Oh no... Maximum FP+ Allowed - I Goofed!

[NorweJenNY]

i just realized we have an issue with our Free Dining trip and FP+...

We booked a 6-night package with 3-day park hoppers because we will be upgrading to Florida passes when we are there, intending to use the payment plan for the price difference.

Now, we have only 3 days worth of FP+ we can book for our trip, and it's kind of frustrating, especially with the tier system in some parks. We can only have Frozen in Norway for one day, Soarin for another day, Seven Dwarves for a third day... But there's other parks and four more days to plan for in those other parks!

Do I have to upgrade the reservation? If I upgrade to 7-day passes, book the FPs, then downgrade back to 3-day passes, will I lose the additional FPs?

If I can only plan three days of FPs and won't be able to do other FPs until just days before, what should I focus on?

My intentions were these parks for FPs:
Sun 9/11 Epcot (Soarin)
Mon 9/12 Studios (Toy Story)
Tues 9/13 MK (Seven Dwarves, Buzz, Haunted)
Wed 9/14 Epcot (Frozen)
Thurs 9/15 AK (Safari, Everest)
Fri 9/16 MK (Space, Splash, Peter Pan)
Sat 9/17 Studios (Rockin RC)

How do I fix my oversight in planning?

 

[beesly]

i just realized we have an issue with our Free Dining trip and FP+...

We booked a 6-night package with 3-day park hoppers because we will be upgrading to Florida passes when we are there, intending to use the payment plan for the price difference.

Now, we have only 3 days worth of FP+ we can book for our trip, and it's kind of frustrating, especially with the tier system in some parks. We can only have Frozen in Norway for one day, Soarin for another day, Seven Dwarves for a third day... But there's other parks and four more days to plan for in those other parks!

Do I have to upgrade the reservation? If I upgrade to 7-day passes, book the FPs, then downgrade back to 3-day passes, will I lose the additional FPs?

If I can only plan three days of FPs and won't be able to do other FPs until just days before, what should I focus on?

My intentions were these parks for FPs:
Sun 9/11 Epcot (Soarin)
Mon 9/12 Studios (Toy Story)
Tues 9/13 MK (Seven Dwarves, Buzz, Haunted)
Wed 9/14 Epcot (Frozen)
Thurs 9/15 AK (Safari, Everest)
Fri 9/16 MK (Space, Splash, Peter Pan)
Sat 9/17 Studios (Rockin RC)

How do I fix my oversight in planning?

If you upgrade to 7-day passes now and then switch back to 3-day passes, you definitely would not get to keep all 7 days' worth of FPs. I don't know how the system "reacts" when the number of days with booked FPs suddenly exceeds the number of days with passes, though - it might get rid of all of your FPs and make you start over, or it might only drop four days' worth - no clue. I would wait until you upgrade to the FL pass on site to book the other 4 days of FPs. I would definitely keep the ones you have already for 3 days - Soarin' on 9/11, 7DMT on 9/13, and Frozen on 9/14. It's unlikely that you'll find these at a later date - you might get lucky for a single person, but it sounds like you will be traveling with a party.

It looks like crowds are forecasted to be pretty low during your trip dates, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having FPs pre-booked for the other days. If you are really concerned about it, though, are pre-park opening ADRs an option, or would you be open to arriving super early to rope drop the others?

For an extra cost, you could book the new EMM at DHS on 9/12 to ride TSMM multiple times with no wait, and hit RnRC right after the park opens so there would be only a short standby wait. At AK, you could have breakfast at Tusker House to be one of the first in line for Kilimanjaro Safaris, or - if switching days is an option - head to AK on 9/17 to take advantage of AM EMH for short lines for both rides.

 

[hiroMYhero]

If I upgrade to 7-day passes, book the FPs, then downgrade back to 3-day passes, will I lose the additional FPs?

Yes, you'll lose 4 days worth of FPs. The booked FPs will remain for a day or so before they disappear due to no ticket entitlements linked for the total number of park days.

