take short weekend trips so I agree with you 100%. We go a few times per year but just for 2-3 days at a time due to our schedules not supporting longer trips. Disney gets just as much money from me over the year as they do someone who takes one long trip—if not more because I don’t get the benefit of lower hotel rates from a longer stay and I always pay weekend rates. But that’s the subject for another time and another thread I guess. Thanks for all those giving updates!

 

[micheleq]

I just did mine for 6/20-6/27 and I got everything I wanted. There was plenty of availability for every park, every day. I had even better luck with the evening hours (which work for our touring style).

Same dates for us, and similar FPs. The only FP I couldn’t get was Big Thunder for Monday 6/22, but I could get SDMT. Was able to get FOP (6/25), Smugglers (6/24) and Mickey & Minnies Runaway Train (6/26).

 

[AmishGuy91]

I'm booked 6/6-6/13. Been checking DHS frequently since my 7am 60+2 day. I never saw a Tier 1 FP until just now i pulled a 7pm MFSR. Even during Spring Break booking with a lot less checking than I have done this time, I would generally pull 1 or 2 Tier 1 fast passes daily.

 

[yorkieteacher]

@yorkieteacher Since it is so easy to refresh/update and it does not effect changes long term, you should considering filling all your FP+ spots right now. You can find better as things change but it will generally be best at your opening day for FP+. It actually complicates things to get your 4th+ FP+ if you did not use your original 3 quickly or left open spots.

I've done this before with pretty good results-there really wasn't another available FP we needed- if we need to add one day-of in order to get a fourth, we will. It's just quicker for me to add than to modify, although I've already modified several of the times for the fast passes we got this morning!

 

[gottalovepluto]

...I, for one, would be fine getting up every morning for the length of my trip and book fast passes exactly 60 days...

I, for one, live in CA and that would destroy my ability to sleep for days

 

[DisSurfer878]

To me, this is the issue with the "length of stay" bonus .. it causes you to WANT to back-end your park days (especially DHS and AK) to get the high demand fast passes .. which just keeps making it worse for the people who come next .. etc. etc. When you are making Fast passes a week or more before other people, they just keep getting gobbling up.

You should have the same availability to make the same fast passes whether it is the first day of your trip or the last.

I, for one, would be fine getting up every morning for the length of my trip and book fast passes exactly 60 days. if it means I can schedule my park days how I want . .rather than having them all at the end of my trip to get a FP for a Tier 1 DHS ride.

That's unrealistic for people in most time zones.
West Coast is 3 hours behind. Hawaii is 6. International? A whole disaster.

 

[tlmadden73]

That's unrealistic for people in most time zones.
West Coast is 3 hours behind. Hawaii is 6. International? A whole disaster.

Well. then Disney could just change the time to a more convenient time ... Noon Eastern or something. ANY time is inconvenient for SOMEONE.

 

[lluv3971]

Navi
7 Dwarfs
Kilimanjaro
Everest
Flight of Passage
Tower of Terror
Rockin’ Rollercoaster
Smuggler’s Run
Slinky Dog
Midway Mania

There are some others like Haunted Mansion thrown in there as well. We purchased tickets to the Frozen Dessert Party a while back so I’m hoping that still happens...But there was availability for Frozen Ever After too.

Wow! That's amazing!! Congrats!
Thanks for sharing.

Any tips for the rest of us, or was it business as usual?

 

[wilkydelts]

I still think something is up when it comes to certain FP+. Right now according to The Dibb FP+ availability (last update 4/21 @ 11:24a) you can not get MMRR until 60+6! That is insane, which makes me think it has to be limited. You can still get SDD and MFSR at 60+4 for the afternoons, two days should not be that extreme.

 

[C&Jx2]

Wow! That's amazing!! Congrats!
Thanks for sharing.

Any tips for the rest of us, or was it business as usual?

No I just played around... We tour in the morning, and the return at night so it helped that I’m open to FP later in the day.

 

[Sandiz08]

Could it be that they are limiting fastpasses because they will be testing out spacing groups apart on rides? Seating people every other row or car?

 

[vinotinto]

Wow! That's amazing!! Congrats!
Thanks for sharing.

Any tips for the rest of us, or was it business as usual?

It sounds like she got many of those during evening times. Doesn't work that great for those of us that like to have fastpasses throughout the day or even in the morning to pull additional FPs.

 

[C&Jx2]

It sounds like she got many of those during evening times. Doesn't work that great for those of us that like to have fastpasses throughout the day or even in the morning to pull additional FPs.

Yes. A few of the headliners were evenings like SDD and FoP. The rest were morning, early afternoon.

 

[lluv3971]

It sounds like she got many of those during evening times. Doesn't work that great for those of us that like to have fastpasses throughout the day or even in the morning to pull additional FPs.

Some availability is better than no availability. LOL

 

[TchrLady]

I had to reschedule from the first week of May to the first week of June, and because of that I lost all of the amazing fast passes we worked so hard to get. Trip will be decidedly less enjoyable now.

