OOOOOooooooo Help Us With This Heated Family Debate

[LifeWithLouie]

WOW!!! Are we going toe to toe on THIS one!!

You have 3 fast passes to start with.... do you use them early in the day in hopes of gathering more later. Or later in the day when you are at your favorite park during a more crowded and more focused time (focused meaning before or after a planned event: dinner, parade, fireworks) and highly valued rides that will probably not be available as a fast pass the day of.

NOW HERE ARE THE CATCHES.... (1) we're talking about a day when you KNOW you'll be park-hopping (2) we aren't talking in general. We're talking about during a high volume season (for us - early August) and (3) we're talking a short trip, so you don't have the luxury to say, "oh, we'll catch that ride over the next couple of trip days." It's a get it in this day or wait until the next trip whenever that might possibly be.

 

[Mome Rath]

All I can share is what I do choose; rope drop one park and fastpass another. That's what I choose every time. So, if I start in EPCOT and then MK in the afternoon, I rope drop EPCOT and Fastpass MK.

 

[agame2323]

I would grab 3 in the morning. I'm not taking any chances

 

[umichigan10]

WOW!!! Are we going toe to toe on THIS one!!

You have 3 fast passes to start with.... do you use them early in the day in hopes of gathering more later. Or later in the day when you are at your favorite park during a more crowded and more focused time (focused meaning before or after a planned event: dinner, parade, fireworks) and highly valued rides that will probably not be available as a fast pass the day of.

NOW HERE ARE THE CATCHES.... (1) we're talking about a day when you KNOW you'll be park-hopping (2) we aren't talking in general. We're talking about during a high volume season (for us - early August) and (3) we're talking a short trip, so you don't have the luxury to say, "oh, we'll catch that ride over the next couple of trip days." It's a get it in this day or wait until the next trip whenever that might possibly be.

So I am also going the first week of august and our general strategy is to get stuff done in the morning with the 3 passes and then park hop that night and make a fast pass for something in that other park. We are doing one day this year where we're sleeping in and reserving passes for later in the day (5-6 o'clock or so is our first). Hope this helps!

 

[sharonabe]

I didn't vote, but can throw in a few more variables into the equation.

Early Aug means afternoon thunderstorms, so there's a good chance that some attractions will close down for a portion of time which could throw a monkey wrench into your FP+ plans.

The heat and humidity could zap your energy completely, and you don't make it to that second park until much later than planned.

Are you planning early or late EMH when FP is not available?

 

[umichigan10]

All I can share is what I do choose; rope drop one park and fastpass another. That's what I choose every time. So, if I start in EPCOT and then MK in the afternoon, I rope drop EPCOT and Fastpass MK.

I've done that as well bad it works. For me it depends on what parks you're dealing with and what you're looking to get done in the morning

 

[PlanningMama]

To me this would depend in part on what rides you are hoping to secure FP for. If you are hoping to get some of the difficult FP like FEA or FoP, you may want to grab what you can get and then plan around that. Also, I would consider what the strategy is on visiting parks. Some favorite rides in some parks are likely to have good same-day availability, others not so much. Knowing that we are going to park hop, I typically depend on rope drop for the first park touring strategy and save the FP's for the second park. As you outline it above, I would pick option 2.

 

[Janet-TX]

If you are rope drop people and it's a day when you know that the 2nd park you hop to will be busy, I would use your 3 Fastpasses in the 2nd park. If you are not going to be at rope drop and you expect you're first park to be busy, I would book your first 3 in the morning, and then hope you can get some in your 2nd park later in the day after you used your first three.

 

[disneydarling07]

what happens to FP's if there is a thunderstorm? Do they honor them later, or do you lose them?

 

[Bullseye]

We are not hoppers but I thought you could book another fastpass in a different park as soon as you use one. So if you use your first FP at MK in the morning, you could book your 4th one right away as long as it's at a different park. If that's true, then I book my first three early in the day at park 1 and as I use them book the next three at park 2.

 

[prettypatchesmsu]

We've done it several ways, with scheduling them later in the day, to scheduling them in the 2nd hopping to park, to scheduling them early in the first park. I prefer scheduling them early in the first park. We combine rope drop with the FP+ and then get more throughout the day. So for us, like our 1st MK day is a emh morning for 8am. So we will do rope drop 8am-9am, use 9am, 10am, 12pm FP+Selections. We will lunch at 11am. So that first hour from 8-9am we will do popular rides with short lines, use a FP at 9, do low wait rides, do 10am FP close to ending window while doing low wait rides etc. Then after the 12pm one, get another FP+ etc. Probably for the 2nd park at that point.

What I found when we did the later 2nd park FP three selections for later in the day, is that there really weren't any left a lot of times to get more. I find it better to use early, save that time there then start cranking out the 4th, 5th etc. And depending on when you go, we've found parks to already have long waits around the 10:30am time so FP+ is good to have around that time.

 

[Nettester]

What kind of park touring do your family members prefer? When I went with my 15 year old last spring, we did some days with rope drop and mid-late morning fast passes, and other days we did all late afternoon/early evening fast passes so she could sleep in. She would not want to do rope drop every day. How many people are in your group? Can you consider splitting some of your time up?

 

[Amelia :)]

I do 10-11, 11-12, 12-1, search for extra fp's as soon as we enter the third FP line, then have lunch, catch a show, then it would be time for the fourth FP. However my strategy at AK will change this year as it will be more a case of taking what we can get with the Pandora rides.