 

[NorweJenNY]

I would wait until you upgrade to the FL pass on site to book the other 4 days of FPs. I would definitely keep the ones you have already for 3 days - Soarin' on 9/11, 7DMT on 9/13, and Frozen on 9/14. It's unlikely that you'll find these at a later date - you might get lucky for a single person, but it sounds like you will be traveling with a party.

It looks like crowds are forecasted to be pretty low during your trip dates, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having FPs pre-booked for the other days. If you are really concerned about it, though, are pre-park opening ADRs an option, or would you be open to arriving super early to rope drop the others?

For an extra cost, you could book the new EMM at DHS on 9/12 to ride TSMM multiple times with no wait, and hit RnRC right after the park opens so there would be only a short standby wait. At AK, you could have breakfast at Tusker House to be one of the first in line for Kilimanjaro Safaris, or - if switching days is an option - head to AK on 9/17 to take advantage of AM EMH for short lines for both rides.

This was an incredibly helpful post. Thank you!

It really does come down to just a few that may not have FP available the week of. I just hate that I have to give up an entire day of FPs just because of ONE ride. Get a FP for Soarin', but *nothing* else really needs a FP except all the other attractions on the same tier... Then doing the same for Frozen. Sheesh...

Is there enough other stuff going on at Studios that Toy Story still has a possibility of getting day-before FPs for?

The safari is another tricky one - do the crowds die down late in the day for that any more? Or now that there's night time entertainment in that park, does that ruin it? We used to be able to go to AK for the last hour or two it was open and get to do so much!

 

[momof2gr8kids]

We're in the same boat..ordered 5 day passes through airmiles but plan to upgrade to 8 days once there. We are going for new years so busy time. Once crowd calendars come out I will try and figure out what days and what parks will be less crowded and hope to book the fp for the hopefully quieter days later in trip once we get there and add on.

But yeah...irritating to have to use 2 days of fp bookings for Epcot to ensure you get in the tier 1 rides.

 

[momof2gr8kids]

This was an incredibly helpful post. Thank you!

It really does come down to just a few that may not have FP available the week of. I just hate that I have to give up an entire day of FPs just because of ONE ride. Get a FP for Soarin', but *nothing* else really needs a FP except all the other attractions on the same tier... Then doing the same for Frozen. Sheesh...

Is there enough other stuff going on at Studios that Toy Story still has a possibility of getting day-before FPs for?

The safari is another tricky one - do the crowds die down late in the day for that any more? Or now that there's night time entertainment in that park, does that ruin it? We used to be able to go to AK for the last hour or two it was open and get to do so much!

I have my tickets linked to mde already so I've check every now and then availability. Just now there are fp available for today starting around 1 for tsm and rnr so the likelihood of you getting something night before is good. Lots if fp avail everywhere except Epcot. No sdmt of course either but lots to choose from.

 

[Day-Day]

What would be wrong with updating the tickets to 7-days then converting those to Florida passes? (I don't know what the payment plan is.)

 

[NorweJenNY]

What would be wrong with updating the tickets to 7-days then converting those to Florida passes? (I don't know what the payment plan is.)

Overpaying... We get FL resident passes with blackout dates, so they are less expensive than 7-day hoppers.

And payment plan means the price difference for upgrading passes gets paid monthly over the course of the next year (just a few hundred dollars, but means we don't have to lay it out all at once.)

It's really not a big deal to do the payment plan, but we can't pay more for our tickets than our passes will be valued at, or we'll lose money.

 

[NorweJenNY]

I have my tickets linked to mde already so I've check every now and then availability. Just now there are fp available for today starting around 1 for tsm and rnr so the likelihood of you getting something night before is good. Lots if fp avail everywhere except Epcot. No sdmt of course either but lots to choose from.

I appreciate you checking that. That's surprising for the summer season, TSM especially - I guess if anything I'll have more of a chance of night-before FPs for a weekday in mid-September.

 

[nooneshome]

I almost made a somewhat similar mistake on our last trip. We had a couple old park tickets that I wanted to use so I booked a room only discount trip. My problem was that one of the old tix was only for one day. I put DD on a friends FD trip and paid for just her 6 day park tix. She got FD which we split and only bought one meal OOP. And I used the one day tix for NBFPs which worked GREAT!!!