I was in the same situation with our last week of March trip. We had amazing fast passes I had worked for months to get so I feel your pain.

We are rescheduled for 6/5-6/12. At our 60 day mark I could not get any good MK, AK or HS FP's for the first 3 days of our trip. At 60+4 I was able to grab FOP, EE and KS for AK and at 60+5 SDD, TOT and RNR for HS. There was definitely more availability the second week in June than 6/5-6/7. I think there may be a lot of people who have rescheduled for the first week in June or were already scheduled for that week.

I have since been able to pick up several FP's by frequently checking MDE. I was able to snag a 7DMT for the 2nd day of our trip and have been able to move several evening FP to earlier in the day for Space Mountain and Splash Mountain. Still waiting to try and snag a MF or MMR at the studios but overall pretty happy with what we have so far.

Still not confident they will be open but we also have another backup trip scheduled later in July just in case. Hopefully one of the 2 will work out. If not we will probably cancel all together and try again in a few years. I would just keep checking for FP's and you may be able to find what you want.

 

[tlmadden73]

I still think something is up when it comes to certain FP+. Right now according to The Dibb FP+ availability (last update 4/21 @ 11:24a) you can not get MMRR until 60+6! That is insane, which makes me think it has to be limited. You can still get SDD and MFSR at 60+4 for the afternoons, two days should not be that extreme.

Is that any different than any other BRAND NEW headline rides? The first year or so after SDMT, FOP and SDD, they weren't available to most short trips (I could only get them by gaming the system and having my cousin (who arrived days earlier) to get those FPs for my family.

I would think that MMRR would be the most popular Tier 1 choice at DHS easily because it is family-friendly AND brand spanking new.

But .. I just feel that it isn't any different from past times (all anecdotal of course).

 

[GADisneyDad14]

My armchair quarterback total speculation of what may be going on.

Often when FP availability seems wonky, it's due to a combination of a variety of things and not necessarily one thing. Crowd ebbs and flows, ride closures, tier changes, etc.

While there are some things that aren't making much sense (eg, BTMR, some FPs seem only open pretty deep in a trip), there are other things that seem pretty normal (I'm basing that on reports here and my own June trip planning). I of course have no idea how Disney works, but there is a part of me that is somewhat skeptical the keepers of the FP system are even properly staffed and/or Disney is fast enough to dial in some sort of grand FP plan given the situation. Seems a little too 'on top of things' for Disney standards to me! I say that mostly tongue in cheek, but I guess I'm not ready to go all in on assuming MDE is a finely oiled machine that reflects some big plan.

Some other things that I think could be going on:

1. We were still really early in how DHS was going to operate under the new rides/tiering setup. A quick look back:
   • Prior to 2/19, DHS had 5 Tier 1 FP attractions - SDD, AS2, TSM, ToT, RnRR
   • MFSR was added as a FP option 2/19 and tiers were adjusted leaving DHS with 2 Tier 1 FP attractions (MFSR & SDD)
   • MMRR was added 3/4 (the parks closed 11 days later) - giving DHS 3 Tier 1 FP attractions (MFSR, SDD, & MMRR)
   • By most accounts, FP inventory for both MFSR and MMRR had not really been "optimized" all that much - meaning, it seemed that supply was probably being throttled by Disney as they eased into real-world operating conditions for both rides. FPs within the first few park hours for both MFSR and MMRR were nearly non-existent and perhaps not even being offered at all (likely to offset the large DHS rope drop crowd on account of RotR and MMRR being the hot new thing).
   • While we had a couple of months of runway for people to be booking FPs under this new tier setup (including the busy spring break season), I'd suggest we're still in a "body of work" phase for how FP booking availability would look/feel through various ebbs and flows of crowd seasons. Many folks are just now planning DHS for the first time with these new tiers.
2. SSE is/was scheduled to close 5/26 - so no FPs in the system for arguably the most popular Tier 2 FP attraction. Since most people will pre-book 3 FPs no matter what (even if they are just burner FPs), that inevitably has pushed demand into other Tier 2s in ways that may create strange availability.
3. While I'm sure many are all-stop on things like Disney vacations, I do think it's likely that at least some of March-May reschedulers re-booked to early June, and many have been sitting here daily with nothing to do at 7am ET but tinker with FPs (admittedly a big generalization on my part). To be real, I have "a few" reservations for June-July, backups to backups, etc, to hedge against the unknowns. I'm assuming I can't be the only one doing this. A possible rolling wave of planners hedging for some kind of opening in June.
4. Of course, Disney could very well be tinkering with the inventory, who knows!

Just my TLDR two cents.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

Since I posted last week, I've been able to score a few more for the week of 6/8-13. I snagged a TSM one, and one for Space Mtn. I'm still on the hunt for FOP and would drop TSM if I can get Smuggler's Run. I would like to change my Space Mtn time from what I got - 8:55 pm. No luck so far.

I got a BOG lunch for our MK day, but not sure if I'll keep it or not.