No more Stanby line for A&E?

[guinea pig]

We must be going the same day Twinmamaplus one. I also stayed up and not A&E available my whole trip. Got 7 dwarves on our last day

 

[RJstanis]

We must be going the same day Twinmamaplus one. I also stayed up and not A&E available my whole trip. Got 7 dwarves on our last day

Same here too. But my friendly spies already broke the news on A&E to me this morning. A little shocked on 7DMT but glad I could at least get one FP in case its our only chance to ride. No ELP for the first parade on Thurs either which I was only borderline considering anyway.

 

[lovethattink]

I had a thought this afternoon after reading that Disney had gone back to the regular standby queue at PFH...

What if this test was never a test for MK? What if it were a test for this rumored return to Epcot that A&E could be making.

Think about it:

*There's no room for a large standby queue in Norway. The return ticket solves that A1 issue for the Epcot M&G.

*The numbers in the original blog post about the test sounded oddly small for the MK M&G, but if you change the setting to Epcot, those numbers look a lot less crazy for a M&G with less capacity than PFH.

*The walls around the old M&G in Norway are still up, they could very well be installing FP+ scanners and readying a monderate standby queue back there.

I am in no way saying I have any inside info, just hypothezizing how a few of the puzzle pieces could fit together.

Thoughts?

I think you could be on to something. Based on queue configuration that I saw before A&E moved over to mk.

 

[magicbob]

FWIW, the Copy function didn't work for us...it kept pushing us to times much later in the day than I wanted. So I just booked each of our slots individually, with an overlap that covered all four people, to get the time we wanted.

For our party of four, we wound up with one person at 11:40-12:40, one at 12:10 to 1:10, and two of us at 12:20-1:20. So we'll hit the M&G right at 12:20 when the last window opens. It's perfect because we have a 1:10 ADR at CRT. So excited!

It took me a while to grasp the "book one and copy" strategy (because most of us have been conditioned to look for a "table for 4" when booking ADRs, etc.). Obviously, searching for a block of FPs with the exact same time for your everyone in your party is still the first logical step. But, for us savvy DISers, I think this strategy is one of the most powerful advantages we'll have in the FP+ arsenal. Your average guest will likely never think to look for four separate times that happen to overlap. Granted, it may result in an extremely tight window, but that's better than just accepting that they don't have any blocks of time with four FPs available.

 

[RachaelA]

It took me a while to grasp the "book one and copy" strategy (because most of us have been conditioned to look for a "table for 4" when booking ADRs, etc.). Obviously, searching for a block of FPs with the exact same time for your everyone in your party is still the first logical step. But, for us savvy DISers, I think this strategy is one of the most powerful advantages we'll have in the FP+ arsenal. Your average guest will likely never think to look for four separate times that happen to overlap. Granted, it may result in an extremely tight window, but that's better than just accepting that they don't have any blocks of time with four FPs available.

Is there a tutorial for the copying anywhere? Or can I play around with FP+ now bc I have tickets loaded and just choose earlier dates. And then be ok booking at my regular window still with the same tickets. I'm so freaked out about messing up my tickets and not being able to use them exactly at our 60 day window

 

[ejcraft]

Is there a tutorial for the copying anywhere? Or can I play around with FP+ now bc I have tickets loaded and just choose earlier dates. And then be ok booking at my regular window still with the same tickets. I'm so freaked out about messing up my tickets and not being able to use them exactly at our 60 day window

you should be able to do this for the current 30 days you just have to remember to either not totally book them or if you do, then go back and delete them, so when your 60 days are here you can book for them

 

[mommycal]

It took me a while to grasp the "book one and copy" strategy (because most of us have been conditioned to look for a "table for 4" when booking ADRs, etc.). Obviously, searching for a block of FPs with the exact same time for your everyone in your party is still the first logical step. But, for us savvy DISers, I think this strategy is one of the most powerful advantages we'll have in the FP+ arsenal. Your average guest will likely never think to look for four separate times that happen to overlap. Granted, it may result in an extremely tight window, but that's better than just accepting that they don't have any blocks of time with four FPs available.

can you please help a newbie out, what exactly does that mean for us as a family of 5? trying to get myself ready for our NOV trip so our 60 day's isn't here just yet. Thanks so much!!! how do I go about booking fp+ for the hot things like the elsa M&G?

 

[spewey]

So my time opened tonight, I logged in at 12:01 and there are no times available for A & E or 7DMT for our first day AT ALL! Our next MK day is 4 days later and there are no a and e left for that day either. Is there any chance times will open up? So frustrating..

Is this a 60 or 30 day window? And are you trying to get FP+s as a group, or individually?

If it's 60 days, and you're searching as individuals (looking for overlaps) I'm really surprised at the lack of availability. I guess late September is going to be really busy. Most folks (the ones posting here) booking for July and August (60 days out) got pretty much what they wanted, again often by breaking their group up.

 

[FlipHipster]

Do we know that they also moved a bunch of capacity to FP? Wouldn't we have seen people posting that a bunch of additional slots opened up?

My point was that the essentially did move more capacity to FP. Standby line is cutoff at some point in the morning. So from that point until it opens again in the evening, the only people meeting are meeting via some flavor of FP. Either FP+ or legacy FP/FP-/SB+.

Dang it....now I'm gonna be singing that song for the rest of the day. "It's like raaaiiiin on your wedding day".

I did the same thing, but it was 2 days and I shared the love with everyone else The funny part is that we had to go a wedding Friday night and I couldn't get that song out of my head. The wedding was outside and everyone was worried about rain. It ended up just being really hot and muggy but that didn't stop everyone from singing that line when someone mentioned the "r" word. I just realized the couple was engaged at Disney back in Dec. There's some weird connection there.