 

[LifeWithLouie]

Ooooo you folks are coming up with so many other things to consider .. so I'll add in more abouy our dilema.....

1 We will be disembarking off of The Oasis at Port Canaveral that morning. being to adult Disney nuts and knowing that we have as much time in that day as we can to do whatever we can at Disney we are going to move as quickly as possible. We are going to be taking off our own luggage, and we will be in line at the crack of dawn to get off of the boat. We have a car waiting for us in the parking lot and so it's just a matter of how fast can we get to Disney.

2 so what are our wishes earlier in the day. Our hope is to get there as quickly as possible and to start at Animal Kingdom. As soon as we can we're going to get in line for flight of Passage. If we could get Navi River in that'll be great my daughter also would kind of like to go to Everest but I don't know how the time is going to go for the day. it's going to depend on how quickly we can get through Flight of Passage and if we return later in the day.
After the first ride we may very well hightail it over two express transportation and get to Epcot hopefully before rope drop to the world showcase and run as fast as we can to get in line for Frozen Ever After. After Frozen Ever After we are pretty well relaxed with whatever we get until we get to Magic Kingdom later in the afternoon/ early evening.

3 We already have 3 Fastpasses for the evening at the Magic Kingdom. One of our musts is to be in front of the castle for the happily ever after show. We know that that means that we have to be there probably a half hour to forty minutes in advance. So the three fast passes are for the three rides my daughter insisted on (and let's be serious I want to do too) Thunder Mountain Railroad, Haunted Mansion, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. With those three passes we will be able to get to a spot in front of the castle by at least 30 minutes before the show.

4 If we haven't passed out already ( and we have tons of stamina when it comes to Disney World), we will end our day back at Animal Kingdom for extra magic hours, and will take in any rides that we didn't get to in the morning. It sounds like a good ending and yet I see that the lines for Pandora late night are almost as steep as they are during the day.

5 this sounds like a crazy plan, but since it's just the two adults, we are focusing more on specific rides we want to go on then taking in the wonders of each Park completely.

6 now maybe there really isn't anything we can do at this point since it's getting much closer, but I am always a "get those three fastpasses first thing in the morning and look out for whatever you can get later" type of person. I'm gnawing away at the idea of we should have probably gotten those three fass passes for the morning on Flight of Passage and Everest and then gotten in line for Navi River. And maybe it's too late to change but just in case we're talking what ifs, would you have gone for the morning passes or stuck with the focused passes towards the end of the day.

 

[vinotinto]

I literally just went through this. I had a choice of FoP at 4:50 pm (we have dinner plans for 5:30) or taking Navi at 9:15 am. We went with Navi and we'll just do standby for FoP. I just think that waiting until the afternoon to use FP will just make me wait longer from 10 am - 3:00 pm

 

[ChristineOH]

We are not hoppers but I thought you could book another fastpass in a different park as soon as you use one. So if you use your first FP at MK in the morning, you could book your 4th one right away as long as it's at a different park. If that's true, then I book my first three early in the day at park 1 and as I use them book the next three at park 2.

You can only book one in another park after you've used all three, not the first. And after the first three, you can only book one at a time. So you can't book #5 till you use #4.

Exception: You only pre-booked one FP. Then you can still book two more in any park as soon as you used your first one.

 

[ChristineOH]

Ooooo you folks are coming up with so many other things to consider .. so I'll add in more abouy our dilema.....


6 now maybe there really isn't anything we can do at this point since it's getting much closer, but I am always a "get those three fastpasses first thing in the morning and look out for whatever you can get later" type of person. I'm gnawing away at the idea of we should have probably gotten those three fass passes for the morning on Flight of Passage and Everest and then gotten in line for Navi River. And maybe it's too late to change but just in case we're talking what ifs, would you have gone for the morning passes or stuck with the focused passes towards the end of the day.

I hate feeling really restricted by having FP tied up. Like you're at MK, and you know you could skip that 40 minute line for Buzz by booking a FP, but you can't because you already have one. However, in your case, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you're okay with doing FoP and Na'vi at RD and just waiting in FEA standby, then you'll be fine. My only suggestion would be that I would probably not mess with EMH at AK. Right now, it's just the Pandora rides open, and that late at night, I don't know if I'd want to go over there just to wait an hour for FoP. You're going to be worn out. But you already have a plan for those rides, so you can always see how things go.

 

[lchuck]

what happens to FP's if there is a thunderstorm? Do they honor them later, or do you lose them?

Generally, if a ride goes down during your scheduled FP+ time and you haven't used it yet you will receive an email and an "Anytime FP+" will replace your scheduled FP+. The nice thing about the Anytime is that you don't need to use it before you can schedule another one.

 

[Delirium]

Most of the time, I would rope drop the first park and fastpass the 2nd. Exceptions would be around FOP & 7DMT. To me, neither of these are worth the risk of encountering a 90-120 minute wait first thing in the morning. If AK was my morning park, I would probably FP it. If MK was my morning park, I would strongly consider skipping 7DMT for that trip unless I decided to use my FP at MK for other reasons.

 

[CAS239]

Park hop every day. Schedule FP's in the second park starting around 3-5pm

If you rope drop a park, there's zero need for a FP before around 11am..Aside from FoP & 7dmt. So I usually do rope drop until about noon or 1pm, so would make no sense for me to schedule any FP's for park one.