Made FP+ Reservations Today

[GeorgiaHoo]

For our 6 day trip that starts April 29. Took about 15-20 minutes to make the selections and no problems doing so or changing times.

Although I knew that the new system was going to be a change making the reservations drove some of it home. The tiering at Epcot stood out as a step backwards from the old system - only being permitted to select from one of Maelmstrom, Soarin' and Test Track (in my opinion the only rides worth doing at Epcot) and then getting probably pointless fastpasses for Living with the Land and Spaceship Earth (walked on both every time in the past). I do wonder if the latter two fastpasses might be necessary in the future because the tiering is pushing people onto rides like Living with the Land.

In any event, would have preferred to be able to use those other two at a different park that we'll hop to that day, which highlights the biggest drawback of the new system (aside from the fact that you only get 3 passes) - the "one park a day" only restriction. For example, we are going to Hollywood Studios the morning of May 2 and will get there are RD. Selected Toy Story, Tower of Terror and Star Wars as morning fastpasses (prob won't ride Star Wars) and the plan is to ride Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror (x2) first thing, then ride Toy Story, then ToT one more time then go back to the resort for lunch/pool. Boma for dinner, then AK for an hour or so before it closes then over to Epcot for the evening. Would be nice to be able to pull fastpasses at AK/Epcot under the old system or use my Star Wars fastpass+ at one of those parks but that option is out. So while we like the parkhoppers and will continue to buy them they do lose a little "value" since you may not be able to ride the headliners (we don't do lines that are much more than 20 minutes) at the second/third park of the day.

Also don't like the idea of trying to plan where I'm going to be at a park at a certain hour 60+ days from now. Unless the crowds are overwhelming I predict that we won't use some of our fastpasses because we won't want to trek across the park to get to a ride.

So, nothing that hasn't been discussed before but booking the actual reservations highlighted for me the drawbacks folks already have identified.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Also don't like the idea of trying to plan where I'm going to be at a park at a certain hour 60+ days from now.

I so agree with that.

 

[Tramp68]

The planning that far ahead is very irritating. We ended up needing to change one of our park days and was never able to recover the FP+ that we missed.

I mean, what was the point of all that planning ahead if 1 day of pouring rain makes you change all of the rest of your plans.

Here is my take on FP+ and Park hopping:
Do not make any FP+ reservations for the park you are doing at rope drop. Most of the rides will have a short wait before noon anyway. Do the mornings on the most popular rides standby, then as noon approaches switch to the ones that usually dont have a wait. By now you should be into the afternoon. Eat an early dinner and then hop to where your reservations are. Now you have reservations during the busier time of the day and dont have to worry that you weren't in the park at RD. As the evening progresses most of the lines will slow down (except for the major rides) and you will be able to have low to moderate waits on standby....