 

[barbaraann]

One more perk to traveling solo.

Booking fastpass+ was not complicated at all.

 

[guinea pig]

Is this a 60 or 30 day window? And are you trying to get FP+s as a group, or individually?

If it's 60 days, and you're searching as individuals (looking for overlaps) I'm really surprised at the lack of availability. I guess late September is going to be really busy. Most folks (the ones posting here) booking for July and August (60 days out) got pretty much what they wanted, again often by breaking their group up.

60 day window and no single FP+ for A&E for our 4 day trip

 

[disneymagicgirl]

60 day window and no single FP+ for A&E for our 4 day trip

That's nuts!

 

[lovethattink]

Besides lucking out the other day, when I booked our A&E at the 60 day mark, it was after midnight that I had the luck, I'm thinking like 12:20ish.

 

[guinea pig]

I was on the computer at 00:05. Not FP for 4 people. I forgot about trying to do the single FP until this am at 08:30. No single FP then. Wish I had remembered that at midnight. Not sure if I could gotten any then though either

 

[LaurenT]

60 day window and no single FP+ for A&E for our 4 day trip

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of slots available to begin with, and they get booked up by people staying a week three days before you can even get access. And those people have to take spots for the end of their trip because the ones at the beginning were already taken but people arriving before them....

 

[Kimann]

Hang on. I must be missing something. September 29 is more like 65 days from today. How many people could possibly have booked FP+s for that day?

Ok, now I'm missing something. I get how people are booking because their trip starts before yours. But how is the poster's window opening at 65 days. I think that's what spewey was asking too.

 

[ziravan]

Someone in another thread asked about how the number of 9 FP/hr came about. I wanted to repeat my response there over here and expand on it a bit:

The temporary tourist made that observation in her thread about A&E testing standby+ for three days. Since she was right about that - and got the scoop on it - people are taking that as fact, too. There is no confirmation or clarification on that. Nevertheless, that figure is being repeated all over the Disney webisphere.

The number, to me, is problematic. FP are normally issued in increments of ten minutes. In any hour, there is a rolling block of 6 FP periods. Is that 1.5 per period? Not likely. 9 per each overlapping 1 hour period? That's more likely, but that's 54 FP per rolling hour. (9 x 6 10 min increment hour return times.)

54 FP per rolling hour makes more sense. Let's assume that each FP holder spends 1 minute with the sisters (the average meet is longer but on average has mult FP holders per meet. For example, a single user might take 1.5 minutes and 4 at a time might take 3 minutes, but the average should be less than a 1.5 minute per person). Two groups of sitters meeting at the same time could handle say 120 people an hour. That would yield a FP/standby ratio of 55%/45%, and those numbers seem about right.

Still, in a 10 hour park day (9-7 during MNSSHP and MVMCP), that's only 540 FP per day (only 90/day if the original data is accurate). Either way, with probably well over 1,000 looking for FP each morning at midnight at the start of their window, some people are going to be left out, and not a small number.

If you aren't looking for the sisters at midnight at your 60 day window, your only hope is that you pick up a random drop.

From a strategy point of view, there may be more FP on non-party days. If you're going to go to MK more than once, make your last MK day as close to the end of your trip as possible, and if possible, on a non party day (more hours = more avail FPs that day).

Also, in the ADR cancellation threads, it's been mentioned that if you get far enough in the booking window, that ADR is taken out of circulation. If not ultimately booked, it's returned to availability in exactly one hour. I don't know if that would carry over to FPs or not, but an alternative strategy might be to do everything you can during that first hour to secure a FP, and if unsuccessful, start over and spend at least another 30 min retracing your ground during the second hour of availability to see if anything is restored. This is a good idea anyway because even if that doesn't work, people are firming up their selections and that will be your absolute best window to pick up a dropped FP. For example, when I booked, I followed strategy for booking A&E on last MK day first. Got it. Then, as I was moving through, I found a FP for my preferred MK day and time. When I finish booking everything, it's logical to go back and drop the less preferred FP window, and those first A&E drops would happen 45 minutes or so after the window opens, or later.

 

[mesaboy2]

Ok, now I'm missing something. I get how people are booking because their trip starts before yours. But how is the poster's window opening at 65 days. I think that's what spewey was asking too.

Their windows are opening at 60 days from their first day. If their stay is 10 days long, that means they can book as much at 70 days from their last day.

 

[LaurenT]

Ok, now I'm missing something. I get how people are booking because their trip starts before yours. But how is the poster's window opening at 65 days. I think that's what spewey was asking too.

It wouldn't be opening at 65 days. It would open at 60 days from the date of arrival at the resort and would be open for the number of days that person has on their linked ticket ... Or the entire stay if they have AP. So, if I'm staying for two weeks and have an AP, I can book a FP for the last day of my stay / which would be 74 days from the day my window opens....

 

[siskaren]

Ok, now I'm missing something. I get how people are booking because their trip starts before yours. But how is the poster's window opening at 65 days. I think that's what spewey was asking too.

I'm confused too. Here's what the poster originally said:

Are you saying open in general or they open up as days get closer past 60 days? My first day is Thurs Sept 29th so I get to do my fast passes tonight and have already been told by several people that all 7DMT is already full before 7 for that Thurs as of this morning.

The first day you can book for Sept 29th is July 31st. But then he later posted:

My first day is Sept 25th but if people are coming in on 22nd they can book the 22nd up until the 29th 3 days before me, but I agree with you.

Today is the first day you can book for September 25th.