Can this work with park hopping? Say I want to park hop after I use a FP+ in MK. Could I get a FP+ for a ride in Hollywood Studios (taking into account travel time of course)? In other words, since this strategy was so successful, is park hopping a bad idea? The OPs success seems to be, in part, due to staying in one park all day. Is the "morning in the park, afternoon break, evening in the park" vacation a bad idea now? I will normally do a morning EMH, leave when the crowds get heavy (I visit WDW in the summer), break at the on site hotel, then return to another park in the evening. Will this strategy work in the summer with the Brazilian Tour Groups? Will us old timers just have to learn a new attack plan for WDW?
OP strategy worked. Let's see if we can build on it!
To be honest, at this point, it's too early to know all the answers yet. In my mind, any one of the variables presented can be easily worked around. It's when you start bunching them together that things start iffy.
Park Hopping, in and of itself is not a big issue. In general, if you're looking at a short trip before hopping plan 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 FP+ or 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 figuring you'll use the first one closer to the 10:00 expiration time. But the goal is you want to have all 3 original FP+ gone before you hop so you can pull extras as soon as you get to the new park. On the way out of the park, you can try chatting up a CM with an IPAD that's not busy to see if they can make your first FP+ in the next park for you. Early reports are some know how and can spread that pixie dust and other don't or can't. Otherwise, as soon as you get to the other park. find a kiosk and make your first FP+. If it's a short trip to another park and you book FP+ early and the crowds are similarly light the 2:00 on part of the day should be the same.
Afternoon Breaks. yes you may lose some potentially available productive ride time, but you can make a FP+ for when you plan to return to the parks. Right before an afternoon break would be an ideal time to pickup a ride that's showing return times 3-4 hours in the future.
Combining afternoon break and park hopping potentially causes an issue. At this point, there are 3 options 1) wait until you get to the new park after the rest break to start pulling FP+. 2) have 1 member of your party travel to the resort via the park your planning on hopping to and book FP+ for the family while they are relaxing by the pool. 3) hope to get said pixie dust mentioned above from an Ipad wielding CM who will book you new FP+ in the new park for you.
Finally, throwing summer into the mix is a big unknown. We don't know how many FP+ of what types will be left over at the various parks.
If it were my trip, and I thought I could effectively tour the RD park without FP+, I would have my 3 prebooked FP+'s for my second park of the day at least until we hear more reports from people during busier seasons.
Hypothetical situation, my guess is the reverse would be the more productive. RD DHS prebooking TSMM, TOT, and GMR for example. Then, when you're done at DHS, hop over to MK for the evening. With the number of attractions available, I think the odds of finding "valuable" FP+ in the afternoon will be the greatest at the MK, then DAK, then probably a tie between DHS and EPCOT.
